Dating in Stars Hollow | 3
Show Notes:
Julia and Christina talk dating in Stars Hollow. Who they loved more and what bothered the ladies about how Richard and Emily treated Luke.
Transcript:
Julia: Hey friends. Welcome to this week's episode of pop culture makes me jealous. I'm your host, Julia Washington. And this week, Christina and I are talking about the Gilmore girls.
As I mentioned in the last episode, I was in high school when this show came out. So I'm basically Rory, but then I turned into Loreleis. So that's super fun. Do you think you turned into
Christina: a Lorelei because she heard
Julia: a Rory in high school? Oh no. I turned into Lorelei because I had a child super early. I can't wait for this discussion, but before we get started, we need you to go grab a cup of coffee and listen to this really quick message.
All right. Here's our pitch. Follow us on Instagram at pop culture makes me jealous to stay up to date with all the things we're talking about in pop culture, television, entertainment, and everything you could ever want to hear us discuss. Doesn't that sound exciting? Follow us on Instagram at pop culture makes me jealous.
We will try really hard not to disappoint you. And now without further ado here, we. To the show. I want to start by saying Gilmore girls premiered my junior year of high school. So I'm aging myself here. It was really exciting to see. Somebody like worry, sort of come into an existence because it just was great.
It was 2000. It was 2000, 2,001,000. Well, hold on. No, I think that's right. I was a junior in high school. Yeah. The year was 2000. It was the fall of 2000. I was a junior in high school. Rory was a sophomore on the show. I, I loved Rory because she was like, kind of nerd, like bookish and kind of a square, which was not me.
I mean, I was kind of like a re I was a reader. I loved, I've always loved to read, but I wasn't like on the path to Gail, but I also wasn't. I was in journalism. So we had that right in common and. Oh, I can be okay. Don't miss don't misunderstand my exuberant and charismatic personality for being somebody who enjoys being in crowds, because I sure as shit don't,
Christina: I would say your joint pain crowds.
I just can't ever imagine you being like Rory shy
Julia: or quiet. We're awkward. She's so awkward sometimes where
Christina: it's painful. It's painful. It's painful. Maybe that's what it was. I wasn't. Okay. Can we just say, what year was this? The year 2000. It came out in
Julia: 2000. Yeah. Okay.
Christina: Do you want to know how old I was?
Julia: It's going to hurt a lot when you say it, but go ahead.
Christina: I was saying.
Uh, so
I'll just say I did not watch the show until I was probably about 12 or 13 and it was on when I got home from school. Oh, as reruns.
Julia: Yes. That first couple of seasons, but there was still new episodes coming on. I think. I don't know. Maybe not. Yeah. It aired until 2007. I want to say, cause it goes from her sophomore year of school to her senior year graduate college graduation.
And then when it used to be ABC family, I think it's free form. Now they would show an episode every day in chronological order. So even after
Christina: that's what I would like always catch it on. I think when. Or one of them channels, but they would always play it. So I watched episodes in chronological order, but like vaguely because I got home in the middle of the episode, so I would catch the end of it.
And I didn't really watch it cause I was making a snack and then I knew I had to get my homework done before my mom got her
Julia: making a snack, which was like fucking hot pockets. Right. So my first question for you then. The first real conversation I want to have is I want to talk about Rory's boyfriends because you know, there's all this like team, just team, Logan, team Dean kind of shit, boyfriend team, which boyfriend team are you on?
Jeff Dean and Logan. Me too.
Christina: I don't know why though. That's the worry part. Cause he's like
Julia: smart, but he's like a bad boy. Like, you know, he made by man personally. I think that adjusts is probably the best developed boyfriend character because he used to name a
Christina: church. He just can't show, um, he doesn't explain it to Rory or he doesn't.
Show it to Rory. I don't know. Rory's though here. See the point of view he's coming from most of the time,
Julia: but the reason why I think that justice, the most well-developed character on the show is because you, you can see him being sensitive and kind with Rory. Like he has a genuine affection for her and we see that.
But then when he's in a room with Luke or Lorelei or in the classroom, he's completely guarded and closed off. So we get to see multiple layers on him. Whereas like all the other characters, they're pretty much the same person to everybody. And I think that's part of, one of the reasons why I like Jess more too, because you do sort of see him become very sensitive around Laura and then she even calls it out in an episode where she's like, like, why can't you let people see this side of you?
And I just think just gives her the space to start exploring her. In a relationship, he kind of so hard.
Christina: I have a theory that he's hot because he's one person with her and he's different with everyone else. And she likes that. I also have a theory that he's hot because he keeps kinda like, he's kinda like big and mysterious.
In the sense of like, even though he tells her the most, he still doesn't tell her shit. Just like, I know nothing about you somehow, even though I know you and it's like, so he's got that aspect or is he hot? Because he's got the bad boy vibe. Like he's got layers of hotness, but you look it up. He's just like cute.
Julia: He's but he's like way more attractive in my opinion than Dean. Logan's pretty. So that's a different, that's a totally different comparison. I think he's so pretty. He's so pretty. Oh, I
Christina: can't.
Julia: I mean, he's your basic blonde hair. Blue eyes. European looking dude, but Matt Zachary Curry or whatever, he's too white for me.
I like
Christina: her me blonde is too
attractive. I don't know. He's got it. He's got, here's what it is. She's got an underlying whiteness. I don't know how to describe I don't vibe with like, he wouldn't understand. He wouldn't understand like the Mexican part of me and I couldn't.
Julia: I guess I get that. I ha I run into that a lot sometimes when I'm dating and it's like, oh right, you forgot. I was half black. Got it. Great.
Christina: So why do you think Justin is hot or you think he's like actually one of my theories slash all of them factor in
Julia: too is hot. Oh. I just think the actor who plays justice, a beautiful man, and then.
Yeah. The data when everyone was like, oh my God, Jess, is the dad on this? Is that. So it's like, first of all, clearly I'm the only one who following him because I've seen everything he's been in except for the Rocky movie. Cause I don't do Rocky. He suddenly came out of nowhere for me. I
Christina: remember when I was okay.
So I watched Gilmore girls, like all the way through, by your recommendation. When, what, three or four years ago? After,
Julia: when we did the work or when we were working together at the distillery
Christina: somewhere around there. And that's why I watched it. So I have a very different. Outlook on it because I didn't watch it, watch it as a grownup with my own different opinions and whatnot
Julia: for me just is he's smart.
He's a reader, you know, he thinks deeply about things. He's got, you know, all kinds of, and I love that. I love somebody who reads. I love. That's always been like, I, I think that is an attractive quality to me, especially when I'm dating. I dated the guy who doesn't read. It can only go so far. I let things that I read affect me so deeply that if you also aren't reading, you're not a reader, you're not going to understand like, why I'm crying during this book right now.
Christina: Not just that he reads, but he wants to, he has like a thirst for knowledge and I, yes, it's so sexy.
Julia: So another, another thing that I want to talk about, Lorelei, Victoria Gilmore. We used to grow up. So when I was watching the show as a 16 year old, I thought, oh my God, I love the smell. I love how close they are.
I love that. She can be honest with worry. I love all of these things. Then I became a mom. And I still sort of held onto that like, oh, I love blah, blah. And then I turned 30 and I was like, you know what, Lorelei, you're actually, you got some shitty mom qualities happening. I need you to, like, I hated when she would like, act like a teenager and then be like, I'm pulling the mom card.
You can't do that. And it's like, you can't. Today which role you're going to be like, you can't be my best friend today. And then my mom tomorrow, you need to be my
Christina: mom always talk about her mom daughter relationship, and constantly exposes that to her daughter as like a normal thing. And then gets mad at Rory when Rory like opposes.
Yeah.
Julia: You know, what I thought was interesting. So again, as a teenager, it's like, man, Emily and Richard suck, they're so oppressive men. And then as I got older and started kind of understanding parental roles and more of that generation, cause they're kind of like my parents' generation, there was a specific expectation.
There was a norm. And Laurel, I didn't just reject all of that. She rejected it and then said, fuck you. And had no desires, even pretend to fit into her. Parents were not pretend, but no desire to like, be. Amicable in her parents' world. Yes. Their parents were like, kind of ridiculous, like the, you know, this frivolous, you know, wealthy lifestyle, like that doesn't make sense to me.
But back to the conversation that we had last week, where it was like, you can be sophisticated without being wealthy, like moralize. You're
Christina: not evil. You can also just respect your parents without necessarily agreeing with them. There's so many things that like, you just kind of like set the mood and you go like, I'm here.
I'm going to shut my mouth. I'm going to do this because I respect my parents as the human role models that they are. And sometimes I have to do. So she
Julia: makes Emily feels awful about herself all the time. It just makes it breaks my heart for Emily. Because when you have one child, you hope to God that you have a relationship with them until you die.
And then, you know, she. Just, she just totally laughed at the whole situation.
Christina: Well, there's also, like, I would say just a respect of boundaries. Like, especially as an adult, like you are now an adult, like coming back to your parents' house. I feel like Laura, like just, and I feel like what bugs me is that she, I guess now as an adult, I didn't notice this as a child, but as an adult, what bugs me is that what you're doing is hurting you double edged, you're hurting your.
You're hurting your child and you're hurting your Blake's triple edge. You hurt yourself down the line. When your child now starts to act like that towards you and thinks it's fine.
Julia: W and when she worry have the rift later in the season, it's almost like, I'm sorry. Are you surprised Laura lied because you sort of told her it's okay to have a bad relationship with your parents.
Do you kind
Christina: of set that precedent? And I always go back to the fact that. People need to stop telling their children like do, as I say, not as I do, because that's not a freaking thing, like literally lived the way you want your kids to live. That's how, whether you think about all the shit your parents said, and then think about what they did.
And I'll think about you as a person. Do you, do you do what they said to do or do you do, or do you find yourself having habits? They did that. You're like, fuck, I shouldn't have done that. But, um, my,
Julia: my parents were more of a lead by example type of situation. So like my mom and I, and I actually had these conversations recently.
Cause she's like, I don't know what. For you girls to be so assertive, like what did I say? And like, you didn't say anything, you were assertive, you yourself were assertive. We saw you were assertive. So we're like, okay, that's how we need to operate it. Wasn't like, you need to be assertive. You need to take care of yourself.
It was like, oh shit, I have to make sure I'm covered. And then you covered yourself. And so that's how we learned it. Like. We all know that your parents are going to have strings attached, go in emotionally prepared for that and accept it. Or don't, you don't have to take their money to send worry to college.
Like I'm horrible that you took the money so he could go to Chilton, but also you dragged your feet, kicking and screaming and made a big fucking deal about it. But you're the one who approached them about it.
Christina: If you're going to make a deal, if you're going to make an arrangement of any sorts, I have this thing about like, have a good attitude. Yeah, everything has to be miserable. And yeah, like if they're going to touch strings, then God damn it set
Julia: some boundaries there. Offer, do a Kelly counter
Christina: offer. If, if it's going to bug you that much, don't make it a whole night, like negotiate, but don't sit here and create this precedent that goes on season
Julia: after season.
Another topic that actually kind of relates to what we talked about last week with Jenny and Jordan. Christopher and moralize. I mean, they were 16. He didn't know what to do because Lorelei was such a strong, assertive person. So he didn't feel like he had space to come in and be like, this is what I want.
But also his parents were so overbearing. He just didn't know what he wanted anyway, because he, his entire life, he was told what he wanted. And then now Lorelei blows up their life. And now he really doesn't know what he wants to do anytime
Christina: he comes back. So like, I don't know, she she's welcoming of Christopher, but then at the same time, it's like, she doesn't, I don't know.
I don't know
Julia: what I want to say. She doesn't know how she doesn't know how he
Christina: fits anymore. She doesn't know how he fits, but she doesn't as a mother, I feel like don't need to add extra barriers maybe. Right? Maybe that's what I'm trying to say is like, just don't be adding extra barriers. And I feel like in a way she does that for Lori, where she constantly fills her head with.
Julia: Yeah, like she doesn't need, she doesn't need to be in the inner workings of your mind about her dad, because that's already a complicated relationship for the child already. Anyway, regardless of what age you have that child, you have a solid 10 years of your life that is so dedicated to devoted to somebody else that you don't even get an opportunity to think who else.
What do I enjoy? What do I like? What do I do? You're just so focused on keeping that child alive. What preschool, what pediatrician? What do you mean? You have a school project due tomorrow? Like all that shit. And so when you start to come out of that, it's like, Well, I think I remember liking doing
Christina: this, the younger, they are the more survival mode.
There's this point too,
Julia: in the show where, when Rory goes off to college and Suki kind of encourages Lorelei to start embarking on her own sort of life, it opened the end together. And that starts becoming a thing in hindsight, watching the show, I think what were Laura Ally's hopes and dreams before she had worry that got derailed?
I know for me, It's been really hard to be like, okay, let's pivot and find a new dream. Like in my mind, I still have. I still believe that all of these things that I dreamed about happening in my life at career-wise at 16 are still going to happen. Even though now I'm 37 and the world isn't as kind to women, my age in, um, arts and entertainment.
Um,
Christina: but you know, the world needs right now in arts and entertainment is a woman. Oh, she subs your mixed experience from your location, telling them what they need got them.
Julia: So I always felt for Lorelei in that regard, because from where she's sitting, she's seen Christopher going off and figuring out who he is.
He doesn't have the burden of parenting. He doesn't have the responsibility of being a regular fixture in their life, but she doesn't get that opportunity. And then when he finally does get his shit together and figure out like how to be part of that, it's not too late, but Rory's definitely much older now.
And so he got to go through the trial and error of life. We're Laurel. I didn't get to go through the trial of trial and error of life. And I thought it was weird when they went off and got like started dating and adulthood and got married. Like I thought that whole thing was just out of left field to me.
Christina: Like the writers got bored. Well,
Julia: you know what happened? Amy Sherman palette, Amy Sherman Palladino, and her husband who were the creators and writers of the show they left after the sixth season. I can't remember if it was like contract issues or a dispute of some kind or what, but they couldn't come to negotiation.
So they quit. Um, They didn't come back. So season seven isn't even her brain child. It is, that's why it feels in my mind. So disjointed from the rest of the series,
Christina: you know, who we haven't even talked about. Who spooky we'll see.
Julia: Oh my God, Luke. I love Luke. He's just so like, He's such a solid rock of a human.
If I dated a guy like Luke, who was. A healthy eater, but you know, he's healthy. Like he's, you know, and then, you know what, that's actually, another thing that's great about his character is that he recognizes and understands that like he's got hurdles and challenges when Luke can't figure out his love life or whatever she's like lost.
So then he like buys self-help books. I loved that showing a man. Burley like Luke Danes realizing that he needs help. So he's got to figure it out. He wants to do it in the privacy of himself and his life because, you know, stars hall was tiny, but I loved that. I loved that. He was like, I gotta figure this shit out.
How do I do it? And I thought that was such a great representation in the sense of like, You can be a burly man who loves to hunt or he doesn't hunt, but you know, he fishes and he camps and he faces.
Christina: Oh, he is.
But he's sensitive. He is, he is the example that we needed from a young time. You could be a manly man and still be sensitive, be nurturing, be caring. Understanding my dad has his characters. I feel like characteristics characters, these characteristics. I wonder like, do you think your dad does, I can see those in like Taylor and it's like, those are the kinds of things that like, when girls say they want a manly man, that's what they're thinking.
They want someone like Luke where it's like, yeah, well, I don't want him to be closed off. Like I want them to still have all these like, nurturing, sensitive, like wanting to keep growing as a human. Just being a good person by like, that's what it could be. A man's man is to be in touch with your feelings, to know that you need to grow when you
Julia: need to grow.
Dad is a man's man. He was in law enforcement for 30 years. He wrote motorcycles. Tinker with stuff with, he wanted to figure out how something works. He took it apart and then put it back together, computers before it was cool for me. There's elements of that where I'm just like, I appreciate that. Like, I need you to know how to fix it, or I need you to know that you need to call somebody to fix it.
And I appreciate it. I need you to know your
Christina: capabilities
Julia: for the both of us, right. There are elements of a dude's dude that I love. And then there's elements of a dudes dude that I'm just like. Okay. You can go now we are done here,
Christina: but I think that just comes naturally with being a girl or just saying anything.
That's not just like that.
Julia: Yeah, but I mean, that's true for like any type of stereotype personality. Like I have moments where I'm just like, That is not a person I would like to continue talking to because of insert some reason here, feel like Laura lie.
Christina: I want to keep talking about her and her life. I wish her and Luke dated sooner because I feel like Luke would have been good for her.
But then I also want to put that on loop. Like there's part of that, that just feels like her own responsibility.
Julia: It's a lot of pressure for a person to like, be the foundation. Somebody needs to get healthy again.
Christina: I feel like he would be accidentally good for her, you know? It would rub off on her because he would just be like, stubborn enough to be like, no, Lorelei, I'm not doing rap, but then she would come back because she has to, because
Julia: no, you know what I did, but really did bother me though, when they were officially dating.
They highlighted in such a campy way. Just how major the class difference between Emily and Richard and Luke was when he's in the stars hollow. He's his, he's totally like upstanding guy. He's a level, you know, he's not lovable, but you love him. And like he's a fixture in the community. He's a successful businessman.
But then you take him out of that world and put them into Emily and Richard's world. And he's like a bumbling shit. And that's intentional obviously, but I felt like the overdramatized his bumbling quickness so much that it was a discredit to Luke, the person.
Christina: Can we talk about, uh, I thought about this last night when we were watching Kim's convenience, when me and Taylor were.
He mentioned something like, we will talk about this when we get to those episodes later, but I just want to bring it here really quick is they talked about something. They brought up something about how he wasn't like this fancy man or anything, but it's like business owners in like lower poverty areas or whatever you want to call it.
Like they're still fucking business owners. They're fucking upstanding citizens in their community. And they're big in great things. And maybe if they don't fit in, like they're rich and fancy, or like per se lifestyle. It's like constantly showcased, like these, the way that they portray the differences is what I have a problem with, because there's a difference between like super well and like people just that are like
Julia: doing well off.
And then later,
Christina: yeah. Like the American dream is still being met and instead we're now glamorizing this like wealth to dream. That doesn't mean. Like can exist, but we glamorize the over succeeding wealth that nobody can not all of us can it.
Julia: Right. And, and to add to the fact that the Gilmore's clearly come from generational wealth worry, even makes a comment about how her, when she first meets Logan's family and they're dissatisfied with his choice in girlfriend and how she's like my ancestors came over on the Mayflower like that kind of.
Colonial into American sort of concept is like a very small amount of people in our country, but still has such a huge stronghold because that's the American identity for whatever reason and
Christina: see, because how is that the American identity when at 90, I'd say 98% of America is.
Julia: Right. And it really bothered me when Richard was like trying to force Luke's hand into franchising his business, because not everybody, like not everybody should be this type of business owner.
Right. Like if I'm a small business owner and I can run a successful restaurant and it satisfies my needs and gives me a little extra. And that's what I'm happy with. And I don't really want to go beyond that because it could be overextending me that needs to be okay. But this idea that he's not good enough for Lorelei, he needs to be a respectable man.
And in order for him to achieve that is by franchising his business and putting other people in charge of his life's work. Like that bothered me a lot.
Christina: Just this, like, it doesn't make any sense, like how is he not proving the fact that. He's an upstanding man. Like he created this business himself and it's like, why is it that not everything needs to go bigger and better?
You know, sometimes I would say I would argue that like, sometimes we're meant to just do a small portion of good for a small portion of people or, you know, We're here and we're here for this set of people or this area or these things like these are our strong suits and that's good. And that's awesome.
And that's amazing. And that should be celebrated not well, you could do more like, yeah, we can all do more. Okay. I could do more daily, but you know what? I also want to be good while I'm doing it. And if I do more. I can't
Julia: do more. I can give you like I'm in a phase now in life where I'm like, I can give you what I can give you.
But my bandwidth is very small.
Christina: I mean, like saying, it's like, if I'm giving you more, I'm giving up things of myself, you know, like technically I could do more, but that at what cost, and that needs to be a bigger conversation. One and two brings
Julia: up that point of like, he won't be happy. He won't be happy if he's not behind.
I mean, yes, he's a miserable man behind the counter, yelling at everything and yelling at Taylor and yelling at Lorelei and all these things being upset with Kirk. But that also is who he is. And if you remove him out of that element, he's not going to be happy. He's he's a man who needs to get his. Dirty and whatever version of getting his hands dirty is to feel satisfied in his day, in his life, in his work.
And they're trying to remove that from him without his
Christina: consent.
Source of happiness is just like lounging or having other people make those choices for them or whatever. And that's okay too, trying to do the crossover, stop trying to force your version of success on other people. Yeah.
Julia: Cause it's different for everybody like this idea, this idea that, you know, the way that you're going to achieve success, and this is what success needs to look like.
My version doesn't exist in the culture we live in because I'm not. To work the way that we are told we need to work in order to be successful. I get tired easily when I have to work 40 hours. It takes a lot for me to recover from that. And I understand working 40 hours is the norm. I don't want to say I'm sensitive because I like, I feel like that term has been politicized in so many ways, but to a degree, yeah, I am sensitive.
Because I don't have the same capacity as somebody who's built to be a work horse. I wasn't built to be a workhorse. It reminds me of that book, the giver. Did you read that book?
Christina: No. But when, when you say I wasn't built to be a workforce, it's funny because I constantly struggle with, I don't know if I want to do all the things in a day because I want to, or because.
Grown up in a house where I saw someone do that constantly. And now I associate with that is like, what I
Julia: should do. There are days when I'm like I should, and my son will be like, why you worked all week? Why don't you think that you deserve to relax today? Which I've made a very big deal in his upbringing about today's the day we're relaxing.
Today's the day we're resting. So now him in teenage hood. Saying that to me is hilarious because I'll sit around one day and then I'll be like, I didn't do anything today. I feel like Alaimo, I feel like a loser. I should be productive. And he's like, you worked. 50 hours last week, you don't have to do anything today.
And I'm like, yeah, I need that reminder. I need that reminder a lot. And it's so crazy because like, I never felt that way before when I was freelancing, I was like, I did four hours of work today. We call that good.
Christina: I'll go with the fact that creative energy is a lot more. So four hours in a day, you get four hours of writing.
Yeah. That is like enough to be like my brain's done, but sometimes you work like an office job. Like I work a 10 hour day and sometimes like, it wasn't mentally stimulating enough for me to consider myself tired. However, working 10 hours being up the two hours before to walk my dog and get to my needs and do my human needs.
When I get home. Now I'm at like a 14 hours. And I technically didn't get anything productive, done, and I not stimulated enough to be like tired, but I'm tired because I did a bunch of front-end. And it's bullshit and I hate it. And I think that's why I'm constantly like, yes, I have no energy, but I would rather have no energy and like be doing something for myself to push me out of this state.
Julia: Right now all that to say, I really felt for Luke because he was a hard worker and he did what he, what made him happy. He never left the town that he lived in. I identify with that super strongly. I mean, I've traveled sort of, but I've never lived anywhere else. And so I just, it just really broke my heart.
How hard Richmond, Emily tried to change him to make him quote, suitable.
Christina: I'm so glad that we're also starting to get away with the idea on TV that like parents have to approve a suitable mate for their child. Like, and I'll say in relation to that, I was really like nervous. Um, I don't know why parents like taking Taylor home, which is funny because my mom. My mom was a single mom with two little boys when she met my dad.
And I was like, oh my God, I'm bringing home a boy with a sled. And like, what's funny is the whole year before my mom was championing, like championing me to like date him because he kept like reaching out. And every time he did. And I'm like, oh, I'm not ready for it.
Julia: I remember we had that conversation too.
Like, you guys had gone out like on, not a date, but kind of a day. And you were like,
Christina: like we, well, not even that, like before, when we just hang out as like friends, it was like, everything was there before it was there, but I kept
Julia: saying, I'm not ready
Christina: for that. And then I like got breast upon it. I will, I'm here to say I was right.
I was not ready for it because it was overwhelming, but it was overwhelming in the best way. Like, because you're not ever ready for kids. It's overwhelming in the best way. It's like, no, but now they're here and you can't expect life without them.
Julia: Did you see somebody posted it? Might've been busted something about like, I had a child and I don't like them article.
And I was like, Ooh, is that a thing? I mean, because I understand having a hard time bonding like this perception in television and movies that we see where the mom immediately bonds with the child. That's not my story.
Christina: That's not my mom's story with me. And she was. Um, talkative about it my whole life. I have feelings about that.
Julia: So I was very mindful about how I said it in front of my child, because when he hit like three, I was like, oh, this kid is fucking awesome. And I love him. I mean, I loved him anyway and I loved him more than anything anyway, but like, the infancy was really hard for me in the sense of like, I don't know what you want.
Like I don't have, I have neurological differences. So there were things where it was just like, I can't figure this out. What am I missing? And then when he hits three, like you're the most amazing human and I love you more than anything. And now your mind, you are glued to me forever, but that didn't happen, you know, minutes after he was born.
And I really feel like sometimes if you don't talk about that enough, because.
Christina: I think she doesn't mean, I don't think, I think she's undiagnosed ADHD, brain cheated it. She doesn't know how to communicate. She doesn't have the soft sensitivity, like natural nurturing side and still we communicate with her and then she's the most empathetic. And it's like, I am not that way. Like I'm opposite.
I'm very intuitive. I do not communicate. So it was very hard for us at the beginning of it beginning. Probably for her. And she verbalized that. And then when I can communicate at that point, I didn't know how to, and I was like, yeah. So it's like, it's something that like, we, I would just to say like in a society, like, I don't blame her at all for the way she communicated it, like different times obviously.
And like, she is the best mom and we are so connected now, but it's like, I'm very aware of the fact that like, when you have a kid. Sometimes you're not going to bond right away and that's okay. And there's going to be stages in your kids' life, where you go out of being bonded, where you feel like they're little aliens, because they're going through their own stuff and they don't know how to.
Julia: We forget that we're, we've given life to human who has its own well. And so what we think is going to happen and what actually happens are two different things. For me, there was a lot of shame and guilt behind not having that immediate bonding with my child. So I never really verbalized it. And then.
Working. I want to say I was probably around 28, 29. I had this boss who was amazing. She is still one of the people I admire most. And if I'm ever in a position of leadership, I want to operate like her because she was just such a great leader. But we were having a conversation one day and she had openly admitted that she didn't really bond with her children until they were like four or five years old.
And in that moment, it took away so much of the shame and guilt I felt because it she's telling me I'm not alone. Yeah. This is whether or not it's normal. She just normalized it for me because she felt the same way.
Christina: If we normalize the fact that. Bonding with your kid takes the amount of effort it does is bonding with any other fucking human, because just like any other human, when you meet them, they're still a stranger stranger with your DNA out of your body.
There's still strangers though. And they're still their own fucking person with their own set of beliefs and morals at some point. And yeah, you're going to cater and factor into that for sure. But they're still going to have their own. Yeah, feelings and stuff. And the sooner you realize that the sooner like life gets a little easier, like
Julia: seriously though, it's not.
Christina: And that's the say that Laura light never did that with Mo Rory.
Julia: I think she bonded too much.
Christina: She was like,
Julia: Yeah. And that that's, you know, in hindsight, when you become a parent, you're like, oh, that's kind of weird, but you know, when you're 16 and you're like that be great to be that close to my mom. Like if I was back to my mom,
Christina: say if there's anyone under the age of 18 listening at any point, I just want you to know that you don't want to like your mom in high school.
All right. If you don't like your mom in high school for like reasons that are just like, she's not letting me do stuff you want to do. Um, she's probably a good mom. She's probably just looking out for you in ways that you can't see, but you will see in like 10 years.
Julia: Yeah. Cause you know, when you have boundaries at any, in any relationship, boundaries are hard.
That's the thing like Laurel, I didn't have boundaries unless she wanted to. I mean, yes, we all have boundaries if we want to, but like, like she,
Christina: she will left it with her boundaries.
Julia: Yeah, I do kind of think that she treated max poorly too. Do you remember the max Medina relationship in the, I think it started in season one and carried into season two a little bit.
Christina: Lord give me strength.
Julia: He wasn't seeing him when he was, he was at teacher at Chilton. Yeah. He took over, he was Rory's teacher in Chilton.
I don't think
Christina: Lorelei treated any of her boyfriends that great. And that's because I still go back to the fact that I don't think Laura ever really tried to grow past what.
Julia: Christopher, at least with Christopher, she would say things like, I don't want that with max. She never said, Hey, I I'm a little, maybe we shouldn't get married. Or like when there was a scene where worry and Dean are late, they come back from a double date and Rory and Dean are gonna sit on the porch. All right guys, it's 11 and where he's like, okay, so then max and lore Lego upstairs.
And he's like, so what do we do in this situation? And she's like, what are you talking about? Like, it's, he's done. She's like, well, what's my role in worries. Life they're already engaged. They're already engaged. And they haven't had this conversation and Laura's like, Laura lies. Like there is no role for you.
She's done well, moralized done. And that like, At 16 or whatever. I don't think anything of it at 35, I think. That that's a lot to unpack there because when you, cause now I'm a solo mom dating. So now it's like, how do these men fit into my child's life? Especially because I have a boy. So there's that whole role model situation happening.
And so how do you not tell your fiance or have this conversation before you get engaged? It was such a whirlwind of emotions that Laurel, I never stops to be like, is this normal? How do I feel? Is this okay? And in all fairness, Swept up in her charisma and didn't think about it either. So they're both in the room, but then she just, she just obliterate them because she did on the day before the day of the wedding, she's like, I'm not doing this and then fucking leaves town.
Christina: What bugs me too. And TV shows it bugs me that like no one talked about Yori and like the role as like a step parent or whatever, like, can talk about this in a different podcast episode where it's just about like parenting parenting, I guess like in step parenting roles and like how they're portrayed, there needs to be there's way more conversations that happen.
Or at least that should happen if you're going to be in a child's life. Like you got to meet other parents. You've got to learn routines depending on their age. Of course, like Laurie was a teenager, but still like teenagers are fucking wild and they will try wild shit, especially not their parents. So that's a big conversation.
Like I got it easy. It's a kid. You got to just learn right. When you got to like a teenager, they're gonna fucking be sneaky because that's what they're supposed to do. They're basically overgrown toddlers. They're testing new boundaries with just a sex thing underneath them. Like the sex fire that's lit under there.
Like I got to do things. I got to poke things I got to try and you're like, don't do that. Don't do. And so what are you going to do as a parent? That's like, now I'm coming into this house and it's like at a school because he's a teacher at school. That's something he's got to shut down. So he's used to having a role of telling teenagers what they can and can't do.
Now. He's going to be living with one that is at a school. How the fuck have you not talked about. Yeah, especially because he isn't an authority position.
Julia: He's not just in an authority position and being at her school, he's also an authority figure because he's her teacher like he's English teacher. So that's a totally different dynamic as well as a priest.
He's the teacher
Christina: conversation over.
If you're a, I would say girls coming into relationships, they asked a lot more questions and stuff like men are kind of like, okay, I guess that's what we're doing. Like, I mean, I'm just talking out my butt right now. No specifics. In general, like guys are more go with the flow in conversation. So when a woman that very assertively like about their kid tells them that they're going to probably shut down where like a woman in that situation, like if a guy was like, oh, you just don't have a role, a big, excuse the fuck me.
Like, I don't know, but we need.
Julia: I don't know if I would gender it like that personally, just because in my experience it's been not so like me as a woman, I'm this way and all the men I've dated have been the same in that way. I would say in the specifically in the sense of Laura lion max, one of the things that really bothered me about, I
Christina: would say like, just specifically and traditional heterosexual roles and relationships.
That's like the experience I'm talking about and the standard experience on television, you know, like that's the old, that's why I phrased it that way. I'm sorry. I should have said that at the, at the beginning, but yes, like that is another problem that, that is the standard that is, seems to be portrayed a lot in
Julia: that the, and the situation of Lauren lion, max, what really bothered me about Laurel's response.
And what was really telling to me was that that to me is saying, I am unwilling to let you. Yes, I agreed to marry you, but you're still not allowed in because sure. My teenager is done, but there's still an active role because you are choosing to be my partner. I'm choosing to be your partner, which means Christmases, holidays, birthdays.
And so even though this child is going off to college in three years, four years, whatever, they're still have to come home. You still have to build a home that they feel comfortable coming home to. And like that. In an adulthood. That scene really bothers me because. I th you know, I think about my own personal situation.
I don't want my child to ever tell me, mom, I'm not coming home. I'm not comfortable in your home because we've spent so much time together already building like me, building a home for him. That if I partner with somebody that doesn't make him feel comfortable and like, doesn't make him feel like he can come home and be himself and be relaxed and be completely who he is.
Then I failed as a parent.
Christina: And it also goes to say like, you honestly, you really can't tell someone, you don't have a role because they still are living together in the next couple of years. There's no way that he can't have no role. Like, yeah. He might have no role in discipline. Maybe dad who has no role in her love life, whatever she wants to.
But to say he has no role. What are you going to do? You live in with a fucking statue for three years? Like such a thing. You cannot glaze over that. And it's, that's so problematic. In mash that she did not like, she's just like, Nope, you guys are just going to live separate lives. Like you're not going to address the fact that your child will also feel just as awkward for the next couple years.
Not having a role attached to this. He, even if he doesn't have a role to, uh,
Julia: he lives in the man cave, that's a thing, right. People have. Yeah. And it shows me too that Lorelei, while she wants to be loved while she wants companionship, she wants those things. She just doesn't know how to, how to attain that. She doesn't know what that looks like for her. She doesn't know how to navigate that.
And that's a lot of, because you know, she's 16 had a child, so she never really got to do that. Freedom of exploration and dating. And so. It just, it broke my heart for her. It broke my heart for max because here's this wonderful, loving man intelligent, curious for knowledge, which we've established that I find very attractive.
Who, who is willing to like be her penguin to give a nod to Jenny and Georgia. And she's like, yeah. Okay. But then in subconsciously, she doesn't know how to do. She doesn't know how to be that in return. And that just made me sad for her
Christina: and it is sad. And I guess the sad part is like, because she doesn't realize it.
So she,
Julia: yeah, 100%, 100%, which is just really, really, really heartbreaking because how much of her emotional stunting is because her parents were not. Viewing her as anything other than like a pretty little Dolly that was supposed to go to Smith and get a degree and then get married to the first, you know, well-bred man.
And how much
Christina: of it, like, I'm sorry, but you said like get married or like go to college, get a degree, then get. What the fuck is the point of going to college and having a degree, if you're not going to use that knowledge,
Julia: that generation, that's why you go to college is to meet a husband. That's literally what you do.
Women weren't supposed to get these jobs, women weren't, that's why it's so incredible that we have all these women from that generation of boomers. Who did all these amazing things, because you go to college to get a husband. I'm not kidding you. I have a friend who is old enough to be my mother. When she went to graduate school, her mother says to her, this is in 19 60, 19 72.
Or do you didn't find a husband the first time you went to college? What makes you think you're going to find a husband this time? And there was a joke in that generation of like, oh yeah, you're going to school to get your Mrs degree, Mrs.
So that wasn't, it wasn't to educate women. It was to get you out of the house. So you can find an appropriately matched man. And if you think about that, education was
Christina: a bonus, right? Oh my God. You thought women was going to just be an added bonus bitch. We were equipping ourselves for decades.
Julia: And then if you think about how many women in that generation, when you think about how many women in that generation in Emily Gilmore's generation who go to college and don't finish college because they found their husband.
So that makes Emily kind of an anomaly because she did finish school and get an art history. I think she got a history degree. So, you know, there's all these like layers to the show that you don't really think about until you like start actually thinking about. If it feels like our conversation about Kuma girls came to an abrupt stop.
That's kind of, because it did, we started getting tons of messages and we had to quickly exit our call to handle those things, but never fear. We have so much content about the Gilmer roles we might consider putting a bonus episode out there. You never know. Anyway, on next week's episode, we talk about the Netflix original.
Have you watched it, if you want to continue this conversation with us online, head on over to our Instagram pop culture makes. Talk to you soon. .
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