You know what I love? Found families. Found families are my JAM. There's something amazing about growing up and developing a new family unit with which to navigate the stormy sea of adulthood.
Also, found family members are obligated to laugh at the dumb crap I post.
I'm lucky enough to have a great found family AND a great blood family. But today, I'm focusing on the dynamics of my found family. Sorry, blood fam.
I read somewhere (here, actually) that millennials don't feel like adults until age 29 or later, largely because the key "grown up" milestones (like financial independence, owning a house, having kids) are less accessible in today's economy than they were in our parents' economy. I often feel like a little kid playing dress-up (in old hand-me-down clothes from my mother because I can't afford new clothes) when I'm sitting at my desk at work. Like I said in a previous post, it all feels like a desperate game of pretend.
Which is why found families are especially important to many people in my generation. It's reassuring to have a group of people on your side to play pretend with, to fill in for the guidance and protection of the folks who raised you.
Particularly blessed within a found family is the Mom Friend. We've all either had one or been one, regardless of generation. Typically, it's the friend who sends you those, "Did you get home safe?" texts, or excels at herding and caring for drunk friends, or dispenses warm advice (even when you don't want to hear it).
In my various friend circles, I know of a few such pseudo-moms. And I have friends who have now become actual moms (holy wowza!). They are pillars of strength, beacons of hope, and carriers of Tylenol. These are the true Mom Friends.
And then there's me.
Usually, I'm the Whiskey Cousin of the friend group. The one that's reeeaaal heckin' strange, occasionally funny in a living cartoon character kind of way, and should not be trusted with adult responsibilities (or sharp objects).
But found families need some kind of parental unit to maintain order, and as they say in Jurassic Park: "Life, uh, finds a way."
I have falsely ascended to Mom Friend status within my household. Like Trump in the White House, I have no business being there, I'm woefully ill-prepared, and my actions could easily lead to utter disaster.
Why did this happen?
- I'm the breadwinner of the family, kinda. I have a stable job (achieved largely through good luck, good timing, and good connections) with a predictable flow of income. I have no debts to pay (once again, through no merit of my own and purely through the generosity, forethought, and fortunate circumstances of my birth family). Because of this, it makes sense to have most of the household bills under my name. I'm in charge of a lot of the budget (and in turn, the meal plans), which grants a certain authority and responsibility to me.
- I'm neurotic. I worry about absolutely everything, and I worry about the fact that I worry about everything. So I fret over money, my friends' well-being, the diversity of food we're eating, having plenty of toilet paper on hand at all times, etc.
- I'm paranoid that things won't get done if I don't do them, whether or not that's true.
- I'm the oldest member of the household, and also the only one to be the eldest sibling.
- I compulsively give out advice, regardless of how much I actually know about a topic.
- It's my fault that we're all living together, making me the inadvertent glue of our quirky family.
I tend to be the one making decisions and delegating tasks to Kelsey and Cade. I'm usually in charge of meals, or at least am the one that is asked the mom-est of all questions: "When's dinner?" I'm the one who gets up in the middle of the night if the puppies cry (and also the one who almost always takes them out in the morning, regardless of our collective work schedules). I do most of the grocery runs, or when we all go together, I'm the one slapping Kelsey's wrist for sneaking Fruity Pebbles into the cart and getting unnecessarily flustered.
I take on a lot of Mom Friend responsibilities in keeping the house together, but I'm not a good Mom Friend. I'm the equivalent of the mom that had kids too early, is prone to emotional breakdowns, and gets wine-drunk on the back porch and tells her kids way too much about her sex life.
Fortunately, I'm not alone.
Actual footage of me, Cade, and Kelsey getting crunked in the kitchen (Source)
I may have Mom Friend tendencies, but so do Kelsey and Cade.
Cade is absurdly thoughtful and gave us Christmas gifts so perfect that Santa would feel sub-par as a gift-giver next to her. She makes tea to comfort us, offers to help in any way she can, and helps keep the house from being a cluttery disaster hole.
Kelsey has repaired broken doors, torn porch screens, missing tiles, and more. Does that make her a Dad Friend? I mean, between that, the beer, baseball hats, and the terrible jokes... But she also introduces delicious recipes to us, decorates for the holidays, and often greets me with a bourbon cocktail when I come home from work (and if that's not right out of a 1950s Home Economics book, I don't know what is).
We're a bunch of surrogate moms to each other, and I think that's a good way to be. We learned lessons of love from our parents, and it's nice to pass those on to each other, using our various abilities to solve the diverse challenges of growing up in the 21st century.
Perhaps we're not top-shelf Mom Friends, but I think we make a good family. And really, everyone could stand to mother each other a little more.