Each year around this time, something happens: WASPy moms everywhere transition from adding zucchini and ‘former cauliflower’ products to everything (zoodles are an abomination and should never, ever ruin another Bolognese — it needs to be said!) — and suddenly, the world is cursed with something even more disgusting: diarrhea soup.

That is what my husband calls butternut squash soup, which, for some reason, keeps getting pushed on us. The more we say we hate it, the more people push it on us (along with all things squash-y and orange), as if our preferences are…not correct.

The truth is, we like a spiced, roasted butternut squash, sprinkled with something savory, like goat or feta cheese. But once you’ve tried a similar recipe with a yam or sweet potato, (or the same one, swapping the potato for the squash) you wonder why you wasted your time with a watery, hard to peel and cut-up squash.

The way most butternut squash soup is made, it’s neither spiced, roasted, nor savory. It’s a watery, fibrous gourd, somehow watered down further, dumped into a bowl unappealingly, and the resulting splash and overflow stains (usually in a white bowl) just remind you of…bathroom stuff.

Moms and Dads of a ‘certain age’ love it. My husband and I wondered if, growing up in the 50’s and 60’s, their moms, hair coiffed and lipstick applied, rang the dinner bell at exactly 5 o’clock (I think they had those)..

Dad had pulled in the driveway at 4 PM (after what he considered a long day at work) had his customary 2 scotches, and wanted a meal that wouldn’t kill his buzz. (He’d had a steak at lunch, to help steady him after the martinis).

Solution: Butternut squash soup!! Mom could stay attractive and slim (her main job), Dad’s scotch kept working, and they could both snicker at the idiot kids, because it looked like they were eating diarrhea from the toilet. (Kids are funny, plus, it’s best that they eat cheap food that we tell ourselves is nutritious). Hopefully, the kids stay thin too, because we all know that having an overweight, unattractive (in any way) family member reflects poorly on your parenting. Hide that shit like nice people do!

Obviously, they grew up feeling as if this was the “real” happy meal, based on the undiluted joy they feel as they place orders for this gross stuff at restaurants from Panera to the most exclusive of establishments, and invite you over for some lunch (with a side of judgment), trying to tempt you by saying “We’ve got some freshly-made butternut squash soup here…”

Although I say this tongue-in-cheek, there is a certain amount of genuine sentiment and nostalgia experienced by Boomers that overrides the actual experience of eating this gross meal.

It seems the joy experienced— a seasonal feeling of “getting back to simpler times” or “eating clean” is pure fantasy, but they really are feeling something. The butternut squash soup you get at most restaurants comes from a bag, like the milk that never goes bad. It’s processed food. Corporate types would never pay individual chefs to create meals in each store. That’s expensive, and the results would not be uniform.

Unless you’re roasting the fresh squash and making the stock from scratch — you’re dumping cans of stock and/or frozen pureed mash into a crockpot or pan — that’s processed food too. Not as processed, but, pretty much similar. I’m not blaming or shaming anyone here. But it’s not back to the garden and farm.

Don’t get me started on the dynamics, politics, racism, wars, almost-wars and sexism of the 50’s, 60’s, and 70's. It wasn’t that fun for everyone. Bad stuff was just hidden better.

Simpler times, as something to get back to, as aspirational as it is unrealistic, and in many ways, is as angering as being pushed into something you’ve repeatedly stated you dislike strongly by an older generation, and for the same reason: it never actually existed, in reality, the way they imagined it, the way they talk about it, and was based on:

• the glorification and benefit of some (who felt they merited it), and who enjoyed it very much,
• the silence of others (who did what they had to, to survive, and guiltily understood they couldn’t really complain because they benefited from an unfair system),
• the ignorance of many, who may or may not have benefited (who were blind, either willfully or because of purposeful, dishonest messaging/culture),
• the people who spoke up and were labeled as troublemakers, trying to rob the rest of their ‘good lives’ and very severely punished,
• the free, low cost labor and subjugation of lots and lots of others, who’d love to be able to turn their nose up at this disgusting soup like I am right here, rather than be grateful to have something warm in their tummies.

As Thanksgiving approaches, and my older relatives openly pine for the days when some magically just “made the holidays happen” and some showed up for the feast and truly felt they’d made it a success (because they’d “paid for it,” and that’s the same, to them, as single-handedly accomplishing something) I think of my mother, with sadness.

Some relatives never understood the hours of work — plain old work — as well as stress, preparation, coordination, fear of judgment and slights from the family collective — which is a hierarchical system, and determined where she and her children fell on the survival map and system of help and reciprocity— where she was judged on housekeeping, child-rearing, her appearance, her children’s appearance, recipes, and gift-giving, along with some intangible “pleasantness” and “womanliness” success rating that resulted in an overall ‘family score’ that lasted a lifetime.

I think about this recession and how apathetic many people are that so many women left the workforce in the pandemic, families that were left in financial distress or are downwardly mobile, and the disrespect to ‘service workers’ — a term I don’t like at all.

I consider how quickly maternal and paternal leave and childcare allowance was shelved, the human infrastructure idea that was met with scorn, environmental impact was shredded to bits, and how most men wouldn’t dare take a paternity leave if it were offered, because they’d be shamed and let go at the next round of layoffs for p-whippedness. (You know that’s the unspoken thing, right? If you really care about your wife, and take her/your infant’s health seriously, you’re some sort of simp).

Thank you, Joe Manchin. Your family got yours, (probably always had it) for you all to be in such a comfortable spot, to have afforded your fancy educations and gotten those unbelievable paying jobs with stock options, paid board positions, a cush job lobbying when you leave, and the like.

Make poor people buy two epi-pens so your daughter can have staff create her simpler times.

Everyone can be a minimalist, when all they need to carry is their name and their wallet. That is simple. Why didn’t I think of that?

I have a recipe I think you’ll love.

Can I be blunt? This photo is too large, but everyone’s worked for this guy (or gal) in some form or another. Sometimes, he’s just the vibe of the place.

He considers himself a tough guy who pulls no punches, but to you, he’s just the exhausting, delusional dick you tolerate because you need health insurance.

You know that any hint that you consider yourself a human being is a death sentence to your career, and also, that he will steal credit for anything good that you do. At the same time, there is also nothing you can do to get a shred of credit, from him, to get yourself into a better situation at work. Trying to get a new job? Forget about a reference from this person. He considers leaving a betrayal and he’ll shit all over you.

He’ll remember your name, internally, however, when he makes a huge mistake — which you tried to prevent (he called you “negative” and “not a team player”). He needs someone to blame, and you weren’t going anywhere.

That’s how you learned to STFU and keep your head down if you’d like to keep your health insurance for the spouse and children you can’t mention you have (particularly if you are female).

If you have a health condition that you really need the insurance for, make sure they never find out at this place! You’ll be accused of driving up the company insurance premiums, faking illness for sympathy or time off, or exploiting reasonable accommodation policy, before there’s a sudden ‘layoff’ and you’re the only person inexplicably ‘laid off.’

What kind of fool were you, to feel so lucky when you accepted this wonderful position? You’d actually felt special to be chosen.

Well, the process of getting a job is harrowing and, in the professional world, a suited version of WipeOut.

First, you have to have about 25 versions of a resume to upload, which is pretty much useless, but you must have one, specific to the type of job that you’re applying for.

Then, you have to have a professional-grade LinkedIn profile with a picture that makes you look gorgeous but not HOT, with marketing-firm level bio and descriptions of your work, not to mention headshot that has hair and makeup done by a pro, otherwise you look like the hostage you are seeking to become. (You’ll still get unsolicited sexual messages constantly, even if you are a gross old bag like me).

Again, all of this is useless, because each corporate overlord and it’s enforcement department of flying-monkey henchmen, I mean, HR department, takes about 2 hours per application to re-type all of this into super-custom forms when you apply: upon clicking ‘submit’ — and apt turn of phrase, as it turns out, because BOY ARE YOU EVER GONNA, you agree to a background check that allows them to approach anyone who ever met you and ask them literally anything (read it — it says that!) and a credit check, and sometimes, a physical exam and bloodwork. For the length of your ‘relationship’ with them.

This is before they ever speak to you, which, they probably won't. They actually want YOUR BLOOD.

This is merely the cost of consideration.

They will likely never reply (beyond an auto reply), but that corporation now has permission to dig into your finances, scope out your house, talk to people you went to high school with, look into your background, and take your blood.

Creeps.

The pandemic changed some things, but mainly, it changed how risky it is to go through all of this for very little money. Because wages are very, very low, in fact, economists use the expression ‘artificially depressed’ for almost 3 decades. Many people, particularly women, who as we know get paid less, were working for benefits.

I identify as a woman, and I’ve always felt that my bosses felt like my “real boss” was my husband (they say things like “talk this over with your husband”) and my “first job” is taking care of him and his house.

If I’m being very honest, I believe my husband and many of my family members on both sides subconsciously believe this as well (although they would never say it, and aren’t aware of this, it’s just sort of a baked-in, systemic expectation regarding ‘wives’): me losing a job is just not the devestating tragedy that him losing a job is.

Because, you know. Men losing jobs is so HORRIBLE, but women…eh. It’s not so central to everyone else’s conception of my identity. How I feel about it…well, I’ll get over it while I’m cleaning toilets at home with all my newfound spare time. I can finally write or pick up a new hobby. Get some exercise, become more attractive.

Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise.

I saw yet another article yesterday in Slate.com (and also on Inc.) about how flabbergasted HR and hiring managers are that interviewees are ‘ghosting’ interviews and not showing up on first days.

It reminds me of parents who are depressed when their 40 year old children are successful without them. “I liked it so much better when little Susie couldn’t poo without me! She was so much more controllable then. We used to be so close!” They mourn, with the self awareness of a Trump.

These are the same self-important hiring managers who have been blowing off desperate applicants who really need income, have risked jobs they already had to interview, have waited patiently for phone interviews that never rang, Zooms that never Zoomed, or have interviewed 3 times for the same position and then never even gotten a rejection letter for over a DECADE — since before the first recession, really…and I’m certain fellow applicants will join me with an incredulous “Isn’t that how YOU conduct business, and have for years?” or an even more hearty, and much ruder, “Boo hoo, go screw yourself.”

I am not moved by their tears, which are only for themselves, their self-pity at having to do work they feel is beneath them, and the impotent rage that they have no one to scare into submission. Their underlings, the ones left, have agency now, and they hate it.

Because, here’s the thing: as with all malignant narcissists, or inherently self-serving systems, they don’t change, but resist furiously when the supply is either used up or gone. Once the bloodbag figures out all they’ll ever be is supply, they have a choice, and they make it.

(If you’re a fan of Mad Max Fury Road, which I hope you are, you’ll recall that the bloodbag is the healthy one being used for personal gain).

Like Nux (not a bloodbag, but someone else being exploited), from Mad Max, Fury Road, we focus on the person we love, and make a sacrifice, and scream, “Witness Me!” before plunging into something awful — or, we leave, and refuse to play the no-win, shitty game, until the rules are changed.

Some of us work for change. Some of us just work. Someone has to do it.

Even someone who starts out with the mentality of a child, like Nux, wants a meaningful life. We want meaningful work. Working in these bullshit jobs, compressing ourselves all day, for these narcissists and bad systems, feels awful.

Can the rules change? Will we ever have fair wages and healthcare that’s not tied to a really shitty job, where corporate overlords demand our blood and credit history and lives be perfect and that we not be human beings with actual families, and all that entails before they “risk” taking the best hours of the best days of the best years of our lives from us, after we’ve invested at least $400,000 into a 4-year degree that now somehow isn’t enough to get a ‘good’ job?

Why is it like this? Why have my bosses always ‘managed’ by disinterest and neglect followed by periods of micromanagement? Why do all of them like to come out of their offices and look over the workers at their desks as if they’re lords of the manor, counting the serfs, slaves, cattle or something?

Do they know we can see them and that’s gross, anxiety producing behavior, particularly since many of us are forced to sit with our backs to them in an awful open-floor plan cubicle farm? Why the open cubicle farm? For torturing? Do male bosses know it’s transparent that they seat the hottest women nearest to their office for cheap thrills and treat them differently? Do female bosses know their misogyny is just as transparent and it’s clear they prefer men and Rottweiler-type women who keep the ‘complicated’ but often correct people at bay?

(“It’s just simpler” the older ones have said out loud, less recently, about working with men. Of course it is! They get paid more, treated as if they’re smart and important, and as if he’s a hero if they go to a kids ball game or school thing, not as if they’re shirking work and doing mom bullshit! Gimme a break).

You don’t need a big government survey to help out these corporate asshats, I’ll tell you for free. Right now.

Hire enough people to do the work, even if people take earned time, or sick time, which is also earned and part of their pay, and pay them actual living wages. Separate healthcare from our jobs, so we can leave it if it’s a bad fit, to something that’s a better fit. Happier for everyone. Address the leadership gap — having an elderly Boomer manage 20-somethings without this is going go be awful, you know this, right? Also, an extremely productive widget-maker does not a manager make. Have a no-jerks policy.

Quite honestly, there are some people I’ve worked with that should have been paid to stay the hell home. They were useless and shouldn’t have been working anywhere, they should have been given medicine and care from mental health professionals. Why were they always in charge?

In my Science Gen Ed, Foresty, where I giggled like a moron as I whispered “Penis Strokus” instead of “Pinus Stobus” for the latin nomenclature for Pine Tree, I was the dick who raised their hand and argued about the human cost of holding up logging operations for one owl. Couldn’t the owl fly to a different tree? It had wings, and people really needed those jobs. Contractors were contractually obligated to stay with the job — they couldn’t just move on. They didn’t get paid though, and bills for heavy equipment are astronomical, and STILL DUE.

As seemingly the only poor person in a sea of upper-middle class idiots, I understood that there was a family, sitting at home wondering if they’d be able to buy groceries, make equipment payments (in order to keep working), car payments (to keep working), and that the house was financed to pay for the equipment. The family was at risk of homelessness.

Everything we’d owned was tied to my father being able to work — he was a trucker. We never went to the doctor, the dentist, and birthdays and Christmas were pretty much gift-free. Once, I got a lamp, which was good, because I had no light in the bedroom I shared with my sister.

The reaction of the instructor and the class was hostile and rude. It was like I suggested setting the Amazon itself on fire for the hell of it. I’d leave class, face burning, and hustle off to my full-time job, and those students would head back to the gym, or bed, or wherever. Probably a sorority pillow mean-girls trauma-bonding sesh, or a frat to plan a gang-rape of their own pledges. Who knows what drama those spoiled morons invented in order to feel something?

Obviously, now, I understand about biodiversity, and the importance of the matrix and variety of species, how it’s all connected, with pivotal predator and prey relationships, and the beauty of it all. The senselessness and the painfulness of the tragedy and the loss of so many creatures on its face horrifies me now.

But no one said that — and firstly — no one gave a shit about me, my perspective, and honestly, my family shouldn’t have had to survive the way we did. I had two severe chronic medical conditions, deep infiltrating endometriosis and epilipsy, that resulted in my never having children and severe, life threatening injuries, because I never was diagnosed until I had health insurance in my 40’s.

I grew up surrounded by blue blooded Democrats who claim to be so loving and compassionate. It was clear we had less, much less then everyone around us. But, we weren’t helped. We were looked down on and mocked.

The moms in their Volvos would smile that tight, superior smile when we were around; the kids, with designer clothes, good haircuts (ours were done in the kitchen by my mother) literally threw garbage at me on the school bus, and said everywhere else, “Where you get that, from a bag at the Salvation Army?” in full hearing of adults who allowed it (Yes, we often got a trash bag of hand-me-downs from church); after Christmas break, everyone had thousands of dollars of new stuff, fabulous stuff, while we couldn’t afford a Christmas Tree; that was always really funny “So, did you guys even have a tree this year?! Ha ha ha!” and it never really ended.

It was clear that the adults were in on the joke, as the parents of the few houses we went to would get a chuckle as they confirmed details that the so-called friend had shared. Never, ever, did they offer some “gently used” non-poor people clothes or pretend they bought the wrong size for their kid, or include a Christmas gift for me. They even seemed happy when I’d get a lower grade than their child on a test. It was clear I had next to nothing, but they still wanted me to have a little less.

I was truly humiliated by my parents religious bullshit. My parents felt a mother should stay home and care for children, no matter how destitute the family. I had no choice in the matter. My parents physically abused me and would beat me unconscious if I did not comply with their church rigamarole, and you can only imagine what happened when I asked my mother why she didn’t go to work. Did anyone think to help with that either? Nope. Not even when I asked.

Every MAGA person has some version of the tight, silent, judgey progressive “let’s move away from the icky people of Walmart” smile. Whether it’s a positive — an unguarded surprise that they’re knowledgeable or proficient at something complex, or have sophisticated taste in a high-end interest, such as wine or sailing, or ‘you clean up nice’ when they’re not doing their not-fancy job, or a negative, such as a polite, distanced and unexplained disdain, we don’t fool anyone. “He’s a plumber, but you’d never know it!” Nice, guys. That’s not dickish at all.

I’m not sure if the horse can go back into the barn. My mother and brother are still MAGAs, and they are pissed. They rant about woke people and snowflakes. My brother is even moving to Texas on purpose.(That emphasis would really upset him, whereas when I read about Texas, it seems like it’s becoming a hellscape, like the Thunderdome). They don’t like me much. Honestly, I don’t enjoy them much.

I remember really wanting those stuck-up superior people to fall into puddles, or get splashed by cars while they tramped back to their privileged lives, or maybe even be poor for a bit.

It’s easy to think that we are nice, but how often do we focus on other people’s trappings of poverty and not see how fucking bad their life is? Why aren’t we moved to do one nice thing for someone yucky?

I wanted them to suffer a couple of months in my life, which was anxiety filled, work filled, and hard. I didn’t have many options, and neither did my family members. I imagined them, like me, doubting they could find a way out, because for all their talk of compassion, they truly weren’t very compassionate people at all. They were actually clueless and casually cruel. Consistently.

Edited: Thursday, November 4, 2021: To clarify something that seems to be confusing some readers, I have not been so embroiled with hate and rage that I devoted my life to literal Bible interpretation and owl-hatred, although I have loved the nuance and sophistication (and thoughtfulness) of so many commentators. Instead, I tried to help, and I:

• voted for healthcare reform each time it was on the ballot since registering to vote at age 18,
• am not a Republican (if that matters) or a Trump supporter,
• have been tested and certified by CMS to assist people as an agent of CMS and my state by being the Director of my county’s ADRC to advocate for and to find the lowest out-of-pocket cost public health plans for them that are publicly offered on the Marketplace (ACA plans), Medicaid Plans, apply for Medicare, the LIS subsidy, as well as Open Enrollment Part D and Medigap Plans.

It — and by this, I mean my relationship with Dr. Ruth Westheimer — started out a long, long time ago.

Imagine a small child in an old Connecticut farmhouse, the kind that looked like two squares, the smaller one stacked atop the larger one, kept upright by a chimney down it’s center, smoking weakly, that pins the whole structure to the top of hill on which it sits. A historical building marker is on the house, indicating that it was built in 1840.

This child reads to escape this house. She reads books, magazines, all the outdated encyclopedias, the shampoo bottles in the shower, the cereal boxes, all the cookbooks, the Bible, all the instruction manuals in house, all the books in the Children’s section of the library, all the words in the hymnal and the dictionary. When she is punished, which is often, she is forbidden from reading.

Ask Polly, Dear Abby, Dear Prudence, Carolyn Hax, Ann Landers, Miss Manners, Amy Dickinson, How to Do It, Ester Perel, and frankly, any publication that offers some advice (looking at you, random horoscopes and housekeeping tips in a waiting room) — all of you have been dear and familiar to me at some point; but the gateway drug was from Ladies Home Journal magazine, and it was called “Can This Marriage Be Saved?” and incredibly, each and every marriage addressed could indeed be saved.

Now, this was the 80’s, so you know how marriages were saved, right? The wife pretends everything is ok, and the husband does what he likes. After the wife apologizes for being so difficult and adjusts her attitude, homeostasis is restored, and the husband and ‘experts’ chuckle that for a moment, she had the audacity to think she was people. (Technically, this is how it started off, but look into the archives).

Now…this, folks, this is what Christian Counseling is. (This and praying the gay away). Good Christian menfolk are expecting to get some support for their money when they take their children and wife to a therapist. They want to go once, they want the errant, lower-ranking miscreant to understand they are alone with their nonsense, and with some groveling, said miscreant can get back into their rightful place on the bottom. Not empathy, compassion, and them to answer anything about his behavior, which should not be questioned. What’s a guy gotta do to get some peace?

The point of fascination for me was that the script was always the same. The situation was always miserable. The husband was always a condescending jerk who thought he sounded reasonable. And yet, at the end, it was always…the wife’s fault. It was as if the wife was like the least favorite child, which I could claim to be something of an expert in. And yet, she’d “agreed” to go into this kangaroo-court style counseling session.

If you bothered to look at the house (you wouldn’t), you’d know it was the kind of house that you kept your coat on while inside, even before you’d been greeted by, or more accurately, been met with great suspicion by my unsmiling mother at the door.

She’d have been wiping her hands on a clean dishtowel, and squinting up at you, grey-blue eyes and curly hair that she insisted was blonde but always looked light brown to me.

If you’d been allowed entry, and that’s a big if, you’d only have been allowed to stand on the tiled section of the kitchen. It would have been very cold, and very clean. Bare. My mother, who has a way of making even a basic sentence sound like a threat or an insult, would have asked you why you were there, and you would have wondered if she meant in her house or on the earth.

It would have been quiet, because we were listening. Hard. At this juncture, we will separate the sheep from the goats, or rather, the nurtured from the rest of us.

There are a lot of people who don’t recognise a funny kind of quiet. It’s easy, for me, anyhow, to discount them as ignorant fools, but I must remind myself there’s another word: fortunate. Then there’s my team. The un-nurtured, the survivors, the scapegoats, and the traumatized, the ones who can read silences with the hair on the back of their necks and the nerves in their molars, who learned this before they learned anything else: the world is unsafe, and their mother wasn’t a source of safety, but rather, distress. A loose cannon, a distressing, confusing terrorist that they nevertheless had to rely on for their most basic of needs. The ones who did risk assessments at 3 years old: She’ll definitely hurt me, but I’ll get food, or away, or to grandma temporarily. What is my ROI?

This quiet of intense listening was theatre of war quiet, waiting for the storm quiet; shallow breathe and glare at compatriot siblings lest they breathe too loud to hear the nuances in inflection, tone of voice, and finally the closing door…as if waiting for the locomotive rush of the twister or perhaps, nothing of note — perhaps rage and violence would spare us today; hope and pray that it was a charming deliveryman, lost and looking for directions, rather than a hated grandmother, popping in with a gift for undeserving children, or worse, an idea or unwanted invitation to set my mother off.

It was quiet for another reason. Because it was always quiet. There was no TV, and very little radio. The Christian radio station that was allowed in our home did not come in very well — poor reception, and aside from a few classical records and a few folk records, that was all. All the child-rearing tips from Dr. James Dobson were heard by all of us, which was a decided disadvantage for the parents.

When you understand the basic structure:

1. Always make sure the mother has the children by the short and curlies by shame, lack of psychological safety, lots of restrictions (no outside thinkin’!)and beatings
2. Always make sure the father has the mother by the short and curlies (same deal, not supposed to be beatings, but if there are, that’s why she’s supposed to forgive)
3. Always make sure that the father is afraid that the church men are judging him as weak/inadequate if the #1 &2 aren’t tightly enforced (these guys always cheat, I mean, always, not technically supposed to, but in that subculture, it’s the wife’s fault for not being sexually accommodating and hot enough, plus it’s easier to keep your wife docile if she’s a bit/rabidly insecure)

When you understand the deal, you know it’s a stupid system and then you are sort of…trapped but free. Doing time until you can escape. Unless you drink the Kool-Aid, of course.

Enter advice columns and call-in shows. Do you remember her? Dr. Ruth? When someone would call in, she’d pick up the phone and say “This is Dr Ruth Westheimer. Sexually Speaking, You’re on the Air!”

How did the child with no radio know this? AH HA! The child was a little sneak! She had a cheap little orange AM/FM radio that took batteries that she’d been allowed to keep because it mostly didn’t work. (And an alarm clock radio that she used for light to read books at night).

Should a child have been listening to Dr. Ruth discussing very adult problems late in the the evening on Sunday nights after she came home from attending church (literally the entire day, into the evening)? Maybe the topic was adult, but the topic in some way — is a red herring (I almost said snapper)! The callers were very vulnerable; they didn’t know who else to ask about what were mostly interpersonal sexual problems.

Of course, Dr. Ruth would inevitably ask if they had the ‘problem’ when they masturbated, — “Do you masturbate?” Was one of the first questions, and all the men did, the few women didn’t always if you’re wondering (I recall most of the callers being men). Then she’d drill down and really try to help the beleaguered caller. If they got too flustered, she’d even take the call offline.

I was so relieved to learn that there were people in the world that helped with really embarrassing problems. Because I was so ashamed. All the time.

I was so ashamed that I couldn’t fix my own terrible life, help my siblings, even run away. I had nothing, nowhere to go. I couldn’t even talk about it without risking the little safety my siblings and I enjoyed. I know this for a fact, because I’d tried. Relatives, church people, and school had all just ‘mentioned my anxiety to my mother’, who agreed I was ‘Strong Willed’ and which resulted in an escalation in abuses and restrictions that clearly couldn’t be believed.

When I discovered that there were different kinds of advice columnists, ones that actually seemed kind, ones that were educated, ones that did research or consulted subject matter experts, ones that had worldviews that more closely matched mine or that dug deep to really answer, I forsook all others. Just kidding.

When the good columnists all went behind paywalls, I had to get more selective. I adore Heather Havrilesky of Ask Polly, (how I love the long-windedness and obscenities, as well as the personal stories and amazing writing) and I was always very interested to see what Daniel Lavery (formerly Slate’s Dear Prudence) had to say; Carolyn Hax is someone I wished I worked with; the How to Do It folks, also from Slate, are way to cool for me, but I’d like to have an office next to theirs and eavesdrop, maybe be their dorky friend? I dunno. They might not like that I still giggle about pegging and docking, which are not things I do with my husband as much as imagine suggesting to my (extremely reserved) husband, dressed in lingerie and toys in hand, to see what his reaction would be and then die laughing. See? Uncool.

When I read advice columns, first, I read the question, and I consider it. I think about the writer — what motivated them to write? Is it a real person, or did the columnist write it? Did a friend write it on behalf of another person? What about the other people mentioned in the note? How long ago was it written? How distressed was the person? How honest are they? How self-aware? Honesty only goes so far, in my experience. Ever hear an idiot recount an event that you witnessed or were involved in? It’s almost unbearable. Is there an agenda, besides seeking advice? What could that agenda be?

Then, I read the response. Sometimes, the reply picks up on a detail I missed. I stop everything and re-read the entire letter. Clearly, I was biased, or having an off day. Sometimes, I take it as an indicator that I am so prejudiced against the writer that I cannot be a good arbiter of the conflict described. Sometimes, I just missed an article or pronoun and continue on my merry way. There are days I feel as if I’m reading “Am I the Asshole” on Reddit and think, Everyone’s the Asshole Here! and just stop.

It’s so comforting that other people have problems. It’s a relief that other adults don’t know how to sort through the ugly, exhausting bullshit of life sometimes. Although I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, I’m glad I’m not the only non-perfect person whose mother (or whoever) didn’t love them right and who goes through life invisibly wounded but working so fucking hard and thinking, if only there was someone I could just ask about this stupid shit. Cast your burdens on the internet…

Do advice columns actually help people? Probably, yes, but certainly not always. I’ve seen suicidal teens, abuse victims, write in, and funny, easy problems; I’ve seen practical solutions outlined, and individuals contact the columnist with a solution or the answer; I’ve seen the “problem person” write in and reach out to the letter writer to clarify or apologize; on the other hand, I’ve also read the comments section, which doesn’t always showcase the best of human compassion or even basic reading comprehension.

I think worry rags help by the mere fact that they exist. If you have no one else to ask about your annoying in-laws or toxic boss, how could it hurt? Sometimes you have to tell someone who won’t sigh and roll their eyes.

An advice column is proof that sometimes, when you scream into the abyss, you get a thoughtful answer.

Imagine a small child in Connecticut, in a cold house with an even colder mother. Now imagine the day she discovers there are people — real people, experts even, not advice columnists with fake names — who help people with really humiliating problems, even if they might be her fault.