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DAMN this was a good one.

So another place I think you might poke around and find this myth: the debate between childfree people and people with children.

I was on Instagram (I know, that's a me problem) the other day and a creator I usually love posted a meme about how parents get to just go home early whenever because "kids" and the comment section was FROTHING. The usual stuff — parents doing the Rodney Dangerfield dance about how they get no respect (we don't!) or systemic support (also we don't!) and that American culture generally seems invested in making more babies and then screwing the people who need to raise them (also true!)

The child-free folks argued that it wasn't their job to pick up the slack because little Timmy has a tummy ache (fair!) and that having a kid is the only vaguely acceptable reason for needing to leave the office unexpectedly (also true!). But then it got mean.

"No one made you have a kid — that's your problem." — people mad at parents for having kids

I see this a lot (mostly with younger single folks) on the internet — the feeling that someone else having a child is an imposition on their comfort, and I think it has everything to do with the kind of frankensteining of Individualism and the Cult of Convenience that our phones and 2-day shipping has brought us. This vibe of "we have to share this planet but we don't have to like it — you clean up your own mess and I'll clean up mine." (I 100% used to be this person, and then I had a kid! Sorry to the moms and dads who I disregarded in my youth!)

There was a great On Being episode recently where Sarah Hendren talks about disability as this anti-american idea, like self-reliance is the most important personal value you can hold, even though every single one of us will at some point be dependent on someone else — even if just for a few days when we have the flu. She points out the ableist nature of this ideology, but also the incredible beauty of dependence. The humility it gives us. To know that we can't always take care of ourselves is a gift. Anyway, I loved this piece and I thought you might enjoy that thought thread for your book!

https://onbeing.org/programs/sara-hendren-our-bodies-aliveness-and-the-built-world/

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I agree with all of this and, as a childless person who has lots of friends with kids, I see the lack of care cutting both ways. Some childfree people feel that parents aren’t entitled to community support or empathy because they made an individual decision, and some people with kids tend to retreat into their nuclear family and stop engaging with their child-free friends (who have their own set of life challenges that are also worthy of community support!). In both cases the individual choice to have or not have kids can really limit one’s community connections in this country, which is a shame.

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YES! We alllllll need support. And we each have different things we are able to give one another. I think with my child-free friends, it's just structurally harder for us to be together because the schedules are so different. I hate that. I miss them, and I feel strongly that my kid would benefit from having them as a more constant presence. Is it car culture? Work culture? I wish I had a better sense for where the bridge gets broken off.

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As a child-free person who now spends loads of time with her parent friends, there was a journey I (and my friends) had to go on -- especially me, as a privileged white woman who is definitely steeped in the tea of individualism -- of understanding that there are seasons that require more relative "sacrifice" from me, like shifting my schedule to accommodate others', if I want to maintain those friendships. It wasn't easy for me to accept and I still feel moments of frustration years in. In those moments, though, I've learned to remind myself that these people matter to me (and so do their children), and it will not be like this forever.

In some of my most important relationships, I've stopped shifting my schedule altogether and have opted into being in their child-filled worlds (mind you, my friends had to go through their own journey of letting me into what they believed to be their messy, disorganized, chaotic homes and worlds). I go over to my best friends' homes and get snacks for the kids, clean up after them, play with them, get the Motrin if one of them has a headache, lightly scold where needed, etc. And there's been no greater joy in this season of my life than hearing that my friends' kiddos have been asking when Aunt Teresa is coming over again. I didn't expect it, and it took a lot of work setting aside that individualism, including choosing to move closer to them and my family. I think this shows, though, how deeply embedded individualism can be, and how it's woven itself so tightly into our choices to bear children. As someone who has been mostly ambivalent about my decision not to have kids, I grasped onto that individualism to help soothe (heck, bury) the hurt that will forever exist within my choice. I think we've really flattened the narrative around choosing to have or not have kids, like we've flattened so many values-charged narratives.

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Teresa this makes me tear up!!! Everyone needs an Aunt Teresa.

I literally just bought two books to send to my non-biological niece and nephew — and I have no idea why I haven't been doing more of that, other than my own individualism.

Yes, we parents have to be willing to let our non-parent friends into the chaos and not be ashamed of it. I feel so guilty when I have child-free friends over, like I need to turn my kid into Christopher Robin so they won't be bothered by the noise and the mess and the sometimes shocking PURE ID of a 5-year-old demanding things. I worry I'll be judged — they won't "get it." But I've never even let them try.

How lovely to be in our messes together, how humbling, how real. Maybe this is the true cost of the instigramification — the internalized belief that everything should smell like a hotel lobby and if it doesn't, it's a personalized failure.

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If I can offer some encouragement, few things have made me feel more loved than my parenting friends who welcome me into their homes as they are, without apologizing or explaining. To be a part of their family for an afternoon or evening is such a gift! Yes, sometimes it's loud and chaotic but who cares? It's a chance to see my friends in parenting mode and to get to know their kids better and to simply be a part of something for a while.

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Yes yes yes. 💜

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🫶🏻

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One of the wonderful things about giving your child-free friends a chance is that they will start to get it in their own ways. That doesn't mean everyone will want the chance, but you know your friend group and can seed the opportunity and see who lights up. The empathy and understanding I have for my parent friends now, after finally experiencing that pure Id myself (lolz face melt why are Dino nuggets and yogurt pouches the only food you'll eat and why did you drop that Lego in your training potty?!), would never have developed without being given those experiences.

It's hard to let down our guards but doing so is the path to greater compassion and an increased willingness (and desire!) to experience the mess together rather than on our own. Because hey, sometimes, the silence of a child-free home can be as suffocating as it can be freeing.

It took time and distance -- relational and physical -- for my parent friends and I to find our way back into deep friendship, but it happened. Have faith that you've got a few Aunt Teresas in the mix; I'm sure they're there even if you and they don't know it yet. <3

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I feel this. I've been going back and forth with an extremely independent friend of mine, who has a new baby and a 4 year old. She canceled a hang out because "I have to pick up Leo from school and with everything going on I have no idea how he's going to be." And I said, "I'm here for the messy bits." She still canceled. But I got to see her the next week and asked her to show me how to change a diaper. I think I'll have to keep on reiterating that I'm here for the messy bits. For the last-minute babysitting and tantrums and all that stuff. Especially since neither her nor her in-laws are nearby or helping – they have to pay for all their help.

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You're a good friend Alden. And you are reminding me that people do love to help — not allowing them and keeping all of our problems to ourselves isn't necessarily a kindness. I always just wanted someone to show up and play with the baby for a few minutes — the nicest thing anyone ever did for me in my early days of parenthood was to show up with two bags of no-cook groceries and hold the baby for an hour. I ate the rotisserie chicken she brought standing over the sink like an animal because I hadn't bothered to feed myself that day. I will never forget it.

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Child-free adult who has also gone through everything you've mentioned. I also had to do a lot of grieving for the way things used to be when it was easier, which I did not see coming at all. Reminding myself that this is a season in all of our lives' has helped and trying to find ways to be present in whatever ways I can be (and some reciprocation on their parts) has kept several friendships alive, but woo boy has it been tough. But I acknowledge it's tough on everyone -- parents or not.

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As a childfree person at the age where many, many of my friends have very young kids (mid-30s but live in a big city), I have recently been struggling with both wanting to be in my friends’ kids lives, but also dreading the inevitability of that looking like me doing most of the heavy lifting: driving 10-40 miles to the suburbs, committing a half day or more of my weekend, listening to mostly child-related conversation (I get it! Having kids is a huge life-changing thing but there are also other things, and maybe ask about my life too?), having to work around nap time/tantrum/etc., and then still feel like I didn’t get the full friend experience has been draining, demoralizing, and detrimental to the health of those friendships. There’s are different seasons in life, but as someone who has always relied heavily on the strength of friendships, this is a hard one.

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It sucks when someone you love gets swallowed up by parenthood. I'm sorry you are feeling the loss of the transition — it is a grief for sure, and parents do need to be better about not always centering everything around being a parent. It sucks to put the work in and still leave without feeling like you actually got to visit with someone you love. I've been there. Once the kids get a bit bigger, it gets much better for everyone. Keep the hope alive and keep being such an awesome friend!

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Thank you so much for taking the time to comment, Melissa. I will indeed keep the hope alive and try to maintain the advice for romantic relationships that it’s not ALWAYS 50/50. This is a season I need to give more than I get in these friendships.

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Erin, I relate to this so much. My friends still care about me as much, but the emotional support I receive from them is nowhere near the same as it was pre-kids (and as a childfree person who is also single, their support is still nowhere near meeting my needs). I hear you--it's a grieving process. My solutions have been to lower my expectations, still prioritize quality time with them on their schedule, and honestly, look for new friends who are actually available and have emotional capacity for you.

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Oof, yes lowering expectations feels so fatalistic, when I’ve always had exacting expectations (no small part of why I’m single). It’s so sad to think about needing to make new friends when I feel like I don’t have the capacity to hang out with the ones I’ve had (that have been my friends for decade/s!) but I think that’s right. We all deserve support from our various circles and that’s hit hard as I’ve felt unsure who to turn to when dealing with some mobility limitations from an injury, etc. in the past.

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I am so incredibly grateful for my group of (majority male) child-free friends embracing me and my almost 5 year old daughter (and by extension, my husband). I call them "the godparents" and I love that they are welcome to her as a kid being a kid and things being different because of that. There's a wide range of interactivity between them all - some of them my daughter calls titles or has special nicknames while other friends are just there and do little more than acknowledge her presence.

What's extra weird about us is that we aren't geographically close at all. We live in MD and the closest godparent emotionally lives in NY. But we do a lot of video calls and have a long running group chat on Messenger (as well as individual chats) and are intentional about meeting up in person at least a few times a year. Last weekend we drove to NY to do a live YouTube show with one small group of them and then to MA for a 40th birthday party for another (the groups overlapped slightly). We are planning another meetup in PA in May. We all initially met each other online through a niche hobby and are mostly neurodivergent.

I think its key is that my daughter is super friendly and easygoing and that there's open invitations for all age activities (going out to eat, visiting historical sites) as well as kid ones (playground! swimming!) Their houses are typical adult houses but they usually have something "special" that my daughter plays with only there (like trains or their childhood stuffies) so she isn't bored. The adults are hanging out and drinking and she's playing under the table with the stuffies and pulling one of them to spin her around and asking another one to help her with the train set. Last weekend everyone was taking turns pulling her around the yard in her wagon, playing with stuffies, eating snacks with her.

One of them got married last year and she was the only young child invited to the wedding. We did not know this until the day-of. It was really special to me that she was included. She sat still for the entire ceremony (big deal at age 4)!

I think a big thing is that I don't compare parenthood to being harder and still listen to everyone's problems and try to be there for them when I can. I remember what things like being tired was like before being a parent and it still sucks. No pain Olympics here.

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The “childfree” movement that has risen on social media is kind of a hellscape. As someone who has opted out of motherhood, I was excited to discover it during the pandemic, only to realize it’s not a group of likeminded women who made a choice (or had a choice made for them) but a group that is constantly offended by others choice to have children. I 100% agree the individualism mindset in this country is hardest on parents, single women in particular, but I think a lot of us non parents have experience with trying to provide community for our friends with kids, and not receiving the same support in return when we have needed it.

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Oh, God this resonates. I went to a child free by choice brunch once, and it was the worst decision I made in a long time. I was hoping it was women who wanted to support other women, but it was women who had a lot of pent-up vitriol against women who had had children (by choice or not).

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I still return to the Culture Study thread for childless people from time to time when I want to feel part of a community but don't want to go anywhere near the toxic weirdness of a lot of forums on this topic. And I'll take this opportunity to say thank you to AHP and everyone for that thread, I found it so comforting and positive.

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Yes Kru — it has to go both ways. I think there are real benefits we can offer one another!

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Agree to this completely, well said.

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I grew up where I had to (and liked to!) take care of the gazillion children in my extended family so I don't feel this resentment toward parents but I do see it everywhere! I *like* that my taxes go to schools. I *want* children growing up educated--they really are the future, and I think it's myopic to not acknowledge that. I see how much my siblings struggle here with their kids and the lack of community and it is *rough.*

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Related to this - my dad is a boomer and resents paying taxes for the local schools because "his children aren't in school anymore".

But dad, who paid the majority of the taxes when I was in school and you were in the beginning of your career? Who will be the nurse/banker/politician/etc in 10 years that you like/loathe that is in school today benefitting from public education?

It is bonkers to me that he doesn't see this. Very much a symptom of hyper individualism.

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We’re dealing with this right now. The laws in the state where I live require district referendums to fund schools. Our area is growing exponentially and without a referendum there will be a $5 million shortage next year. But there are also a ton of retirement communities and the first vote for the referendum failed last year because of that. We have another vote coming up and I’m really nervous. When my husband and I went to vote last time I knew it would lose just by seeing the other people voting.

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When I was in high school, to help raise money for the marching band we had to go around door-to-door in the summer in our full wool band uniform (Ohio summer- it was brutal) and ask for donations. I remember at least one person tell me, to my face, that they dont support the schools because they don’t have kids/have kids there.

Thanks, lady. What a thing to say to a high school student you’ve never met before, standing on your front porch.

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Dude - it gets even worse. My brother's family is going through some challenges right now, and my husband I are thinking of ways we could step in and materially support their three kids (hosting for the summer, summer camps, free housing while they attend community college, SOMETHING!). My husband's father (so, no blood relation to my nieces/nephews) commented that was all good for us to help as long as it did not detract from our children's opportunities.

So, here is the rugged individualism + nuclear family logic cannibalizing even within blood family relations. Like, wouldn't it be better to lift up ALL the children in our family (and by extension OUR COMMUNITY) as opposed to hoarding our resources to make sure only MY children have resources. It shouldn't be surprising, but it baffled me in the moment. Such a scarcity mentality with such dire impacts on innocent children.

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absolutely — I am even trying to shift my thinking away from what someone can do for me to what is my responsibility as a member of this group, to make the group as healthy as it can be. that is HARD in our culture. (PS where you grew up sounds so lovely :) )

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I love this! What a beautiful reframing.

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I feel the same way, except I was an only child and didn't have to take care of kids growing up. Happier, healthier, more educated and curious kids make for a better society for everyone.

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Melissa,

I included the data below in my most recent post. The data shows how shamefully low our support of families is.

"We live in the richest country in the world and spend a paltry amount on support for families. The countries other than America that make up the G-7––Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the U.K.––spend an average of 2.1% of their GDP on family benefits. The U.S. spends 0.7%. 4

That gap is a political choice, one I feel ashamed of. Because between those sterile numbers of 0.7% and 2.1% lies a multitude of human misery, sadness, and the doom of parental hope."

4. Based on data from the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation (OECD).

Kirsten Powers wrote a recent post about Denmark’s success as a capitalist country with a much more robust social safety net and higher taxes. I wasn’t surprised to learn that Denmark spends 3.3% of its GDP on family support."

In case you're interested in the entire post, it's at

https://robertsdavidn.substack.com/p/my-candor-writing-about-wealth-comes

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Thank you so much David!

God these numbers are sobering — nothing for our own families here, and yet the defense budget goes up and up.

I saw this piece from Kirsten! It is very informative — as someone with a ticket out if I need it (my husband has UK citizenship) I have spent a lot of time fantasizing about a better life in a country where the idea of prioritizing quality of life isn't seen as a weakness!! And I then I feel guilty because the people who need this kind of support are not able to leave — but also stuck, because the whole thing feels a bit of a monolith.

I saw another Instagram post (I know, I know… cesspool!) on the schools in Finland. The comment section was also frothing with people indignant that the Finnish people's schools couldn't be better than ours because they hadn't invented anything… accidentally proving the point about the poor quality of our own education.

Appreciate you sharing this! We must insist our government supports the people who pay for it, not the wealthy who capitalize on us all.

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I'm glad the essay resonated :-) Setting aside that Finland has invented things (as you note) that's really a bad argument b/c ppl are comparing a country with that has slightly more people than Oklahoma to a country with 300 million+ people. It's not that surprising that the country with 300 million would invent more things and of course who cares anyway...how did someone inventing Facebook better any Americans life?

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GAWD. Right? Well, it's on me for looking in the comments on Instagram!! That's where you're bound to find staunch defenders of our national motto: America is The Best — which means Most Innovative, which means Has The Most Money and is The Smartest and by the way We Have Lots of Guns.

I'm just finishing up a piece about the achievement to workism pipeline, and I found this utterly shattering piece of data from a 2014 study from The Harvard Graduate School of Education:

"Almost 80% of youth picked high achievement or happiness as their top choice, while roughly 20% selected caring for others."

Basically seems like we are shoveling our kids through school without a second to figure out who they are and then tech jobs are like YUM — no need to have friends, we'll be your friend.

Cue crippling loss of identity. Give me Finland any day.

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Mar 21
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yes, the defense budget has nothing to do with why we don't have a more robust social safety net, even if it could still stand some more cutting. We could easily afford to provide people more support since after all we actually spend MORE on healthcare per capita and get worse outcomes than our peer countries who don't treat health care as a for profit business.

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Such good insights, Melissa, about parenting and disability being seen in opposition to this idea of self-reliance. And I love your point that we are all dependent at some point. I mean, we were all once children at the very least.

Kids are dependent on others, by nature. And so they’re always outside the definition of an “individual”—they can never, as long as they’re kids, achieve that most important American value of self-reliance and so they are seen and treated as “less-than.” It feels like parents get some of that “less-than” by association.

One of my jobs is as a playworker, where respect for kids’s as individuals is at the center of the work. Even after several years, it still surprises me how little respect and rights kids get. Because of their dependence, they are not considered full citizens and often not even seen as valuable members of the community.

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I was just reflecting on this thread today and I had a realization that is basically the same as what you've written here.

Before I became a parent, I tended to believe that a child was not my equal. Their needs and wants were irrational or whatever, and so inferior, and so fine to deprioritize. They can conform to the adult situation vs all of us finding a situation that works for the group, with the needs of the child (to be able to run around, make some noise, touch random stuff, etc) seen as valid and reasonable.

As a parent I am always looking for places where we will be welcome — and most of the time, those are not places I would choose to go as a single adult. That means that if I want to bring a child-free friend along, they usually have to suck it up and deal with it and I hate trampoline parks so I'm not making anyone else do that 😂

I read a piece recently about how the car-centricity of American city design has caused us to no longer have these spaces that meet the needs of several different citizen groups. In Spain, the playgrounds are surrounded by cafes and bars and they are within neighborhoods so families gather there and the adults can enjoy themselves while the children play. Up near me, there's a german style beer hall that has a similar vibe — and that place is PACKED with people on the weekend. Thank you for sharing this! I do hope we can connect.

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Yes! Not having public spaces where all are welcome is a huge disadvantage to community, relationships and people of all ages. Cars and air conditioners keep people off the sidewalk and stoop, but privately designed parks and public spaces often don’t even allow certain folks, teens in particular.

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STACY this is so so cool — I interview people about their work and how they landed in it for my substack and I would just love to hear more about what you do and how you got started!

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Sounds fun! I’m at Stacy at BkWild dot com.

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+💯. Sara's book, What Can a Body Do? should be required reading. Totally changed the way I see the world.

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I think about individualism all the time in terms of housing. I grew up driving past Co-Op City in the Bronx to the suburbs of Westchester and thinking snootily: "how can people live all squished up in those big ugly buildings?" Cheaply, sustainably, and in community for along time, is how! But I was taught not to want that, and I think we've wasted a lot of time idealizing living apart when we could have been figuring out how to live together.

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"we've wasted a lot of time idealizing living apart when we could have been figuring out how to live together" ... THIS.

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YESSSS so appreciate you sharing your internal monologue. I was just reading In Walking Distance by Philip Langdon (https://islandpress.org/books/within-walking-distance#desc) and he talks about this experience of looking at the narrow streets in Philly, many of them one way, and having a primal reaction of "wow it must be so hard to get around here" because he had come from a more sprawling, car-centric suburbia in Pennsylvania.

It instantly blew my mind and made me conscious of how much I read as "hard" or "unpleasant" or "chaotic" because of my upbringing in a car-centric, non-dense neighborhood.

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Housing is where it comes up most for me, too, especially a single 30-something. I am on multiple waitlists for co-housing communities, but they are so rare (partially because it goes against the cultural norm of individuality and the single-family-home, and partially because most US cities have zoning or permitting regulations that make many forms of multi-family housing literally illegal).

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I’ve also found that some of these co-housing communities are incredibly expensive. At least in the PNW. You need a lot of wealth to live there.

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We are taught to want a lot of nonsense things — a lot of things that turn out to be narcissism or sociopathy I think!

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And THANK YOU, AHP, AGAIN for somehow giving both my heart and brain exactly what they need when they need it! This is so great, and the book will be FIRE.

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I have so many thoughts on this topic personally and professionally! I was raised by a collectivist mother in a fairly WASPy, individualistic suburb in the 80s. My childhood best friend and I were recently discussing how we met and how it would never happen today. When I was 9, my mother informed me that new people had moved into a house about 25 houses away (1 mile down the road) and that I needed to go organize the other neighborhood kids and welcome the new kid. We rode our bikes over to introduce ourselves and she's been my best friend every since. The idea of sending my 9 year old on a mission to a stranger's house a mile away down a busy road is inconceivable to me.

Personally, I am obsessed (might be too strong a word) with creating community and collective care. I am a deeply disorganized person and a crappy cook but I have been hosting friend potlucks weekly for 15 years and creating informal mutual aid networks with other parents for snow days and childcare. I feel very lucky to have the community that we do. I also feel burned out and isolated by all of the factors AHP mentioned.

Professionally, I work remotely from home, which is pretty isolating. However, my job is focused on supporting communities in building collective resilience to climate change. Climate change is an outcome of colonization, extraction, and individualism. Nurturing communities that can thrive everyday and during climate disruptions depends on collectivism and community care. During the deadly heatwave in the Northwest in 2021, social isolation was a contributing factor in heat related deaths. Getting to know your neighbors can be life saving in many ways.

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I’m also prioritizing creating community. I started hosting very lightweight two hour gatherings once a week for small groups of moms in my town. The only rule is that after we introduce ourselves we’re not allowed to talk about our children. I have a hot water boiler so everyone can make themselves tea or cocoa, and serve a few simple snacks. We sit around my dining room table and just talk and get to know each other. I’m loving it and the response has been great!

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AH I love this!!

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This sounds so cool. Curious how you advertised or started this or just more details in general if you’re willing to share!

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I made a list of moms I know and started inviting a subset each week. I have three kids so I started with approximate age groupings of their kids so they’d at least be likely to recognize each other. Inviting 8-10 I’d usually get 3-5 attending. Two hours, bring nothing and don’t dress up. Have everyone intro themselves (life resume sort of thing) and see where the conversation goes. Try to make sure you have as many or more extroverts as introverts. :)

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Em this is so cool!! I would love to learn more about your efforts.

I was talking the other day about my favorite aspect of my community being our kids elementary school bus stop — all the moms and dads come to wait with the kids in the morning and it’s become this little organic touchstone of community. Babysitters and neighborhood parties have all grown from this 15 minute ritual in the morning with people I wouldn’t have self selected into knowing.

My kid also benefits from knowing other grownups in the neighborhood and having playdates when kids wander over if they see one another in the yard. It feels… right. Not so orchestrated. I need more of this!

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Love your share! I fully believe the answer is in the community too. We are seeing the limits of individualism; time to choose community. When we see that what’s best for the community is also best for ourselves… then we’ll make the shift. The isolation of individualism today is spurring this on but we are only at the beginning of it becoming prevalent. Thanks for sharing your experience.

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I'm going to get in huge trouble for this, but I'm thinking a lot lately about how "parenting" as a verb contributes to the perpetuation of individualism--both for ourselves and for our kids. There are a lot of times when we can either go to church/supper at our friends' house/a political action or we can keep the baby's nap/eating/general crankiness schedule. For me it's actually much easier to feel guilty about skipping the baby's nap than about skipping a community event because it's been so firmly impressed upon me that any discomfort on his part will be a Trauma that I am Responsible For Inflicting. Also, it's just easier for *me* in every way if the baby sleeps his full perfect cozy nap, and much harder to immediately quantify the benefits to me of going to XYZ gathering. But the more we feel into the kid-having life, the more I realize I want my kid to feel like a part of a family and a community, which he actually can't do if I act like these things revolve around him.

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Oh I think this is *very* real — and extends to a lot of thinking about schools and the necessity of "enrichment," too

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Amen. I skipped the kids sports teams and do community charity runs with my Son in an attempt to connect child “enrichment” with community engagement. Raising money for a local cause and running with diverse people of all ages (babies in joggers to 84), shapes and sizes cheering each other on feels so much more “enriching” to me and, admittedly, for me as well.

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Mar 22Edited

I think about this same sort of thing as a mother of young kids regularly. I also think maybe if we ever decided the nuclear family didn’t work, maybe most of all for the mothers (or parents in general but as a mother I’m being self-focused here) and it wasn’t a choice between you ALONE caring about the baby getting their nap or going elsewhere, but also the choice to have have another caring adult hold down the fort… it wouldn’t maybe always have to be an either/or choice all the time. Maybe it’s entitlement but I just have dreams of what multigenerational living (with all its messiness) would enable for everyone, but maybe especially parents of young kids facing choices like this.

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I am always hassling my brother and sister-in-law to live together! So far everyone I have brought this up with is adamant that their family needs their own space - while, to me, that just sounds like we're all duplicating efforts in terms of cleaning, tidying/owning things, etc.

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This was perhaps one of the most EPIC articles I’ve read on Substack to date. You deserve a standing ovation.

My native culture is very community-oriented and for me to come to the US at a very young age means I’ve grappled with this dichotomy of two very different cultures my whole life.

I think there’s a balance to be struck between the two but the sheer level of individualism in this country is just unsustainable. What ends up happening when you become so individualistic is that you have no energy left to make real change happen. You’re so busy just surviving (because it truly is survival of the fittest here) that you barely have the energy to dream something better let alone make it actually happen.

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Yes, this is it. The exhaustion is so real.

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Oh man. I feel this. I would love to be more involved and I’ve contemplated many times going to meet the new neighbors (or insert whatever other community building activity here) but I just cannot add one more thing to my list. I’m exhausted. All the time.

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There's a self-perpetuating quality to so much about whiteness and neoliberal capitalism in that it takes on the form of hazing. Lately my husband and I have been talking about this because we had a really traumatic birth and zero parental leave. Once you are in the position in a large company to make decisions about parental leave, you're usually in your late 40s or 50s, and you can't fathom why you should "give" people something you didn't have. You make up your own little mini-myth about how your own lonely, panicky years made you the person [...economic unit?] you are today! The more you contort your life and your psyche to accommodate individualism, the less you can even really see any alternative.

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Hazing is absolutely the way to put it

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I am playing with the idea that the world can be divided into two: those who want to give what they never enjoyed and those who can't fathom why they should. Maybe there's a third category: those who would deprive others of what they enjoyed

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I think about this a lot... it is my job as a human being, mother, VP etc. to make things less crummy for the next generation, my kids and my employees. I get into these conversations all the time with people who's default is " well we did it so they can to" and then I remind them that yeah maybe we did but let's remember that is sucked and why would we want to perpetuate that??? What good does it do?

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My favorite version of this is "kids today have it so easy, these kids have never even <insert challenge here>, that's why they have no work ethic!"

Um, yes? Good job? All your hard work made things easier for the next generation, just as you set out to do? Now you are mad they have the privileges you gave them, I guess? Why?!

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Such a great observation!

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... it also socks to be elderly in this county so, like, nor out of the woods yet!

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this is so so true. the lack of a sense of mentorship is so prevalent in every place I've worked in--it's more like everyone is competition, why should this person get extra parental leave when I had to scrap my way through it and made it? Or why should I give away the tools that helped me for free? Why should I actually HELP anyone when I had to do it myself? Ugh. Smacks of narcissistic ways that we're conditioned to expect everyone to find our own life jacket. Hazing is so so it.

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Because happy , supported. mentored employees stay and do better work. Which in turn helps revenue and the bottom line ( to my executives this is what resonates) Because kids who feel like they have a soft place to land do better in school, talk to their parents more and get help potentially making better decisions...

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Yes! And also the expectation that paid leave should come from individual companies instead of a systemic, nationwide solution like every other wealthy country does.

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In a recent episode of "If Books Could Kill" Michael made a seemingly throwaway comment about "individualizing structural problems" and I really appreciated such a pithy way of summing up what we didn't properly account for when building this democracy. Maybe part of what we thought would serve as some kind of interstitial fluid between the individual and the government was churches and charities, but that is an unregulated marketplace of inefficiency that feels teed up for some kind of reckoning. I'm thinking particularly of the intensifying ire against higher education from all directions, the way NGO's compete with each other for the same pot of funding, the way the pressures on the individual to donate to charity expanded beyond churches and local efforts to every single problem in the world, and also decisions like that of the 11th circuit in the Fearless Fund case, questioning the liberties of charities.

I have no real insights, it's just a topic I think about frequently. Between 2016 and now, I've become deeply burned out on giving, which is sad! But it feels like the individual isn't just responsible for the individual, but also for faraway conflicts and the failures of capitalism and the ideas in other people's minds that need changing and what's broken in journalism etc etc Could I be more available to my community if I didn't feel like I somehow needed to help out in Gaza? Is it selfish to focus on my community if my community's needs pale to nothingness compared to the needs of other communities?

Regarding your book: I would love it if you could interview some of the families in my extremely weird neighborhood about adult friendship dynamics in a community defined by the boundaries of your neighborhood. I've never lived anywhere like this before and it is baffling and also fascinating from an anthropological perspective.

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God Heather I really feel this. I am both deeply burned out by what seems like the ever increasing need for me to participate in our world to keep it from just flaming out AND absolutely sure that we all need it more. FWIW, I'm also trying to be more local with my focus in terms of creating community. It's the only thing that feels sustainable to me, and honestly I think if we can do more of it, we'll see bigger shifts in these other areas that are so important because we won't feel so alone and hopeless.

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Maybe I'm naive in thinking this is a modern problem. I was just reminded in reading these comments about Millay's poem Renascence (which she wrote when she was a teenager! living in an isolated community! in 1917!!), and it's reflections on the crushing pressure of feeling responsible for the pain of the world, and our human inability to have any real understanding of our actual sphere of influence:

"The world stands out on either side

No wider than the heart is wide;

Above the world is stretched the sky,—

No higher than the soul is high."

Here's the whole poem: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/55993/renascence

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oh I love this!!! Thank you so much! Isn't it funny how many of the things we think are distinct in our age are just new manifestations of the same human problems.

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Re: giving burnout- in recent years my partner and I have been transitioning to direct action as opposed to donations to large organizations. Not that charities are bad, just we're figuring out how to be more direct with some of our giving. So, instead of sending donations to Ukraine, we sponsored refugees and bought plane tickets for people trying to leave the war zone. I don't know if that makes any impact on the war effort, but I know with absolute certainty that the health, safety, and education of two small children was impacted in a life-changing way. They are safe. They are healthy. They are happy.

Last year a friend lost his job and was struggling to make ends meet. We started having him over for dinner twice a week and dropping off groceries at his place any time we went to the store. Eventually we also covered his mortgage for a couple months with no expectation of ever being paid back. I felt better about this than "rounding up" my grocery bill or dropping off canned goods at the food bank.

Nothing solves all the world's problems, but I've been much happier taking a more active role in the disbursement of my charitable giving.

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This is inspiring! Thanks for sharing!

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Love that podcast and YES -- iffy making structural problems seem like individual problems, social issues become character flaws, and we don't even want to admit them, much less fix them.

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UGH, yes. Because the individual should also somehow be responsible for the SOLUTIONS to all the structural problems caused by individualism! But it seems insurmountable to try to rally enough people for collective action to actually create some kind of sea change--because of inherent exhaustion and limited attention spans and bifurcated media sources, etc. Not to be cynical, but I think things will need to get a lot worse before enough people deem the solutions as worthy of prioritizing over their individual needs.

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Your recent piece on being "in the portal" was so painfully resonant I found it hard to read the comments. I think my discomfort with how much suddenly changed at precisely the moment I expected things to settle is still too tender to examine. I look forward to eventually going back and re-reading it, and all the wisdom from your readers that surely follows. I also look forward to eventually feeling some kind of harmony/clarity around this period in my life.

Anyway, this question of individualism comes up for me in processing what it means to be "in the portal" because part of it, for me, is having the tables flipped on all of my assumptions around what I can reasonably expect from my friends (the nearby ones, the "closer" ones who are far away, the ones with kids, the ones without kids), from my aging parents (and from my parents when they were young, as I reflect on my own childhood), from my husband, from my sisters, from my kids, from myself, you get it. I feel like I've moved from a place of just being disappointed in absolutely everyone, to expecting nothing from anyone (also not good!), to assuming a space of observation of what people are actually capable of in different moments and having some compassion about it and also creating some softness around whether or not that's good enough for me right now. Still very much in this portal, still in the swirl.

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This is what made raising a family so difficult for me and really impacted relationships. My kids are older now (19 and 16) but I will never forget being a full time working mom with sick young kids and reaching out to my mother in law for help. She was single, 'retired' (she never really worked for pay) and talked a big game about wanting to help but when push came to shove she never did. There was always excuses ( I have a hair cut appointment, lunch with friends, laundry etc...) and it got so frustrating that I just flat out stopped asking but also just stopped wanting to interact with her because I was so disappointed in her

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My mom has been an uneven source of support. Both she and my MIL were amazing when my kids were babies. Truly amazing. SO helpful. But when my kids were older and care involved more than pushing them in a stroller and feeding them their interest in being involved plummeted. I think maybe this is where 80's parenting and modern parenting deeply divide, because she probably paid about as much attention to me at age 7 as she does my kids at the same age. My kids just expect way more engagement. And 2/3 of them are neurodivergent and struggle with actions resembling "listening to adults." I will never forget one time I asked her to watch them while I was working from home during the pandemic and I heard her downstairs roar: "YOU GUYS ARE EXHAUSTING!! I'M LEAVING!!" And then she left! I heard the door slam downstairs and her car start and she was gone! I still think about this all the time and it was years ago. If there were a 4th wall we'd all laugh about it. Haha grandma doesn't suffer any fools! And part of me feels vindicated like, YES, they are EXHAUSTING. And part of me feels like, What the hell, mom??

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This really resonates with me, especially thinking about the difference between 80s parenting and parenting today.

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That is so hard. I cannot even imagine what the pandemic was like with young kids. I remember telling colleagues with young kids that I was amazed they got anything done . My kids were 15 and 12 so could handle online school on their own and they even made lunch for all of us! Hugs to you

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It's okay to be angry at people for not fulfilling your emotional needs. Be good to yourself.

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Oh wow--so helpful to hear someone articulate exactly what I have been feeling. So if it helps--you aren't alone in the tables feeling flipped and figuring out how to feel about it.

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This was so excellent, AHP! The opening description was so spot on it was chilling - I have friends who fit this characterization perfectly.

In terms of rejecting individualism, I have written here a number of times about how my husband and I live in the upstairs apartment of a two-flat, above my brother and sister-in-law, who are my best friends and who own the house. My husband and I are currently going through IVF, with the intention of having a baby hopefully soon. Instead of moving out to a single-family home, we decided there's no better situation than built-in family help and social support during what we know will be a challenging transition into parenthood. So, we spent a few thousand dollars putting up drywall in our mudroom and redoing the floors, turning it into a functional fourth room. This new room will eventually become my husband's home office, so his current home office can become a nursery.

This situation will still likely not last forever, as the public schools in our neighborhood suck, but we're pretty proud of ourselves for telling people that no, we do not plan to move once a baby enters the picture, as we've chosen family proximity over home ownership and more space. It feels so right to us, and yet I'm still so self-conscious telling people that growing our family does not make us take more seriously the cultural expectation that we buy a single-family home if we can afford it.

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We live in a townhome community with a lot of families and so many times people ask us when we’re going to move to a SFH and I’m baffled by that. There’s the assumption you need more of everything when you have a kid. The only thing I think you truly need more of is community. Babies and kids have thrived on a whole lot less than physical space. Really great that you recognized what was important to you and stuck to it!

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Yes! When I ask myself, "which will impact my future child more: a big house/big yard, or having additional loving supportive adults readily available to them and to their parents?" the answer feels very, very clear.

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I am jealous of your decision. We are the typical educated, young couple that moved away from family before having kids (without a single moment of consideration). We own a single family home blah, blah - but I LOOOOOONG for my family at times. They live in an incredibly high cost of living area - so ultimately, I think we made the right choice to leave for a lower cost of living. But damn - what I would give to stumble downstairs in my pajamas to have coffee with my sister and bitch about life on a weekend morning while our kids do literally anything other than talk to us (you know, play independently...).

Fuck the cultural expectation. Do your life on your own terms!

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