Fresh Take: Sophie Lucido Johnson, KIN

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0:27Hello, everyone, and welcome to Fresh Take from What Fresh Hell? Laughing in the face of Motherhood. This is Margaret.

0:34Sophie Lucido Johnson:And this is Amy. Today, we're talking to Sophie Lucido-Johnson. She is a Chicago-based author and artist who publishes cartoons in The New Yorker and writes the best-selling Substack newsletter, You Are Doing a Good Enough Job. Today, we'll be talking about Sophie's latest book, Kin, The Future of Family. Welcome, Sophie. Thanks for having me. So happy to be here. So let's start with the title. What is kin? I wanted to find some language for the type of relationship that is more than a friendship, but isn't your blood family or your spouse. So we talk a lot about family, and often there are people in your family who you choose, who you're not married to, or who are outside the classic definition of family.

1:25So I'm proposing kin. It has a lot of etymological, interesting background, but I like this word. It's tidy and neat, and it sort of can describe these really close, close friendships that this book is sort of about nurturing and building those relationships.

1:43Sophie Lucido Johnson:It seems to me that's true, very true in certain cultures that like I'm thinking of like aunties and yes and certain cultures that you have many aunts because you have many mothers or you have many maternal figures in your life and that there are words or I have my kids have friends who are Chilean and they call them their primos which is like your cousin but it's more than your cousin it's your there's words for these it seems to me in non-american cultures that think about the stuff as being very fluid and open. Western culture is behind. There are tons of cultures all over the world. Many of them live in America and all over the world that are living in sort of non-nuclear family configurations.

2:27Not to say that if you live in what you consider a nuclear family configuration, that anything is wrong with that choice. It's just to say, how can we bring more people into our families? People have been, I mean, animals do this and people have been doing it forever since people have existed. So yes, you're absolutely right, Amy. That is true. This is a, to put it bluntly, this is a white person problem and we need to do better for ourselves and for our children. And it's important for us to have more people and we're so walled off. Not everyone, but so many of us are so walled off. I feel like this is an idea that we're always flirting with culturally.

3:08My generation might've been like Friendsgiving, and then, you know, rosé flowing with my chosen family. Like you hear these ideas, but it's somehow like we have trouble maybe getting the roots down on these ideas. Yeah, right. Friendsgiving is a perfect example. And I will say that chosen family as a concept has actually grown quite a bit in the last 10 or 15 years. It is more in the vernacular than it used to be. And that's great. And you're right. I think the reason why we haven't been able to get this into the root system of how we live has to do with a lack of realistic models of what it can look like and a lack of language around it.

3:57and this is something that I think there are lots of little things little tweaks that most people can make to bring more people into their life for example think of three people with whom you'd like to share like a Costco membership that it's a small this is like a small thing but sharing a resource like a Costco membership or a lawnmower or you know something where it's expensive and if you can have just one and everyone's sharing you spend more time with each other and also you're, you know, co-invested in a resource. It's such a tiny little thing. But what are the things that we can share physically?

4:33That's an easy tweak. Or for example, I think that a lot of people, I'm going to include myself, really like to make plans. Like, when are you free? I don't know. I think I have some time, you know, a week from Wednesday, let's get it on the calendar. Then the week from Wednesday comes, I have to cancel with you. I'm come up at work. No problem. Let's figure it out later. I mean, I don't know if this is familiar to you. It just happens to me all the time where. Yes. Oh, yes. Until you die. Until you die. You postpone plans until you die. To sort of adjust that one thing to do would be if you have errands to run, can you invite a friend to do the errand with you instead of having sitting and having mimosas or having a long lunch or needing to set aside two hours?

5:16Or if you're in your friend's neighborhood. Could you just stop by? Like just text. I'm in the neighborhood. I just want to say hi, like five minutes. That usually will lead to getting to spend time with people more than these sort of like elegant plans that we build and then disassemble. And that leads to you being able to see your friends when they're messy. And that's essential. Like we're all messy, but we want to look clean to our friends. It's not really how people are. We're all, we're all afraid.

5:47Sophie Lucido Johnson:I've always wondered about that. I've always yearned for the sitcom friend, like, knock the hall, the person across the hall, the person next door, right? And I guess it's based on a real thing, but it's not something that most of us have in real life, the drop-by thing. I live in New York City and people don't do it. Those friendships, the ones you're describing, are often like people in their 20s and 30s who don't have kids, right? Kids changes it because now you're just having to do 10 million things at one time. And there's no time to figure out how to create a drop in situation. You maybe have moved for your job or your partner or like to live somewhere where it's best for your kids.

6:28And now you're just yeah, I mean, your show's title. It's just like suddenly you're in a hellscape and it's how do you develop that kind of rapport with people? It's just not top of mind because I think of that as like, that's fun. It's fun to have friends. But I think I'm proposing like, no, it's essential. And also our children need to see us having friends because this is how we build community. So but it's almost it feels impossible. I mean, I don't know. I have only one kid. I don't know how. I think when you have young children, it's actually you can lean into kinship a little bit more. I remember having preschoolers and, you know, preschool aged kids, of which I had three at the same time.

7:09And I couldn't go to the park by myself. I mean, I could if it was gated and whatever, but I sought out the village so much or even at the park. I'd be like, hey, here's my name. Would you help me watch my kid? Like there was a sense of I needed that community so badly when I had little kids that it became kind of natural to me that like all the neighbors, I knew them all. And if you see my kid and this and that, and now that I have teenagers, I can feel that disappearing. Like my teens are out doing their own thing and I'm so much more isolated than when I had little ones.

7:46Sophie Lucido Johnson:I used to walk my kids to school every morning and walk in and say hello to the teacher that was there to greet them. And we could even go, we could take our kids up to the preschool classroom and hang out, you know, the cleanup bell rang. And I mean, that 15 minutes in the doorway of the preschool classroom with the same women for seven years and men, but mostly women, I developed very strong relationships that exist to this day. But now I see those women every six months instead of every weekday. Yeah, I think that is so typical, too. And I'm still in the early stages of parenthood. My kid is four.

8:21She's turning four tomorrow. But for this book, I interviewed a lot of people who were in all different stages of having children or being grownups. And I learned that we really do need the village the whole way through. I mean, especially with teenagers. Teenagers are a whole new creature and we need each other just as much. One group that I talked to or one group I became familiar with were these women who, one of the women, her son died when he was 19. and she was so bereft that she didn't know what to do. She had a lot of sisters and they decided, well, let's just meet every morning at 6.30 on your porch and we'll just have coffee and we'll pray.

9:02I mean, this is, they belong to a Catholic church. It wasn't enough. And so they started to gather and talk about the son that died and they started to read poems. And then another person heard about it and oh, her daughter had died. So she started to come to the porch, the prayer porch. And then it was just people who needed other people. Like maybe somebody was sick. Maybe somebody was going through a really tough job transition. And more people started coming 630 is a very early time. But when you can't sleep because you're going through something, you know, you're up. Right. Might as well head to the porch.

9:37Might as well head to the porch. And seeing these women, and I'm really in touch with a lot of them, you know, mostly between the ages of 60 and 80. And, you know, a few men, again, it is mostly women and that's a conversation. But seeing these women who are so close, their friendship is so close. It's now been over a decade since the son died and they take care of each just at the drop of a hat. They take care of each other. Anything goes wrong. It could be small. It could be big. They're doing a meal train. They're going to each other's houses. They have a whole long roster of where everybody lives.

10:13and I mean it sucks that it was a tragedy that made this come into being but again I think this is available to people and it's heartening to me because I do see a lot like my mom is very she's much older and she has very few connections and she said that's inevitable like you just lose connections as you get old the research does back that up as you get older you'll have fewer friendships but seeing these people these women mostly nurturing these friendships in older age and also, you know, with their children. I am really feeling like heartened. This is possible and robust and the care is just so thick.

10:51It's really beautiful to bear witness to.

10:54Sophie Lucido Johnson:It seems not coincidental though, right? That this is work that women are more likely to do, more likely to maybe want to do, see the need to doing. We've talked about king keeping on this podcast and how that is, first of all, important work, but it tends to be work done by women and therefore it's devalued. So what did you find in your research about that connection? It's absolutely true. It's, you know, emotional labor so often falls on women. I think one of the things I found is that men really suffer because of that. Like we think of that as, oh, you know, it's devalued. Absolutely. But also it's a real gift to be able to help and take care of people.

11:31Caretaking feels really good. And that men and boys are miserable so often, like so miserable, very lonely, feel like don't have the tools to connect where women can really slide into that. So all the research sort of backs that up that men are suffering. And if we're building kin, it is definitely, it needs to be something where men are brought in to the conversation because not just because there's so much work to do because there is absolutely, and it is hard, but just so that also they can feel a sense of purpose and belonging and And caretaking is it. There's not anything. The other thing is capitalism.

12:09And we like invented that. Caretaking is the work of the animal self. And that's ultimately like the end of the world. That's what there is. And it's like we all deserve to feel that with each other. It's really, really essential actually to our. I mean, these women on the prayer porch, they get very old. And I don't think it's accidental. Like they work through sicknesses. And there's people on the porch who are like cresting at towards 100. It contributes to longevity and study after study shows that people who live in close-knit communities live much longer. Nothing helps you live longer than being in community with people.

12:46Loneliness is really, really dangerous. So I don't know. I just I feel for men, honestly, it sucks to not be able to connect. They got to work on it. They got to work on it.

12:57Sophie Lucido Johnson:We're talking to Sophie Lucido Johnson about her new book, Kin, The Future of Family. And we'll be right back. After an afternoon at the pool, my mom's skin needs a hydration reset. The perfect solution? Osea's Ondaria Algae Body Oil. It has an amazing citrus scent and a non-greasy texture, so my skin feels silky smooth and stays that way. Osea is clean, clinically tested skincare from the sea, so you can see and feel the difference from just one use. The Andaria Algae Body Oil is seaweed-infused and clinically shown to visibly improve elasticity and deeply moisturize. In an independent study of 53 women, after two weeks, 100 % of them agreed their skin looked firmer with Andaria Algae Body Oil, and 100 % agreed their skin felt softer, smoother, and more supple.

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16:39Sophie Lucido Johnson:And so can you. Visit Rula.com slash WFH to get started. That's R-U-L-A dot com slash WFH. So like a lot of books that we talk about, there is a COVID-19 aspect to this work. A lot of people, you know, we talked to her like, well, I was doing this work and then OMG pandemic, everything I'm saying is 10 times more true. So talk about the role of how COVID-19 revealed some of this disconnect and loneliness that's at the center of so many people's lives. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this book came because of COVID and honestly, just because I was really lucky. And when COVID hit, my husband and I were living with another couple, which is really unusual.

17:31We all had full-time jobs. We were in our mid-late 30s, like 35 plus. And my husband and I had been wanting to co-live. We had been experimenting with co-living with people. We didn't want it to be like a commune situation, just sort of like we have a big house. And my friends, Bethany and Brett, Brett is a doctor and Bethany worked at the high school where I also worked and we had shared a classroom and they needed a place to live. So it was supposed to be maybe sort of short term. We were all interested in talking about having children. And we were all living together when the pandemic hit. And we found that we were doing just a lot better.

18:10And I think you'll hear that from people who were potted in a way or like had pods that were really functional. It was really working for us. And COVID is the worst thing that's happened in any of our lifetimes, probably for sure. Those listening anyway, right? For those listening, I mean, right. That's a good distinction. It was a really nice time for me and my, and in our house, we had a really lovely, you know, nice, slow life. So this made me think, and I had been researching different types of relationship structures for about a decade. Are there ways that people who live in single family homes and are in sort of a nuclear configuration can just adjust a little bit to access some of this ease?

18:54That's the word, like ease because, okay, we're sharing dinner. That's really nice. Can more people share dinner in a way that doesn't feel like a dinner party or you're hosting? Can you not be hosting? Can you be integrating? So it's just a pattern. And then I thought, I'm sure people are doing this and yeah, people are doing it. There's people who are doing all different kinds of cooperating, co-living, co-parenting. I met a lot of people raising children in ways that you just don't see on television and it's just it's working so why aren't we seeing it why aren't we seeing it you know like sisters who are raising a kid together or three or four parents for two kids in one home people talk about i don't know how people raise a kid just two people or just one person because once you have all the hands on deck you're like this is a lot of work how are people doing this with just one or two people and when you look at the biology around it of course you've heard this million times like it takes a village etc but yeah there's just not another species in the primate universe that does this like two parents one parent and a kid or multiple kids it's just not how animals raise kids even a generation ago my mother grew up in a two-family home in the bronx where everybody coming over from ireland they lived on the same block basically like that's how we formed right chinatown and yeah all the different areas because everybody from the area or the village moved to the same street and they were doing the village again but in two generations that's kind of fallen away like we just don't have we don't have sidewalks right let alone neighborhoods we live next door to each other and one of the things that they talk about that I would have never thought about is air conditioning changed that a lot.

20:44There was no air conditioning. Everybody was out on the street all the time because it was too hot to be inside. So you're like, little Jimmy Reardon, go back. You're not supposed to be out. I know you're grounded. Like everybody knew each other's business. Then everybody got air conditioning and they suddenly went inside their own houses. And just the disconnects happen in such odd ways that we don't see coming, you know? I mean, absolutely. And the immigrant experience, it necessitates community. And so that you'll still see that all over the country. People who have immigrated to the United States are still living in community living situations that are different than the ones that people who are white and have lived in America for many generations are experiencing.

21:28And they report, in terms of their experience living, like much higher levels of happiness and satisfaction. And this is like Pew Research poll after Pew Research poll shows that when people are living in especially multi-generational communities, and it's usually immigrant families, that the satisfaction of living is higher. And in terms of what caused this air conditioning, yes, also bicycles, also cars, because it didn't It used to be easy to move off of your block period, like or to get from one house to a house far away. And so there you saw lots of shifts around that. The Industrial Revolution is the main thing, mostly.

22:09And this is not to advocate in any way for like going back to tenements and farm living. Guys, we're not doing it. We're not giving up the dishwasher. No, no. But it is interesting sociologically to think about the change that happened in the late 1800s, where suddenly we have industrialization and people would move to started moving to cities because there were jobs in cities. People started getting married much, much younger because they were lonely and they used to live with their families and now they were all alone. So you saw people getting married now at 19 and 20 instead of 25, 26 in the early 1800s and having kids earlier.

22:49And then you're living. I mean, then you're basically a child living in a little house as time goes on, as we like move into World War II post Great Depression, we're getting a lot of like the nuclear family is has a lot of promises for you. And you're going to be so look at how beautiful and shiny this family is and this fence and this yard and all of this can just be yours. You can have all of it. You can have your own vacuum cleaner. You can have your own dishwasher. You can have you can have all of because air conditioning and appliances like vacuum cleaners, dishwashers made what a clean house could look like just a much higher bar and it was quote unquote more accessible now you're making women just do impossible feats of labor and you can take pictures of it and say look it's possible you can have this your wife can make your house look like this all you need to do is buy this machine and it will help you with it i mean it's It happened in waves of industrialization and now we're all really lonely and overwhelmed.

23:52And like, oh God, if I ever have time to vacuum, that's incredible. I would love to have time to vacuum.

23:57Sophie Lucido Johnson:I never really thought about even the house labor. I mean, when I was little, we still had a clothesline out back. We had a dryer, but my mom would put stuff out on the clothesline to dry. My husband grew up with one grandmother living on one side of him and the other grandmother living on their side, like three houses in a row. with a shared backyard and you have a clothesline out there or you're beating the carpet out there. Right. This was all stuff that was happening 100 years ago and not anymore. And you're inside with the air conditioner going and you don't you don't see people. You don't.

24:29Sophie Lucido Johnson:There was a name for it, like a micro interaction. Yeah. Marlee Bower is a loneliness researcher and she's like, it's the micro interactions that we all lost during the pandemic. Oh, yes. I mean, this happened to me this weekend and I just was thinking about it today like how joyful it was I needed a bunt pan where was my bunt pan I could not find it I was making an important bread like it needed a bunt pan it was crucial I looked everywhere he texted my husband do you know where this bunt pan is of course he doesn't even know what it is what a bunt pan is so like let alone where it is let's back that question up what is a bunt pan there is a previous version of me and I'm a millennial that would have been like I bet I can get this on one day shipping like I bet I can just get a bunt pan like really, really fast, maybe even same day now, like just Amazon.