Highlights from your comments on the "parents too far" essays

and a question about advice - plz see attached.

Hello and welcome to the many new readers joining us here in BAT country!! This is a Friday edition of the newsletter which means it’s less of an essay and more of a whatever the heck it wants to be.

I do not write the newsletter, the newsletter writes me.

And today, the newsletter is asking me to reflect on the two part essay I recently released about raising our son far from all four grandparents (mine in Rhode Island, Lauren’s in Atlanta). In case you missed them, here are some links.

Part One: My dad refuses to drink water

Part Two: Being far from family sucks

Today’s newsletter is real simple - I am going to highlight a few of the incredible comments y’all sent my way in response to these last two pieces. Hope you dig!

(next Tue I’m gonna share a couple loose threads from the essays that I had to cut, so stay cartooned for that).

But before any of that, an important question awaits!

Helen Frankenthaler, Cool Summer

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A LOT OF YOU shared the last two posts and that was Awesome. Please keep doing that because that’s how we Grow big enough to Buy The New York Times!

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NOT Helen Frankenthaler or her art

Question: Who wants some advice?

I want to try something w Both Are True - advice! Well, not actually new because EXACTLY TWO YEARS AGO minus one day on Nov 17, 2020 I published this piece in Both Are True:

This is now an advice column

It’s sort of insane that my instinct to ask again happened today, exactly 2 years minus 1 day after! Something about mid November makes me wanna help people. Last time was fun but I was trying to source questions from Twitter and just wasn’t getting many because Twitter is a sinkhole for the soul, but now that we’re all here and there’s a whole bunch of you readers, I figure let’s try again!

Am I qualified to give advice? Fuck no, but neither is anyone else and I think we’ll have some fun in the process so fuck it let’s party.

So if you have a genuine question you’d genuinely like some advice on, or an absurd question you’d like genuine advice on, or a genuine question you’d like absurd advice on, HOLLER.

You can respond directly to this email, email me at botharetrue@substack.com, AND/OR if you’d like to ask anonymously you can fill out this simple form.

Don’t be shy, I dare you.

The People Speak: Diet Coke

Helen Frankenthaler, Hommage a M.L

Your responses to my love of Diet Coke were varied and wonderful, except anyone who said DC is bad - all of those people have been removed from the mailing list and sent to Cokeacola’s jail. Here’s some of my favs:

Coke Zero Fanatic Sounds Off

Why are you drinking DIET COKE when you can drink COKE ZERO? Both will kill you but Coke Zero tastes so much better! Plus it's got the word "ZERO" in it.

—

Anne Kadet

who writes the the hilarious

CAFÉ ANNE

To which I responded:

Ok Anne here's the scoopo - the hotel only had DC I am fairly sure and to be perfectly honest with you, I like DC more than CZ. I used to do a thing where I'd alternate every couple of weeks but if I had to pick one, like one to have infinite supply of on an island, I'd pick DC 10 times outta 10.

CZ is fun, like a night out dancing every once in a while, but DC is the go to, every day of the week support I need. Except now I truly drink Zero Coke :(

I did realize though that my deal with my parents was ONLY for Diet Coke and NOT Coke Zero so let’s just say I might just be enjoying the rare CZ every once in a day.

Religious devotion to the DC

Diet Coke is the juice of the Mormons. My aforementioned mother is a big fan of having one cracked open in every room in the house.

— Madeline (who demanded I refer to her as BAT’s #1 fan)

This comment was so funny I would like it to be expanded into a tell all memoir:

my partner doesn't drink any [plain] water. at all. ever. maybe a couple drops get in when he brushes his teeth, i don't know. he likes seltzer, but a lot of the time when i collect the cans it's still at least half full. so it's more like...he enjoys having a sip of seltzer and then saying "no i'm going to drink that!" and then not drinking it and then me pouring it down the drain. classic coke and ice coffee are the main liquids. he did coke zero for awhile but he's back on the real stuff. he also does not eat fruit. actually he cannot even name most fruits i show him. every year i try to get him to recognize a nectarine but so far no dice. he'll probably outlive me by forty years.

— Jerk Nugget

Family

Helen Frankenthaler, Open Wall

Your responses about living close and far from family warmed my heart, genuinely - thank you to everyone who shared. Knowing others are going through this doesn’t solve anything, but it does make me feel a whole lot less alone. Some central themes were around immigrant parents, how crazy it is that we live so far from family in America without ever thinking about it, and the chosen family one makes with their friends. Here’s some favs:

I miss the calls when we had nothing to say

My father and I spoke on the phone everyday. He traveled a lot, but he always called. Then when I went away to college and lived in New York after that, he made a point of calling daily, even if there wasn’t much to say. When I moved back to LA we talked on the phone everyday too. I’m sure we must’ve missed a day here or there, but I really can’t think of one. Now that he’s gone I really miss our calls, especially the ones where we didn’t really say anything meaningful. Those quick “hey, how are you” calls were the best. Funny thing, but not haha funny thing, is that seven years after his death I still have my dad’s number stored in my phone. I can’t bring myself to delete it. And if I did, I still know the number by heart. Like I said I miss those calls, and I hope you treasure every call you get with your dad.

—

Michael Estrin

who writes

Situation Normal

the superman of the "intimate slice of life stories that are funny and also meaningful somehow" extended universe

Immigrant stuff

I also live far away from family, my parents are also both foreigners/immigrants (making "deals" with them is impossible and holy smokes if you can get them to "see the light" about anything), and I drink so much fucking water (however, I can't speak to the amount of water that my parents drink, though I do know that my mom drinks the fancy stuff unapologetically and growing up wze had one of those giant multi-gallon Poland Spring water dispensers that offices have... we are a family of 5 and we went through those bottles in a blink, so, yeah that's probably when I picked up my great water consumption skills)

My parents live in France, I live in Oregon, and my siblings live in New Jersey... so we're all pretty far apart from each other but we make it work. I haven't seen my parents since moving out here, so 5 years (!) and that's definitely weird and an exceptionally long time. But we talk every single day via text... if sharing our Wordle results for the day counts as talking.

— Marine, writer of

Marine Thinks

which I just subscribed to and the first post - The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies has me hooked lol

More immigrant stuff lol

As the child of immigrant parents i relate to this so much! especially as we are also navigating the first grandchild. they keep throwing blankets onto my newborn and i keep flinging them off. it’s 65+ outside, where is her hat?! but we are blessed as they live nearby, with the endless love for all of us, food drop offs, and twice now emergency visits to watch the baby (and criticize literally everything) while i take a much needed multi hour nap.

—R.G.

The Cycle of Kids Annoying Their Parents, then Parents Annoying Their Kids

And it is definitely the cycle that they take care of us and then they don't take care of themselves and then they don't tell us about the effects of them not taking care of themselves and then we end up going on and taking care of them and it's like, yeah, well, we owe it to them but also OMG just do the thing you know you should do! Because I said so! Which is what you used to tell me without shame!!!

—

Nicci Kadilak

who writes

Nicci’s Notes

about her life and family and being a writer, I cry when I read some of them so yea, highly recommend

Why is it so easy to leave family in America?

it's really interesting and heartening to see someone bring that perspective given how casually we take moving away from generational family units here in the US, it's honestly just the environment I grew up in (my dad was raised by his grandparents and never knew his father, my mom at the age she had me probably would have taken a transfer to the Arabian peninsula before moving us across Texas to Houston, where my grandparents still lived at the time), and I know many other Americans in the same hyper-atomized boat. I think both my wife and I see part of the project of raising our daughter as re-knitting what family ties we can to give her those multi-generational connections and support network that were dysfunctional or nonexistent in our own childhoods, and a big boon for that has been circumstances working out such that my wife's parents and her sister, husband, and their new baby all either relocated to or are in the process of relocating to our area.

I probably wouldn't have thought was neat 10 years ago but now I see as this amazing opportunity that just wouldn't be possible if we were just here on our own as an atomic family. Family of choice and community is still important to us and we've also developed those ties here over time, but you can't exactly meet a grandparent for your child at book club or rec league skee-ball, you know?

— Matt S.

Your parents might be mad if you abandon your own life

I can relate to the pangs of distance. We also live in LA, with two kids (the youngest turns one this month), and our respective parents are scattered across the country. It sucks. But you gotta build your own life. This is home for now. I think the last thing either of our parents would want is for us to move into their town just to be close to them, abandoning the lives we've been building for almost 8 years in this city. So it goes.

—

J.E. Petersen

, writer of

Dispatches from Inner Space

in which he's writing a philosophical sci-fi novel that is very dope. Also I'm meeting J.E. for lunch TODAY at an indian spot in Burbank I hope I don't fart too much I always fart when I eat indian food :/

Why did we ever convince ourselves that friendships weren’t priority #1?

The interconnectedness we also share with friends--as I get older, one thing I do consistently regret is moving away from friends. It's hard when you're younger and setting out on careers or young families, but we are too casual I think about friendships and the role they play in our lives. I talk to my best friend from college nearly every day via text and we're constantly like--why did we convince ourselves that our friendships didn't have sway in our lives more? Those roots of connection, between family but also between friends are so real and necessary. And so like you say, both are true.

—

Freya Rohn

who writes

The Ariadne Archive

exploring the writers artists and creators ignored throughout history and culture, focusing on women writers across continents and centuries - I recommend it!!

Far and back and far again

We lived far away from my grandparents due to my father's profession, and in time I too lived far away from my parents. First to finish high school, then university, then a series of jobs in different countries. While my career-based careening around the globe picked up, my father retired and my parents settled down. We had one period of about a year and a half where I lived and worked within a public transport bus ride from them, and it was nice but also very strange to be so close. I think there was some discomfort and confusion for all of us, and when covid hit the process of rediscovering how we could live in proximity ground to a halt. Now we live a couple countries over, and our relationship is back in the odd equilibrium of weekly calls, occasional e-mails and sometimes a teamviewer session to fix something on their PC.

My feelings about it all are...complex. And messy. I like the distance but loathe it as well. Sometimes you just want to be able to have your father come over and help hang a shelf or let your mother cook something for you. And do similar favours for them. But when you're close enough that these things can happen almost every day it becomes oppressive and intrusive. Seeing one's parents age through occasional visits is a bigger blow as well, compared to witnessing it take place slowly over months and years. It seems like every time I see my parents they are a little more frail, a little more delicate. And the part of me that wants to care and protect rears up and demands we make decisions that let us help them and keep them safe. But then there's the reality of The World We Live In, which requires me to be where I am because it's where I can find the work that I do best and which provides equally rewarding opportunities for my wife.

It's complicated and one of the tangled up things I know I need to try and unpick someday when I have the spoons to deal with it.

— Anonymous

Wisdom for all situations

I learned something a couple of years ago when I finally moved on from something somewhere. I'd been engaged with that thing the way it was, the thing I'd decided upon all those years ago, and was trapped by the fact that that original decision meant I wasn't allowed to move on - I would be stuck with it forever. Well, I woke up one day and realised that I could make a new decision. And my shoulders are a lot straighter now that that huge weight has been lifted from them!

—

Rebecca Holden

who writes the always mind blowing insightful

Dear Reader, I'm lost

which I am always jealous of because of her skills using a real life IRL notebook lol (also jealous of

Mark Dykeman

for this btw)

Grandparents can make wacky decisions too

So what about the parent who is moving to Steamboat Colorado to build a home so the kids and hopefully, some day, grand kids will come visit. We're even building a cousin's bunk room....We have no idea where our kids will "put down roots" as you say so we are going to "put down roots" in a new place.

—

Marji Chimes

, writer of

I like stouts

about the simple things we often overlook - I recommend this one too I'm crazy!

Feeling the emptiness is the next best thing

The normalization of living far from home is bonkers, and I say that as someone who has also Moved Away. I agree we can’t really be whole living this way and it’s good to acknowledge this. Feeling the emptiness is the next best thing.

—

Anne Kadet

writer of

CAFÉ ANNE

and my bestie even if we disagree on the whole Diet Coke vs Coke Zero thing

Your turn to comment:

Respond in the comments with your thoughts / answers to these questions. This is essential:

1. I’m thinking of writing a self help book called “Whoa is me.” I think it’ll be a big hit. Plz lmk if you’re interested and are willing to fund the entire process of writing this book it will cost 2.3 millions.

2. How did reading about all these people and their families being far and close make you feel? Any angle we’re missing on this topic that you wanna share?!

3. Why do you also love diet coke so much?

4. Why are you SO excited about the advice column idea as an additional part of Both Are True?

the artist herself Helen Frankenthaler

Sharing is Staring (Into A Future We All Want To See)

A LOT OF YOU shared the last two posts and that was Awesome. Please keep doing that because that’s how we Grow big enough to Buy The New York Times!

Elite BAThead Membership is Open

Many of you also chose to become paid subscribers - wow. That’s a big deal. Thank you, each and every one of you. If you want to join the ranks of the elite BATheads who support this newsletter, here’s a button:

And with that, I bid you adoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

—sash