Necessity is the mother of invention, right? Here is what I need: other parents. I need you. I need to be with quirky parents like me. I need to look into your face and see that you’re just as determined as I am to not give up. Not give up on your dreams, not give up on your kids, not give up on being an individual in order to adhere to the status quo. I need to see you doing your thing. I need to read your words and watch your projects grow. And I need it in a deeply personal way. It’s not easy being a hyper-autonomous person who craves community. Navigating those contradictory parts of my personality takes a lot of work. If you’re somebody who feels that same push and pull maybe you’ve also felt how parenting adds another dimension to that struggle. I need to be around other parents who are deeply committed to growth; personal growth, familial growth and social growth.

I kinda have that right now and I kinda don’t. I know parents like that, I don’t spend as much time with them as I’d like. The ultimate cool parent dilema. We’re a little too busy raising kids in order to make it out to a lot of events; which is how community is sustained, showing up for each other. Being at the same place at the same time on a regular basis is pretty much the recipe for building community. That goes for online as well as in person communities. And no offense to the awesome social support systems I have access to online, but I need some face to face time. I need to see some damn eyebrows in action. Need to hear the pitch of voices raising and falling with emotion. I need to be in your presence.

There’s an event coming up that I’m really excited to be a part of. It’s part zine release reading, part radical parenting discussion. I have a story in Rad Dad 23 and I’ll be doing a reading. I am grateful to have been able to contribute to such an awesome, independent and necessary publication. I’m also super excited that the founder and editor of Rad Dad, Tomas Moniz, sees this release party as an opportunity to build community. We’re working together to make the event at The Holdout in Oakland on December 15th from 5-7pm not just family friendly, but family sustaining. There’s a recipe to making an event beneficial to parents: kid friendly food and kid oriented entertainment. We’re working on having both. Stay tuned for more details on the event.

My truth is that I need to meet other cool parents and I’m pretty sure other cool parents need to meet me. And yes I’m using cool and radical as synonyms. I’ve been a radical parent from the jump. And I’ve always been cool.