My wife has this friend who is engaged to this dude. They are early-to-mid-30s, no kids. They’ve moved around a little bit, but I believe they currently might be in California. Whenever we interact, it’s pretty easy and they seem cool; sadly, some of that feeling might be from the “mutual no kids” (DINKs!) thing. Anyway.
The male partner in that group has this joke. You run into someone at Home Depot. They have young kids. You basically have 2–3, at most, things you can discuss with them in that aisle.
“Oh, how old now?”
“How’s sleep training going?”
“Getting through the night yet?”
Basically, if you try anything else —
“… any thoughts on Tortured Poets Department?”
— it will go nowhere.
Out of all the topics that new parents like to discuss regardless of who is around them, sleep training is far and away №1. Everyone has a theory, everyone thinks their theory is the best, everyone claims to use data but doesn’t really, every previous generation thinks the new generation has no idea how to do it, etc, etc. It’s a beautiful tapestry of assumption and melancholy and people getting no rest for six to 10 months. It creates a lot of off-task, meandering discussions.
As someone who has been in these discussions for 14 years now without kids of my own, I savor them. It’s cool to see how passionate people get about their approach. It’s cool to see how much women demean their own mom’s inability to give the right advice. It’s war, baby.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to What Is Even Happening? to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.