Did ‘And Just Like That’ Just Call Out Parents For Using Kid Trouble As Their Trump Card?

I’ve always known that I talk about being a mom a lot or maybe even too much, depending on my audience. One girls’ weekend when our numbers were split between moms and non-parents, my kid-free friends came up with a code to get out of having to hear us blather on about our kids and their playground infighting. “Who’s up for a kayak?” meant they needed a break from us. I got it then and I get it now. Parenting is all-consuming, constantly at the front of my mind.

What I didn’t realize until I watched Season 3, Episode 8 of And Just Like That was that we parents do more than just talk about our kids. We might use it as a get out of jail free card with our kid-free friends. The trump card to end all trump cards. The final word in trauma, in struggle, in (dare I say) importance. Kid problems trump everything in a conversation. And now I’m not so sure they should.

It came to me at the top of the episode, when Aidan landed unexpectedly in Carrie’s Gramercy Park townhouse to stay for a while. Let’s all remember that Aidan had given Carrie a five-year no-contact rule that kept shifting here and there to suit his needs. Which she accepted because he’s having a tough time with Wyatt, his problem child. Aidan even got a pass for sleeping with his ex-wife, which felt ironic because Miranda didn’t even get a pass for eating the last yogurt in the fridge in the same episode.

So here is Aidan, all happy and loved-up and relaxed, and Carrie is heading out the door for her afternoon to discuss her book with downstairs neighbor Duncan. Aidan doesn’t want her to go, and so he brings up Wyatt. Carrie cancels her plans. Because kid trumps book.

It isn’t just Aidan, of course. The parents of And Just Like That — from Charlotte and Miranda to LTW and even Giuseppe’s mom, Gia, played by the great Patti LuPone — benefit from a certain level of gravitas to their problems. Or at least, some of them give the impression that they see their problems as more than those of their kid-free friends. It even happened with Miranda and Che Diaz, for Pete’s sake. Che couldn’t compete with Miranda’s son, Brady, in Season 2 and therefore had to resort to some unfunny standup to get their revenge. Fortunately for Miranda’s new love interest, Joy, Brady seems to be in a good place this season. But what happens when Brady is not in a good place? What happens if Joy has a problem and Miranda has a Brady problem? Will Joy’s thing take a back seat like Carrie’s book took a back seat because Miranda is a mom and we always win the trauma contest?

I couldn’t help but wonder… do I do this, too? Are all of us parents doing this to our kid-free people on some level?

Because I know if a friend is complaining about her job, for example, or her parents or her partner, that there’s a vicious little corner of me that thinks my problems as a mom of four are bigger. A part of me sees my life as more complicated than hers, more nuanced, more filled up by a whole bunch of people and their own bunch of problems. I know that’s not fair…

And then there’s my child-free partner. I wonder if, like Aidan, I tend to nonchalantly drop my kid worries at his doorstep. I wonder if I expect him to drop whatever he is doing so he can help me talk things out. I wonder if I’ve done this 1,000 times already and now it has become a muscle memory. I think I know in my gut that he will stop what he is doing to listen not just because he’s a good guy, but because he, too, might believe that my problems as a mom trump his problems as a human.

I recognize something in Carrie’s face time and again this season when she’s talking to Aidan about his kids or even listening to Charlotte and Miranda talk about their kids. This deer in the headlights, tentative, “I don’t know what to say” face I see on my own partner’s face so often. She pauses, every time. She waits to find out what she is supposed to say or do because suddenly, the mention of kid troubles means she’s in a holding pattern.

I have seen that look on my own person’s face, like he’s been given a pop quiz and he hasn’t studied. Like he is bracing himself to sail into uncharted waters. He should tell me he’s going for a kayak, like my other friends have done for years. Because our kid troubles don’t mean we get to win the trauma dump game.

And Just Like That, we’re all evolving.

Jen McGuire is a contributing writer for Romper and Scary Mommy. She lives in Canada with four boys and teaches life writing workshops where someone cries in every class. When she is not traveling as often as possible, she’s trying to organize pie parties and outdoor karaoke with her neighbors. She will sing Cher’s “If I Could Turn Back Time” at least once, but she’s open to requests.