Latest news with #Raffi
CBS News
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CBS News
Chicago Sinfonietta string quartet serenades beluga whales at Shedd Aquarium
When one thinks of baby beluga whales and music, one surely thinks first of Raffi. The song and the album "Baby Beluga" are 45 years old now, but any Instagram or TikTok video of the beluga whales at Chicago's Shedd Aquarium or anywhere else are likely to be set to the Canadian children's musician's calming baritone: "Baby beluga in the deep blue sea, you swim so wild and you swim so free…." But when a string quartet from the Chicago Sinfonietta visited the Shedd Aquarium recently, they did not play "Baby Beluga." They did not play "Down by the Bay," "The Corner Grocery Store," or "Bananaphone" either. As seen in a video clip provided by the Shedd on Thursday, they played Beethoven's Symphony No. 6, also known as the Pastoral Symphony, in the Shedd's Abbott Oceanarium as the beluga whales swam and came up for air right behind them. The recent surprise visit from the Chicago Sinfonietta was inspired by the recent naming of the Shedd's new beluga calf, Opus. The name, chosen by Shedd Aquarium members, in turn honored Opus' father, Beethoven. Before the aquarium opened on a recent day, Chicago Sinfonietta players performed around the Secluded Bay habitat at the Oceanarium, where the beluga whales live. Two of the musicians entered the habitat and played for the adult whales, while a cellist played some pieces specifically for Opus. Shedd Aquarium/Rachel Mittelstaedt Shedd Aquarium/Rachel Mittelstaedt Belugas, the Shedd noted, are known as "canaries of the sea," and can produce a variety of sounds that they use to communicate and navigate. "Belugas have a natural connection to sound, so we were very curious to see what they would make of the musicians," Megan Vens-Policky, an animal care supervisor with Shedd Aquarium, said in a news release. "We are always thinking about creative ways to provide the belugas with enrichment — new sounds, sights and experiences that keep them active and add novelty to their day. This partnership was a fun opportunity to share something the belugas may have never seen or heard before." Later the same morning, the quartet from the Chicago Sinfonietta performed as guests came in — providing surprise and delight for everyone who came to the Shedd Aquarium that day. "As an orchestra known for its innovative concerts and creative programming withing the community, Chicago Sinfonietta is pleased to form a new collaboration with an historic landmark in our community, Shedd Aquarium," Wendy Lewis, interim chief executive officer of Chicago Sinfonietta, said in the release. "Both Chicago organizations are committed to curating important and thoughtful ways to innovate, inspire and ignite interest in our world and to protect it for the future through artful communication. The opportunity to experience the amazing sounds of our orchestra while in the presence of the majestic beluga whale was unforgettable." Shedd Aquarium/Rachel Mittelstaedt Shedd Aquarium/Rachel Mittelstaedt Shedd Aquarium/Rachel Mittelstaedt Chicago Sinfonietta has partnered with the Shedd Aquarium before. In 2009, the orchestra and the aquarium partnered to commission the adventuresome suite "Aquadia," by composer Michael Abels. "Aquadia" accompanied a live show at the Oceanarium as it reopened at the time following an extensive renovation. And if you're wondering about the Raffi song, the children's troubadour wrote that he was inspired to write "Baby Beluga" following a touching meeting with a famous beluga whale named Kavna at the Vancouver Aquarium in 1979. Two years later, Raffi wrote, he sang "Baby Beluga" to Kavna in a CBC TV special.
Yahoo
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
A Grand Experiment in Parenthood and Friendship
In 2021, in a moment of morbid curiosity, Charlotte and Raffi Grinberg decided to calculate how much they would see their best friends for the rest of their lives if they continued visits at their current rate. The math was bleak: They'd spent more days with their friends in the years when they were ages 13 to 30 than they would spend from ages 30 to 100. Charlotte and Raffi, who'd been married for six years, each had been inseparable from their respective best friends in adolescence. The couple realized that a lifestyle change was in order. For years, they'd sworn a commitment to their friendships—which had come with so much shared history. First, Charlotte met Raffi's best friend on a pre-college trip. Through that best friend, Charlotte met Raffi. Years later, Charlotte's own best friend and Raffi's best friend planned Charlotte and Raffi's engagement party—where they had their first kiss, the start of a romance that eventually led to marriage. But despite how intertwined their lives were, they'd never all lived in the same place. Charlotte and Raffi lived in Boston. Their friends—who, full disclosure, are also friends of mine—lived hundreds of miles away, in Washington, D.C. Still, the four of them made sure to be together for important moments. During Charlotte's first two births, her best friend was her doula, and Charlotte filled the same role when her friend was pregnant, driving eight hours to be in the delivery room in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. They all tried to connect for less momentous occasions too, but the effort could feel fruitless. To be in the same location, at least one pair would have to travel and pay for a place to stay, because neither of their apartments could fit everyone. If they wanted adults-only time, they'd need to arrange child care as well; at that point, they had four children between them. Before the day in 2021 when Charlotte and Raffi made that unforgiving calculation, they'd schemed for months to plan a movie night; they didn't even make it to the end of the film before having to relieve the babysitters. [Read: Why parents struggle so much in the world's richest country] Obstacles such as these are likely familiar to many American parents. In a 2015 Pew Research report, more than half of parents surveyed said they didn't have enough time away from their children to hang out with their friends. When New York magazine published an article about how parenthood strains friendship—referring to children as 'adorable little detonators'—it went viral. And yet, as hard as it can be for people to see their friends when they have kids, parenthood might actually be the stage of life when they need their friends the most—especially in a country that lacks structural support for families. As Heath Schechinger, a co-founder of the Modern Family Institute, put it to me, it takes 'a village, not just to raise the child but to sustain the adults raising them too.' Intimately familiar with these challenges, Charlotte and Raffi decided to create a village of their own. In August 2023, they moved with their children from Boston into a D.C. townhouse, uprooting their lives—Charlotte had to get a new job and apply for a new professional license, and she and Raffi had to find new schools for their kids. Their friends moved from across the city into the house next door, and a third couple, the brother and sister-in-law of Raffi's best friend, bought another home in the row. They planned for each couple to be responsible for their own children but to keep the boundaries among them porous: They could lean on one another for child-care backup, and their kids could roam among houses. On move-in night, Raffi, Charlotte, and the other two couples put their kids to bed—in total, seven children under 5 years old. Then the adults walked upstairs, stepped out on their adjoining balconies, and screamed with joy. Although the nuclear family is described by many Americans as 'traditional,' most children throughout human history have grown up in setups more like Raffi and Charlotte's, with help from adults who aren't their biological parents. Researchers call those people 'alloparents,' and without them, 'there never would have been a human species,' the anthropologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy argued in her book Mothers and Others. Today, across the world, extended families remain the most common household type. By contrast, when Americans have kids, the norm is to 'isolate ourselves so profoundly,' Kristen Ghodsee, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of Everyday Utopia, told me. Kids bring chaos—often more than parents can handle on their own. Some parents turn to family for help, but for many, that's not an option. Their job may be far from relatives, or their familial relationships may be strained, or their relatives may be unable to care for their kids—or they simply might not want to. Building family life around friends offers an alternative that 'remixes tradition,' as Raffi told me: You get the support of an extended family but through chosen connections. It's unclear exactly how common this choice is, but some data indicate that it may be more common than people think. For instance, a 2023 Zillow survey of people who'd purchased homes in the previous two years found that 14 percent had co-bought with friends. Of course, plenty of people pursuing arrangements like these don't have kids. But Phil Levin, the founder of the company Live Near Friends, which helps people buy homes close to their loved ones, shared a revealing statistic: Of the nearly 2,000 people who had completed a survey seeking his site's services, close to half had named raising kids as one of the reasons they wanted to live near friends. [Read: Live closer to your friends] More people seem to want this kind of setup than are able to make it work, however. 'It requires coordination and foresight and going to someone and saying, I want to design my life around you,' Levin told me. 'That's not a conversation that has a template.' Even if those discussions go smoothly, most housing isn't designed for families to share, Levin explained, and few real-estate agents have experience helping unrelated people navigate the finances of buying a home together. When Raffi told his real-estate agent what they wanted, she laughed; it seemed impossible to her that adjacent houses would go on sale in the neighborhoods the couples were interested in. Personal constraints can stand in the way too. Friends with different budgets may not be able to find homes near one another that all of them can afford. Divorced parents seeking their friends' support may not have free rein to move with their kids. Parents stuck in the sandwich generation may have to prioritize helping their relatives over their friends. That said, in reporting this article, I spoke with 15 people who had managed to make the logistics work, and I saw how the architecture of family life changed for parents when they had friends by their side; their families weren't stand-alone bricks but stones embedded in a larger structure. Some saw a friend as a full-on co-parent; others were happy to have their friends as a regular presence. Some parents and their friends shared a home; others lived close to one another; several resided in co-housing communities. The friends included fellow parents and the child-free, couples and single people. These relationships didn't work seamlessly. Many parents said they struggled with ceding some degree of control over their kids, and some ran into conflict with their friends. But every parent I spoke with said they had gained much-needed support and, in most cases, deeper friendships. The first time Kim Seashore and Jeff Hobson met, they fell into a conversation about co-housing—a model in which residents have both private living areas and shared spaces with their neighbors. Jeff had fond memories of living in one such community, where, as a recent college grad, he had served as the human jungle gym for a 9-year-old resident. Kim had cherished her time as a kid in a small town and thought co-housing might offer a similar experience within a big city. So Kim and Jeff helped create a new co-housing community in Berkeley, California. About a month after they moved there in 2000, Kim got pregnant with their first child. Eventually, Kim and Jeff had two sons, and they found that having other adults around took the pressure off their relationship with the kids. Their children had people other than their parents to lean on, such as their neighbor, Deb Goldberg. But, as the couple learned, that backstop could also prove humbling. Take the day their then-2-year-old son jumped on their bed and blurted out the word fuck. Embarrassed and worried about how his mom would react to him swearing, he rushed to Deb's house. 'Jeff and I just looked at each other like, What just happened?' Kim told me. She gave it a few minutes, then went over and asked to talk with him. He started screaming for her to get out, and because Deb's child was sleeping, Deb matter-of-factly told Kim to go. 'What do you mean I have to leave?' Kim recalled thinking. 'That's my kid!' If you want other adults to drive your kids to school in an emergency or watch them so you can rest after a rough night, this is the bargain: In exchange for more support, you get less control. Sometimes, your kid might seek comfort from another adult instead of you. Other times, another adult's authority might trump yours. Kim told me that the trade-offs are worth it. On the day that her son ran to Deb's house, she felt a pang of sadness that he wasn't turning to her—but mostly, she felt grateful. Deb was handling it. 'I can go back and have breakfast,' Kim recalled thinking, 'and we'll figure it out later.' Versions of this emotional arc recurred for Kim and Jeff. Sometimes gratitude came easily, such as when Deb helped their kids, who were picky eaters, become more adventurous. She hosted an event she called 'Tot Café' and invited children in the community to come over, don costumes, and pick out healthy foods to try from what she described as a 'very kid-friendly yet fancy menu,' featuring options such as banana, avocado, and tofu. Her playfulness was different from Kim and Jeff's 'This is dinner; you need to eat it' approach, but, for some parents, that's the appeal of raising your kids alongside a wider range of people. 'You don't have to be everything,' Jeff told me. This is not to say that Deb's style didn't influence Kim and Jeff's parenting. When their other son was a teenager, he started having sex—and Deb learned about it before they did. After Deb told them, Jeff said that he felt embarrassed but also appreciative. Deb's heads-up not only nudged them to initiate a conversation they'd been avoiding but also gave them the time to think through how they wanted to handle it, which set a precedent for future discussions about sex. 'I don't think I would have gotten there on my own,' Kim told me. To a certain extent, in welcoming Deb's involvement, Kim and Jeff were accepting the inevitable: No matter your parenting setup, other people—day-care workers, teachers, peers—will shape your kids. They'll discipline them, sway their opinions, and know more about them (or different things about them) than you do. And the outside forces will multiply as kids get older. For some parents, such as Raffi, parenting alongside friends gives kids crucial exposure to other perspectives, allowing them to see that there are different, valid ways to be a grown-up. [Read: The isolation of intensive parenting] Others aren't as eager to embrace external influences, especially not so close to home. Parents raising kids alongside friends told me about tense debates—such as whether to let kids play with toy guns and whether adults should leave alcohol out in common spaces—as well as routine disagreements about how to share caregiving duties and household space. One parent, Kristin, along with her husband, her daughter, and a baby on the way, moved in with their close friends and their two kids right before the pandemic. She told me that although she was grateful for the easy socializing, shared chores, and mutual support early on, learning to live together has come with compromises. (Kristin asked that I use only her first name so she could speak candidly about her living situation.) She has stricter rules about processed food and screen time than her friends do, and her children just don't understand why the other couple's kids are allowed to eat chocolate or keep watching Octonauts and they aren't. Nearly any child will notice at playdates or at school that other kids live by different rules, but these differences strike her children as more unjust when they're visible in their own living room. For Kristin, the difficulty of sharing a house isn't just that she has different rules; it's also that her kids have different needs. Kristin's elder daughter, for example, has sensory processing disorder and struggles with transitioning between activities. She does best when she can get ready for school at her own pace, which sometimes means being late. But when the other couple handles drop-offs, they insist that everyone be ready on schedule so the other children don't miss class time. If Kristin and her husband were on their own, although they'd lose support, they would have the freedom to choose how to balance their elder daughter's needs with their younger daughter's. In a joint household, they don't have that flexibility. Late last year, all three mothers in Charlotte and Raffi's townhouse trio gave birth—two of them just a week apart. Days after her delivery, Charlotte, who was the second to go into labor, was admitted to the hospital, and her best friend spent more than 30 hours there with her, rocking, swaddling, and burping the newborn while Charlotte was recovering. A couple of months later, Charlotte was again her best friend's doula, but this time, she didn't have to drive eight hours to be in the delivery room; she just went next door at 3:30 a.m. to head to the hospital with her friend. Since moving next door to their best friends, Charlotte and Raffi have found that friendship and parenthood easily mesh—in both extraordinary circumstances and in so many other, more ordinary ways. The parents regularly pass children's Tylenol, cereal, and milk to one another across their balconies. If one parent looks worn out, another might offer to watch the kids for the morning. Half a year into their living arrangement, Charlotte told me, 'we've socialized more in the last six months than in the last six years of parenting.' Pockets of time when most parents are homebound are now ripe for spontaneous hangouts, especially because their kids can entertain one another. When the children are asleep, Charlotte and Raffi can grab the baby monitor and hop the balcony wall to their friends' house. Movie nights are a breeze. I saw a similar dynamic in action at Kim and Jeff's house. While we were all talking, a friend from the community dropped by to chat. Later on, another neighbor, before entering the house, pressed her nose up against the glass on the door and used her finger to draw a heart in the condensation. I felt like I was in the middle of a sitcom. [Read: The friendship paradox] But cycling between one another's homes can also breed friction. Once, Charlotte's best friend, who was then in her third trimester of pregnancy, brought her two kids over to Raffi and Charlotte's house and fell asleep on the couch, inadvertently violating a rule the couples had established: Each family is responsible for their own children, and if they want a friend to help with child care, they should explicitly ask. Charlotte and Raffi were frustrated, but they couldn't bring themselves to wake their exhausted friend. They wanted her to rest, and the truth was, they had, at times, unintentionally saddled their friends with watching their kids too. Charlotte and Raffi see these minor challenges—and their ability to work through them—as proof of how close all of the friends have become. When they visit friends who live farther away for the rare play date or dinner, there's a degree of 'polite distance,' Raffi said. Allowing imperfection to show—rather than keeping up appearances—is both a sign of intimacy and a precondition for it. Charlotte told me that when she imagined what living next to her friends would be like, she pictured 'constant companionship in the journey of parenting and life.' But surrounded by friends at everyone's best and worst, sharing the mundane and the momentous, she has gotten more than this. To Charlotte, her friends aren't just companions; they feel like family. When you buy a book using a link on this page, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic. Article originally published at The Atlantic
Atlantic
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Atlantic
Would You Raise Kids With Your Friends?
In 2021, in a moment of morbid curiosity, Charlotte and Raffi Grinberg decided to calculate how much they would see their best friends for the rest of their lives if they continued visits at their current rate. The math was bleak: They'd spent more days with their friends in the years when they were ages 13 to 30 than they would spend from ages 30 to 100. Charlotte and Raffi, who'd been married for six years, each had been inseparable from their respective best friends in adolescence. The couple realized that a lifestyle change was in order. For years, they'd sworn a commitment to their friendships—which had come with so much shared history. First, Charlotte met Raffi's best friend on a pre-college trip. Through that best friend, Charlotte met Raffi. Years later, Charlotte's own best friend and Raffi's best friend planned Charlotte and Raffi's engagement party—where they had their first kiss, the start of a romance that eventually led to marriage. But despite how intertwined their lives were, they'd never all lived in the same place. Charlotte and Raffi lived in Boston. Their friends—who, full disclosure, are also friends of mine—lived hundreds of miles away, in Washington, D.C. Still, the four of them made sure to be together for important moments. During Charlotte's first two births, her best friend was her doula, and Charlotte filled the same role when her friend was pregnant, driving eight hours to be in the delivery room in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. They all tried to connect for less momentous occasions too, but the effort could feel fruitless. To be in the same location, at least one pair would have to travel and pay for a place to stay, because neither of their apartments could fit everyone. If they wanted adults-only time, they'd need to arrange child care as well; at that point, they had four children between them. Before the day in 2021 when Charlotte and Raffi made that unforgiving calculation, they'd schemed for months to plan a movie night; they didn't even make it to the end of the film before having to relieve the babysitters. Obstacles such as these are likely familiar to many American parents. In a 2015 Pew Research report, more than half of parents surveyed said they didn't have enough time away from their children to hang out with their friends. When New York magazine published an article about how parenthood strains friendship—referring to children as 'adorable little detonators' —it went viral. And yet, as hard as it can be for people to see their friends when they have kids, parenthood might actually be the stage of life when they need their friends the most—especially in a country that lacks structural support for families. As Heath Schechinger, a co-founder of the Modern Family Institute, put it to me, it takes 'a village, not just to raise the child but to sustain the adults raising them too.' Intimately familiar with these challenges, Charlotte and Raffi decided to create a village of their own. In August 2023, they moved with their children from Boston into a D.C. townhouse, uprooting their lives—Charlotte had to get a new job and apply for a new professional license, and she and Raffi had to find new schools for their kids. Their friends moved from across the city into the house next door, and a third couple, the brother and sister-in-law of Raffi's best friend, bought another home in the row. They planned for each couple to be responsible for their own children but to keep the boundaries among them porous: They could lean on one another for child-care backup, and their kids could roam among houses. On move-in night, Raffi, Charlotte, and the other two couples put their kids to bed—in total, seven children under 5 years old. Then the adults walked upstairs, stepped out on their adjoining balconies, and screamed with joy. Although the nuclear family is described by many Americans as 'traditional,' most children throughout human history have grown up in setups more like Raffi and Charlotte's, with help from adults who aren't their biological parents. Researchers call those people 'alloparents,' and without them, 'there never would have been a human species,' the anthropologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy argued in her book Mothers and Others. Today, across the world, extended families remain the most common household type. By contrast, when Americans have kids, the norm is to 'isolate ourselves so profoundly,' Kristen Ghodsee, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of Everyday Utopia, told me. Kids bring chaos—often more than parents can handle on their own. Some parents turn to family for help, but for many, that's not an option. Their job may be far from relatives, or their familial relationships may be strained, or their relatives may be unable to care for their kids—or they simply might not want to. Building family life around friends offers an alternative that 'remixes tradition,' as Raffi told me: You get the support of an extended family but through chosen connections. It's unclear exactly how common this choice is, but some data indicate that it may be more common than people think. For instance, a 2023 Zillow survey of people who'd purchased homes in the previous two years found that 14 percent had co-bought with friends. Of course, plenty of people pursuing arrangements like these don't have kids. But Phil Levin, the founder of the company Live Near Friends, which helps people buy homes close to their loved ones, shared a revealing statistic: Of the nearly 2,000 people who had completed a survey seeking his site's services, close to half had named raising kids as one of the reasons they wanted to live near friends. More people seem to want this kind of setup than are able to make it work, however. 'It requires coordination and foresight and going to someone and saying, I want to design my life around you,' Levin told me. 'That's not a conversation that has a template.' Even if those discussions go smoothly, most housing isn't designed for families to share, Levin explained, and few real-estate agents have experience helping unrelated people navigate the finances of buying a home together. When Raffi told his real-estate agent what they wanted, she laughed; it seemed impossible to her that adjacent houses would go on sale in the neighborhoods the couples were interested in. Personal constraints can stand in the way too. Friends with different budgets may not be able to find homes near one another that all of them can afford. Divorced parents seeking their friends' support may not have free rein to move with their kids. Parents stuck in the sandwich generation may have to prioritize helping their relatives over their friends. That said, in reporting this article, I spoke with 15 people who had managed to make the logistics work, and I saw how the architecture of family life changed for parents when they had friends by their side; their families weren't stand-alone bricks but stones embedded in a larger structure. Some saw a friend as a full-on co-parent; others were happy to have their friends as a regular presence. Some parents and their friends shared a home; others lived close to one another; several resided in co-housing communities. The friends included fellow parents and the child-free, couples and single people. These relationships didn't work seamlessly. Many parents said they struggled with ceding some degree of control over their kids, and some ran into conflict with their friends. But every parent I spoke with said they had gained much-needed support and, in most cases, deeper friendships. The first time Kim Seashore and Jeff Hobson met, they fell into a conversation about co-housing—a model in which residents have both private living areas and shared spaces with their neighbors. Jeff had fond memories of living in one such community, where, as a recent college grad, he had served as the human jungle gym for a 9-year-old resident. Kim had cherished her time as a kid in a small town and thought co-housing might offer a similar experience within a big city. So Kim and Jeff helped create a new co-housing community in Berkeley, California. About a month after they moved there in 2000, Kim got pregnant with their first child. Eventually, Kim and Jeff had two sons, and they found that having other adults around took the pressure off their relationship with the kids. Their children had people other than their parents to lean on, such as their neighbor, Deb Goldberg. But, as the couple learned, that backstop could also prove humbling. Take the day their then-2-year-old son jumped on their bed and blurted out the word fuck. Embarrassed and worried about how his mom would react to him swearing, he rushed to Deb's house. 'Jeff and I just looked at each other like, What just happened? ' Kim told me. She gave it a few minutes, then went over and asked to talk with him. He started screaming for her to get out, and because Deb's child was sleeping, Deb matter-of-factly told Kim to go. ' What do you mean I have to leave? ' Kim recalled thinking. ' That's my kid! ' If you want other adults to drive your kids to school in an emergency or watch them so you can rest after a rough night, this is the bargain: In exchange for more support, you get less control. Sometimes, your kid might seek comfort from another adult instead of you. Other times, another adult's authority might trump yours. Kim told me that the trade-offs are worth it. On the day that her son ran to Deb's house, she felt a pang of sadness that he wasn't turning to her—but mostly, she felt grateful. Deb was handling it. ' I can go back and have breakfast,' Kim recalled thinking, ' and we'll figure it out later.' Versions of this emotional arc recurred for Kim and Jeff. Sometimes gratitude came easily, such as when Deb helped their kids, who were picky eaters, become more adventurous. She hosted an event she called 'Tot Café' and invited children in the community to come over, don costumes, and pick out healthy foods to try from what she described as a 'very kid-friendly yet fancy menu,' featuring options such as banana, avocado, and tofu. Her playfulness was different from Kim and Jeff's ' This is dinner; you need to eat it ' approach, but, for some parents, that's the appeal of raising your kids alongside a wider range of people. 'You don't have to be everything,' Jeff told me. This is not to say that Deb's style didn't influence Kim and Jeff's parenting. When their other son was a teenager, he started having sex—and Deb learned about it before they did. After Deb told them, Jeff said that he felt embarrassed but also appreciative. Deb's heads-up not only nudged them to initiate a conversation they'd been avoiding but also gave them the time to think through how they wanted to handle it, which set a precedent for future discussions about sex. 'I don't think I would have gotten there on my own,' Kim told me. To a certain extent, in welcoming Deb's involvement, Kim and Jeff were accepting the inevitable: No matter your parenting setup, other people—day-care workers, teachers, peers— will shape your kids. They'll discipline them, sway their opinions, and know more about them (or different things about them) than you do. And the outside forces will multiply as kids get older. For some parents, such as Raffi, parenting alongside friends gives kids crucial exposure to other perspectives, allowing them to see that there are different, valid ways to be a grown-up. Read: The isolation of intensive parenting Others aren't as eager to embrace external influences, especially not so close to home. Parents raising kids alongside friends told me about tense debates—such as whether to let kids play with toy guns and whether adults should leave alcohol out in common spaces—as well as routine disagreements about how to share caregiving duties and household space. One parent, Kristin, along with her husband, her daughter, and a baby on the way, moved in with their close friends and their two kids right before the pandemic. She told me that although she was grateful for the easy socializing, shared chores, and mutual support early on, learning to live together has come with compromises. (Kristin asked that I use only her first name so she could speak candidly about her living situation.) She has stricter rules about processed food and screen time than her friends do, and her children just don't understand why the other couple's kids are allowed to eat chocolate or keep watching Octonauts and they aren't. Nearly any child will notice at playdates or at school that other kids live by different rules, but these differences strike her children as more unjust when they're visible in their own living room. For Kristin, the difficulty of sharing a house isn't just that she has different rules; it's also that her kids have different needs. Kristin's elder daughter, for example, has sensory processing disorder and struggles with transitioning between activities. She does best when she can get ready for school at her own pace, which sometimes means being late. But when the other couple handles drop-offs, they insist that everyone be ready on schedule so the other children don't miss class time. If Kristin and her husband were on their own, although they'd lose support, they would have the freedom to choose how to balance their elder daughter's needs with their younger daughter's. In a joint household, they don't have that flexibility. Late last year, all three mothers in Charlotte and Raffi's townhouse trio gave birth—two of them just a week apart. Days after her delivery, Charlotte, who was the second to go into labor, was admitted to the hospital, and her best friend spent more than 30 hours there with her, rocking, swaddling, and burping the newborn while Charlotte was recovering. A couple of months later, Charlotte was again her best friend's doula, but this time, she didn't have to drive eight hours to be in the delivery room; she just went next door at 3:30 a.m. to head to the hospital with her friend. Since moving next door to their best friends, Charlotte and Raffi have found that friendship and parenthood easily mesh—in both extraordinary circumstances and in so many other, more ordinary ways. The parents regularly pass children's Tylenol, cereal, and milk to one another across their balconies. If one parent looks worn out, another might offer to watch the kids for the morning. Half a year into their living arrangement, Charlotte told me, 'we've socialized more in the last six months than in the last six years of parenting.' Pockets of time when most parents are homebound are now ripe for spontaneous hangouts, especially because their kids can entertain one another. When the children are asleep, Charlotte and Raffi can grab the baby monitor and hop the balcony wall to their friends' house. Movie nights are a breeze. I saw a similar dynamic in action at Kim and Jeff's house. While we were all talking, a friend from the community dropped by to chat. Later on, another neighbor, before entering the house, pressed her nose up against the glass on the door and used her finger to draw a heart in the condensation. I felt like I was in the middle of a sitcom. But cycling between one another's homes can also breed friction. Once, Charlotte's best friend, who was then in her third trimester of pregnancy, brought her two kids over to Raffi and Charlotte's house and fell asleep on the couch, inadvertently violating a rule the couples had established: Each family is responsible for their own children, and if they want a friend to help with child care, they should explicitly ask. Charlotte and Raffi were frustrated, but they couldn't bring themselves to wake their exhausted friend. They wanted her to rest, and the truth was, they had, at times, unintentionally saddled their friends with watching their kids too. Charlotte and Raffi see these minor challenges—and their ability to work through them—as proof of how close all of the friends have become. When they visit friends who live farther away for the rare play date or dinner, there's a degree of 'polite distance,' Raffi said. Allowing imperfection to show—rather than keeping up appearances—is both a sign of intimacy and a precondition for it. Charlotte told me that when she imagined what living next to her friends would be like, she pictured 'constant companionship in the journey of parenting and life.' But surrounded by friends at everyone's best and worst, sharing the mundane and the momentous, she has gotten more than this. To Charlotte, her friends aren't just companions; they feel like family.
Boston Globe
01-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Phish and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame snub: It's OK
Since entering the American consciousness in the mid-1990s as the country's preeminent jam band, the Vermont quartet has been the subject of a wide swath of commentary, much of it derisive. The group's genre-blurring style of rock, funk, prog, and jazz can sound like noise infused with the childish lyrics of Raffi to the uninitiated. Phish's studio albums are fine, but they restrain the true ability of the band. To fully appreciate and understand the greatness of Phish, you must see the band live. Advertisement Still, it was no surprise to many Phish fans when the band was recently snubbed by the Cleveland gatekeepers at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame even though the group topped the fan vote by more than 50,000 votes. Advertisement Phish has never reached the level of cultural importance held by the likes of The Grateful Dead, a band to whom they are, rightly or wrongly, seen as heirs. One reason for the endless comparisons between the two, including their front men the late Jerry Garcia and Phish's Trey Anastasio, is that both are best known for their live performances and turning a three-minute song into a sprawling 30-minute improvised opus. Members of Phish realized early on in their careers that real money for musicians is not in record sales but in live touring. The band maintains a robust annual summer tour schedule, frequently accompanied by a slate of fall or spring dates. The band also plays an annual four-night New Year's Eve run at Madison Square Garden, a gig that has achieved pilgrimage-like status among fans. This deep focus on the live show experience also includes the practice of allowing fans to record shows by providing a special ticketed section at every show just for tapers. This practice helped Phish grow its fanbase organically as fans would trade recordings of coveted shows. Today, the band has its Phish's intense focus on the experience of its live shows allowed the band to pioneer something that is now commonplace: the multiday, all-immersive music festival. Phish festivals like the Clifford Ball and Lemonwheel Advertisement While Phish has organically achieved this live success, it still does not have the common tokens of entertainment success: multiplatinum albums, a room full of awards, and critical praise. In an Honestly, he's right and that's OK. Phish is not the easiest band in the world to follow but that is a big part of what makes it special. Phish is more than just a band with songs; it is a big welcoming community or, as the fish band from Vermont. You don't have to explain why you've spent a small fortune framing concert posters and ticket stubs. You don't have to explain why you went to 17 shows at MSG one year. They just get it. It takes time to get Phish. Someday the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame will get it, too. Advertisement
Scottish Sun
01-05-2025
- Health
- Scottish Sun
Mum's one call from her boy's nursery led to a ‘rare and aggressive' diagnosis
Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) RAFFI Starkowitz was just three years old when he suddenly became "unsteady" on his feet. The tot had previously been behaving and playing normally until nursery staff called his mum Nicky with worries that he was struggling to walk. Sign up for Scottish Sun newsletter Sign up 5 Raffi first became unsteady on his feet while at nursary Credit: SWNS 5 Days later, doctors diagnosed him with a rare and aggressive form of brain cancer Credit: SWNS 5 Raffi with dad, Neil Credit: SWNS The parents rushed Raffi, from from Bushey, Hertfordshire, to Northwick Park Hospital in Harrow, where his mum works, and then to Great Ormond Street Hospital. While he was there, doctors diagnosed him with large cell anaplastic medulloblastoma - a rare and aggressive form of brain cancer. It mainly affects children and is known for spreading quickly through the brain and spinal cord, making it potentially life-threatening if not caught early Raffi has since undergone major brain surgery to remove the large cancerous tumour, as well as a lumbar puncture to collect spinal fluid and check if the cancer has spread, He has also just begun six weeks of chemotherapy treatment, where his dad, Neil, and Nicky will be taking some time off work to support him. Meanwhile, close family friend Jamie Gross, who works with Nicky at Northwick Park, is taking on a 100k ultra-marathon from London to Brighton to help fundraise for the family. The money raised, which has surpassed £20,000, will go towards the financial burdens faced by Raffi's parents from time off work, travel to Great Ormond Street, and medical expenses. The 47-year-old added: "When you have had this horror moment where things have turned upside down, you need your care and attention to be on that. "Not worrying about how you are going to cope financially - it's going to be terrible. "That's when I came up with the idea." Brain Tumour facts: 10 things you should know about brain tumours The families each have two children at Hertsmere Jewish Primary School in Radlett and are members of the Bushey Synagogue community. Jamie described how just a few weeks ago Raffi had been playing "like any other child, without a care in the world" when the families were together. He said that the heartfelt thanks and deep gratitude of himself and Raffi's family goes out to everyone who has donated so far. The Bushey resident added: "The number one thing we are hoping for is that he survives and he recovers." The challenge, called Run for Raffi, will take place in just under a month with donations still being taken through GoFundMe, which - at time of writing - had already raised £20k of the £22k target. 5 He has also just begun six weeks of chemotherapy treatment Credit: SWNS 5 The Starkowitz family from Bushey, Hertfordshire Credit: SWNS The most common symptoms of a brain tumour More than 12,000 Brits are diagnosed with a primary brain tumour every year — of which around half are cancerous — with 5,300 losing their lives. The disease is the most deadly cancer in children and adults aged under 40, according to the Brain Tumour Charity. Brain tumours reduce life expectancies by an average of 27 years, with just 12 per cent of adults surviving five years after diagnosis. There are two main types, with non-cancerous benign tumours growing more slowly and being less likely to return after treatment. Cancerous malignant brain tumours can either start in the brain or spread there from elsewhere in the body and are more likely to return. Brain tumours can cause headaches, seizures, nausea, vomiting and memory problems, according to the NHS. They can also lead to changes in personality weakness or paralysis on one side of the problem and problems with speech or vision. The nine most common symptoms are: Headaches Seizures Feeling sick Being sick Memory problems Change in personality Weakness or paralysis on one side of the body Vision problems Speech problems If you are suffering any of these symptoms, particularly a headache that feels different from the ones you normally get, you should visit your GP. Source: NHS
