We had evening plans and our sitter had a family emergency and needed to cancel. Instead of telling my husband to go without me (my first instinct), I texted my sister-in-law for help. She and her 7yo came over and had movie night at our house while we went out.
I picked up my daughter from preschool on Friday and let her hang out on the playground for an hour while some of her friends' parents came to pick their own kids up. Those that also lingered on the playground I awkwardly sidled up to and mentioned that my daughter has been wanting to have "my friends come my house" and exchanged numbers. We're now in the process of figuring out a good day for playdates with three separate classmates, having already lined up one with a fourth for this coming weekend.
"How do you coordinate all of that?" people ask. Google Calendar, a sprawling spreadsheet, apps script automations, and Remember the Milk for task management, in short. One tab of our giant spreadsheet gives me several handy lists of available meals I can copy-paste into WhatsApp, for instance. A Google form allows me to automatically process the decision to schedule a meal and set all the appropriate reminders for myself in Remember the Milk. And it's fairly straightforward to vibe-code any additional improvements I need using AI.
I know a longing for mutual dependence and deeper relationships can often be backwards-looking, nostalgically recalling or imagining a time when life was more communal. But it doesn't have to be! I personally want my kids to have a more connected life than I had growing up, and sometimes that involves using tools that my parents never could have.
Upon learning about your bingo challenge, my wife thought our church should adapt the concept and play a round among ourselves in September. We will be looking (and checking here) for additional ideas, because we want to ensure that our many non-householders--university students and (especially) children--can participate fully. Our first thought was to sub in a square for sitting down in the cafeteria next to someone unfamiliar.
I was recently diagnosed with breast cancer, which has put me in receiver mode... But at the same time i had some giving pre arranged, which i wanted to see through. So heres the last couple of weeks
-went to the bruderhof for a weekend, shared diagnosis, enjoyed their lake and sauna, asked for help next season with the childcare center im opening, git an offer of a couple to come for 6 weeks
- offered a week of childcare to my neice, as my sister in law is single parenting after a divorce and we had arranged this in May
- hosted Norwegian visitors for a week, complete with an amusement park trip, thanks to a discount offered with my son's annual pass
-took Norwegian visitors to a farm potluck. Brought a dessert my daughter made but didn't offer to help with the elaborate set up or clean up
-sent my 9 year old for a week to a different sister in law, after it all got to be too much
- asked a friend to come stay for 2 weeks because we dont have enough help at the Catholic worker i direct and i need help getting my kids back to school
- asked my inlaws to go school supplies and uniforms shopping
- accepted a number of dinner invites and was treated to meals from well wishers
- had an old friend, in town for a weekend, over for breakfast and a walk
- attended a clothing swap; took clothes but didn't have the energy to sort through mine to give any
- drove out to Bloomington (3 house)to attend a going away event for friends' moving to new york
- received a care package from my sister
Ive decided to be very public with my diagnosis as i think thats the only way to be honest about my limitations and also open to receiving things i might need but don't even know to ask for, and things i explicitly do need to ask for. Im also trying to stay in the mix of reciprocity as much as possible, knowing that ill be facing a surgery and radiation later this year, and i hold a lot, so ill need a lot. I will say, im not worried at all these needs will be met. The Bingo exercise is fun, but its an exercise meant to develop a muscle that we might all need but hope not to ever use, to prepare us for the cancer diagnosis or its equivalent, and when i got mine i thought "my circle of care can hold this."
I think you’ll appreciate an experience I had today. I was signed up to bring a meal to an acquaintance who recently had a baby. But today, I ended up in the ER for some concerning symptoms (everything is fine!) and I accepted a friend’s offer for help by asking her to bring a meal to this acquaintance in my place. She graciously agreed even though she had never met this woman! A bit of a circle of dependence here!
I certainly had a "fail at something" moment a last week. I am gluten free and still learning the basics. I tried making pancakes with a gluten free pancake mix; I thought, "this should be easy." I was wrong. Turns out, I had only 1/3 of the extra ingredients it called for, which were milk, an egg, and oil. I did not have the latter two and used 2 common substitutions Google told me I could use (applesauce and butter). ...it failed miserably. The pancakes ended up not cooking all the way through and being very gooey. I learned that especially with gluten free things, which don't have the gluten to help bind everything together, not having certain other ingredients, like an egg, means that now there's nothing to help bind everything together... hence the fail. Oh well! Maybe I should've tried to make humble pie instead! Haha! Thankfully I had decided not to use all of the mix, so I went and bought some oil and eggs a few days ago and I'll try again soon!
- Do a buy-nothing drop off face to face: I bought a linen shirt off Marketplace, and when I went to pick it up, got to chatting with the lady selling it. She told me about her love for the fiber and I told her about a group looking to bring back commercial-scale flax for linen in our area. As I was about to leave, she ran back out and offered me another similar shirt, for free, that she was also getting rid of. Much more personal and fun—and mutually beneficial!—than porch pickup!
- Watch someone’s kids: A couple of friends and I had our kids in swim lessons this past week. Turns out spending every morning together at the pool for a week affords lots of little chances to take turns with the baby and so forth. Toward the end of the week, one of the other moms, whom I hadn’t met before the pool, asked to exchange numbers. We’ve ended up meeting up for one playdate already! And the amount of low-key trust-building time was a factor, I think, in my going outside my comfort zone to ask another friend to watch my kids in a more planned/intensive way another day, which didn’t end up working out, but was good practice for me.
- Bring someone food: Our neighbors were traveling and asked us to watch over their garden, and take whatever veggies we would use. The day they got back, I was using their cucumbers and tomatoes in our dinner, and they got back mid-afternoon. It occurred to me to offer to bring them some food as they unpacked, then as I actually made the offer, it morphed into “Why don’t you just come over to eat?” Yes we almost ran out of food because I didn’t plan very well…but it was fun and impromptu!
I’m a bit behind on actually playing the bingo – but several of the bingo ideas are in my mind and shaping my goals. I agree with Ben, another commenter, who said something that might be missing is sitting down/reaching out/talking to someone unfamiliar. I’ve been trying to do that at church each week. If I see someone new, I try to make a point of talking to them before they leave. Ben said sitting down in the cafeteria next to someone unfamiliar. I think that’s great! And I think it’s also good to remember that someone sitting alone doesn’t necessarily mean they’re lonely. But I still think it’s important for us to cultivate the habit of invitation. Someone might not want to talk or get together at that moment , etc. etc. That’s OK. What’s important is that we do the inviting.
My family had a woman from church for dinner (to our messy house, spending time with someone much older). We talked a bit about end-of-life plans.
I realized lately that when I was a kid, I could ask my mom why a particular family wasn't at church on a given Sunday, and she would nearly always know. If we're away or sick, the chance that anyone at my church knows why my family isn't there is low. Trying to raise the chances of both knowing and being known about.
Today was a bridal shower my mom and had planned and organized and it went so well, I'm so glad.
Sometimes giving or accepting one kind of help means putting down another. I babysat between one and three children every day this week and so I missed my weekly phone call with a friend because my hands were too full. Another friend told me some intense prayer requests this week and I wanted to immediately make a meal for his family, but with babysitting and having two two-year-olds in my house I couldn't pull off making an extra meal this week.
I did trade phone numbers with three new people this week! At the library on different days and at a garage sale. And I invited them all to my messy house for dinner next Friday. I hope they come!
any plans to do an Audible version of the book? If you don't want to spend time to read it, seems like some authors are doing AI-read versions. The ones I've listened to have been actually pretty good
Dependence is BAD. ALWAYS. All you’re doing here is making more work for women ànd giving us no power. You have enormous amounts of privilege and you risk NOTHING by ‘depending’ on someone because, honestly, you get whatever you want regardless. The rest of us aren’t that lucky. ‘Mutual dependence’ for me means giving up any kind of agency ànd having to beg for any scraps of consideration frôm my family. I intend to remain as free ànd independent as possible. I’m not stupid.
I’m sorry that you’re in a position in which mutual dependence means giving up agency and begging for scraps of consideration. I think Leah’s substack and community is trying to cultivate something like the opposite of that: where dependence- sometimes temporary, sometimes indefinite- is an invitation for us all to acknowledge without shame or apology our bodily limits, and be intentional about seeing and serving others and being seen and receiving from others in turn. At times asking for help might be necessary, but ideally a thoughtful community with a robust philosophy of the dignity of dependence would provide and receive as much as possible with love- no one would be begging for scraps of consideration. I think the idea of ultimate freedom and independence often seem promising- and can be good in some measure- but in the end they’re unattainable, if not detrimental, for most people, whether privileged or not. Certainly privilege shields us from some things, but we all eventually bump up against our own limitations and must depend on others to once degree or another.
Oh dear, I'm so sorry you have had life experiences to make you feel that way about dependence.
I've had times in life when I was more "independent" and I was miserable, I didn't have friends or community. And when things were hard there was no one to turn to. Now I have friends and community and I've set up my life to need people to help me (like we have one car, so sometimes I need rides) and I give help to other people. It makes life much more vibrant and hopeful, to need each other and live overlapping lives.
Everyone gets sick sometimes, everyone gets old, everyone needed to be cared for as a baby, everyone who has a baby could use help. Dependence is part of the human experience. I'm looking forward to reading Leah's book, which I think is especially needed in this era, where many people think they'd rather commit suicide by MAiD than be dependent on others. Eek!
We had evening plans and our sitter had a family emergency and needed to cancel. Instead of telling my husband to go without me (my first instinct), I texted my sister-in-law for help. She and her 7yo came over and had movie night at our house while we went out.
I picked up my daughter from preschool on Friday and let her hang out on the playground for an hour while some of her friends' parents came to pick their own kids up. Those that also lingered on the playground I awkwardly sidled up to and mentioned that my daughter has been wanting to have "my friends come my house" and exchanged numbers. We're now in the process of figuring out a good day for playdates with three separate classmates, having already lined up one with a fourth for this coming weekend.
"How do you coordinate all of that?" people ask. Google Calendar, a sprawling spreadsheet, apps script automations, and Remember the Milk for task management, in short. One tab of our giant spreadsheet gives me several handy lists of available meals I can copy-paste into WhatsApp, for instance. A Google form allows me to automatically process the decision to schedule a meal and set all the appropriate reminders for myself in Remember the Milk. And it's fairly straightforward to vibe-code any additional improvements I need using AI.
I know a longing for mutual dependence and deeper relationships can often be backwards-looking, nostalgically recalling or imagining a time when life was more communal. But it doesn't have to be! I personally want my kids to have a more connected life than I had growing up, and sometimes that involves using tools that my parents never could have.
Upon learning about your bingo challenge, my wife thought our church should adapt the concept and play a round among ourselves in September. We will be looking (and checking here) for additional ideas, because we want to ensure that our many non-householders--university students and (especially) children--can participate fully. Our first thought was to sub in a square for sitting down in the cafeteria next to someone unfamiliar.
I was recently diagnosed with breast cancer, which has put me in receiver mode... But at the same time i had some giving pre arranged, which i wanted to see through. So heres the last couple of weeks
-went to the bruderhof for a weekend, shared diagnosis, enjoyed their lake and sauna, asked for help next season with the childcare center im opening, git an offer of a couple to come for 6 weeks
- offered a week of childcare to my neice, as my sister in law is single parenting after a divorce and we had arranged this in May
- hosted Norwegian visitors for a week, complete with an amusement park trip, thanks to a discount offered with my son's annual pass
-took Norwegian visitors to a farm potluck. Brought a dessert my daughter made but didn't offer to help with the elaborate set up or clean up
-sent my 9 year old for a week to a different sister in law, after it all got to be too much
- asked a friend to come stay for 2 weeks because we dont have enough help at the Catholic worker i direct and i need help getting my kids back to school
- asked my inlaws to go school supplies and uniforms shopping
- accepted a number of dinner invites and was treated to meals from well wishers
- had an old friend, in town for a weekend, over for breakfast and a walk
- attended a clothing swap; took clothes but didn't have the energy to sort through mine to give any
- drove out to Bloomington (3 house)to attend a going away event for friends' moving to new york
- received a care package from my sister
Ive decided to be very public with my diagnosis as i think thats the only way to be honest about my limitations and also open to receiving things i might need but don't even know to ask for, and things i explicitly do need to ask for. Im also trying to stay in the mix of reciprocity as much as possible, knowing that ill be facing a surgery and radiation later this year, and i hold a lot, so ill need a lot. I will say, im not worried at all these needs will be met. The Bingo exercise is fun, but its an exercise meant to develop a muscle that we might all need but hope not to ever use, to prepare us for the cancer diagnosis or its equivalent, and when i got mine i thought "my circle of care can hold this."
-
I think you’ll appreciate an experience I had today. I was signed up to bring a meal to an acquaintance who recently had a baby. But today, I ended up in the ER for some concerning symptoms (everything is fine!) and I accepted a friend’s offer for help by asking her to bring a meal to this acquaintance in my place. She graciously agreed even though she had never met this woman! A bit of a circle of dependence here!
I certainly had a "fail at something" moment a last week. I am gluten free and still learning the basics. I tried making pancakes with a gluten free pancake mix; I thought, "this should be easy." I was wrong. Turns out, I had only 1/3 of the extra ingredients it called for, which were milk, an egg, and oil. I did not have the latter two and used 2 common substitutions Google told me I could use (applesauce and butter). ...it failed miserably. The pancakes ended up not cooking all the way through and being very gooey. I learned that especially with gluten free things, which don't have the gluten to help bind everything together, not having certain other ingredients, like an egg, means that now there's nothing to help bind everything together... hence the fail. Oh well! Maybe I should've tried to make humble pie instead! Haha! Thankfully I had decided not to use all of the mix, so I went and bought some oil and eggs a few days ago and I'll try again soon!
- Do a buy-nothing drop off face to face: I bought a linen shirt off Marketplace, and when I went to pick it up, got to chatting with the lady selling it. She told me about her love for the fiber and I told her about a group looking to bring back commercial-scale flax for linen in our area. As I was about to leave, she ran back out and offered me another similar shirt, for free, that she was also getting rid of. Much more personal and fun—and mutually beneficial!—than porch pickup!
- Watch someone’s kids: A couple of friends and I had our kids in swim lessons this past week. Turns out spending every morning together at the pool for a week affords lots of little chances to take turns with the baby and so forth. Toward the end of the week, one of the other moms, whom I hadn’t met before the pool, asked to exchange numbers. We’ve ended up meeting up for one playdate already! And the amount of low-key trust-building time was a factor, I think, in my going outside my comfort zone to ask another friend to watch my kids in a more planned/intensive way another day, which didn’t end up working out, but was good practice for me.
- Bring someone food: Our neighbors were traveling and asked us to watch over their garden, and take whatever veggies we would use. The day they got back, I was using their cucumbers and tomatoes in our dinner, and they got back mid-afternoon. It occurred to me to offer to bring them some food as they unpacked, then as I actually made the offer, it morphed into “Why don’t you just come over to eat?” Yes we almost ran out of food because I didn’t plan very well…but it was fun and impromptu!
I’m a bit behind on actually playing the bingo – but several of the bingo ideas are in my mind and shaping my goals. I agree with Ben, another commenter, who said something that might be missing is sitting down/reaching out/talking to someone unfamiliar. I’ve been trying to do that at church each week. If I see someone new, I try to make a point of talking to them before they leave. Ben said sitting down in the cafeteria next to someone unfamiliar. I think that’s great! And I think it’s also good to remember that someone sitting alone doesn’t necessarily mean they’re lonely. But I still think it’s important for us to cultivate the habit of invitation. Someone might not want to talk or get together at that moment , etc. etc. That’s OK. What’s important is that we do the inviting.
My family had a woman from church for dinner (to our messy house, spending time with someone much older). We talked a bit about end-of-life plans.
I realized lately that when I was a kid, I could ask my mom why a particular family wasn't at church on a given Sunday, and she would nearly always know. If we're away or sick, the chance that anyone at my church knows why my family isn't there is low. Trying to raise the chances of both knowing and being known about.
Today was a bridal shower my mom and had planned and organized and it went so well, I'm so glad.
Sometimes giving or accepting one kind of help means putting down another. I babysat between one and three children every day this week and so I missed my weekly phone call with a friend because my hands were too full. Another friend told me some intense prayer requests this week and I wanted to immediately make a meal for his family, but with babysitting and having two two-year-olds in my house I couldn't pull off making an extra meal this week.
I did trade phone numbers with three new people this week! At the library on different days and at a garage sale. And I invited them all to my messy house for dinner next Friday. I hope they come!
any plans to do an Audible version of the book? If you don't want to spend time to read it, seems like some authors are doing AI-read versions. The ones I've listened to have been actually pretty good
I would never do an AI version! I’d be happy to do it, but it’s the publisher’s call. Send them a note if you’re hoping they do it.
How?
Try here? https://undpress.nd.edu/media/
Emailed them! Thanks
Dependence is BAD. ALWAYS. All you’re doing here is making more work for women ànd giving us no power. You have enormous amounts of privilege and you risk NOTHING by ‘depending’ on someone because, honestly, you get whatever you want regardless. The rest of us aren’t that lucky. ‘Mutual dependence’ for me means giving up any kind of agency ànd having to beg for any scraps of consideration frôm my family. I intend to remain as free ànd independent as possible. I’m not stupid.
I’m sorry that you’re in a position in which mutual dependence means giving up agency and begging for scraps of consideration. I think Leah’s substack and community is trying to cultivate something like the opposite of that: where dependence- sometimes temporary, sometimes indefinite- is an invitation for us all to acknowledge without shame or apology our bodily limits, and be intentional about seeing and serving others and being seen and receiving from others in turn. At times asking for help might be necessary, but ideally a thoughtful community with a robust philosophy of the dignity of dependence would provide and receive as much as possible with love- no one would be begging for scraps of consideration. I think the idea of ultimate freedom and independence often seem promising- and can be good in some measure- but in the end they’re unattainable, if not detrimental, for most people, whether privileged or not. Certainly privilege shields us from some things, but we all eventually bump up against our own limitations and must depend on others to once degree or another.
Oh dear, I'm so sorry you have had life experiences to make you feel that way about dependence.
I've had times in life when I was more "independent" and I was miserable, I didn't have friends or community. And when things were hard there was no one to turn to. Now I have friends and community and I've set up my life to need people to help me (like we have one car, so sometimes I need rides) and I give help to other people. It makes life much more vibrant and hopeful, to need each other and live overlapping lives.
Everyone gets sick sometimes, everyone gets old, everyone needed to be cared for as a baby, everyone who has a baby could use help. Dependence is part of the human experience. I'm looking forward to reading Leah's book, which I think is especially needed in this era, where many people think they'd rather commit suicide by MAiD than be dependent on others. Eek!
You’re lucky.