Welcome back to The Weekend Press! Today, Madeleine Kearns has two drinks with the mom-osphere influencer who says day cares are “warehouses for kids.” Eli Lake remembers Jesse Jackson’s greatest speech. The first round of ads has landed in our matchmaking service! But first, assistant editor Josh Code on a dark chapter in his life. . .
I started smoking weed when I was a junior in high school, and later moved on to prescription pills. The drugs derailed my life. I lied to my family, made friends who cared more about expensive bongs than good grades, and failed to get into any of the colleges I applied to.
This was back in 2017, in California, which had just voted to legalize marijuana. In the years since, other states have followed suit, weed has gotten more potent, and a lot of stories about kids ruining their lives with pot have followed. Across America, parents find themselves asking: What are you supposed to do when your son disengages with society? When your daughter gives up on life?
Some people are fine with their kids passing around a bong in the backyard. Others may not like having a stoner for a son but they can’t fight the instinct to keep bailing him out. And then there are the parents like mine, the parents who say enough is enough.
After graduating from high school, I received an email from my parents, telling me I had to move out of my childhood home. The deadline was nonnegotiable: I had two months.
On my best days, I am grateful for what they did. But the years that followed weren’t easy. This is a story about what happens after the door shuts behind you. It’s a story about my hometown, Palo Alto, where kids crack under pressure, succumbing to addiction—or worse. It’s a story about how easy it is to check out and, more than anything, it’s about what it takes to come back.
—Josh Code
Erica Komisar, psychoanalyst and crusader in the mommy wars, is known for her zingers that go viral on social media. She says day cares are “warehouses for children,” sleep training is “damaging,” and night nurses are a “narcissistic trend.” New mom Madeleine Kearns met her—and her cockapoo, Chester—in her Manhattan condo, and asked: Does it bother her that a lot of what she says makes working moms feel guilty? “The kind of guilt that most mothers feel is warranted,” said Komisar.
This week, the civil-rights leader Jesse Jackson passed away at 84. In the latest installment of Things Worth Remembering, Eli Lake recalls “the grace he exuded in one of his hardest moments,” and the virtue with which he delivered one of America’s greatest apologies. “If there were occasions when my grape turned into a raisin. . .please forgive me,” Jackson asked. “Charge it to my head and not to my heart.”
Take a pop-culture product from roughly two decades ago, point out how unsavory it was in retrospect, make the viewer feel somehow complicit, then offer some fairly tepid insight from behind the scenes. This is the playbook Netflix documentaries have been following for a while now—most recently with a show about “America’s Next Top Model.” River Page explains why it fails in this week’s Second Thought, before recommending something that’s worth your time: a baby monkey in Japan.
This week, we’ve published plenty of other culture pieces this week, including . .
In other Free Press news, our very first batch of Free Press Cupid submissions are in! If you’re looking to find the love of your life, or just a fun person to chat with, you can find our list of eligible singles here. To be included in next week’s batch, send your ad to cupid@thefp.com.
If you missed out on this round and you live in New York, don’t worry: We have a bonus offer for you. Come meet some other members of our lovely FP community on Tuesday, March 10, when our very own Suzy Weiss interviews Kat Rosenfield about her new book, live in Manhattan.
How should you spend the rest of your weekend? We asked our reporter Maddie Rowley for her recommendations. . .
🎵Listen. . . “Amadeu$” by Cancun? The ultimate pump-up song for your workout playlist. This song makes me feel like I can deadlift twice my body weight and then run a full marathon. I can do neither of these things. But it sure does hit while doing my silly little 30-minute incline walk on the treadmill.
🍷Drink. . . I’m no wine aficionado, but in between Coke Zeros, I’ve really been enjoying an occasional glass of Stationmaster Cabernet Sauvignon. I find it at my local Wegmans (also known as my personal mecca).
📚 Read. . . Babylonia by Costanza Casati. If you’re a fan of Madeline Miller—the genius who wrote the smash hits Circe and The Song of Achilles—you’ll love it. I’m halfway through, and it’s about an enterprising young orphan girl who, through her own cunning and prowess, becomes the only female ruler of Assyria.
🎵Listen. . . I’m breaking the rules here and doing two “listen” categories because I truthfully can’t remember the last time I sat down and watched a show (I have a 4-year-old and a 5-month-old). But as I ran around with my hair on fire last week, as moms are wont to do, I loved listening to the Rest is History podcast series on Joan of Arc. Did you know she was just 13 years old when she claimed to have heard divine voices telling her to guide Charles VII through enemy territory and crown him as the rightful king of France? And she actually did it? It’s an unbelievable story.
Last but not least, a beautiful thing to feast your eyes on: This week, Alysa Liu became the first American woman to win Olympic figure skating gold in 24 years. Here’s our Gen Z role model’s iconic victory pose:
That’s all, folks! Have a great weekend.
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Now TFP has gone to product placement (M. Rowley)?
Great coverage as usual, team. Keep it up.