User blogs

Hi Cap, 

Do you have any advice for removing oneself from a WhatsApp group, while wishing to remain in touch irl? 

I’ve read your advice on how to leave a friend group, and plan on actioning it if needed, but on reflection I realise that my main source of discomfort is one particular WhatsApp group chat, which I find to be negative and depressing, as most members only use it to vent or rant – there’s never any positive commentary or much support or interest shown in one another. 

I realise (thanks to you!) that it’s on me to decide what and who I want to give space and energy to in my life, and to communicate that appropriately. But I’d love to try continuing with the 2-3 irl meet ups we have a year, without the weekly exposure to a depressing WhatsApp group. 

Some background: I (she/her) joined a new parents group five years ago. The people, it turns out, aren’t ‘my’ people for a variety of reasons, some of which (like political views) complicate things more than others (like a differing sense of humour). I was going to list them, but I realise (thanks to you!) that saying ‘I’m not sure these people are right for me’ is enough of a reason. 

I also now see that new parent groups are a terrible idea!! (for me personally). Parenting IS hard, and I do need support and advice occasionally, but a bunch of other people who are in the exact same boat isn’t all that helpful to me – it’s just my issues, times five. I get far better support from friends with more parenting experience that know me well, know my flaws and love me anyway. Added to this is that fact that during the years when new parent groups traditionally become close (by hanging out at the park or coffee shop during those long childcare days), we were in a pandemic. So we didn’t really get to bond – I had hoped that as our children grew and the pressure eased slightly, we might be able to grow closer. We only really know each other as struggling new mothers in a pandemic, so haven’t really got the chance to get to know each other in a real or more holistic sense. 

For what it’s worth, I don’t vent or rant (it’s just not ‘me’, and it makes me feel worse). I do have other friend groups that are supportive and helpful when I’m having a tough time. For my part, I try to stay positive and supportive. But after five years of messaging “I’m so sorry to hear that, that sounds so tough. Would it be helpful if I did [supportive thing like picking up groceries]?” only to hear about the same issues cropping up again and again, year after year, without any action taken, I’m approaching being done.

The group organises about 5-6 irl meet-ups a year, of which I normally attend 2-3. A few years ago I got some pushback over not making it to all of the meet-ups, but I made it clear that I would make it to what I could manage and held that boundary. This experience gave me general anxiety with this group as I felt they were asking too much of me for how close we are(n’t). What little time and energy I have is precious.

I neither love nor loathe our irl meet ups, they are always just ‘fine’. I return home a little flat from all the venting, but happy to have got out of the house. I’m curious to know if I would have more energy for meeting IRL if I wasn’t already depleted from reading about all their woes all the time. I also feel that it’s relevant to mention that the group tends to be driven by one person, who pushes to organise most meet ups, while one other individual is the source of most of (but not all) the negativity, and that I may not be the only one feeling this way. I considered being more proactive in developing individual relationships with other members of this group, in the hope of developing more nuanced relationships with them, but I don’t have the time or energy for that at the moment. Again, they may feel the same about me – potentially interested in developing a friendship at another time, but not right now while life is so busy. After all, they haven’t reached out to me individually either. 

For what it’s worth, I work in a public-facing role in my city centre, and see everyone I know including these people, at work on a regular basis. So I would prefer not to lift out of the group entirely, though I appreciate (again, thanks to you!) that that is an option, and that I could leave the group and still have pleasant interactions with them when inevitably I run into them at work. 

How do I even communicate my wishes? Do I say that I’m taking a break from WhatsApp groups and to message me directly (ie just one of them) if there is a meet up happening? Is that rude, like “I don’t want to know about your day-to-day but I do want the (supposedly) ‘fun’ bits of our friendship”? I’d be adding an extra complication to organising meetups too, which I don’t love as I prefer to be respectful of peoples time and I never organise anything myself, so it seems rude to make it harder for those that do. 

I suppose the tldr is that I have a group of friends that could be nice to see a few times a year, but the wonders of WhatsApp make me feel like I’m seeing them every week – and that’s too much. What to do about this very 2024 dilemma? 

Gratefully, 

Hopeful But Realistic 

Hello Hopeful But Realistic:

I mean this as a compliment: Your letter is like if Hamlet delivered his famous “To Be Or Not To Be” soliloquy but it was about experiencing FOMO related to an infrequent, completely optional social activity he does not enjoy with people he does not really like. Like Hamlet, your self-awareness is only matched by your awareness of the inherent ironies of your situation. For instance, the way you (correctly) recognize that if you leave the place where the group gathers and makes plans, then it will be on you to make the effort to organize alternatives and then (correctly) admit that you won’t be doing that? Brava, sincerely.

Now that the little Hamlet who lives inside me recognizes the Hamlet in you, let’s get you out of this sea of opposing troubles without anybody having to take up arms.

Part 1: Taking Leave

First, pick two people in the existing WhatsApp group, ideally a) the person that that you like the best and would be most likely to want to hang out with someday when things are less hectic (but not really) and b) the person who does the most work to plan events and keep everyone connected. If there are more than two, that’s okay, just start with two for now. If you spend more than five minutes thinking about this, pick the first two people who come to mind.

Once you’ve got your picks, you’re going to send them versions of the same private, direct message.

Sample, for the organizer: “Hey, I wanted to let you know that I’m taking a break from our group chat, so if you want to reach me or if anyone asks, the best contact is ____________. I so appreciate the work you do to keep us all connected and I look forward to seeing your face the next time we’re all in the same place at the same time.”

Sample for the potential friend: “Hey, I’m taking a break from our WhatsApp chat for the time being, but I don’t want to lose touch with all the great people here between now and the next big gathering. Can we trade info? The best way to reach me is _________. Have a great week and hopefully see you around!”

Adapt those in whatever way makes sense to you given what you know about the people you’re writing to. The key talking points are:

1. You’re not leaving, you’re “taking a break.” Maybe you’ll be back at some point, maybe you won’t, the beauty is that you don’t have to decide right now. Pro tip: Sometimes people say they are taking a break from social media to avoid giving offense, just keep in mind that only really works for if you–and the people you’re taking a break from–are not heavy social media users in the first place and if you are not connected on other platforms.

2. Why are you taking a break? Irrelevant. Not only are you not required to show your work, I strongly recommend against offering reasons and I recommend against it even harder in the unlikely event that someone actually asks. I doubt any of these people are thinking about you all that much unless you are directly in front of them, and if any of them are, they should get used to disappointment. Your critiques of a group you’re leaving anyway are neither helpful nor necessary, and your complicated feelings about the intersections of public-facing work, parenthood, and social life are your own business. You’re getting what you want (namely, peace and freedom) out of this, so don’t fuck it up on the landing! “Fixing” relationships and group dynamics is for stuff you want to participate in.

3. You’ve really enjoyed getting to know so many great people, and you’d love to trade contact info so that you don’t lose touch completely. You look forward to running into them via work or at a future meetup or whatever occasion and venue seems most likely, and in the meantime people can reach you at _______________.

That’s it.Once you send those messages privately, you’re free to delete WhatsApp from your phone knowing that you’ve done your part to make sure that nobody has to wonder where you went or feel obligated to check on you, you’ve expressed genuine appreciation without expectation of anything in return, and you’ve left a door open so that anybody who wants to find you knows how. Pretty much all you have to do is be pleasant when you do run into everyone else in the course of your work, and you’re free at any point to invite people you actually like to attend stuff you host for your real friends on a case by case basis and see what develops.

Part 2: Only Connect

Speaking of real friends: Even Hamlet had his Horatio. When was the last time you texted yours? For the love of all that is sacred to you, before the week is out, I beg you to contact a person from your life who likes you and whom you like back in an uncomplicated way, someone for whom making an effort does not summon forth your inner Hamlet. Parenting is hard, making friends as an adult is hard, sustaining connections over time and distance is hard, but we’re all we’ve got and right now your loneliness is as palpable as your anxiety about this specific group of Not Quite Your People. Remind yourself what it’s like to just be silly and relaxed around somebody who doesn’t live in your house. Please.

Dear Captain Awkward,

I’m in a relationship for the last year. We started out as best friends for two years and it slowly evolved into a relationship. We have similar interests and he started hanging out with my son early on and doing fun things together. We never labeled anything and just sort of let it happen. My son just turned 12 and his father passed away when he was young and he has no memory of him. My boyfriend is the first man I have ever trusted around my son and if it didn’t work out there would be no new men in our lives and my boyfriend (CJ) would always play a role in his life.

My son just asked me if he can call CJ dad and said he’s tired of being the only kid without a father. I told him we can discuss it but that CJ is in our lives and loves us both regardless of what they call each other. I also explained that some moms have lots of boyfriends over the year and being a boyfriend doesn’t automatically make men a dad. He said that CJ does dad things with him and loves us both very much so that makes us a family. CJ said he would do whatever my son wants to feel happy but I want to make sure we do the right thing. CJ’s family adores us and his parents treat him the same as their grandchildren from their other son, and they treat me equally (better actually lol) than his brothers partner.

Should we let him call CJ dad??

Thank you.

Hello!

Here’s your periodic reminder that I’m not a parent, so any advice about what’s best for your son is gonna be sheer guesswork coming from me.

Maybe here’s where I can help: What’s the right move here for you? 

In your heart of hearts, when you wrote to me did you want to be talked into letting this happen or talked out of it?

Feelings Check: If you were to say yes, does that make you feel warm, excited and hopeful or does it make you feel something else? Grief for what might have been, perhaps? Guilty that you “owe” your child a dad and you’d be letting him down if you prioritized your misgivings? Pressure to escalate or define a relationship you’re not quite ready to define? And are your misgivings more about protecting your son from being let down or disappointed or are they more about protecting your heart? Feelings are weird. They are also information. Try to pull yours out and look at them without judging them or yourself.

You say of your relationship with CJ, “We never labeled anything and just sort of let it happen.” I love a good friends-to-lovers tale! I’ve also read many, many letters where one person wants some kind of formal recognition of their relationship (everything from claiming a boyfriend/girlfriend/partner label, hearing/saying the words “I love you” out loud, being “social media official” or otherwise public about the relationship, being exclusive or committing to being non-exclusive together, to stuff that carries legal and financial implications like marriage, adoption, shared housing, business partnerships, or artistic collaboration) and the other person has a more relaxed approach along the lines of “It’s just a piece of paper” or “But labels shouldn’t define us!”

The person who wants more clarity is often afraid to push for it out of fear of ruining a good thing, which begs the question, if telling the truth about what you want from a relationship can “ruin” that relationship then you might have bigger issues. The person who claims it’s not a big deal rarely has a good answer for “Well, if it’s not a big deal either way, then why not just do what the other person wants?” aka a sure sign that something is in fact A Very Big Deal and worth approaching with care and caution until everyone is sure about what they want.

In that story, are any of those people you? Are any of them CJ? Right now you seem to be justifying the decision as “I guess nothing will fundamentally change if we add this label” but is that actually true? Maybe it’s time to do more accurate labeling all around. For example, CJ said he would do whatever your son wanted, but he didn’t say what he wanted. Do you know what he wants? Does he? Is it your hope/plan/wish to co-parent together in an official sense down the road? Could either/both of you make a list of things that would change and would not change if the word “Dad” entered the chat, and do your lists overlap?

If I could wave a magic wand right now I’d send you and CJ away for a long, lazy weekend alone together somewhere to pamper the shit out of yourselves and have the “So, I know we’re doing this, but are we DOING THIS-doing this?” conversation about your relationship timeline and goals that I can feel fermenting underneath your question.Once you and CJ are on the same page with each other about how you want things to work, then you can figure out the right stuff to tell your son. The kid is absolutely trying to Step-Parent Trap you and the least you can do is make sure the adults aren’t divided before they’re conquered.

For the record, I think how you explained things to your son demonstrates that you listen to him and respect his feelings enough to be honest with him, and that’s lovely to read. Whatever decision you ultimately make about the word “Dad,” your son is clearly surrounded by people who love him and who are able to collaborate in his best interest, and that can only be a good thing. Of course you want your son to be happy, but there are lots of possible happy endings out there for this story, and none of them work unless you are happy. Are you happy? What would make you happiest? The more honest and aware you are about that, the better decisions you’ll make.

This question came in a while ago and I was holding onto it for possible book inclusion after sending a private draft reply to the person who asked, but the manuscript has changed shape since then and it’s time to release it into the world.

Dear Captain Awkward,

I’m about to become a dad and I’m terrified. I’m not just scared of stuff like school shootings and global collapse, but also that I will somehow screw up my kid so bad that they’ll have a terrible life, or they’ll hate me and want nothing to do with me when they’re grown up.

Part of my problem is that I have no role model or template for what I’m even supposed to do here. I lost both of my parents to an accident before I was 10, and my younger siblings and I ended up being split up and raised by other relatives who lived in different states. Those relatives fed us and got us through school and out into the world, and I know they did their best to love us and make sure we could still see each other a couple times a year. But we were never a family again, and now that we’re all grown up, we barely talk.

Addiction runs rampant in our family. Substance abuse is part of why I don’t have parents anymore, and both of my siblings and the adults who had custody of them have struggled with alcohol and drug problems and had brushes with the law. I can’t help feeling like it’s partly my fault. I’m the oldest by a few years, and I feel like if I’d tried harder and looked out for them more instead of being so wrapped up in myself, they’d be in better shape.

I’d probably be just like them if not for my step-grandma, a former nurse who was adamant that I never get involved with substances and who made sure I got an education. Thanks to her, I’ve managed to graduate college, find a stable career that I mostly like, and approximate life as a functional adult. We used to be in touch even after she divorced my grandfather and he died, but she was living in a nursing home when COVID hit and died in the first wave. There was no funeral to go to and I don’t even know where she’s buried. If I did I’d have them put “Here lies my last stable relative” on the grave. Or maybe just, “Thank you.”

My amazing wife has a good (if not always great) relationship with her parents, so I guess our children will have at least some functional role models in their lives. She keeps reassuring me that when the time comes, I’ll do just fine, and we’re both trying to read as much as we can about babies and how to keep them alive throughout her pregnancy. But whenever her side of the family gets together for big celebrations, I feel like an alien visiting from another planet. And I can feel them all eyeing me with trepidation every time they hear another story about someone in my family getting out of rehab or almost losing custody of their kids. They thought it was weird and sad when my side of the church was almost empty at our wedding, but now I think they’re relieved.

We’re the first people among our friends to take this step, and all of them are excited for us, but one of my oldest friends has made a few jokes about how our kid will be the “first pancake” (like the shitty test pancake that ends up raw or too burnt to eat so you know how long to cook the other ones) and that he’s still not sure how I fooled my wife into thinking I was “dad material.” Thankfully he didn’t make the first joke in front of my very pregnant, very nervous wife, or I would have had to kill him. I asked him what he meant by the second one and he said something about how “closed off” I am and that he’s always thought of me as kind of a loner, not a family man. We’ve always been pretty harsh and dark with our jokes, and called each other feral pieces of shit our whole lives, so it wasn’t totally out of bounds, but I keep wondering if he’s trying to tell me something.

Am I doomed to mess up yet another generation? What if I’m too selfish and closed off to be anybody’s dad? And how do I avoid being one of the dads that people write to you about, the ones whose adult kids dread visiting them and need years of therapy to process their horrible childhoods? In about three months the people at the hospital are going to hand me a tiny human and I could use some operating instructions here.

Thanks for any wisdom you can provide,

Finals Are Tomorrow, And I Did Some Of The Reading But Not All Of It

Dear Finals Are Tomorrow,

Congratulations! I hope that everything about extruding the baby into the world goes as smoothly as possible for everyone involved.

People ask me for parenting advice all the time and usually the answer is, I have not the foggiest idea what to tell you. I’ve never played for those stakes. I’ve never had to walk around with my entire heart outside my body and send it to a place they have something called “active shooter drills.” My cats had to go to the vet for a routine checkup and shots this week, it made them upset and one of them (Daniel) hid away for most of the night and wouldn’t eat, and I was a wreck of anxiety. How are all of you DOING this?

I’m not a parent, but I am a chronic and inveterate observer of human behavior, and you asked me, so I will tell you what I have observed in case it helps at all.

First, every parent I know, no matter how prepared, describes leaving the hospital with a brand new baby for the first time the exact same way: “Wait, they just…? …hand you…? …a tiny helpless baby…? …and say ‘good luck’…and you can just ….leave? Shouldn’t A Grown-up step in at some point? Oh shit, have they mistaken *me* for a Grown-Up? Oh no, no, no, that can’t be right.”  One of my friends from grad school made a short experimental film during her first pregnancy where she inter-cut stock footage of old-timey carnival rides with fetal development milestones from medical training films to mimic the fear and exhilaration of falling forward into the unknown. I can only speculate, but I imagine that this near-universal experience of pre- and post-natal terror is a sensation similar to stage fright: Your body understands that you care a lot about doing a good job, and it knows that all the preparation in the world is not the same as Doing The Thing For Real, so it gives you the gift of a massive adrenaline spike, spins you around three times, and shoves you toward the light.

Again, I only have observation to go on here, but once the baby is born you’ve got a pretty large window where being a good parent is like, 10% about supporting the head, getting vaccines, avoiding diaper rash, and following other “how is babby stay alive” instructions from the panoply of wifely research, parenting books, knowledgeable in-laws, and pediatricians you have access to and 90% about being a team with your wife. Judging from the failure cases proliferating anywhere relationship advice is sought, sold, or given online, the two biggest stressors on brand new moms I routinely see are this: 1) They feel like they have to parent their partner at the same time they are figuring out how to heal their own body and parent a baby. For instance, the partner is theoretically willing to do their share of feeding, diaper changes, bathing, etc. and/or prepare food and do household chores, but they don’t take initiative and need so much coaxing and coaching every single time that it becomes “not worth it” to bother. 2) Their partner does not back them up when intrusive people (esp. in-laws) overstep boundaries in the name of “helping.” Based on what you’ve told me, neither of these particularly sound like you, but if there’s any stuff that your wife routinely handles to keep your household running, now’s the time to make sure you know how to handle it solo while also staying employed and keeping all of your own balls in the air.

From there you’ve got several years of being the world’s greatest dad by virtue of being your child’s best and only dad. They will know you as the smiling man with the big warm arms and the gentle hands that make them feel safe. As long as they are safe, warm, fed, and loved, babies don’t give a single fuck about your deep-seated issues. It’s one of their best qualities. Their second best quality (taken from someone who knows about as much about raising one as you do) is that the moment they feel unsafe, cold, hungry, or unloved, they are pretty excellent at giving immediate, actionable feedback. Like, they can’t use words or do anything with their adorable wee useless hands, and you will definitely need to anticipate and keep track of certain stuff like ambient temperatures and how long it’s been since the last naptime, etc. but “Crying = figure out why and see if you can fix it” is a classic feedback loop that will get you pretty far.

From there, what I’ve got sums up as “Children are people, and people are not objects.” As we  fast-forward to identifying the main sources of lasting trauma, conflict, ongoing power struggles, guilt, anxiety, and avoidance in adult parent-child relationships that I see in my inbox and try to work our way backwards to something you can use, that’s basically what you need to know. Children are people. People are not things. If you treat them like things, you will inevitably do damage. I’m going to steer clear of the worst case scenarios of physical abuse, sexual abuse, or outright neglect and abandonment. It’s not that these things are exactly rare, but a) I assume you are not going to do any of them and b) in the unlikely event you did it would be *very* obvious why your kids stopped speaking to you and you wouldn’t be writing to me about it anyhow. When I meet small-to-intermediate-sized antagonists in my inbox, they usually take some combination of these shapes:

1. Parents who treat their kids like their property, the legal definition of which includes the right to abuse, transform, and destroy. They think that their kids are something they created. A lot of these fights come down to questions of identity and a perception that a harsh world is justification for being as cruel as possible to their children in preparation (but not a good reason to make the world less harsh). They often show up in letters here as “I know my dad was just doing the best he could when he (re-enacted Full Metal Jacket in my Cub Scout troop)(threw away all my toys because I got a bad grade once)(policed my gender until it made me want to die)(Insert any ‘I’m just awful to you because I love you so much’ example of your choice here), but I have a kid now and it’s really not okay for him to do that stuff anymore.”
2. Parents who treat their kids like mirrors. They are by and large ambitious, successful people, so they expect perfect, successful kids who prove to the world that the parents get an ‘A’ in parenting. These kids can’t possibly struggle, fail at anything, have disabilities or exist in non-thin non-standard bodies, wear “unflattering” clothes, or experience upsetting feelings like “anger” or “loneliness” because any vulnerability in the child exposes flaws in the parent. One telltale sign of these is when the kid is afraid to tell the parents about medical conditions, job loss, or other heartbreaks because not only will the parents not help with whatever it is, dealing with their waves of denial and disappointment on top of having to deal with the actual problem will make everything 100 times worse. When these parents look at their kids, they’re looking for stuff to fix or improve, not stuff to enjoy, like they’re so caught up in what their kid should be like that they can’t like the one they have.
3. Parents who treat their kids like shaky investments. Think: “I fed you, housed you, clothed you, sent you to school, and all the other bare minimum stuff in the ‘parent’ job description, so now you owe me forever! You owe me obedience, you owe me compliance, you owe me all your money, you owe me a consistent level of achievement, you owe me following the career path I choose for you, you owe me on-demand access to your living space and time and attention, you owe me every holiday forever, you owe me a say in every choice you make from education to career to romantic relationships to how you dress and what you call yourself, you owe me the chance to control how you raise any future kids you might have, and you owe me these things totally independently of how I treat you. Come on, it’s not like I ever hit you or anything.”
4. Parents who treat their kids like emotional support animals. Often manifesting as adults who have no friends, no close family ties, no hobbies or interests, no church or other community, absolutely no mental health support or counseling, not one single fellow adult or social space to hang out in, but they do have this one child who is the absolute center of their universe which gives them the right to be the center of that child’s universe in return. “We’re more like best friends actually!” “Oh, don’t be silly! I don’t need anybody but you!” In these scenarios, the parents are often survivors who were parented in turn by survivors who were also incapable of dealing with their emotions or fully healing from the fallout of extreme neglect, abuse, trauma, poverty, divorce, etc. and they tend to either repeat the same pattern or wildly overcompensate in the other direction. In friendships and romantic relationships between peers, it is incredibly hard to be someone’s only person and feel responsible for them even when it conflicts with your own happiness. Children can’t just leave imbalanced relationships whenever they want to, and the fucked-up power dynamic of having your authority figure also desperately need you is a ticking time bomb of emotional distress.

If I had to break that list down into just two big categories, it would be Authoritarian Parents Who Are Obsessed With Image And Control vs. Needy Parents Who Think Having Children Means Never Having To Make Friends As An Adult Or Go To Therapy.

At the toxic extremes, both types find any evidence that their child is growing up to be a separate person with their own inalienable human rights, identities, tastes, needs, ethics, opinions, and preferences to be unbearably threatening. Both fall into the trap of thinking that knowing more than a tiny baby or a fifteen-year-old about some aspects of life means that they know more about everything, always, and forever, including that child’s subjective experiences of their own life. Both types treat boundaries like personal attacks and think that consent does not apply to them, and both seem to think that “unconditional love” means that they are the only ones who ever get to set conditions, like “My house, my rules, your house, also my rules!” They are shocked and appalled that their adult children might expect the same basic consideration as others or decide to match their energy. Both use their children to work out their own issues and expect their children to prioritize their feelings at all times in all things.

The specific behaviors associated with authority vs. need can manifest differently (one skewing more toward compliance, the other toward access & attention) but the results can look shockingly similar: Adult children who love their families very much and who desperately want to find ways to interact that don’t actively hurt. Adult children who are are used to hiding in plain sight, forever stuck between telling the truth about who they are and being punished or adding another lie to the pile. Adult children who are afraid of showing vulnerability or asking for help because they exist under a perpetual cloud of pressure and disappointment. Adult children who feel horribly guilty if they don’t want to be a parent’s only source of social interaction and emotional support forever. Adult children who don’t feel like they are allowed to have any needs of their own because they don’t want to let a beloved parent down. Adult children who find themselves in toxic relationship after relationship because they grew up learning that you don’t get to say “no” to people who say they love you. Adult children who realized that their survival depends on getting as far away as they could but still wonder if there was some other way because they want a family so very bad, which is not a stupid thing to want.

Alongside “children are people, and people are not objects,” the other bedrock principle that helps me navigate this painful, tangled web is that love cannot override consent. Parents get to make a lot of rules when their children are small and vulnerable, but nobody can possibly love you so much that they get to decide who you are. There’s a whole big culture war going on right now that is fueled by religious fanatics who believe that their perpetual, absolute ownership of their own children entitles them to control not just everyone else’s kids but also everything about other people’s bodies and our language and what we read and see and love. They find the concept of consent to be alien and threatening, and I don’t really know how to talk to them. I am never surprised when their adult children stop talking to them, I just wish so many of them didn’t have to crawl through hell to get free. I categorically do not respect any religious beliefs that make room for  hitting babies (seriously, all the content warnings) or persecuting queer and trans people and I’m out of empathy for people who think this is still up for debate. Nobody gets to own another human being, and if you think you do then I think you are a bad person, not just a bad parent or a bad fellow citizen. At this point in life, my priority is not gently persuading people who are actively harming me and mine to believe in different stuff, it’s to organize with everyone who doesn’t agree with them to strip them of their power to harm all of us. My other priority is to help any of their victims who wash up on my shores make it closer to safety.

Good news, I don’t think you are in danger of becoming one of those scary parents, but I think it’s worth mentioning them because you will end up having to protect your kid from them in one form or another and because I think it’s worth questioning your own relationship to authority and obedience as your child grows up. As a parent, lots of decisions are by necessity yours alone, and often “Hey! Do it my way, right now, because I said so!” is the only way because safety or some other urgent necessity demands it. The mere act of getting a toddler out the door somewhat close to on time is going to require multiple instances where you zip an irate being who is screaming, suddenly unbendable, and somehow increasing exponentially in mass into a little snowsuit and strap them into a car seat against their will because you gotta be somewhere, and as much as you can be like “I know, little buddy, everything is awful and you are having a lot of feelings right now,” you cannot afford (in a literal sense) to let those feelings dictate the pace of your day.

But not everything is gonna be like that, so if you hear an angry “Because I said so!” voice coming out of your own mouth more than once in a blue moon it’s worth slowing down to make sure you’re not trying to control stuff that is better governed by informed consent. Ask yourself, “Why am I so mad right now? And why is obedience necessary? What am I afraid will happen if I don’t get my way?” If you had to explain your reasoning for why the child needs to do stuff a certain way, could you do it? Would it be persuasive to you if, say, your boss gave you the same reasoning? Anecdata: The parents of kids I know who are both happy and polite do stuff like apologize for occasional yelling and stop and explain why certain rules exist.

As for insurance against becoming an entitled-needy-overcompensating parental figure, the first step is fairly straightforward: You must deal with your own trauma about how you were raised. You must find ways to process your complicated feelings about your family relationships as they stand now, addiction, and your fears of history repeating itself. You must find ways to express uncomfortable emotions (including anger) in a way that makes them less volatile and scary for you instead of holding it all inside, and you must find a way to forgive yourself for not singlehandedly holding your family together in the wake of disaster while you were also a child. And eventually, once the sleep deprivation starts to wear off, you must seek social support and community outside your nuclear family and your one mean friend from back in the day. Neglecting your own needs will not make you better parent.

That was a lot of words to say, “Dude, get a therapist.” But yeah, please get a therapist. You are self-aware about this stuff, which is not the same as being okay, and that is something therapy can help with over time. You are inevitably going to screw up sometimes and you will need someone to tell you that each and every mistake you make is not the apocalypse barreling out of your burned out family tree. Your wife can’t be the only sounding board. And if your kid needs a therapist someday, please get rid of the idea that it makes you a bad parent. We’re messy, fragile beings and sometimes we just need somebody to walk us through our feelings.

While we are making lists, you must find ways to grieve your beloved guardian so that you can absorb and hand down all the wonderful things she gave you. She would be so proud of you and happy for you. She would hold you and your baby so tight and I’m so sorry she is not here to do it. May I suggest writing her periodic letters where you tell her all about how your baby is doing as if she’s still living across the country? You clearly have a knack with words and some sleepless nights ahead, and I think it might be healing for you. I don’t believe the dead watch over us because otherwise I would never be able to poop again, but I do believe that the things of this universe are neither created nor destroyed. Her mass is still out there, somewhere, among all the other stardust, and some of her energy is still here in you.

One final thing. Think of it as good practice for when someone says asshole stuff to you in front of your kid someday and you can’t realistically fight them due to stuff like “setting a good example” and “laws” and “violence being wrong.” Your friend needs to shut it the hell down. If it helps at all, sometimes people get real mean about the stuff that they are most insecure about, so I would take this guy’s input with about as much salt as when the Morton Salt Factory partially collapsed under a salt avalanche in 2014. However, recognizing that someone’s bad behavior is probably not about you doesn’t mean it doesn’t affect you and isn’t the same as giving it a pass. Possible talking points: “You need to knock it off forever with the ‘pancake’ jokes and digs about what a terrible dad I will be. I know you’re trying to be funny and that saying the worst thing that pops into our heads is just how we show love, but it is really pissing me off and hurting my feelings.”  If he apologizes and acts right, give yourself a gold star for setting one boundary. If he doubles down, and you spend less time with him as a result, give yourself ten gold stars for enforcing the boundary.

To review:

1. Your brand new baby is unlikely to ask you where the rest of your relatives went and how everything is probably your fault. Be a good husband, keep the kid alive, and you’re good for a while.
2. The middle stages of parenting are uncharted territory for me and I have no advice about them. Most of the recurring adult child vs. parent problems I see come down to unhealthy expectations about control and unhealthy expectations about emotional fulfillment. Children are a bad place to look for either of these things because they are people, not objects.
3. As possible prevention measures or just because it’s a good idea in general, get a therapist and interrogate your own relationship to authority.
4. Tell your friend to either be supportive or be elsewhere. Your inner critic needs no assistance.
5. Your wife is absolutely correct, you’re going to be great at this.
6. As much love as a total stranger can send you before it gets super-weird, that’s how much I’ve got for you right now.
7. You are going to be so, so, so great at this.

It’s time for the recurring feature where I answer the search strings people typed in to find this place. No context, no background, just speculation and snap judgments straight from the Id of the Awkwardverse.

As is traditional, here is some mood music from Tori Amos. Lyrics here for anyone who hasn’t had this song encoded in their DNA since 1998. Yes, I know it’s February now, but it wasn’t when I picked the song, and I am a January middle-aged-woman who just had a birthday.

1. “how to show my gf i’d die for her.”

Does your girlfriend want or expect you to die for her? If she does, that’s not a girlfriend, it’s a cult. Run away.

Far more likely, if this is about you having big, intense love feelings and looking for a grand gesture to release the pressure before they explode out of you, then slow down. Pay attention to what your girlfriend likes. Ask her what she likes. Tell her what you like. Then look for consistent, kind, consensual ways to do more of the stuff everyone likes.

We’re coming up on Valentine’s Day and 12 years since I first I met Mr. Awkward, and here is some “romantic” stuff he did in the early days that was very endearing: He planned dates. Not “Do you want to hang out sometime” and then 25 texts back and forth to determine when and how in which I ended up doing most of the actual planning, but “Do you want to watch Twin Peaks Saturday, if yes I will bring DVDs and cherry pie after work.”  He came to karaoke with my friends and sang his face off and learned everybody’s names. When we cooked at his place, he noticed that I liked one of his knives, so he bought me a small version that would fit my hand. He worked at a used bookstore and whenever I was particularly excited about a book I was reading he quietly grabbed a copy for himself to see if he would also like it and the sequels for me/us to share. Small, consistent, kind demonstrations of care and attention beat grand gestures every time.

2. “if i meet a person and he tell me he loves me and he is looking for me what should i reply?”

In order from “annoying” to “yikes” to “terrifying,” “he” is either doing a funny bit and this is how he flirts with everyone with no expectation of being taken seriously, he thinks this is something you want to hear and is love-bombing you with it, or he’s completely serious and expects you to respond in kind. How to reply, if you reply, depends a lot on where you are meeting this person and how the behavior makes you feel.

Personally, I’m not a fan of the Pepé le Pew school of flirting. It’s not part of my culture, it’s not my style, and it never makes me feel flattered or noticed in a good way. Even if I believed in love at first sight, I don’t buy that the immediacy or intensity of another person’s feelings about me makes them particularly meaningful or remotely my problem. Someone who was destined to be my perfect match would know that and lead with finding out if I read any good books lately or if I have an unusual and entertaining minor peeves. But my way is not the only way, so sometimes I run into a Pepé Le Pew in the wild.

If someone sent me a message like the one in your search string on a dating site, I would block them without hesitation. If I showed up to a first date and they said this, I would not go on a second date and would be looking around for the fastest and safest way out of this one. “Wow! I don’t think this is going to work out, so let me get out of your hair.” If they are just joking, it isn’t funny, and if they are serious, we are so incompatible that there is no amount of explanation I need more than I need to be somewhere people don’t talk to me like I’m in a play I didn’t know I auditioned for.

If I am in public where I feel safe, and the person declaring their love is a passing stranger who is just doing a bit, then I’ve got about sixty seconds of banter in me before I reach the “I know you are just trying to be funny, but please stop” place or locate the nearest exit and go through it, whichever is more expedient. It depends a lot on whether I think they are trying to make me laugh or if they are trying to test boundaries and assert dominance. Icy silence if I’m trapped in the back of a cab or in a checkout line takes a lot of effort on my part and is too much like an invitation to keep talking, so I try to keep it light and give everyone a chance to be less embarrassing: “I get that a lot.” “Well, good thing there’s no pressure.”  “What a completely normal thing to say.” “Weird, if true.” Note the lack of question marks.

3. “i go crazy if partner switches up plans last minute.”

It’s good that you know that about yourself. What if we could dial back the “go crazy” part and approach this as a matter of style, compatibility, and boundaries? You know you don’t like last minute changes, presumably your partner also knows this, so what happens if you give yourself permission to opt out of plans that you know will stress you out when they start to diverge? Maybe try an experiment where you either do the original plan as is, or you cancel the whole thing, but no more fighting or trying to meet in the middle when you already know that “the middle” sucks for you.

I had an ex where if I said, “Hey, let’s go to bed,” I meant “I will be sound asleep in half an hour, so if you want to do anything that is not sleeping, now is the time!” If he said, “Sure, be there in a minute!” that meant he might come to bed shortly, or he might play video games or surf online for another hour or even more. If I fell asleep before he showed up, he would be miffed that I didn’t wait for him, especially if he felt like he’d rushed through his weekly raid to be there sooner. If I didn’t fall asleep or if he woke me up accidentally or on purpose, the longer “in a minute” turned out to be, the less in the mood I was. We are exes for a reason, but I can tell you that we did get temporarily less annoyed and more routinely laid when I stopped trying to be flexible and adapt to his sleep schedule and made it clear that “Let’s go to bed” was an invitation that would self-destruct in 15 minutes.

4. “how to seem cool to your online edgy friends”

Instead of trying to impress a bunch of mean people (which is what “edgy” usually translates to), embrace being a big soft silly nerd and find friends who appreciate your baseline levels of coolness.

5. “women want a light-hearted seducer”

“Light-heartedness” is certainly not the worst quality “a seducer” could cultivate, but please don’t erase those of us who like a little brooding now and then as a treat. The world is wide and contains multitudes!

6. “i just found out my mom and dad have sex toys what should i do”

Do exactly the same thing you hope your parents will do if they ever stumble across your sex toys or other private stuff someday: Leave them alone, forget you saw them, and do absolutely nothing with the information because it’s none of your business.

7 “what to answer if he tells you that he admires your passionate virtue”

If anyone ever said that to me, I would definitely need examples, the more precise and detailed the better. Is this admiration born of observation, in which case, what did I do? And what kind of “virtue” are we talking about? Patience? Generosity? Thrift? Or is this some weird purity culture fantasy projection, in which case, yikes and also LOL at the number of illusions that are about to be absolutely shattered.

Probably can’t go wrong with “How interesting, nobody’s ever said that to me before. Can you tell me more about what you mean?”

8 “what should i answer if someone asks me what i want my husband to look like”

I assume we’re talking about a hypothetical future husband here and not “Hey, babe, do you think I should grow a mustache again?” or “Is this too casual for business casual? Y/N” from your actual living spouse.

In that case, try one of these:

“I don’t know. Why do you ask?”

“I always figured that was more of a ‘I’ll know it when I see it’ thing. Why do you ask?”

“Is it like a Build-A-Bear Workshop, where I get to pick? In that case, give me the [Celebrity Crush Of Record] kit and I’ll take it from there. Wait, is there some reason you asked?”

I spent enough years as a teenage diner waitress to experience a ton of creepy dudes asking me about my ‘type,” and in those cases I recommend scorching the earth and salting the ashes. “Aren’t we awfully close to a school for you to be asking me this question?” You can just start listing qualities that are the opposite of them, like, “Let me see, younger than my dad would be a good start, gainfully employed, good tipper, doesn’t smell like an ashtray, knows about vegetables besides potatoes and restaurants that aren’t in a mall. Why, do you have a single grandson or something? Does he look like you? Aw, too bad.”

Which is to say, in my experience, people rarely ask questions like this without an agenda. They either want to know what your fantasy template is so that they can measure themselves or someone they hope to set you up with against it, argue you into relaxing your standards, or because they want to talk about their specs but they want you to go first (like when someone signals that they want to eat the last slice of pizza by offering it to everyone else). If somebody wants to know, they can tell you why, and there’s little reward for you in guessing until they do.

9 “why can’t my mom be polite”

Is your mom rude to everyone, ever, inside the house and out of it, including people older than she is? Or does she pick and choose who to be polite to, and when she’s rude does it mostly roll downhill onto you?

There’s a concept of “family” or “friendship” or other kinds of intimacy where, the closer people are, the less effort they think they have to put into politeness. For people who operate this way, “manners” are a performance for outsiders, but inside where everybody loves each other nobody needs to try so hard. Family needs no invitation before coming over. Family doesn’t need to knock on closed doors before opening them. Family doesn’t need to ask before borrowing stuff, or say please or thank you, or find out if it’s a good time to talk before launching in, or respect your preferences about who gets to touch you and what name you go by. It’s almost like the rudeness acts like proof of love, but when you look closer you’ll see the same hierarchies and power dynamics as other families. For instance, in a family where lack of boundaries = love, “I’m your mom, everything about you is my business” and “I’m your mom, don’t you dare talk to me like that” seem like they should be wildly inconsistent rules, but it rarely works like that. File it next to “why do people only brag about honesty when they are being mean” and other mysteries.

If you’re in a family like that, it’s really hard to change the culture. Sometimes all you can do is see it for what it is and do your best not to recreate it in your other relationships. And sometimes you can set boundaries where how much the other person loves you is not in question, but there are minimum standards for how they get to treat you if they want your company and attention.

10 “i will be a fool to go back to my ex boyfriend”

I believe you! What if you blocked him on your phone and every social media platform and email address just to make it sink in?

11 “difference between no contact and silent treatment”

If someone cuts off contact with you, they want you to go away and leave them alone. They don’t want you to think about them constantly and look for ways to repair the relationship. They want to be free of you, and set you free in return. The relationship is over.

If someone gives you the silent treatment, they want you to punish you, but they don’t want you to go away. They want you to stick around and devote every minute of your life to understanding what you did wrong and getting back into their good graces. It’s a manipulation tactic that stops working the second you stop chasing, which is why my standard advice for people encountering the silent treatment is to try to enjoy the silence for as long as it lasts.

If someone asks you for space, and you’re not sure if it’s the silent treatment, here’s one weird trick you can use to tell: Give it to them and see what happens. Somebody who just needed a break to gather themselves will be grateful for the opportunity to come back when they are calmer. Somebody who wanted to leave will keep on going. Somebody who was trying to manipulate and punish you will be angry that you gave them what they said they wanted, and use that as an excuse for another round of punishment. They are taking a gamble that their baleful, hostile, punishing presence is somehow better than the silence, and I think it’s worth finding out for sure!

That’s all for this round, be well!