Last year, writer Robin Sloan published a brief essay in his newsletter, and one part in particular has stuck with me since:
“You could extinguish a star,” but you never will, because that power is occupied by the task of living.
I was reminded of it talking to a colleague a few days ago who was of a similar (which is to say, middle) age as myself. She noted that we are getting into that not-so-pleasant space in between the hammer of having young children and the anvil of parents who are starting to need some extra care themselves. But of course, I commented, our parents had the same issues and we as children were protected from feeling any effects.
Except now I am having second thoughts, as I do think we have it significantly worse than our parents.
To start with, children require more maintenance than we ever did. Toddler age onward, we act as our progeny’s administrative assistants-slash-social secretaries, scheduling playdates, RSVP’ing to birthday invitations, filling out the afterschool activity calendar. School are no longer send-them-and-forget-them affairs. Parental participation is strongly encouraged and often required. Every day brings a new newsletter from the school district, the school itself, one or more teachers, the PTO, the separately-arranged (and paid for) aftercare, each with a new set of dates to track, tasks to complete, ideas to consider. This is all good! But also exhausting.
Parents live longer, with more chronic conditions and with an ever-growing list of medications. Even those who are healthy have to contend with the modern digital services that have supplanted a 30-minute queuing session at the post office, for which they need technical support. The only apps they can use seemingly without support are those for social media, which they use to spam us with the latest pixelated meme or — if you are not as lucky — AI slop that was reshared in their group.
And then there are our own administrative tasks: separate logins for all utilities, each now requiring 2-factor authentication; mortgage and car payments to keep track of; the ever-growing number of things to repair in the household; all those incantations to chant to get the AV system working (or is that just me?)
So yes, our lives have gotten more complex and if it weren’t for them we’d be busting lots of stars.