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I’m not sure I’d really recommend this because it’s more exhausting and permanently life-altering than almost any other thing you could imagine. But being a parent connects me to others in a way I had never experienced before having my own kid.
I love every child because I love my child. I believe every person is trying their best, is trying to be good, because I see that in him. I feel connected to the grief and suffering of other parents because I see how to love your child is necessarily to be on the knife’s edge of grief at all times. I have found parenting politically radicalizing because I cannot accept that my child deserves more than other children, that he gets to be safe and fed and surrounded by infinite possibility when most others are not.
Having a kid has not necessarily made me happier, but it has given me a deeper understanding of the human condition, and I am grateful for that.
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👩
We had friends over the other day and my friend said she’s paying attention to how I mother because she thinks I’m doing a great job and wants to do the same with her future kids. Everyone agreed 🥲.
We’re the only one of our friends with kids (3 y/o and almost 3 month old) and to be recognized in a role where the labor often goes unnoticed felt so good. I genuinely delight in my children and love being a mother, but it is 24/7 work. I never dreamt of being a parent but with my own healing and growth I found myself wanting to be. I spent a lot of years working on my own self regulation and studying child development (I’m a child therapist) and that has really been paying off in a way I wasn’t expecting at the time.
When someone gives birth, their brain matter changes to aid in caring for their baby. I’ve been in the thick of that for 3 years now and while I can and do think of other things, my entire being is very much entrenched in “mother,” and it can be hard to navigate identity outside of it. so to be seen and honored for that felt really special.
May 29, 2024
👨
TBH I find her affect extremely grating, but "Good Inside" is a transformative book, and it's helping me parent myself as much as it's preparing me to be a parent.
Jan 29, 2024
🧍
Girl. This was crazy to read 🧍🏽♀️
Feb 26, 2025
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the internet used to feel messy and infinite, full of weirdos and subcultures and criminals and inexplicable little nerd projects from anonymous friends you made on message boards. then everything became twitter and instagram, which was cool until everything irl started looking and feeling like twitter and instagram too, no matter where in the world you were, and there was nowhere else to go.
suddenly though (?) that era feels over, those sites are dying, along with google search, and I feel like the weird internet, the infinite internet, is at the beginning of a full comeback. I love that dizzy feeling that there’s so much much out there that I’ll never even get close to seeing it all.
maybe that’s why I like it here so much?
Jan 26, 2024
♥️
the best advice I give my students is this: life is not a video game where you win by collecting points, doing boring, meaningless, soul-crushing things for the majority of your career so that you can “spend” them one day on something you actually care about. the same social constraints that discipline young people into deferring gratification too easily trick them into deferring their passions and deferring their integrity, too. every day is equally your life. every bit of power and choice you have is an opportunity, right now, to live out your values. make art now. travel now. take the job that matters now. plant a garden now. do the right thing now. later is too late: spend your points.
Feb 13, 2024
