Other animal-inspired alternatives to bird nesting for divorced parents
Birds can't have all the good ideas, can they?
I’ll occasionally be sharing brand new humor pieces in this newsletter, as a li’l treat. Big thanks to Emily Flake for this incredible lol-y illustration!
OTHER ANIMAL-INSPIRED ALTERNATIVES TO BIRD NESTING FOR DIVORCED PARENTS
Some families practice a living arrangement called “bird nesting.” Instead of shuffling kids back and forth between two homes, the kids stay put and the parents cycle in and out. But birds can’t have all the good ideas, can they?
HOLLOW TREEING
This arrangement works for parents who want to keep their children in a home someone else built and abandoned and therefore feel under no obligation to maintain. Hollow Treeing is also ideal for parents who love the nightlife, look like bandits, and often get compliments on their surprisingly human-like hands. If your kids like eating garbage and being abandoned by their dads, this one’s for you.
STABLING
Quit stalling and consider stabling! Stabling is perfect for parents who prefer enclosed separate spaces with the option to eat out of a bucket and kick doors, and for kids who live for carrots, apples, jumping over things, and pitchforks. Stabling is particularly well suited to families who love to fit their exercise into an oval shape.
DAMMING
In this arrangement, the parents diligently build multiple houses under the assumption they’re being helpful when sometimes they’re just creating problems downstream.
FISHBOWLING
In this approach dating back to the 1970s, you’ll be living your lives out in full view of your community. Each member of the family will be provided with a fluorescent rock or wavy plant to distract from this complete lack of privacy. Sometimes the constant scrutiny of one’s personal life can make it feel as though you’re not getting quite enough oxygen but don’t worry, you’ll forget what’s happening pretty much as soon as it happens.
SPIDERWEBBING
Spiderwebbing, while appearing incredibly fragile, is actually a surprisingly strong arrangement. The father—if he can honestly even be called that—is typically long gone. The mother eight-handedly ensures her children are in a safe and secure place to grow and develop, sometimes all on their own. While she’s of course busy keeping all her eyes out for shoes, books, and newspapers, she primarily spends her time eating and playing real-life “fuck, marry, kill” with potential suitors.
HUTCHING
Hutching is best suited to parents who, although separated, inexplicably still plan to reproduce at an alarming rate. Maybe rabbits don’t have any good ideas after all.
CAVING
Does a bear get a divorce in the woods? In this model, everyone in the family ingests a truly staggering amount of carbs then falls into a deep non-reactive slumber for half the year. Although it’s true that the word “caving” can have a negative connotation of “giving in,” it’s best to think of this arrangement as an unbeatable combo of giving up for six months followed by a Rumspringa of destroying bird feeders.
ANT HILLING
If icebergs could get a divorce, they’d go with ant hilling, a post-divorce family approach where what you see is just the tip. Underneath the surface, arrangements are exceedingly complex but surprisingly harmonious. Separate rooms allow plenty of space for everyone to sleep, eat, and carry fifty times their body weight. When this model fails, it’s usually due to the parents putting all the dirt they dug up on each other out on their front lawn.
BEEHIVING
Is it a divorce or is it just Plan Bee? This refreshingly matriarchal arrangement completely revolves around the needs of the mother, the queen. Finally. Her role is to reproduce and be served. How everyone in the house stays fed, cared for, and alive? Really not her problem. Once she mates with the male, he dies, leaving no one to compromise with. She has an extensive staff to take care of every detail of her home, family, and life. Experts agree that referring to this as “an arrangement” misses the point entirely and instead prefer the term “perfection.”
KENNELING
Parents of purebreds with glossy hair bypass negotiations over living arrangements entirely by shipping them off to boarding school.
💥 HELLO, BOOK CLUBS 💥
I’ll be (virtually) joining ten (10) book clubs to discuss BUT YOU SEEMED SO HAPPY! Here are the rules:
💥 Preorder BUT YOU SEEMED SO HAPPY for your book club here.
💥 Email a scan or photo of your book club’s receipts showing 8 (or more) preorders for BYSSH to kimberly@honeystaysuper.com by October 3rd!
💥 I’ll draw 10 names at random on October 5th!
💥 All book clubs must take place by December 31, 2021!
💥 GOODREADS GIVEAWAY 💥
Enter for your last chance to win a galley of BUT YOU SEEMED SO HAPPY! 1000+ readers have already entered so git in there. Deadline is 9/20!
NEW FROM ME
• A new piece on McSweeney’s! So You Just Announced Your Divorce Bingo! Play along at home by buying the card from Sapling Press!
• You know those author selfies and videos where, say, a novelist cries with joy over seeing their final books for the first time? Yeah I find working in memoir hits a little different. 🗣 SOUND UP TIL THE VERY END.
THINGS FROM ELSEWHERE
• When I tell you I legit LAUGHED OUT LOUD WITH MY MOUTH and CRIED REAL TEARS over this commercial I am NOT EXAGGERATING. And although the premise is so, so smart and delightful, I’d be lying if I didn’t say as a parent I felt like an asshole for all the times I tried these ploys with my kids. Ugh this is just so good! “Is this the best back to the office video ever?”
• Super practical, super helpful, big picture stuff and details: “Everything I've Learned about Being a ‘Professional’ Writer” in One Post” by Lincoln Michel.
• Mom influencers are getting a lottttttt of attention these days. I loved this interview: “Momfluencing, with Sara Petersen” in the Evil Witches Newsletter. “Is it possible to find that much joy in this role I chafe so much against? It was so tantalizing to think that, maybe, if I do XYZ differently/better, I can really live my best life taking photos of little freckled noses. That was something I sort of found myself feeling ashamed about, not being able to tap into that joy these influencers seemed to be experiencing and who doesn’t want to have a better time as a mom?”
• “I Read The Whole Internet” by Charlie Warzel. Welp I feel like I share a newsletter from Charlie Warzel or Anne Helen Petersen (or both!) in every newsletter and here we are again. And while there are certainly incredible pieces being linked to in this one, I welled up over his grandmother saying, “What a world we live in.”
• This is amazing: “If you’ve come here from the Greater World Wide Web and don’t know me personally, chances are good that you’ve seen my face. That’s right, it’s me, the world’s go-to animated GIF for expressing incredulity: the Blinking Guy.”
Preorder BUT YOU SEEMED SO HAPPY here. Preorder a SIGNED copy of BUT YOU SEEMED SO HAPPY here. You can find my copywriting and creative direction work here. You can find my writing-writing work here. You can find me on Twitter. You can find me on Instagram. Please do not find me in real life, I’m busy admiring my surprisingly human-like hands.