On our trip to Central America this summer, I saw new a version of socializing and village life that I hadn’t tapped into before. I’m calling it bulk parenting.

We planned the trip with two other families we know well, families we’ve built real relationships with over time. We live in the same town, our kids went to the same elementary school, and for two weeks in this quiet beach town, we all lived in our own rental houses within walking distance of each other, with our kids attending the same camp down the road. Each house had a pool (the ultimate entertainment!!!) And all the kids could swim. A true highlight was watching the social magic of seven kids create their own world. Many afternoons after camp, the kid group, who ranged in age from 6-11, would decamp to one of the three family houses. Half in bathing suits with towels scattered around, they’d get completely wrapped up for long stretches..... with entertaining themselves. Barely was an eye lifted when an adult walked into view.

In general, my hosting philosophy when other kids come over is pretty hands off. I don’t plan games or get in the weeds with the kids. I’m more of a lifeguard: I stay out of it unless someone’s in danger. And with three boys, including pandemic twins, my husband and I have a high tolerance for noise and kid chaos. We’re also used to having a pile of kids over while we socialize with their parents for Deep Casual dinners.

In this trip group, none of these kids are individually best friends, though they all know each other well. What all of the parents noticed as we took turns governing seven kids at once, the kids had built their own social ecosystem. The older ones kept the younger ones more or less in line. The younger ones wanted to impress the older ones which kept them from acting out as much. Occasionally, a kid or two would peel off and do their own thing, like read on the couch or walk home, but there was almost no drama about it. They all got massively hooked on a game called Ultimate Werewolf in a way I’ve never seen hold a group’s attention across that big of an age range. Some afternoons it was Uno, or playing chess. But we never once turned on a screen during these hangouts, and most miraculously, no one ever asked.

*******

I spend a lot of time thinking about how to keep families from getting siloed into nuclear bubbles. In our regular life at home in North Carolina, we often arrange 1:1 kid hangouts, group meetups, or when we have whole families over, individual parents are still semi-responsible for their own kids, kids are still appealing to their own parent for snacks or the next thing, and everyone’s running their own version of how to manage the hangout. In Central America, during these bulk parenting moments, there was no other parent to appeal to other than the governing parent and perhaps most crucially, no other kids they knew to play with. Everyone accepted the rules and the available kids because there wasn’t another option. That lack of choice was part of what made it work.

What it made me realize is that this kind of village building and childcare arrangement is rare in my own life, and I wouldn’t have thought to try to engineer it at home before this summer. But this dynamic produces a kind of multi-age magic I want to think about how to build on purpose, (even without having a pool in my backyard) instead of just constantly coordinating one-on-one playdates.

Have you had experiences this kind of multi-age bulk parenting? What made it work? And how can we find ways to bring it into our lives that often feel overscheduled and over-curated around kids’ individual interests and friendships? I would love to hear your thoughts.

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Don’t forget to grab your guide for planning a longer trip abroad, including a list of programs that offer childcare that make remote work possible!

I’m offering it with a steep end of summer 50% discount for a limited time, so grab it now with the code ENDOFSUMMER.

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In this episode, I talk about what I’m calling bulk parenting: when a few families share space long enough that kids of different ages build their own social…

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I am still adjusting to life stateside, after a month in Central America. If you are interested in how the difficulty and expense of American camps led us to this trip for the second year in a row (and how we afford it WITHOUT a five-figure travel budget, I’ve written about this extensively here.)

If you are interested in planning your own extended summer adventure abroad on a budget while working remotely, it’s actually not too early to start doing some prep and brainstorming to make it happen. I personally find this kind of trip dreaming fun any time of year.

I’ve written a guide for everything you need to know to pull this off, (including a clutch list of programs for kids so you can work remotely) and I’m offering it with a steep end-of-summer 50% discount for a limited time, so grab it now with the code ENDOFSUMMER.

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Now, here are the nine things I learned from our trip.

1. A lack of choice is good for our brains. One of my favorite things about this trip is getting a break from consumerist culture, and a reminder that we don’t actually need a lot of stuff. Even small choices, like buying food or toiletries, come loaded in America with information and persuasion about how we’re supposed to spend our money. I ran out of contact solution during the trip. I went into the pharmacy and asked for it. They had exactly one brand, and the pharmacist asked if I wanted the small size or the big size. That was my only choice — no price comparison, no wall of brands like an American drugstore. It’s a small thing, but multiply it by hundreds or thousands of times a day, and not having to constantly make choices like that really gives your brain a break.

2. Taking a vacation, and time off work, while my kids were in camp was a total game changer. I’d never done it before. Ten stars, highly recommend.

3. Working less was eye-opening. Not just taking full days off, but on the days I did work, working fewer hours and taking Fridays off every week let me feel more relaxed and less like I was trying to maximize every moment. Of course, when you work for yourself, certain things will just be waiting for you later. But I tried to put those things aside for a while and focus on essentials rather than maximimizing my productivity.

4. Our kids do not spend enough time outside at home, and I’m not sure what to do about it. On our trip, they were outside usually seven to ten hours a day, and I think that’s incredibly good for them. It makes me despair a bit that our lives at home aren’t like this.

5. It’s nice to spend time in a place where no one is thinking about the world’s problems. In a small Central American beach town, nobody’s sitting around worried about AI or what Trump did today. I wouldn’t want to go through my whole life in blissful ignorance, but it is very helpful — mentally, emotionally, spiritually — to take a break from those worries sometimes.

6. So much joy comes from trying new things and getting out of our comfort zones. Even though we returned to the same place we spent a month last year, we discovered new restaurants and tried things we hadn’t done before, like a boat trip to see dolphins and zip-lining. When we’re in routines, at home or even on vacation, it’s easy not to push ourselves to try something new.

7. I have more empathy for people who don’t have great spaces for hosting. Through writing about Deep Casual Hosting over the last year, I’ve often encouraged people to not let not having a big or ideal space for hosting stop them from inviting people over. I think this is a great principle, but I realized it quite easy for me to say living in a home with an open concept kitchen/living room/dining room, a screened in porch with a dining table, and a generously sized backyard and a dishwasher! On our trip, our rental house (which was just for our family, each family we traveled with had their own rental house) was really not ideal for have the two other families we traveled with over for dinner. We had 13 people in our group, had one table with six chairs, no dishwasher, and barely enough plates and not enough cutlery for this crew. We didn’t host much by the way of meals, so we had to get creative. We pivoted to hosting people to hang out by the pool, I organized a beach dinner picnic, we brought food and ingredients to other people’s houses, and I spearheaded some fun outside-the-house activities.

8. Our community life is so rich, but damn does it take a lot of logistics. Putting ourselves in an environment with very few logistics and only two other families we knew at all made me see how much energy and bandwidth maintaining a lot of relationships takes. Our lives at home aren’t bad, in fact, what we’ve put into our relationships pay dividends all the time, and I wouldn’t want our “regular” lives to be any other way. But it takes a lot! I got the time wrong for a neighbor’s brunch! I need to check in on my friend who broke her arm! I need to check in on our neighbor who’s about to have a baby! Let’s coordinate the kids playing pickleball! Let’s coordinate the kids playing D&D! There’s a birthday party! Let’s pick up those two hand-me-down bikes! The event at the synagogue starts at 4! I’m tired but I want to show up for my friend’s political fundraiser!

9. It’s a rare privilege to go on a trip that’s wonderful, you actually have time to unwind, and to stay long enough that you’re ready to go home. So much of how we vacation these days keeps us constantly on the move, trying to fit in as much as possible. That’s not a personal failure — it has to do with limited vacation time, the difficulty and expense of traveling, and jam-packed schedules. Staying somewhere for a month for us means falling into a routine, and normal things like random fevers and a barfing incident don’t ruin a large chunk of a meticulously planned trip. It feels like an especially rare privilege to have a great time and get enough of it that you’re able to appreciate what you love about home, rather than dreading the return.

So you may be wondering, are we doing it all over again next year? I think taking a month-long trip is a high priority for our family for the foreseeable future, but we’re planning to try somewhere new next year. I’m already dreaming about it.

Don’t forget to grab your guide for planning a longer trip abroad, including a list of programs that offer childcare that make remote work possible!

I’m offering it with a steep end of summer 50% discount for a limited time, so grab it now with the code ENDOFSUMMER.

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In this episode, I talk about what a month away taught me, including choice fatigue and unplugging from the news to how much unstructured outside time my kids actually need. I’m honest about what worked an…

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As I’m writing this, I’ve been back home for about 36 hours. Our second year with a month-long family relocation to Central America was just what the doctor ordered for me after turning in my book manuscript. I treated myself to not one, but two massages and this fish pattern dress made by a French grandmother who sells clothes out of a school bus next to her and her husband’s boulangerie.

Our trip also gave me time to reflect on my life, personally and professionally. Our family absolutely thrives on these trips with simple logistics, a 90s style freerange-y camp, pools, beach, and lots of time outside. The radical slow down of life makes me notice how much I hold in my brain between my multiple professional commitments, three kids, being a homeowner, and all the time and complexity that come with being an active part of multiple communities.

To be clear, this isn’t commentary about an unbalanced distribution of labor between my husband and me, rather it’s noticing that much of life in America asks way too much of families on a logistical level. Splitting two tons among two people still means you are both carrying a ton, and that’s too much. Coming home to the school supply list, communications from two different schools now that my oldest is entering middle school, and a 1,500 word “what you need to know before camp,” for the American camp my twins are going to this week which includes a request to “submit paperwork if your child needs a specialized behavioral program,” “be sure you put your hazards on if you park on Morris St!” and “If you are later than 3:15 to pickup there will be a $15 fine!”

After my kids had a ball for a month at a camp where we wrote their names down, gave our phone number and handed the guy who runs that camp a wad of cash, these incoming instructions and the brainpower it takes to process take my breath away with its needless complexity.

While I’m enjoying central AC and having a dishwasher, my re-entry to regular life has made me a bit confused (I struggled to find my car in Target’s vast parking lot yesterday). However, I did have some time to recharge and think about how I want to use this newsletter space in the coming months. I’m thinking more about personal essays about family and community life, interviews and profiles with people with stories to share about how they’ve built communities and villages of care, continuing my advice column, The Neighbor Hotline (drop me an email if you have a conundrum about community life at askthedoubleshift@gmail.com) and doing some behind the scenes posts about how I’m getting ready for my book launch and building my business for paying members. Readers, after two years of wearing soft pants while writing a book in my backyard she-shed, I hired a personal stylist. There will be a post about that decision and what I am and am not spending money on in the lead up to my book launch in the coming months.

Thanks for being here and reading. More to come soon.

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Hey readers, I want to share a bit of a behind-the-scenes update. I’ve turned in the completed manuscript for my book, Neighboring: How to Build Community You Can Count On, and I’m bursting at the seams with excitement for you all to read it in April 2027.

While doing many rounds of editing, fact checking, and polishing, I’ve also been putting considerable time, money, and bandwidth into figuring out the next phase of my career and how to capture excitement and attention from the book into a longer term speaking and consulting business. Much more on that coming soon!

This year in the newsletter, I’ve also launched The Neighbor Hotline, where I answer your community life conundrums, (So far, we’ve tackled a difficult-to-host kid and what to do when people don’t RSVP.)

(If you have a question about community life you’d like answered in a forthcoming column, email us at askthedoubleshift at gmail)

There have also been all of the ups and downs of life, profound and banal, like a million canceled days of school, supporting some friends whose kid got a cancer diagnosis, watching my oldest and many of his friends we’ve all known since pre-k graduate from Elementary school, packing the family up for our month in Central America, and on and on. (Btw, if you need some summer travel packing recs, I’ve done WAY too much research and put it all here. I will be slathering my kids and myself in this sunscreen and living in these quick dry HUUG bras that double a swimsuit tops in the Costa Rican heat and humidity.) I also recently realized I have not taken a weekday off of work, except for childcare reasons, this entire year, so I’m putting up some OOOs for a bit this summer. I need a minute to think. I also need a minute to rest.

I’ll be taking a few weeks off from this newsletter, partially because I need to stare into the middle distance for a while, but also because I want to marinate on what should come next for this space. I’m thinking about what kind of stories I want to tell. I’m thinking about what resources I want to give away, and what I want to put behind the paywall. (By the way, I’m considering paywalling some stories about my business and the creative and unconventional ways I’m planning for my book launch. If this sounds interesting it you, lmk). If you have thoughts about what you’d like to see in this space, I’d love to hear it.

I really appreciate all of you who read, share, and especially those who support me with your paying membership. I know there are a lot of newsletters and a lot of people asking for support for content, so it really means so much to me.

Back in a jiffy!

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writer of The White Pages Substack, author, community trainer and professional potluck enthusiast joined Double Shift members for a great conversation last week. We talked about how he brought his wild idea for a 50 state interdependence relay to life (turns out there’s a lot of logistics in mailing a custom-made 50 lb box to rural South Dekota) and what he’s learning about how to make an effective gatherings in a wide variety of settings. So far, the relay has stopped at an inclusive San Francisco gym, a trans movie night, a burrito mutual aid project, and many more to come.

We talked about the social history of potlucks, (and why Garrett is a lifelong fan) and we also dug into some practical aspects of hosting that I think are really helpful: how to identify your strengths as a host, and the one thing that guests most crave going into an event.

Attending this conversation live was a perk of Double Shift membership, thanks so much for those of you who support this work!

Hey y’all! Just a reminder that TODAY, July 8th at 1pm EST I’m hosting Garrett Bucks for a members-only Zoom hangout. He’s a great writer, thinker and community organizer and the author of this piece I recently reposted about why hosting is part of a larger social project that fights fascism.

I’ll be asking him what he’s learned about hosting from his ambitious 50 state interdependence relay to celebrate America at 250, the hosting skills we most need to practice, and why building trust in small and simple ways is crucial for the long term work of social change. I can’t wait! Member of the Double Shift have a chance to ask this veteran community organizer, fan of potlucks and Deep Casual hosting their burning questions. Join us! Your paying membership supports this community building work!

Paying members get the Zoom info below.

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Welcome to the second edition of The Neighbor Hotline! There are approximately a bajillion advice columns about romantic relationships, family relationships, friendship, parenting, sex, money, and work, but I’ve yet to encounter one that focuses on community relationships, so I decided to write one myself. If you think this work is important and find this advice useful, I’d so appreciate it if you became a paying member of this newsletter. Years of reporting and research have informed how I answer these questions. Rebuilding our social connections is an urgent project, and it feels ick to me to put the answers behind the paywall. Thanks so much to those who are inspired to support this cause!

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Dear Neighbor Hotline,

I love to host and have been working on building up my Deep Casual skills. But one thing continues to gnaw at me: People who don’t RSVP! I am making peace with people who can’t or won’t reciprocate the invitation, but I find myself really hurt by people who don’t even acknowledge my invitations. I think there are many angles to the problem, such as too much digital communication and people maybe not understanding that it’s the type of event where an RSVP is requested (even when I ask for it). Practically, it’s frustrating because it’s hard to plan for events, and emotionally I find myself really bothered by it. I realize my reaction may be out of proportion, but it hurts. What is going on? Why don’t people RSVP? And how can I either 1) get them to or 2) get over it?

Signed,

Frustrated in Philly

✉️

Dear Frustrated,

First I want to commend you for putting yourself out there and extending some invitations. inviting people to events, even if they are Deep Casual is an act of vulnerability. It takes courage and gumption to put yourself out there and it’s totally understandable that you feel disappointed when you don’t hear back. I so wish we could bring back the social etiquette of a prompt RSVP, because it would make life so much easier for hosts.

You are correct there are two ways to tackle this problem. The first is using some effective strategies to get people to actually respond to invites, and the second is working on yourself to not get discouraged when people don’t respond promptly and clearly. First, let’s start with how to invite people effectively, so you actually get an answer about whether or not they’re attending.

The number one reason I think people don’t respond to invitations actually comes from a place of insecurity. They don’t feel like their presence really matters. When people believe this on a conscious or unconscious level, it seems like not a big deal whether or not they RSVP or show up. As hosters, it’s easy to overlook this perspective, because we think, “Of course I want them to come, that’s why I invited them!” But a lot of the ways we invite people doesn’t actually transmit our warmth and intention. That’s a big disconnect I see going on between hosts and guests, so let’s bridge this divide.

One way to up the chance of response and communication about whether someone can attend is to really make sure it’s clear to them that this invite is personal and special to them. Make sure guests know it matters to you whether or not they attend. For a small event, like one to three families, such as a Deep Casual dinner, I individually and personally text someone to invite them. Not a group text, not an email, not an Evite. This makes it clear that this invite is for them specifically, and therefore I’m expecting a response.

Imagine the how you’d feel receiving this individual message:

“Hey, I’m thinking about you. I hope the puppy is feeling better this week. We’d love to have you and the fam over for Pizza on friday, thinking around 6pm. Let me know if you are free.”

Vs. Group text sent to ten people:

“Hey this Friday is Pizza night! Let me know who can come so I can put in an order.”

Both are Deep Casual invites, but they’d feel very different to receive, right? And I think message one is MUCH more likely to receive a prompt response.

Part of being a host these days is being a wrangler. Don’t feel shy about following up within a day or two to an invite if there’s a short lead time. If you don’t receive a response then, that means the answer is no

If you are organizing a bigger event with a longer lead time and it makes sense to use an electronic platform like Partiful or Paperless Post, the same rules apply to help people feel like their presence matters. If you don’t get a response after a week, send an individual message

1) Checking in on them.

2) Confirming they got the invite.

3) Reiterating how much you’ll hope they’ll come.

Emphasizing how much you want them there rather than, “I need a headcount, you inconsiderate dolt!!!!” will make the invite feel more enticing and get you a higher response rate.

Also, “maybe” as an RSVP is actually a no. Don’t even bother putting it as an option on electronic invites if possible.

I also highly recommend sending a reminder message the day of the event to cut down on people simply forgetting, if they agreed to come.

And a pro-tip: when I occasionally organized events that have a cost associated, like a sauna session where everyone was splitting the cost, clearly stating in my individual message, “There’s room for eight and your RSVP is sending a Venmo for $30” Dramatically upped prompt response behavior and removed the uncertainty of what happened if people flaked and then others had to pay more as a result. This doesn’t make sense for a lot of gatherings like dinners hosted in your home, but it’s a clutch tool for activities with costs or trips. Keep it in your back pocket.

Now, onto the second part of your question: How to deal with your feelings when people don’t respond at all to an invite.

Our feelings get hurt by what we make up about the silence. It’s very common to see a non-response as a negative personal referendum. We then spiral, thinking. “They don’t like me.” “They think my gatherings are boring.” “They don’t care about our relationship.” “I’m not important to them.” When in reality the silence is much more likely to be about them than you. In addition to feeling like their presence doesn’t matter, here are some other common reasons people don’t RSVP.

1) They don’t know their schedule so they don’t want to commit.

2) They can’t come and they don’t want to say it because they wish they could come.

3) They are overwhelmed and forget to respond.

4) They missed the invitation.

5) Something hard is going on in their life and they just can’t communicate that at the moment.

If after following guidance on making sure people feel their presence matters, you don’t hear anything, accept that the answer is no, and remind yourself it’s probably not about you. Based on your relationship, after the event it may be worth a followup to check on them. I was once in a group text about planning something and one person was uncharacteristically not responding. Me and other group members wondered if this was somehow about us. I decided to reach out to her directly 1:1 after a few non-responses and learned a family member just died. It wasn’t about us!

If you’ve invited someone a few times, used these techniques and are still not getting a response, it’s totally OK to move on to putting your energy towards people who are more interested and available for attending the type of gatherings you want to host.

Good luck!

I’d love to hear from readers, what do you think of my non-response theory? And how do you deal with RSVP non-responses? What works and what doesn’t?

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Have a question about community life? Email the Neighbor Hotline at askthedoubleshift at gmail.com

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For those of you who are newer to my work, for years my journalistic focus was on social and economic issues facing families, care policy, gender equity, and moms and caregivers in the workplace. While lately I’ve been writing mostly about teaching people how to build communities, I still care deeply about those issues and those years of expertise are infused in my topics now. In fact, I care so much about those issues, I realized after deep research and reporting that the long, slow work of social, economic, and political change we need to live in more equitable society where families can thrive ain’t gonna happen if we’re all isolated and drowning in our personal responsibilities. This is why I started researching and writing about building up our social connections in more focused ways. I’ve also realized over the years that people do not make substantial changes to their lives and habits because you’ve convinced them it’s “good for society.” If you have any chance of getting people to change something about how they live, it’s because you’ve convinced them it will make their lives better AND you’ve shown them a relatively easy way to do it. This does not mean people don’t care about the larger world. Apathy is a problem, sure, but a bigger problem is that people feel like doing anything meaningful to make the world better is too abstract, too hard, and has no tangible results.

All of this is why I’m so excited to cross post this essay from one of my favorite Substackers writing about community building, . This essay perfectly articulates so much of why I do what I do. As Garrett says, “now is the time to build community like our lives depend on it.” So just host the damn thing already. It really does make a difference.

Members of the Double Shift, join me and Garrett for a Zoom Hangout July 8th at 1pm EST, where i’ll ask him what he’s learned about hosting from his ambitious 50 state interdependence relay to celebrate America at 250. You’ll have a chance to ask this veteran community organizer, and fan of potlucks and deep casual hosting YOUR questions. Can’t wait for this conversation. Members will get a calendar invite with details.

Thanks for supporting this work. I can’t do it without you.

Seven reasons why hosting a silly little potluck (or game night, or porch hang, or book club, or group hike) is essential to defeating fascism

Honestly, I don’t think we’ll win if you don’t

Garrett Bucks

Feb 03, 2026

Over the past few weeks, I’ve fielded the same question dozens of times, always well-meaning, always anxious. “You’re in contact with activists in Minneapolis. What should we do now in case we’re next, if ICE occupies our city the way it’s terrorized that place?” It’s a new variation on an older question, one which rears its head whenever the contradictions of a system built on violence and caste become harder to ignore.

My answer is predictable and, I fear, often disappointing. It doesn’t offer a hero’s path. At first blush it doesn’t match the urgency of the moment. That question (“what do I do?”), leaves so much unsaid (I’m frightened! I feel powerless! I want to take an action that will both calm my heart and send the gun thugs running!). We want to attend a training today and suddenly be leading a neighborhood rapid response group tomorrow. We long for an invite to the secret meeting where every perfect activist step is laid out before us like a treasure map. We crave, whether we admit it or not, “one simple trick,” that will reverse all the ways fascism makes us feel impossibly tiny.

I understand, friends, that not only am I a broken record, but that the song I keep playing sounds like some effervescent bubblegum pop trifle. I understand also that you’re likely hearing the same chorus played from an increasing number of speakers, and that perhaps you’ve grown tired of it by now.

But there’s a reasons why, at the protest I attended last Friday, no less than three speakers talked about community (to a crowd that was actively sharing hand warmers and sandwiches with one another, no less). There’s a reason why Adam Serwer of The Atlantic coined the term“ neighborism,” for the variety of resistance that’s emerged in Minnesota, and why Jelani Cobb, Dean of the Columbia Journalism School, recently opined that “in a democracy, the fundamental civic unit is the neighbor.” There’s a reason why Amanda Litman, whose day job as the leader of Run For Something is pretty damned political, earnestly believes that hosting dinner for friends every Saturday was the “most political thing [she] did in 2025.” And there’s a reason why my favorite foil, Ezra Klein, is now talking about hosting, if not a potluck, then at least some variety of gathering.

You are hearing the same chorus, not because it’s a hip trend, but because it’s true. My friends, you really do need to host a potluck. You need to bake cookies and write little notes inviting your neighbors to a block-wide Signal chat. You need to untether yourself from the urge to clean your house or whip up a fancy meal. You need to host stoop coffee and hang up flyers for park hangs and register for a potentially disappointing community rec class. You need to ask yourself “what’s the thing I most like to do with other people?” and then take the risk of inviting people, even strangers, to do it with you. These are not pleasant distractions from fascism, nor mere salves for loneliness. We need them. Urgently. They won’t feel like enough (and there’s not a guarantee they will be), but now is the time to build community like our lives depend on it.

Here are a few reasons, seven to be exact, why all this community talk isn’t just a cute distraction from the real work of liberation. The message here isn’t just that we’re stronger together (though we are), it’s that we ignore each other at our peril.

Build community, my friends, because our lives do, in fact, depend on it.

REASON ONE: The skills you and your neighbors need to resist fascism aren’t actually all that hard to learn. What’s going to slow you down is not knowing each other in the first place.

If you ask activists in Minneapolis how they’ve actually spent the past few weeks, you’ll hear about sets of actions that are either incredibly intuitive or that can be taught in relatively short workshops. There’s nothing particularly tricky about learning the SALUTE format for reporting ICE activity. You don’t need a doctorate in social movement theory to organize a food delivery spreadsheet. We all know, intuitively, how to blow a whistle. What is time consuming, however, is vetting strangers who want to join a Signal group, knowing which nonprofits can offer fiscal sponsorship for a mutual aid campaign, which churches or businesses have room for an emergency meeting, and who on your block is more flexible during the day or the night. The people who have been most effective in Minneapolis this past month aren’t the big talkers with the loudest megaphones. They are those who already knew their neighbors, who could be key connectors when, on a dime, an entire city raised their hands looking for something useful to do.

REASON TWO: Sure, you’ll eventually need to build relationships outside of your existing social spheres, but you won’t learn those skills if you don’t practice with those closest to you first

There’s a counterpoint that I receive pretty frequently, when I tell people to just host a damn potluck. It’s a presumptive critique, resting on the cynical hypothesis that not only will prospective community builders only reach out to others who share their same class, racial and political background, but that they will inevitably stay stuck in those same bubbles forever.

I’m actually sympathetic to this concern, to a point. There are absolutely examples of ostensibly “community minded” efforts (particularly in white, professional class circles) that exist primarily to protect privilege and fortify echo chambers. America is dotted with wealthy neighborhoods that can throw a solid Memorial Day BBQ, but whose residents oppose every new affordable housing and school integration initiative. There are no shortage of ostensibly “welcoming” megachurches, but whose doors are only truly open to those able to walk a very specific path.

The problem with this rebuttal, though, is that it disregards how human beings build and strengthen new behavioral patterns. Having trained thousands of community builders across the country, I find that the neighbors who are most skilled at cross-community relationships are those who first exercised their muscles close to home. That’s the difference between being a colonist or a savior versus somebody who just can’t help expanding strong webs of connection outward. Instead of aimlessly tilting around trying to find somebody else’s community to welcome you in, you act as a representative of a loving network ready to meet similarly bonded groups on equal terms.

There are beautiful examples of this approach in Minneapolis right now. I’m being deliberately vague, to protect activist identities in a high pressure moment, but some of the most trusted organizers across that segregated city are skilled bridge builders who simultaneously do an incredible job of convening welcoming events in wealthier, whiter, more sheltered corners of town, but who also build trusting coalitions with fellow organizers from Black, Brown and working class neighborhoods.

Another example. Here in Milwaukee, a good friend of mine (who also happens to be one of the most skilled community organizers I’ve ever met) recently founded an alternative church, the Kairos Collective, based on an ethos of radical hospitality. The group that coalesced around him, at least initially, shared a lot in common. They were disproportionally white, middle class, and straight Gen X parents. But they intentionally practiced taking care of one another, and then slowly and patiently forged new ties with like-minded communities across the metro area: a majority Black congregation with deep roots in its neighborhood; a younger congregation with a large percentage of queer and trans members; a participatory food bank whose clients are also volunteers. The Kairos crew has been able to forge strong cross-identity relationships, not in spite of their focus on building trust with each other, but because they practiced how to care before reaching out an open hand.

There’s a key difference between the gated “communities” that stay closed forever and the connectors whose webs keep pushing outward. Shared spaces stay insular if their goal is to reinforce traditional power structures. If, by contrast, they exist to challenge power, they can’t help but seek out new ways to blossom. That’s the difference between something dying and something being born.

Read the rest on The White Pages! 👇

The White Pages

Seven reasons why hosting a silly little potluck (or game night, or porch hang, or book club, or group hike) is essential to defeating fascism

Over the past few weeks, I’ve fielded the same question dozens of times, always well-meaning, always anxious. “You’re in contact with activists in Minneapolis. What should we do now in case we’re next, if ICE occupies our city the way it’s terrorized that place?” It’s a new variation on an older question, one which rears its head whenever the contradict…

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7 months ago · 941 likes · 16 comments · Garrett Bucks

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Tears & Joy

How We Host Big Dinner Parties in our Tiny NYC Apartment

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6 months ago · 75 likes · 9 comments · Julia Light

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For those of you who are new around here or new to my work, I want to take a sec to (re)introduce myself. I’m Katherine Goldstein, author of the forthcoming book, NEIGHBORING: How to Build Community You Can Count On (out April 2027 from Penguin Random House.)

I’m also a speaker and consultant for companies who see employee engagement, collaboration, and connection as an essential skill and competitive advantage in the age of AI. (If you want to learn more about the latter two aspects of my work, feel free to reach out at katherine@thedoubleshift.com) I’m also the mom of three, including pandemic twins, and I live in Durham, NC.

My Substack claim to fame is that I’ve coined the term “Deep Casual Hosting,” which is the idea that you go casual on all of the superficial aspects of hosting in order to go deeper on your connections and do it more often. Over the last year, I’ve loved hearing stories from other writers and readers about how powerful this practice is in building their social connections.

This month I want to go deep on Deep Casual Hosting with a couple of guest essays that explore different angles on how to make it easier to get together. Summer is a great time to try out or put some more Deep Casual hosting reps in; it’s easier to be outside, putting less pressure on us to get those houses in sparkling clean shape, and summer lends itself to more grilling, picnics, ice cream, campfires, and more low-lift ways to gather. I’ll also launch a chat later this month for members about how their Deep Casual Hosting is going this summer where we can brainstorm ideas and encourage each other.

There are two ongoing fun chats that I’d love for people to keep the conversation going on: one on block party hosting, and one for the phone call challenge, where we encourage each other to pick up the phone! I promise, it’s a gamechanger.

For many years, my journalistic focus was on social and economic issues facing families, and issues facing moms and caregivers. This lens is still very much imprinted on my work: part of the reason I wanted to write a book that teaches people how to build IRL connections is that I think so many of the big, systemic problems families and caregivers face and made much worse by our isolation; we need real public policy fixes for these issues. But something we can do is strengthen our connections right this minute is to invest in neighbors and village relationships. This is something we are somehow supposed to know how to do even though our society has been leading us by the collar towards nuclear family isolation for decades, and the pandemic seriously atrophied our habits and social skills. This newsletter looks at the big picture and the practical of what it takes to build connection you can count on.

One of my favorite topics to write about over the years (and has been perennially popular with readers) are some of the big problems with how America handles summer.

This research inspired me to opt out of the American summer camp madness by taking my kids to Costa Rica for five weeks last summer, and we’re going again this year!

If you are curious about how I did it, you can read all about it in this newsletter.

I also created a comprehensive guide for how to pull it off yourself, so if you are gearing up for expensive camp after camp this summer, and want to think about a different path in future years, I’m running a flash sale for 30% off the guide until June 30! Use the code FLASH at checkout.

Get the Guide

For those of you getting ready for summer trips of any kind, here’s a link to my summer travel product recs, previously only available to guide purchasers... Don’t sleep on that sunscreen, y’all! I did a lot of research before taking my fair, freckled redhead child closer to the equator! I’ve also become a real points/miles hound, so I’ve started using Rove, a universal miles program for my online shopping. It’s free, and you can get a 500 mile signup bonus using this link.

And if you need a laugh so you don’t cry about the summer camp demands, please enjoy my newsletter from a few years ago about camp reminder emails.

And a few more links:

The Daily: Can AI Make People Less Lonely?

If you are interested in getting to know your neighbors (without all of the baggage of platforms like next door) give this new app, Hey There Neighbor a try, where is helps you find hyperlocal neighbors to get to know them with a 10 min chat, no party planning or long-term commitments required.

Jessica Grose’s opinion column: Why Americans Are Afraid of Their Neighbors plus my thoughts on Linkedin on the intersecting crises of trust, isolation, and how we don’t give our kids enough independence, which has a great comment section going. (I’d love to connect with you over there, too btw.)

My friend book, Dad Brain: The New Science of Fatherhood and How it Shapes Men’s Lives is out next week, and it’s a wonderful Father’s Day gift.

Can’t wait to read my friend ’s new book, The Parisian Heist, which you can pre-order now.

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There’s been a phrase going around for a while that’s become a bit of a meme: “everyone wants a village, but no one wants to be a villager.” I think the more accurate take is not that we don’t want to be villagers, living close, meaningful, interconnected lives with others, but that we don’t know how to do that.

There are approximately a bajillion advice columns about romantic relationships, family relationships, friendship, parenting, sex, money, and work, but I’ve yet to encounter one that focuses on community relationships. That’s why I’m starting a monthly advice column called The Neighbor Hotline. How do we live, work, care for, and thrive together with people we know IRL and are friendly with, but aren’t our immediate family or besties? The group I’m focusing on is whom I broadly call our neighbors. In addition to the people who live nearby to us, this group I call “neighbors” the people who we carpool with, who we swap childcare with, who are the parents of our kids’ friends, who we talk to at the dog park, who checks our mail when we are out of town, who we are in book club with, who’s in our small group at church, who we chat with at the farmer’s market, and who we volunteer with.

Having conflict, disappointment, and tangled situations is a sign that you are putting some skin in the game and building real relationships. I want the Neighbor Hotline to help you strengthen those community ties for the long haul. So let’s get to our first question (which was edited for length and clarity).

_____________

Dear Neighbor Hotline,

I’d really like to host more often, and I have a group of close friends who all want to lean into “Deep Casual” hosting—hooray! The challenge is that one of the families (who are incredibly generous hosts themselves) has a child with significant behavior challenges.

We’ve hosted them before, and it was honestly overwhelming and difficult to manage in our space. It got to the point where my husband said (to me) that he’s not comfortable having that child in our home again. I understand where he’s coming from, but I also feel torn. I want to invest in our community and reciprocate this family’s generosity, but I worry about what it would mean if we don’t.

I haven’t had an open conversation with them about this. They’re aware of their child’s challenges and are actively getting support, but bringing it up still feels uncomfortable.

How would you recommend navigating something like this?

-Stuck in the Middle

First, I want to commend you for taking on some Deep Casual Hosting. The benefits to the practice are immense, but you’ve stumbled into the reality that hosting at home can still be challenging, even when you are being low-key. I’m glad you are thinking thoughtfully and intentionally about moving forward with building a reciprocal relationship with this family, even though it has challenges, rather than pulling back or ghosting.

Before tackling the nitty-gritty of whether you can figure out if or how to host them again, the first step is to see if you can open up a 1:1 in-person conversation with whichever member of the couple you feel closer to. Start with curiosity about how their family and kid is doing. You mentioned they are working on getting some support for their kid. See if you can open up a conversation about how that process has been for them, as these experiences can often be logistically and financially taxing. They might appreciate someone to talk to about it.

To get more perspective from someone who’s been in the situation of being the family that has the difficult-to-host child, I reached out to . He writes the Substack , and he has two neurodivergent kids, including a 10-year-old with level-two autism who also has additional diagnoses that can present as difficult-to-manage behavior in social settings. He recommends, “what really matters is that the conversation is underpinned with love, kindness, understanding and curiosity rather than hoping that just one thing needs to change and everything will be fixed and sorted.”

Untethered

A Hopeful Exploration of Connection, Care, and Community in Late Capitalism.

By Shane Meyer-Holt

Once you get a better understanding of where the family is at with their greater efforts around supporting their kid, AND you get a sense of how open they are to talking about it, that potential deepening of your relationship on this sensitive topic may inform how to move forward with respect to hosting. (I wouldn’t try to rush this first check-in by also bringing up the hosting situation at the same time.)

Before directly starting a more concrete conversation about hosting this family again, think about this framing from Shane: “As a parent, probably the most important thing to me in this situation is that we people to be loved, not a problem to be fixed,” he says. “You can sense automatically whether people’s primary goal is just to make you less inconvenient, make your kid less inconvenient, or if their primary goal is to actually work out how to include you and to treat your kid with love and compassion as well.”

It sounds like this family hosts, and you see them in other contexts without as much difficulty. Coming to your house probably wasn’t an easy experience for the kid or the parents. Don’t lead the conversation with what didn’t work for you or your husband’s objections. Instead, take stock of how the gatherings were set up. Was everyone being together in a small living room too much? Were there a bunch of other kids around who seemed to upset the kid? Was eating all together the source of the difficulty? Was sharing toys the major problem? Try to frame the conversation with the parent about how you might be able to host in a way that works better for everyone. Consider phrases like, “I noticed that it seemed hard for Mary to be at our house with a big group. Do you think it would be easier for you all if we had you over with fewer people next time?”

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If you don’t feel like your relationship with this family is strong enough for these conversations, or your husband just isn’t open to revisiting his stance, even with new information about how it might go better, I also want to throw out that there are ways to host without it being at your house. You can always suggest, “We’d love to meet you at the pool on Wednesday, and we’ll order Pizza for everyone,” or “How about a picnic at a park so the kids can play at the playground while we talk?” You are still the “host” even if you aren’t having the event at your house.

Good luck!

Have a question for the Neighbor Hotline? Email us at askthedoubleshift@gmail.com.

If you have any additional advice for Stuck in the Middle, feel free to share in the comments!

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When did calling people on the phone become weird? And when did we start to need someone’s permission to call them? I’ve been thinking about how much our phone behavior has changed over the course of this century. Sometime after 2007, when text messages overtook phone calls in volume and smartphone use exploded, it seems like we collectively decided that texting wasn’t just one way to communicate, but practically only way to connect with people.

Despite having devices that make reaching people easier than ever in human history, we’re using methods of communication that don’t actually help build connections.

Let me give you some examples.

Texting is great for:

• Hey, I’m running 10 minutes late

• Can you pick up milk at the store later?

• My plane landed

• Just a reminder to bring the backpack tomorrow

Texting is NOT great for:

• Things are really effed up at work and I’m worried I might get fired

• I’m so lonely and depressed at home with the baby all day

• I’m having a hard time and I need to talk through X situation

• You hurt my feelings

• I have amazing news and I want to share it with someone

• We got a terrible diagnosis

• Are you mad at me?

Actual phone calls are good for having nuanced conversations, expressing curiosity, giving and receiving emotional support, having difficult conversations, understanding someone’s feelings, and having them understand you. Of course, there are exceptions, but I’d like to push everyone reading this to think about how we’ve become over-reliant on text messages and challenge ourselves, even if it’s out of our comfort zone, to experiment with communicating in a different way. I’m not going to lie, talking on the phone does take time and requires two people to find time to connect. But all forms of building connections take time. Talking on the phone is actually a lower lift than many other forms of effective relationship-building.

So, I’m hip to the fact that it’s en vogue and socially acceptable for millennials (like myself) and younger people to declare, “I hate talking on the phone!” I’ll use this moment to earnestly ask you why. Are you out of practice? Do you fear awkwardness or not knowing what to say? Do you worry the call will go on too long? Pinpointing what you actually “hate” about talking on the phone may reveal some skills that are worth working on that can help you build social connections overall. And if you are nervous or anxious about it, the absolute best antidote is to actually do the thing. It will probably go better than you expect.

Welcome to the phone call challenge

Rather than just say we should do it, today I’ll will walk you through four weeks of not-too-time-consuming micro-challenges to get you connecting with people on the phone. The goal is to strengthen our community connections with folks we know locally, not catch up with friends and family who live out of town.

Members get to weigh in on how it’s going with a members-only chat!

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The first time I got a phone call from Nicole, who was a newer friend of mine, I assumed it was an emergency. It was around 9:30 a.m. on a weekday. I had no reason to expect to hear from her. I presumed something must be wrong with her daughter, who goes to school with my kids. I live close to the school; perhaps she needed me to run over there? I picked up the phone immediately.

“Hey, how’s it going? What’s up?” I responded, mentally preparing myself to activate in case of a crisis.

“Oh, hey. I was just driving by your house, and I was thinking about you, so I thought I’d call,” she replied. I was totally taken aback, but I went with it. We chatted for a few minutes, then I politely told her I needed to get on with my workday, and that was that.

As our friendship developed, I told her that the first time she called me, I thought it was an emergency. “Oh, no,” she clarified. “I just love to call people.” I quickly learned my new friend is a very non-stereotypical millennial. She happily picks up the phone and calls to check in and chat with both local and out-of-town friends. Whenever she’s thinking about them or has a vaguely free moment, she doesn’t hesitate to dial. She works outside the home and has three kids, but she’s a ninja at finding pockets of time to chat. She calls me on the way to Pilates, or driving to her son’s baseball practice, or even if she’s going to get interrupted a few times, while she’s home with her kids in the evening.

Now that I know this about Nicole, I don’t panic or think there’s an emergency every time she calls. If it’s not a good time, I feel no guilt about letting it go to voicemail. But the experience of making a new friend in adulthood who is into phone calling has been incredibly insightful for me. It has radically sped up the closeness of our relationship. Making meaningful connections in your 30s, 40s, and beyond when you have kids and a career can be challenging. Even though we have only known each other for about two years, these days, she’s among my inner circle of friends. I talk to her on the phone approximately 1 to 3 times a week, way more often than anyone else in my life, including some of my lifelong closest friends who live far away.

Thanks to what I’ve learned from Nicole, I’ve started calling other people way more often. I’ve quickly re-learned that the phone is an incredible communication tool that is so much better, more meaningful, more personal, and sometimes way more efficient than text messages for getting to know people in our in-person communities and strengthening existing bonds. Short phone calls, (I’m talking between five and 20 minutes) can be very powerful touchpoints.

Now that I’m embracing phone calls, here are some reasons I’ve called some of my local friends recently:

• To check in on a friend who I knew was really bummed about not getting accepted to a grad program.

• To offer my condolences to a friend who’s long time neighbor and book club member had recently passed away.

• To get some advice.

• To discuss a nuanced friend dynamic situation.

All of these phone calls were under 20 minutes, and were so much more connecting and satisfying than texting. Many of the folks I call on the phone actually say, “Thank you so much for calling.” And none of these topics could have been thoughtfully discussed through the simple, flat tone of a text.

If we’re going to have these distracting computers attached to our bodies all the times, let’s actually use them in ways that DO foster human connection.

Also, since I’ve started proactively calling people, something started happening that I didn’t fully expect. Reader, people have started calling ME! Breaking the seal of phone calling seems to have given permission to my Elder Millennial/Gen X friends to pick up the phone too, and now I’m getting unscheduled phone calls from them, which is a delight.

Next week, I’m going to share a structured phone call challenge to ease us back into the habit of talking on the phone more often, but in the meantime, let’s all be more like Nicole. Pick up the phone and call someone who lives nearby and is a part of your in-person community. It doesn’t have to be more than a 5-, 10-, or 20-minute conversation; see how it feels.

Two Book Recs for You:

My Mother’s Daughter: Finding Myself in My Mother’s Fractured Past Check out this absolutely stunning memoir by Tracy Clark-Flory about finding her half-sister in her 30s who’d been put up for adoption decades before, in a story about race, sexism, and untangling what we inherit from our Mothers. A Beautiful read!

The Ambition Penalty: How Corporate Culture Tells Women to Step Up, and then Pushes Them Down. As a recovering Lean-In Feminist, I deeply appreciate Stefanie O’Connell’s analysis and insight that debunks what holds women back as a result of personal failure or a lack on ambition. Fortunately, Stefanie doesn’t just diagnose the problem, but also offers scripts and solutions for pushing back against these biases. Pre-order it now, out next week!

And Don’t Forget: Check out my new speaking website and let me know what you think! Reach out if you, your company, or an event you are involved with are interested in keynotes and workshops that help audiences build trust, strengthen belonging, and create connections they can count on. I have few slots open for Q4 and am booking Q1 and Q2 of 2027!

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PS: Check out my new speaking website an…

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