The children of the lower-middle class in the 1960s and 70s didn't grow up poor, and that distinction is where all the confusion begins. Poverty has a vocabulary. Struggle has a sociology. But the households that sat one uncertain rung above real hardship — the ones where the ...Read More
The adults who can't seem to build close friendships past 40 aren't emotionally closed off. They've simply become fluent in a register of conversation that most social settings actively punish, and the punishment is usually so subtle that nobody recognizes it for what it is — a slow, ...Read More
A client I'll call Elena apologized four times in our first twenty minutes together. Sorry for being a minute late. Sorry for needing a tissue. Sorry for asking me to repeat a question. Sorry, again, for apologizing so much. She was a senior hospital administrator who had just ...Read More
The friendships I've lost in my thirties didn't die from anything dramatic. Nobody slept with anybody's partner. Nobody borrowed money and vanished. Nobody said the cruel thing at the wedding that can't be unsaid. They just became harder to sustain than either of us knew how to admit, ...Read More
Praise feels universally good, which is exactly why its specific shape goes unexamined. Most parents, most teachers, most well-meaning adults hand it out believing all praise builds confidence. But research on how different types of praise land in a child's developing psyche suggests something more complicated: certain forms ...Read More
Former colleagues from the TAFE institute, old friends from my Sydney years, even a cousin I hadn't spoken to in a decade — every one of them who asked when I was moving back was telling me something about themselves, not asking something about me. It took me ...Read More