I’m So Happy My Daughter Has a Good Boyfriend

… is a sentence my feminist, Sassy self would never have thought I would say. Feel free to tell me why I am dead to you now.

Note that Charlotte’s love life was not always so MAGA-friendly. Her first serious relationship was with another (closeted) girl. An issue for her there was not the gender, but that said girl’s parents were Trump supporters (which makes sense). So without divulging all of my daughter’s private and personal dating history, I will say that she does not base her love or who she dates on gender identity or sexual orientation.

And right now phenomenal and unique Charlotte is in a relationship that seems healthier than any romantic relationship I’ve ever had myself. Not because it reads as heterosexual and monogamous and society-approved. Because of this: Jack is nice and thoughtful and mature and considerate and caring and kind and sweet. They really seem to help each other in life. They don’t want to be with other people, but don’t want to rush their relationship with each other either.

As the daughter of an original Ms. magazine subscriber and someone who feels grateful all the time (especially during “wedding seasons” — when did that start and why? I know I can look it up myself, but ugh) that I managed to grow up with not one iota of pressure to ever have a boyfriend or get married myself, this is bringing up unexpected issues.

Charlotte’s godfather and most of her other older role models are queer. Many, including me, have never been in super long-term monogamous heterosexual relationships. That might be partly why she is so incredibly open-minded about sexuality and gender. Or more likely, her upbringing and I had nothing to do with it and she’s just cool. David Belisle has lovingly documented Charlotte’s life for 21 years and counting whenever she has been with her godfather Michael — which is often. He took this beauty of them in the Village (New York again).

I wanted kids from a young age (even as a teenager, being the only girl in my dorm who was bummed when my pregnancy tests came out negative) and wanted to do the magazine work I’m doing from a young age, and wanted to do that work with a group of friends, and sleep with Prince and many other specific goals (I achieved 99 percent of them but not Prince), but I have never wanted to get married. (Not even when I was engaged, but that's another story that I will absolutely tell you.) I know nothing about wedding protocol and have messed up by doing things like sending flowers to a friend’s ceremony I couldn’t attend at the last moment (sorry, Cindy Gesner!) because I never had my own dream of walking down the aisle or any of it. I’ve also never wanted a boyfriend or girlfriend in the generic sense. I’ve had deeper relationships with specific people, but I have never felt lonely or wanting when I have been without a significant partner, and have spent probably 56 of my 61 years super freely and happily single.

My friend Linda Friedman took this of me and Charlotte when I was on maternity leave in LA and of course telling Charlotte nightly made-up bedtime stories about independent women who did not need princes. (This child has been really well documented, literally since the moment she emerged from my body, so if you're interested in seeing any other pictures of the two of us together throughout the years, I've got them!)

So when Charlotte and her great boyfriend, Jack, got together, and then stayed together, and then spent time with me where I could see how supportive they were of each other and how calm and happy and secure she seems with him, I was really surprised to feel such a wave of joy and so much relief that my daughter has someone who takes care of her.

I don’t want to apply any pressure that I (thanks, mom) avoided myself, by making her feel that having a partner is a goal or a superior position to be in in any way. But I do feel relief, and even the feeling of it makes me uncomfortable. Extenuating circumstance: As a single mom since Charlotte was 3, I was so selfishly grateful this week when Jack drove to her college to help her out after she called us both to say she had food poisoning. Thank you, Jack.

Amazing Charlotte and wonderful Jack in New York’s Little Italy, taken by a nice stranger, not me.

Can any of you relate to what I’m saying here and do you want refunds on your old Sassy subscriptions? When I was editing Sassy, people who were my age now would tell me that I would edit it completely differently if I had a teenage daughter of my own. While that is absolutely 100% untrue, across the board, and I would still write and edit everything exactly as I did then, even if my own amazingly wonderful daughter were reading it, this odd sense of things being right with the world, partially because of her relationship, is uncomfortable. (I will say that I would feel the same way no matter the gender of the person with her, but it’s the Xanax-like ahhh of having someone else help take care of her rather than her relying on herself, as I was taught to do, that is unsettling.) 

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