Boomerangs, Belle Burden, Mean girls and the NYTimes

Your opinions are requested

I thought about “phoning it in” today and reposting something clever and chirpy I’d written when it wasn’t so hot out. But, I’m sitting inside and it’s nice and cool, all cylinders are firing.

I’m thinking about a few things:

• The response to my article last week on mean girls

• Adult kids moving home

• The article in the NYTimes A Generation on Antidepressants Searches for the Exit by Camille Bromley

MEAN GIRLS

I have received a lot of feed back on the piece I wrote last week. Talking about mean girls really stirred you all up!

I get that.

As I wrote the piece, and later received feedback, I realized there were other stories to tell. Like:

• There are women who do not want to share their close friend with another close friend. Why?

• Apparently, there are a lot of mean girls after fifty. I stand corrected. I’m just not meeting them. Very often. For the most part. Only occasionally.

• Retirement homes are full of former high school mean girls who behave like high school mean girls. Unfortunately. Anyone have experience with this?

• Why choose to be “mean?”

• Is “mean” a habit? Like nail biting? Is it something one can stop doing?

There is a lot to cover. I’d like to hear from you. A lot of you have had or are having some rough mean girl experiences out there. Be strong.

What aspect of mean girls affects you? If at all.

• I want to hear from the over 70 gang. Tell me about your world and mean girls.

• I want to hear from the mean girls. Let’s hear your side.

• I want to look at the sociology of the middle aged mean girl, the “why” and what were they like as kids? Same goes for the mean senior citizen gramma.

Please read, “like” and comment:

ADULT KIDS MOVING HOME

I thought of the following, full of hyperbole and just for fun:

I think “boomerang” kids have been weaponized against us by an enemy state. Russia? Iran? Canada? Like Sisyphus, our kids we thought we had “launched” keep coming back into our homes with all of their baggage both literal and emotional. It’s the perfect weapon to distract every single grown up with kids over twenty. Nothing will ever get done.

I’m writing a piece on adult kids moving home and I would love your input. It will be funny but it will also be real.

How are you feeling about it? Most of us with multiple kids have one or two cycling through the house on their way to or from something post college. This is normal! It’s fine and really nice, actually. But, I wonder what you all are experiencing.

I am in Adult Kid Moved Home-Lite. Meaning, I have one who just graduated and is job searching (painful) and one that stays with us (bombs house) when she is on the East Coast as a landing pad (pig stye) and one who will be cycling back before she moves out west, date is uncertain, current lease has a month left. We may have three kids living here again. At least two.

I do not want to grocery shop and there have been complaints. I really really hate grocery shopping and this is a whole other piece I can write…loathe. Grocery. Shopping.

Last year, and while they were all in college we only had vacations as the time they were home opening seltzers, not drinking them and leaving them where they left them. Sweat ring beneath a warming can, permanently staining the table. Now, it could be anytime and all the time!

And PS there is a piece in the NYTimes about that today, too!

The article in the NYTimes A Generation on Antidepressants Searches for the Exit by Camille Bromley

This is a timely article for those of us in our fifties with kids in their twenties. We know that a lot of them went on SSRIs and are still on them. Is/was this a good thing? The article may not help answer this question, but it’s a good start. What do you think?

Strangers, Belle Burden

I read Strangers by Belle Burden in May. I have a lot of thoughts on it, and this surprised me. It isn’t a vapid, sob story. It isn’t a braggie Housewives of Blah Blah story. It is a life plan gone painfully, unexpectedly wrong. It’s shattered trust and bad decisions.

She’s in what she thought was a happy marriage, kids, massive privilege, one moment to his telling her, as she learns of his affair: “I thought I was happy but I’m not. I thought I wanted our life but I don’t.” He tells her she can have everything, including custody of the children. “I don’t want it,” he says. “I don’t want any of it.” (NYTimes By Alex Kuczynski Published Jan. 11, 2026Updated May 29, 2026). And, that’s it. he’s done. It’s particularly stinging he wants no custody of the kids. It gets worse.

Have you read it? What did you think? Shall we meet in Boston and have coffee this Fall? Mid September?

WORTH YOUR TIME!

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