Jozef and I are making a concerted effort to be “movie night on the couch” people.

The operative phrase there: “on the couch.” When our budget allows, we like to go see movies in theaters—some highlights from the past year include I Saw the TV Glow, Gladiator II, A Real Pain, and Sonic the Hedgehog 3. At home, though, we tend to add movies to our watchlist, then skip over them when we’re looking for something to watch in favor of television series. Usually, that includes some familiar favorites: Abbott Elementary, Bob’s Burgers, What We Do in the Shadows. And recently, we’ve been having TV nights on Sundays with our friend A; the three of us just finished watching the third season of The White Lotus.

We had a lot of fun making fun of the rich people together—especially the girls’ trip trio: Jaclyn (Michelle Monaghan), Kate (Leslie Bibb), and Laurie (Carrie Coon). But really just Jaclyn and Kate; we were rooting for Laurie the whole time.

We wanted her to break free from her toxic friendships and have fun. That seemed to be the direction the show was headed. We weren’t alone in thinking Laurie would end her friendship with Jaclyn and Kate; critics and fans had theories that the friend group would end after an explosive confrontation.

Instead, there was Laurie’s heartfelt monologue at the group’s final dinner, which left me feeling deflated. She confesses how sad she’s been during their trip; how she feels like her mistakes are laid bare when she’s with her friends, who strive to project perfection; how she has lost her belief in work, love, motherhood. But she concludes that their friendship feels meaningful to her, that she’s “just happy to be at the table.” Kate and Jaclyn respond with whispered I love yous, Laurie reciprocates, and the tensions in their relationships disappear. An ending so happy that even their brush with death doesn’t dampen their mood on the boat ride away from the resort.

I was pissed. How could it be that all Laurie gets is a seat at the table of her fucking friendships? That’s a requisite part of having a friendship!

But more than that, I was intrigued by Laurie’s assertion that time gives her life meaning and that the long stretch of their friendship feels incredibly meaningful to her. More than work, love, motherhood, friendship is where her life finds meaning.

That isn’t unique to Laurie or The White Lotus—in fact, this exact dynamic is so common (and so commonly discussed) that I keep writing, “This isn’t another essay about ‘female friendship,’” and then deleting it because technically, yes, I’m writing about female friendship. But what I’m trying to write is against female friendship, as in, against the harmful relational patterns that have come to be culturally associated with female friendships. You know exactly what I’m talking about. The White Lotus, Girls, Sex and the City. The “sisterhoods” marked by slights and gossip and tension and small hurts that add up until—like we thought Laurie would do—they blow up. The barbs and rolled eyes, catfights and screaming matches. The friendships that have you asking, do you even like each other?

So often in The Female Friendship, one woman is portrayed as putting too much meaning into the relationship; she feels hurt when she perceives her friend to be prioritizing other areas of life—romance, work, parenting—above their friendship. Usually, she is struggling in at least one of those areas of life herself. More often, and as is the case for Laurie, she’s struggling with all of them. Only because the three areas of life that are widely accepted in American culture as meaningful—romance, work, parenting—are for whatever reason lacking meaning can this woman ascribe so much meaning to friendship, which is more marginal. She typically has to solve problems in those other areas of life, find a way to readjust the balance—her friend can’t and won’t reciprocate this sense of meaning-making, at least not fully, and when her investment in the friendship is seen as too much, her friend will push her away.

I saw that same dynamic play out in Babes (2024) when Jozef and I finally settled on a movie to watch. We were excited to watch Babes because:

1. It seemed funny!

2. We want to have a baby so badly and as a result love to consume content about people having babies

But seeing the way that dynamic of The Female Friendship played out in Babes—the film’s particular way of approaching the subject—absolutely destroyed the vibe for us. I’m not exaggerating even a little bit. By the end, I was so angry that I actually cried.

Sitting down to write this essay, Jo asked me, “You’re so angry you have to write about it?”

“Yes,” I told him. “Yes, I am.”

And he said, “Good. I’m glad.”

Babes was directed by Pamela Adlon and written by Ilana Glazer and Josh Rabinowitz. Glazer stars as Eden, a millennial woman1 living in Astoria, and Michelle Buteau as Dawn, her childhood best friend who now lives in the Upper West Side. The movie is purportedly about these NYC millennials and how their Female Friendship evolves as they navigate Dawn’s postpartum period after her second baby is born and Eden’s pregnancy—the result of a one-night stand. The two are “in different phases of adulthood,” which is the supposed cause of the new tensions in their relationship.

Eden and Dawn actually clash with each other because they have fundamentally different worldviews. The film presents two visions of what adulthood—especially parenthood—could look like. Dawn represents the status quo: the nuclear family model. Eden, on the other hand, proposes a different model of relationships—one that is considered radical, though it has existed for centuries. For her, the concept of “family” is community, and the members of your family are the people in whom you invest your time, energy, and care.

I was excited to see Eden’s worldview—my worldview, my family model—offered as an alternative to the status quo. Eden’s worldview is queer; Dawn’s is heteronormative. In the end, Babes defers to the heteronormative worldview while the radical redefinition of family that Eden proposes slinks away with its tail between its legs.

Popular media upholding the status quo isn’t a surprise. But it’s rare to see my model of family presented on the big screen, and watching it ultimately be rejected in favor of the status quo was painful.

Like Laurie’s monologue in The White Lotus, Babes was praised by many for its accurate depiction of Female Friendships. I’m sure that for those women, it’s true: Babes captured their experiences of adulthood—friendships, but also romance, work, parenting. I get it; I had my fair share of Female Friendships before my transition. But I have worked hard to find new ways of navigating relationships. Who I consider family encompasses a good number of people who would generally be considered friends. Those relationships are built and sustained through mutual investments of time, energy, care, respect, and love. Family, for me, is defined not by biological or marital relationship but by mutual commitment. Navigating relationships this way has been vital to my survival and is fundamental to how I build community.

Babes gestured toward that alternative way of being through Eden’s character. It presented a vision of what is and of what could be, then concluded that what is should prevail. The heteronormative, patriarchal, capitalist status quo was almost knocked off its pedestal—but in the end, everything was “set right.” What a fucking shame.

Not to pull an “in this essay I will—” but…

In this essay, I will discuss:

• The so-called “different phases of adulthood” that Dawn and Eden are in, a capitalistic concept which I’d like to deconstruct because I believe it’s something we should actively resist

• Eden’s proposal to Dawn: a queer, community-centered model of family

• The film’s ultimate deference to Dawn’s nuclear family model (including Dawn’s complete lack of accountability, meaningful repair, or growth after she and Eden were in conflict)

I want to do what Babes almost did—I want to advocate for the queer family model as a better way of being in relationship with one another than The Female Friendship. I want to say that yes, this is what could be (in fact, for me, it’s what is), and more than that, I want to invite you to consider why, by and large, it isn’t. Because we’re all talking about how much we need community right now, we’re talking about resisting oppression and fighting for liberation—and I feel certain none of that is sustainably possible within the status quo. That’s the point of the status quo! I want to invite you to challenge your own ideas of family and community, to imagine what the possible alternatives might be.

the so-called phases of adulthood

If you’re on Hulu looking to watch Babes, the film description is:

“Babes follows childhood best friends Eden and Dawn, now in different phases of adulthood. When single Eden decides to have a baby on her own after a one-night stand, their friendship faces its greatest challenge.”

I’m not going to get into the marketing of it all—you just need to know that this is the initial framing that contextualizes the viewing experience.

So, right from the start (as in: the first sentence), we know two things about Eden and Dawn: they have been best friends since childhood, and they are in “different phases of adulthood” now. The second sentence provides a bit more information about Eden—she is having a baby as a single parent after a one-night stand—then tempts you to watch it with a vague allusion to their friendship’s “greatest challenge.”

So, your viewing has been primed by that context.

The film opens with Eden and Dawn meeting for a movie on the morning of Thanksgiving, as has been their tradition since they were children. As they’re getting settled in their seats, Dawn complains that one seat after another is wet—a bit of “pussy drizzle” commentary later, and everyone understands that her water has broken.

Instead of going straight to the hospital, Dawn decides she wants to have one last feast because she knows that once she’s officially in labor, she won’t be allowed to eat. They go to a fancy brunch spot and order a shit-ton of food—which they don’t end up eating, as Dawn is further along than she thought and has to leave to get to the hospital as quickly as possible. But I want to pause at the brunch for a moment: in what seems like almost a throwaway line, Eden asks Dawn if she really wants to eat at this restaurant instead of somewhere like the diners they used to eat at together. Eden isn’t comfortable at this restaurant.

They get to the hospital, Eden with Dawn every step of the way as she goes to labor and delivery. Eden stays in the room for the birth—she says she missed the birth of Dawn’s first child, Tommy, and doesn’t want to miss this one. Dawn’s husband, Marty (Hasan Minhaj), is there as well: he stops touching Dawn when she yells at him to stop, he holds her hand when she yells at him to hold her hand—he’s there to give her whatever support she needs.

After Dawn has given birth, she tells Eden and Marty that she’s craving sushi: “I’m tired of chips. I’m tired of cheese and Skittles. I don’t want to taste the rainbow no more. I want some sushi. I’ve been waiting 10 months for this.” Eden volunteers to get sushi for them; when she arrives at the restaurant to pick it up, she learns, to her horror, that it’s five hundred dollars. Still, she pays for it and brings it back to the hospital, where visiting hours are over—only family can stay after hours, she’s told—and Eden and Marty are asleep. So, she has to take the sushi with her.

Eating sushi on the first of four trains it takes her to get back to her apartment in Astoria, she meets Claude (Stephan James), who is on the same train journey as her. They share the sushi and bond over the course of their extended travel. When they arrive, they play Street Fighter together at Eden’s apartment. Then, she initiates sex with him—which she says can be unprotected, since she’s on her period and “can’t” get pregnant.

Despite their intense connection, Claude ghosts Eden shortly after. She tries not to feel hurt about it, but the rejection clearly stings.

Meanwhile, Dawn is struggling with low milk production, unable to nurse her daughter, Melanie. She also seems to be experiencing postpartum anxiety and depression, though that’s never explicitly stated. Marty encourages her to relax and have a fun night with Eden for New Year’s, which Dawn only agrees to once Marty points out that relaxing will be good for her milk production.

Dawn goes to Eden’s place; they drink and take shrooms. Dawn imagines she’s producing a lot of milk (she isn’t). Eden grows paranoid that she might be pregnant and begins taking test after test (she is).

Once they’re sober, Eden goes to the doctors who do her STI testing—who she knows also treat Claude—and they reveal that Claude died the day after Thanksgiving in a freak accident. Eden begins debating what she’ll do with her pregnancy. Dawn says she’ll support Eden no matter what she decides, while clearly trying to nudge Eden toward an abortion. But Eden decides she wants to have the baby, and Dawn reluctantly stomachs her discontent with this decision.

Okay, I know that was a lot of summary. But I want to make sure you’re with me so far.

We’re going to talk about the so-called “different phases of adulthood” that Eden and Dawn are in. To do so, we need to start with the circumstances of their lives:

• Eden is a single woman living in Astoria, NYC. She lives in a fourth-floor walk-up apartment that doubles as the yoga studio she runs. She is pregnant and has decided to become a single parent.

• Dawn is a married woman living in the Upper West Side, NYC. She lives in a brownstone with her husband, Marty, and their two children, Tommy and Melanie. She works as a dentist; what Marty does for a living is unclear, but he works a white-collar job, too. When they’re both at work, they hire a nanny to watch their children.

Now, the perhaps slightly more challenging question: what phase of adulthood are they both in?

There isn’t a concrete definition of the phases of adulthood. However, Elizabeth C. Halloran’s article in the Journal of Patient-Centered Research and Reviews, “Adult Development and Associated Health Risks” (2024), outlines a comprehensive approach of five broad stages of adult development based on a literature review that captures the generally agreed-upon stages. She provides estimated age ranges for each stage, but notes that “the cutoff in years for these stages is somewhat arbitrary as adult social roles relate to stage of development more than age.” The stages she outlines are as follows:

Emerging adulthood (18-29 years) is full of non-committal attitudes and exploration of different paths with frequent moves and changes in relationships and employment. Events marking the transition into adulthood (eg, finishing education, obtaining stable work, marriage, and parenthood) now come at later ages than they did historically.

Young and middle adulthood (30-45 years) is when marital, parenting, and career commitments take place. Young adults may have found a life partner, decided whether to have children, and become established at work. These years are described as intensely demanding and rewarding, and researchers have proposed a new term “career-and-care-crunch” to draw attention to the peak demands during this period.

Middle to late adulthood (40-65 years) is described as a pivotal time of balancing multiple roles related to work, family, and community. The stressors of caring for aging parents, parenting adolescents, and meeting work demands are most salient. This stage is affected by previous experiences and often shapes what is to come in later life. It links earlier and later periods of life.

In post-retirement (66-89 years) one is freed from work and family related tasks and can focus on personal goals related to leisure and social relationships. Relationship satisfaction generally increases with age while networks tend to shrink. Those in the younger category (60-74 years) often experience positive changes such as emotional stability and well-being. However, retirement can have negative consequences for cognition, health, and well-being. There is great heterogeneity in this stage.

Very old age (>90 years) is about trying to maintain physical and cognitive functioning and independence. In a qualitative study of the shift from old age to very old age, diminishing capacities and the awareness of the irreversibility of the aging process marked the transition into this stage. Loss of contemporaries, an inversion of family dynamics, and living in the present moment were pronounced in this stage.

So. What phase(s) of adulthood are Eden and Dawn in? Obviously, we can cross middle to late adulthood, post-retirement, and very old age off the list.

I would argue that they’re both in young and middle adulthood. They’ve both committed to being parents. They both have careers. They’ve both made decisions around the role of romantic partnership in their lives—Dawn is married, and Eden is single. But the film—and its marketing—frame things differently. Dawn is considered to be in young and middle adulthood, but Eden is considered to be in emerging adulthood.

Why? Because Eden’s career is non-traditional—she is an entrepreneur running a business out of her home, and it’s a yoga studio, not the sort of career that society typically calls a career. Because her home is an apartment, not a house. Because she is single, not partnered.

Halloran frames young and middle adulthood as a time of solidified choices. But on a societal level, there are right and wrong choices around “marital, parenting, and career commitments,” and only the right choices are considered choices at all. Dawn has chosen to get married, chosen to have multiple children, chosen to pursue a career as a dentist. These are the “right” choices for a millennial woman to make, and therefore, she is in young and middle adulthood. Eden’s choices—to be single, to have a child alone, to have a non-traditional career—aren’t considered the commitments of young and middle adulthood. Rather, they’re thought of as the “non-committal attitudes and exploration of different paths” typical of emerging adulthood. Unless and until Eden makes the “right” choices, she will be “held back” at emerging adulthood.

That has nothing to do with “development,” though—and everything to do with class.

Dawn and Eden have different class statuses. Dawn and Marty live in the Upper West Side, and though it isn’t confirmed explicitly, it’s heavily implied that they own their house. A place with multiple floors, let alone rooms. They can afford to have more than one child. They can afford to eat at fancy brunch spots and expensive sushi restaurants.

Eden lives in a small apartment—when she eventually has her baby, they will have to share the single bedroom. Her pregnancy is unplanned, which means she isn’t financially prepared for it. She can’t afford the restaurants Dawn and Marty frequent—we see her stammer her way through the interaction with the hostess at the sushi place while she fumbles for cash, and when she can’t give it to Dawn and Marty, she feels compelled to eat as much of the sushi as she possibly can to avoid wasting it, which is actually how she meets Claude.

We don’t have any insight into Dawn and Marty’s family backgrounds, but we know that Eden was raised by a single father after her mother died—a disabled father who struggles with agoraphobia and anxiety. For many millennials living in New York City, their parents are quietly funding their lives.2 But we can tell that isn’t the case for Eden.

Even with her limited options, Eden has made the most of the hand she’s been dealt. She’s an entrepreneur who is clearly passionate about what she does. Her apartment is eclectic and chic. She makes time for the people she cares about, as we see through her commitment to supporting Dawn’s labor and delivery.

But her life isn’t “put together” the way Dawn’s is, and there’s a cultural expectation that everyone will, at some point or another, achieve that “put together” status—or else fail at adulthood.

There are other elements of their diverging lives that play into the suggestion that they’re in different phases of adulthood. Obviously, there’s relationship status—Dawn is married, and Eden is single. And substance use seems to play a role in the distinction between the two women as well. Eden drinks and uses drugs regularly, while for Dawn, these are occasional indulgences. When they do shrooms together for New Year’s, Dawn goes to Eden’s apartment—because Eden and her Astoria apartment are a place for Dawn to “visit” her past “phase of adulthood” for an occasional bit of fun. Alcohol and drug use is often associated with youth and/or lower class status, so it isn’t surprising that the film turns substance use into a point of difference between the two friends.

who is in a family?

Despite the unspoken tensions in their friendship and the distance between them now that they live in different parts of the city, Eden consistently asserts that she and Dawn are family. Over the course of the film, we watch her show up for Dawn—at the birth, but also in her efforts to support Dawn with childcare—because she believes their mutual support of each other’s lives is fundamental to their relationship.

Eden’s effort to show up for Dawn does come with a significant misstep, which triggers the escalated conflict in their dynamic. In an attempt to help Dawn and Marty manage their son Tommy’s regression since Melanie’s birth (he is acting like a baby: using a pacifier, refusing to use the toilet, etc.), Eden tells Tommy he can watch The Omen with her if he agrees to stop acting like a baby—because the movie is for big kids, not babies. She asks Tommy to pinky-swear that he won’t tell his parents about the movie. After watching the film, Tommy fixates on it and begins acting like the Antichrist, which terrifies his new nanny—who then quits her job.3

These were poor choices on Eden’s part: showing Tommy the movie, asking him to keep it a secret from his parents, and not confessing to Dawn and Marty what she did (they find out from Tommy). And they weren’t choices made out of malice; Eden thought she was helping with Tommy’s regression.

Because Dawn and Marty no longer have the childcare they need, their schedules are thrown off and Dawn is unable to go to Eden’s amnio appointment—about which Eden is very anxious. Eden’s father Bernie (Oliver Platt) attends, and they have a conversation afterward about Eden’s pregnancy and her own upbringing. Bernie acknowledges that he wasn’t the greatest parent—and that he can’t show up to any of Eden’s other appointments because of his agoraphobia and anxiety. He is too uncomfortable being outdoors and rushes to get home shortly after.

Off the heels of this conversation, Eden sees that Dawn’s phone location is her house and she goes there, clearly agitated. Dawn and Marty are agitated, too, about the lack of childcare. Both women are hurt and lash out; Eden tells Dawn that her doctor (John Carroll Lynch) told her to consider finding a doula, and Dawn tells Eden to do that. Then, Eden leaves without either of them having a meaningful conversation about their conflict.

Dawn does go to Eden’s next appointment, where her doctor encourages her to consider going on a babymoon before giving birth. Dawn leaps on this idea—because she wants a break from her own life, which she does a poor job disguising—and the two decide to go on a small vacation together.

The trip is… horrible. Dawn has planned the entire trip around her own wants. They stay at an expensive hotel that isn’t accessible for a pregnant person—Eden struggles to get on and off of furniture. And while Dawn enjoys her massage immensely, she forgot to tell the spa staff that Eden is pregnant, so Eden isn’t able to get a massage at all. I was surprised that the film didn’t ever acknowledge Dawn’s selfish decisions around the babymoon; in fact, Eden is consistently framed as selfish—not considering Dawn’s many responsibilities—while Dawn is the harried mother struggling to do it all.

While on the trip, Eden wants to talk to Dawn about an idea she has. And she wants to talk about it sober, but Dawn insists on having the conversation while downing two wine flights. Again, Dawn’s behavior goes unacknowledged by the film, but it’s worth pointing out that there is no discernible difference in the women’s relationships to substance use—as long as there is no impact to their children, both women use substances however they’d like, but there is a clearly drawn association between substance use and Eden (perhaps because the only times we see Dawn away from her children—aside from at work—are when she’s with Eden).

So—Eden’s idea. She remembers that Dawn and Marty were talking about converting their basement into an Airbnb,4 and she wants to propose that she moves into that space so they can raise their children together.

Dawn is immediately against the idea.

The brewing tensions come to a head—for Dawn: her frustrations about Eden’s reliance on her for support during her pregnancy, but also her private belief that Eden has made a bad decision by having her baby and her dismissal of Eden’s one-day relationship with Claude as meaningful. The argument reaches an aggressive climax:

EDEN: Woah. Hurtful, dude. Claude really meant something to me. And I know all this may be weird, and do I wish I was normal? Do I wish I could live in boring, predictable bliss? Of course I do, but I’m not. I had something special with this one person. So here we are. And sure, I’m scared of the decision I made. I feel, like, “a lion is chasing me” scared. But I know that we can handle anything together, and we wouldn’t even have to be having this conversation if you didn’t just up and move to the Upper West Side without even consulting me.

DAWN: Oh my God! I don’t have to consult you. Adults don’t plan their lives around their best friends. Jesus Christ, Eden, with the eleven-year-old dreams and the prom birth plan. You live like a child. Have you even started to prep baby stuff in your house? Or are you just waiting for me to do it? No, you know what you’re waiting for? You want to move into my house and mooch off of my family.

EDEN: Fuck you! Best friends are so fucked over in adulthood. If we don’t couple ourselves off, we’re fucked. Not everybody’s made up like that. I’ve known you twice as long as Marty. And a lifetime longer than Tommy and Melanie’s brand-new ass. What? Just ‘cause we’re not blood-related, we’re not family? That’s bullshit. You and me, we’re family… We’re family.

The conversation ends with Dawn declaring that actually, no, they aren’t family—Marty, Tommy, and Melanie are Dawn’s family—and she wants her family to move to the suburbs. She says she and Eden should take some time apart from each other and focus on their own families, and the two begin largely not speaking to each other.

There are six “family types” that are generally agreed upon in American culture:

• Nuclear family: two parents, one or more children

• Single-parent family: one parent, one or more children (whether because the parent never married, is widowed, or got divorced)

• Extended family: two or more adults related through blood or marriage, plus children

• Childless family: two partners, no children

• Stepfamily: two separate families merging into one via marriage

• Grandparent family: one or more grandparents raising one or more children

Based on these family types, Eden is in a single-parent family and Dawn is in a nuclear family.

While it’s widely understood that children may be biologically related to their parents or adopted, all of the adults in these family models are related to one another by blood or marriage. So, it’s no surprise that Dawn doesn’t think of Eden as family.

But Eden is proposing an alternative family model. You could argue that she’s making the case for an informal stepfamily or for an extended family in which adults can be considered “adopted.” To fit Eden’s idea of what their family is into one of the six family types, you have to make some sort of caveat or exception. It’s an argument—because this sort of familial relationship isn’t accepted in American culture.

Dawn is convinced that Eden wants to “mooch off of” her family by moving into the same space. She doesn’t perceive mutuality within their friendship. This is an extension of the “different phases of adulthood,” of course: because Eden is “behind” Dawn in terms of adult development, she can only take from their dynamic.

And, yes, there are economic benefits for Eden if she isn’t living alone in an apartment. For example, she would be able to take time off of teaching classes immediately postpartum without worrying about rent. But that doesn’t mean Eden wouldn’t contribute to their household. She could perform many of the care tasks that Dawn needs managed while she and Marty work. If Dawn and Marty charged her a lower rate for rent—or didn’t charge rent at all, but I can’t imagine Dawn would be open to such an anti-capitalist idea—Eden would be able to get an actual studio space for her yoga practice. In doing so, she would be moving closer toward Dawn’s idea of the “right” young and middle adulthood.

In other words, Dawn and Marty would have the opportunity to help Eden access financial security and class mobility while benefiting from mutual non-financial support if Eden were to live with them.

Eden is right—best friends are fucked over in adulthood. But they don’t have to be!

Jozef and I have an expansive definition of both family and household, one very similar to what Eden proposes. The members of our family include: Z, a friend who is living with us right now; N and A, a couple and our friends who live in their own apartment but have standing plans with us multiple times a week, which allows us to distribute tasks and responsibilities like buying groceries and cooking meals; and our best friend, C, who will be coming to live with us very soon. As we plan for having a baby, those relationships are deeply important to us. They are sources of both emotional and practical support. And I believe that all of our lives are easier to navigate because we have one another as family.

The nuclear family model is based on a set of heteronormative, patriarchal, capitalist rules that do not serve us. And if we all blindly abide by these cultural rules, we risk leaving behind anyone whose lives don’t conform.

Because Eden is being “left behind.” Her life doesn’t conform to those rules, so she’s seen as a failed adult, stuck in early adulthood, perpetually uncommitted. Dawn is incapable of imagining a world in which Eden meaningfully contributes to her household as part of their family, even though it’s clear throughout the film that Eden has committed to her family—to her unborn child and to Dawn, Marty, Tommy, and Melanie. She gives what she can to those relationships: not just money, but time, energy, and care. It’s unlikely that Eden can “get ahead” as a single person, let alone as a single parent.

We know that the nuclear family model doesn’t serve many people—and that it’s been legally enforced as the status quo despite being just one of many possible ways to arrange a family. The United States didn’t allow no-fault divorce, which expanded access to divorce with fewer significant emotional tolls, until the 1970s, and attitudes toward divorce have rapidly shifted since the 1960s. More and more people began to see divorce as an acceptable option, even for couples with children; social attitudes shifted around premarital sex, too. When it became legally possible to break out of the nuclear family model, more and more people did so. It’s still the predominant model for family organization—but those shifts demonstrate the role legal enforcement has played in family-building.

With the rise in single-parent families since the 1960s, there are economic concerns. David Ellwood and Christopher Jencks, in their article “The Spread of Single-Parent Families in the United States since 1960,” write,

From an economic perspective, the most troubling feature of family change has been the spread of families headed by a single mother who is not living with another adult who helps support her and her children. Single mothers seldom command high wages. They also find it unusually difficult to work long hours, since they must also care for their children. Many get very little child support from the absent father, and even generous child support payments provide less money than a resident father with the same income would normally provide. While single mothers are eligible for various forms of public assistance, neither legislators nor voters have wanted to make such assistance at all generous, lest generosity encourage still more women to raise children on their own. The spread of single-mother families has therefore played a major role in the persistence of poverty in the United States.

The capitalist economy is predicated upon the nuclear family model. A cis man works to earn money to sustain the family while a cis woman manages the household and cares for the children—who are, under capitalism, future workers or caregivers. We know that for many nuclear families today, both parents have to work for a livable wage, because capitalism is based on increasing exploitation, so capitalists find more and more people to exploit.

Patriarchy rules the economy, rules the family, rules romantic relationships. Heteronormative structures are enforced by those in power because they fuel capitalist exploitation.

So, while it’s frustrating, it isn’t surprising that Dawn lacks the imagination to understand the alternative family model Eden is proposing.

Nor is it surprising that Eden—Ilana Glazer’s character in the film they co-wrote—is the one proposing the alternative family model, just like it isn’t surprising that Jozef and I have modeled our own family that way. Queer people are often rejected by their own biological families because their queerness doesn’t conform to heteronormative, patriarchal, capitalist social systems. And as far as legal relationships go, queer people have faced and continue to face restrictions on marriage. Same-sex marriage wasn’t legal at the federal level in the United States until 2015—I remember journaling about it when it happened; I was in high school. June 2015: almost ten years ago. Queer people have always had to find alternatives to “family” as it’s traditionally defined.

Queer culture at its best5 is organized around networks of mutual aid and constructions of “found families.” When Eden says, “Not everyone is made up like that,” I think of all the people I know who are uninterested in partnership at all, or who are poly and have multiple partners. I think of Jozef and myself, who were committed to raising a child together long before we initiated a romantic relationship. I think of my family, because we aren’t “made up like that.”

the nuclear bomb: reasserting the status quo of relationship structures

So, you can imagine my disappointment when the film ultimately dismisses Eden’s proposal.

Dawn leaves the babymoon (without anyone ever acknowledging Dawn’s total lack of consideration in organizing the trip) and returns home to find that the pipes have burst and the house smells like literal shit. After Dawn lashes out at Marty, the two finally have a heart-to-heart about their struggles now that Melanie has been born. Marty is an absolute trooper throughout the film—always doing his best to support and encourage Dawn, managing care tasks with her while also balancing work, never losing his temper. We never have any indication that Marty spends time with friends the way Dawn does—no indication that he has a life outside of their family at all, really. For all intents and purposes, he exists as a “perfect husband” disguising the influence of patriarchy on the film’s narrative.

Meanwhile, Eden finds a doula—the iconic Dragana (Elena Ouspenskaia), a take-no-shit Eastern European woman—and prepares for childbirth. She doesn’t really have much communication with Dawn until Dawn unexpectedly FaceTimes her to share that she was chosen to be in an Invisalign commercial; she wants Eden to celebrate her success, which Eden does even though she’s sitting in the shower bathing herself.

Dawn watches over FaceTime as Eden struggles to stand up, and since Eden is naked, Dawn is able to notice that Eden’s water must have broken. She tells Eden to go to the hospital, then hurries to hang up the phone because she’s already on the plane, about to leave for the Invisalign shoot.

Eden and Dragana get ready to go to the hospital. And, for whatever reason, Dawn has decided not to go to California after all, instead rushing to Eden’s apartment.

What ensues is what has to be one of the worst apologies I’ve ever seen on screen. Eden quite literally provides Dawn the script of the apology she needs to hear, line by line, and Dawn parrots it back to her—including saying that they are, actually, family. The trio then go to the hospital together, where Dawn forgets Eden in the fucking car at first and has to run back to get her. So different from how Eden shows up for Dawn during Melanie’s birth, though again not acknowledged.

After giving birth, Eden has to stay alone at the hospital—unlike Dawn, who had Marty, Eden doesn’t have any legal family who can be there with her. When she’s discharged, she struggles to hail a cab and get situated with her baby, Claudette. “Where is Dawn?” Jo and I both fumed. Back at the apartment, Eden carries Claudette through the space and tells her that they’ll be sharing a room. She is clearly so nervous, and it’s painful to watch her navigate these early moments alone.

The film ends with Eden and Claudette meeting up with Marty, Dawn, Tommy, and Melanie for a movie—the movie Claude had been filming earlier the day Eden met him. The movie, like The Omen, isn’t age-appropriate for Tommy and Melanie, for which Eden apologizes. But it was important to her to get to show Claudette her father (even if Claudette is too young to understand anything that’s going on), and Dawn doesn’t raise any concerns about the decision to bring the children.

Walking around Astoria afterward—because, thankfully, Marty and Dawn made the trip to Astoria instead of making Eden brave multiple trains to get to them—Eden makes a comment about Dawn and Marty’s house-hunt in the suburbs. “You didn’t tell her?” Marty asks, because he seems to understand the importance of Dawn and Eden’s relationship more than Dawn does. Surprise! Dawn and Marty bought a house in Astoria! A very expensive house, if this sampling of Zillow listings tells you anything.

Dawn says that she could never live in the same house as Eden—without providing any rationale, but whatever. At least it’s a “see you later,” not a “goodbye.” That’s where they land! That’s where the film ends.

Fuck. That.

what could be: imagining queer futures

I’m not saying the nuclear family model doesn’t work for some people—it does.

But when we assert it as the model—and more than that, when we assert biological and legal relations as the only way to organize a family—we leave so many people on the margins of society. People who live outside the status quo, people like me and Jozef, are seen as uncommitted, strange, immature, irresponsible. Dawn would shout at us, “You live like a child.”

Who does it serve to frame the nuclear family model as the model for adult living?

You already know my answer: the wealthy, white men in power who seek to exploit people as laborers first and foremost.

The queer family model deprioritizes biological and legal relations in favor of mutual commitment: mutual investments of time, energy, care, and love. People give what they can and take what they need. When you consistently choose one another, you create a safe space for everyone to land. We see this in the natural world all the time—and because these models of community are natural, fascists must work actively to oppress it, which means we must work to resist that oppression.

Laurie and Eden aren’t wrong, childish, or lesser for finding their most meaningful connections in friendship. They feel wrong because the people around them reject their ways of being: Kate and Jaclyn judge Laurie for her current situation, Dawn judges Eden for hers. Kate and Jaclyn choose not to engage with Laurie’s monologue, opting to acknowledge their affection for her without any sort of acknowledgment of the ways in which they’ve harmed her. Dawn never recognizes that it’s her responsibility to set boundaries around the support she can provide Eden, and her apology for the hurtful things she said is just Eden’s script, unaccompanied by any real change. Because Kate, Jaclyn, and Dawn feel that they’re benefiting from heteronormative, patriarchal capitalism, they have no real desire to interrogate the harm it may be causing for the people around them and for themselves.

Mutual aid is a fundamental element of all of my queer relationships, both on individual and organizational levels, and it’s been a significant part of queer culture for far longer than I’ve been alive.6 The queer family model I’m talking about is a deepening of mutual aid through a commitment to your chosen family.

What would life be like if we all organized our families around such commitment? If we all went deeper? I think we can bring that to all our relationships, even the biological and legal ones, because you can choose to commit to anyone.

I propose that family should be built, above all else, on that mutual commitment to love and care. Commit to the people you love—romantically, platonically, and any -ally in between—and take care of one another. That, I am certain, is the path forward as we resist exploitation under heteronormative, patriarchal, capitalist, fascist structures. We need to create families and communities that protect one another, that house one another, that feed one another, that support one another. That’s how we’ll survive.