Happy Val/Gal Day!

I was going to write a whole column but then costarastrology (on IG) posted this and I feel so seen, I barely need to write another word.

Actually, of course I will say something. Valentine’s Day isn’t a big holiday for me because I am focused on my birthday. It’s like caring about the Pro Bowl when your team is in the Super Bowl. Who cares? But my husband’s love language is gifts so I almost always get something nice. This year, I/we got Cozy Earth sheets because he got me the pajamas for Christmas and I love them. Loving and practical. I know how to pick ‘em.

The other day, I found a Post-it note where I had written “The nuclear family is a construct to isolate women from their families and each other.” I have no idea when I wrote it but it is the sort of thing I would write, and it’s true. The ideal family structure is not a man and a woman and their 2.3 children isolated in solo housing on individual plots of land. For all of human history, families lived in multi-generational housing or in community groups that were interconnected. Men did their thing and women did their thing, and everyone watched everyone’s kids. It wasn’t perfect; I won’t sugarcoat all of human history.

The nuclear family is an American notion. While Americans were creating tight little pods of 1man1woman2kids, Europeans were still living in closer quarters. While community housing was less common, the state provided a lot of the benefits that communities had previously offered, like parental leave, healthcare, childcare, education, and eldercare. Again, not perfect, but hella better than our alternative.

In addition to overwhelmed parents and a declining birth rate, we also have an epidemic of loneliness. Some people propose polyamory as the solution to this problem. Aside from being distasteful to most people, the logistics of it are overwhelming. I also think polyamory suggests that to have loving and supportive partners, people need to have sexual relationships with one another when what we want is some aunties within reach to help out.

The other day, I listened to an interview that Ezra Klein did with Rhaina Cohen about her new book, “The Other Significant Others: Reimagining Life with Friendship at the Center.” Cohen’s research on non-traditional families who have convened to meet their explicit needs was very thought-provoking. One insight: we do not have the words we need to convey the relationships we have. For example, “my platonic life partner” doesn’t exactly sound warm and fuzzy, while “brother” or “best friend” does. But those latter terms don’t cover all the ways that people support one another.

It reminded me of an article I read in the Atlantic long before the legalization of gay marriage that argued that the law should recognize at least seven different levels of relationship about shared decision-making and property division. For example, everyone from roommates to siblings to domestic partners to throuples should have legal protections about property division and medical decision-making. If I lived with a friend for 25 years, why would a remote nephew make decisions about my healthcare? Why wouldn’t my friend inherit my stuff? All this can be contracted for, but it isn’t. In essence, the law defines our relationships too narrowly.

Of course, Justice Scalia feared the day when a man could marry an armadillo and a houseplant but that wouldn’t happen if we recognized the levels of friendship and care that exist in the world and gave them a name and their due respect.

One of the women in Cohen’s book, when asked whether shared living was preferable to living independently, said, “I’d rather deal with the hassles of community than the pain of loneliness.”

Let’s prevent capitalism from taking that away from us. I love you all! (And no, I’m not returning the sheets). Happy Valentine’s Day! Happy Galentine’s Day!