I didn’t name my son after myself, but I can understand the impulse.

Fathers do it all the time. My own brother is named after my Dad. My cousin has a kid named after him; that cousin is named after my Uncle who is named after his father who was named after his father. I grew up in an evangelical household. I’m intimately familiar with the traditional, masculine authority that wants men to Name Things.

In the hit TV show Gilmore Girls, we aren’t looking at Fathers and Sons. We’re examining the life of a Mother and her Daughter. A teenaged mother, at that. Before the series begins, Lorelai Gilmore, only sixteen years old, gives birth.  She names her daughter Lorelai, after herself, and that daughter goes by the nickname Rory. Ostensibly Lorelai looked down at the person she’d made, tiny body tucked neatly inside a wreath of receiving blankets, and saw herself reflected back. I didn’t name my kid after myself, but after he was born, I looked down and with no small amount of shock discovered that he owned a near direct copy of my face. My own dark eyes, sleepily blinking up at me.

Like Lorelai, I was a teenager when I gave birth to my son. I thought it would be different, having a son versus having a daughter, but it turns out that babies are pretty much all the same when they’re small. They just need you so much. Also like Lorelai, I was on my own and very naïve, unready to face the world on my own, much less with a child to care for on top of that. I didn’t know much at all. At the start, there was nothing I could teach him.

Nothing came easy. Nothing was quick. But some of it came, eventually.

I was older than Lorelai when I got pregnant, but not by much. I was eighteen when my son was born. That’s still technically a teenager, but unlike Lorelai, I was old enough to vote and old enough to go to war. Old enough to have a full-time salaried job which meant I was old enough to pay taxes. I was considered a legal adult, even though I couldn’t drink or buy liquor or rent a car. Because I was no longer considered a minor, I was old enough, in the eyes of the law, to raise a child on my own. I’d just finished high school and I’d been accepted into the education program at the University of Florida for the summer semester. It goes without saying that the pregnancy was unplanned. I was a deeply closeted lesbian who wasn’t even out to herself. I got drunk in the woods at a music festival, had sex with a boy that I’d known since first grade, and then two months later I was buying a bottle of orange juice and a pregnancy test from the CVS across the street from my dorm.

Suddenly I was pregnant. And then I was a dropout. And then I was a single mother. I had no money or resources outside of my deeply evangelical family, the same people who’d taken me to picket outside of abortion clinics when I was six years old. They did not accept the fact that I would have this baby on my own. They did not accept my queerness, either. I was alone. One mess was enough to redirect the rest of my life. I could not afford to make another mistake; it could cost me everything.

An important facet of Lorelai’s character is that she values her freedom. She’d rather live in poverty than follow the map her parents have laid out for her, which included a teenage marriage to her likewise teenage boyfriend, Christopher. That future held the same Waspish wealth that her parents enjoy, but it also meant adhering to the same stuffy rules that her parents were required to follow. Lorelai, with her loud music and cutoff jeans shorts, wasn’t about that life. She was the late night Taco Bell drive thru to her parent’s ten-course Michelin-starred dinner.

In an early episode, viewers encounter the “shed” (a silly word for what looks a lot like a studio apartment) where Lorelai and her daughter lived before she finally acquired her GED. We learn that after getting her diploma, she accepted a much higher paying position as manager of the Independence Inn. The name of the Inn is a tongue-in-cheek nod from the writers, surely; Lorelai chooses “Independence” and makes it on her own. Viewers learn that she overcame her fair share of struggles: sleepless nights with a newborn baby, days spent working as a chambermaid, a life lived on the edge of bankruptcy. But we don’t see those struggles play out on screen.

By the time we meet them, the Gilmore Girls have established a cherished lifestyle, one that includes money for groceries and gas, cash for piles of clothes and unlimited cups of coffee. Rory doesn’t frequent the library; she patronizes the bookstore where she buys a mind-boggling number of books. The pair eat out at restaurants or order food multiple times a week, sometimes twice in a single day. Their house, though older and in constant need of repairs, is a two-bedroom affair with a wraparound porch, cozy and warm.

They were comfortable. Nothing too awful happened to them. I could watch Gilmore Girls and focus on their small problems, easily rectified, unlike my own household worries, which filled me with unceasing dread. Back when Gilmore Girls was still on the air, I couldn’t even order a pizza without having a panic attack afterward because I’d used money that was earmarked for overdue bills. I watched their lives play out on my TV screen with a distant, curious fascination. It felt like this story that I was supposed to relate to was taking place on a completely different planet.

But not everything comes easily to the Gilmore Girls! A main plot point of the show hinges on familial discomfort — Rory gets accepted to a pricey private school, but Lorelai can’t afford to pay for it on her own. She humbles herself and asks her parents for help. In exchange for tuition, Lorelai and Rory must agree to Friday night dinners with Lorelai’s once-estranged parents.

I sat there on my scavenged furniture, watching the show on a boxy old TV I’d picked up from Goodwill, and wondered: what could I have accomplished with a safety net like Lorelai’s parents? I’d come out as a lesbian and my evangelical mother and father had told me they would not support that kind of lifestyle. In order to live my life as an out queer person, I’d had to fund everything myself. I longed for Lorelai’s safety net, the kind where attending a single weekly meal – served by a maid, no less – meant that your child could go to a ritzy private school. Meanwhile, I was stealing toilet paper from the library where I worked for under $20k a year, crying myself to sleep knowing I couldn’t cover the utility bill that month, that maybe we’d have to sleep in my car. Though we’re told that Lorelai struggled in the past, we learn in the present that Lorelai only needed to pick up the phone and call her parents to make those struggles end. The only thing Lorelai had to sacrifice was her pride.

Sex is presented through a strange and specific lens on Gilmore Girls: we know that Lorelai got pregnant as a teenager and kept her baby, we know that she acquires several boyfriends throughout the seven seasons and they ostensibly fuck, and we know that other characters get pregnant. Rory occasionally discusses sex with her mother, albeit usually through metaphors. She has sex for the first time with her ex-boyfriend (who is also married, but to someone else – young as well, fresh out of high school). In the earliest episodes of the show, the word “slut” is thrown around by Lorelai and her daughter in ways that mark it as something fun and interesting. Lorelai gets giddy when something is described as slutty; she earmarks the word for herself.

But as the show progresses, we are treated to a more familiar and depressing outlook when it comes to sex: if you’re having it, you’ll probably wind up pregnant. And if you’re having it outside of marriage, you’re morally bankrupt. The fun and frivolous use of the word “slutty” quickly disappears from the Gilmore Girls vocabulary, replaced instead with language aimed at other women who are considered either promiscuous or vapid. Rory is especially bothered by young women who are interested in sex, viewing them as bimbos (this particular word is used to describe future boyfriend Jess’s interest in a girl who would make out with him in public). Sex is deemed tawdry unless attached to love and lifelong commitment, regardless of the fact that Lorelai had a baby when she was still a child herself. If Rory met her mother as a teenager, would she have called her a bimbo? If a slutty tree falls in the woods, etc.

My relationship to sex was obviously different because the sex I was having after getting pregnant and giving birth to my son was all incredibly queer. It was not the kind of fucking that would make a baby. In direct opposition to Gilmore Girls, the more sex that I had, the less crude it felt. Growing up, I’d been told that sex was something a person did only within the confines of marriage (and at a particularly interesting middle school Disciple Now weekend, told that masturbation could only occur if it was done “for the glory of God,” whatever that means). But that was obviously not the case, and once the cloak of secrecy that shrouded the act began to fall away, I had a deeper understanding of my body and myself. Sure, sex was slutty. But Lorelai was right when she was excited about it – slutty is goddamn fun.

As soon as my son was old enough to understand the differences between his body and others’ bodies, I began talking with him about sex. Because I grew up in a very repressed household where information was purposefully kept from me, I wanted to be sure that he had any information that he needed or wanted. My own mother finally told me about sex by holding up a box of tampons, urging me to read the paper pamphlet that came inside, and leaving the room. I looked at that folded piece of paper and tried to imagine where any of it would go: tampon, finger, cock. To be completely honest, I was unaware before looking at the how-to guide that there was even an extra hole down there. The body, full of mysteries!

I wanted my son to know that questions were a good thing to have; nothing to be embarrassed about. It’s hard to imagine Lorelai telling Rory that she should enjoy safe sex as long as she uses precautions like birth control and condoms. From her own teenage pregnancy, it seems that she learned that her daughter needed to be “better” than her to have a fulfilling and meaningful life. Don’t be slutty, Rory. Don’t be a bimbo.

Don’t be like me.

When Gilmore Girls first premiered, my son had just been born. As I watched and rewatched over the years, many of their household struggles resonated with me. Because of our closeness in age, I often felt more like my son’s older sister than his mom. When I attended events at his school, I was regarded with morbid curiosity and sometimes outright hostility. Other parents were the age of my parents, in their late thirties and some well into their forties. People wouldn’t speak to me at events. When I entered a room and people discovered I wasn’t my son’s sibling, I got a lot of pointed frowns. No one wanted me to be part of the PTA, that’s for sure. Once I was unceremoniously booted from a third grade Christmas party, told by the class Mom that I was “not needed,” a designation that was never explained to me. I was in my mid-twenties when my son was in elementary school, but I often passed for much younger. Other parents refused to take me seriously; wouldn’t leave their kids alone with me on playdates. My son wasn’t invited to very many birthday parties. He missed out on plenty of sleepovers and after school hangouts. He was smart and charming and polite. He got good grades and was friendly, almost overly friendly; an excitable golden retriever of a child. The snubs had nothing to do with his personality; it had everything to do with my age and the fact that I was poor and that I was gay. Because I was his mother, he lost out on opportunities.

Lorelai experiences a version of this displacement and subsequently so does her daughter, albeit from a much more manageable standpoint. The Gilmores might have money, but Rory isn’t immune to the digs people like to get in once she enters her fancy prep school, Chilton. Her classmates know all about her “trashy” upbringing because they’ve learned about it from their parents. Other students don’t hesitate to use that information in order to bully Rory. Wealth only gets the Gilmore Girls so far. These people have money, too, but they also have pedigreed backgrounds. Married parents with Ivy League educations. Back in Stars Hollow, the Gilmore Girls are beloved. But when it comes to Chilton and the monied elite, Lorelai and Rory can’t hope to outrun their legacy.

Even though my problems felt much more intense than those of the Gilmore Girls, it did help to see that money can’t solve them all. Regardless of wealth or social standing, insecure and unhappy people will still find ways to cut you down to make themselves feel better.

And that mom who booted me from the Christmas party? Her son doesn’t speak to her anymore. I know that because my son told me.

Every time September rolls around, the Gilmore Girls Fall Rewatch commences. Although it’s still eighty-plus degrees outside in most places, fans see those crisp fall leaves, clock the profusion of cozy sweaters, and take it as permission to slide into something a little more comfortable. And even though I find it embarrassing to admit, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t count myself among that number.

Although Lorelai’s life is so different from my own – her access to money, her alignment with certain aspects of parental privilege –there’s something hopeful about watching this mother and daughter navigate the ups and (admittedly small) downs of growing up together. It allowed me a level of grace. After all, she’s a messy parent, too. And shouldn’t we messy parents stick together?

Motherhood – and Bad Motherhood – sit at the forefront of this television show. We’re shown this generationally (Lorelai’s relationship with own mother, Emily, as well as Lorelai’s relationship to her beloved daughter, Rory), but we’re also shown it in contrast with the choices that these parents make when it comes to their daughters. Is it better to be strict with your child or is it better to be friends? What does it mean to have boundaries inside of a familial relationship? We’re told over and over again that Lorelai’s Mother doesn’t respect her boundaries. But Lorelai herself lacks boundaries, especially when it comes to her daughter. It’s hard to have a child when you still feel like a child yourself. Rules are harder to enforce.

I knew all the social media applications my son used (in fact, I developed a rather robust following on one of them; many of his friends from school followed me there). We were only eighteen years apart in age. I knew what lies he might tell, because I’d told them myself not that long ago. I drank and partied; he could not fool me when it came to hiding those things (once he’d pilfered from my alcohol stash; I found the evidence in his room, dregs of leftover wine in a plastic cup stashed beneath his bed, collecting dust and bugs – a real rookie mistake). I knew tricks that other parents might not catch. Those people were lightyears away from it all, but I’d just emerged from teenhood, freshly hatched into my new adult life.

Part of this sustained youthfulness also had to do with the fact that I was queer. I was single then, too, and still going to school, albeit at night. It was a delayed adolescence: I was relearning who I was, what I liked, how I wanted to move through the world. Everything felt brand new. Like me, Lorelai shares these same growing pains with her daughter. There is real bonding when it comes to discussing dating woes, or crabbiness over studying for an especially hard midterm. Parents might not understand, but teen parents sometimes do. We know what it’s like because we’re still navigating the spiky road to maturity, the mantle thrust upon us too soon.

Although I’d like to deny it, when it comes to mood and demeanor and overall bizarre life choices, there are many overlaps between me and Lorelai Gilmore. I’m impulsive and brash. I adore an audience. The worse a conversation is going, the more I’ll caper and clown for the viewer – I want people to like me, and some short circuit in my brain taught me a long time ago that if I perform well enough then maybe I can change that person’s mind (this never works out). Lorelai shouts nonsense at strangers, sings and dances for no particular reason, eats an unholy amount of junk food, wakes up crabby and late for important events, can’t seem to get her schedule together. We both drink in excess: her with coffee, me with beer. We both make jokes to avoid dealing with our actual feelings. We both know how to sew and have made clothes for our children because we didn’t have the money to buy them a Halloween costume.

For many years I couldn’t manage to commit to any one person because I had trust issues due to my relationship with my parents and therefore struggled to open up and get vulnerable with partners. Lorelai shares this trait. Just like her, I’m overly bossy with loved ones if I think I know better than them about a particular subject. I have to be the funniest person in the room.

Paired side-by-side, the similarities between myself and this TV character far outnumber the differences. Most strikingly, I see myself in the way that Lorelai continues to exasperate her own child. Though Rory loves her mother dearly, she can’t help but feel overwhelmed when these “big” personality traits mean that child has to do a fair amount of the parenting. That’s a lot of heavy lifting for a kid, isn’t it? I suspect my son might nod along sagely with that particular sentiment. I wouldn’t blame him for the comparison (but I would probably make a bad joke about it).

Because we’re so alike, I have to wonder if every time I roll my eyes at Lorelai’s bad behavior I’m essentially rolling my eyes at myself. Stop that, I say, but every time I point the finger at this fictional woman all the other fingers are pointing straight back at me.

For instance, I’ve made a joke here about the fact that my own son has played the role of parent in our relationship. I’ve used Lorelai as the lens, but at the end of the day, she’s merely a character on a television show and for us it was real life.

That’s not actually all that funny.

As a parent, Lorelai repeatedly makes poor choices. She uses her daughter as buffer between herself and her mother, she gets in between her daughter and her daughter’s boyfriends and gives both parties her unwanted opinions, she’s repeatedly late and makes her daughter late as a result, she even dates her daughter’s teacher even though it makes Rory’s life tough at school. But Lorelai makes poor choices when it comes to her personal life, too. She reacts impulsively. She alienates those around her. And though many people go through life doing all of these things, it’s especially fraught in Gilmore Girls because Lorelai isn’t just Lorelai. She’s a mother. There is a societal expectation that mothers have to be completely selfless, at all times, for the sake of their children. She must put her daughter first. But because she is a human being, sometimes she fails at life. It’s these failures that earn someone the term “bad mother.”

But part of being human is to understand your own limitations. To grow from your mistakes. As I grew alongside my son, I found myself wallowing in many of the same failures that Lorelai found herself wallowing in. I failed in my romantic relationships. I failed in my parenting. I failed in my finances. I failed in my friendships. We fail, and we try again. But if you’re a mother, that’s not allowed. According to the world at large, you’ve gotta be a saint.

When I was young and pregnant, every mistake felt connected; as if by making one, I would inevitably make another, then another, and another, all because of the first wrong turn. It was biblical to me, like Eve and that apple. I had taken the bite and supposedly found misery.

Except that’s not exactly what happened, was it? I took a bite of the apple and there was a baby, sure, but there was also the rest of my life. If I hadn’t made that original mistake, I wouldn’t have made any of the others that followed, and I wouldn’t find myself happily where I’ve landed today.

Lorelai doesn’t parent in a silo. A big part of the show – perhaps the biggest part, aside from Lorelai’s relationship with Rory – comes from the idea that it takes a village to raise a child. The townsfolk of Stars Hollow know everything about the Gilmores. There is a cast of side characters that serve as extended family for young, impressionable Rory, part of her life since she was a baby. These people have opinions on every aspect of her life, and they have opinions on Lorelai’s life, too. Luke Danes, who runs the local diner and serves throughout the series as Lorelai’s will-they-won’t-they love interest, generally acts as a supplementary father for Rory, performing essential parental tasks when her biological father, Christopher, isn’t around. The town raises Rory, sure, but they’re raising Lorelai, too. Without their help, she wouldn’t have been able to care for Rory on her own. The community provides care.

As a queer person, the idea of community family in lieu of a biological one feels not only right to me but extremely necessary. As a teenaged mother with no money and no education and no prospects, I found life unbearably hard. Adding queerness to that equation made life’s challenges nearly insurmountable. But I developed a network of friends in my community that allowed me to work toward my goals. Childcare. Job opportunities. Rides. Meals. These things made all the difference when it came to getting us through the days, months, weeks, and, eventually, years.

This is a group of friends that saw me through my toughest times, but they also championed me through my greatest victories. They came to my college graduation. They saw my son graduate high school, then college. They stood up with me at my wedding this year. It takes a village to raise a child, but it also took a village to raise me.

Unlike Lorelai, who becomes closer with her estranged parents as the show progresses, my relationship with my biological family moved in the opposite direction. That’s the difference between real life and television shows, I suspect. Gilmore Girls, cheery and heartwarming, full of charm and quirky characters, doesn’t allow for the very real nuance of what it means to deal with family members who refuse to acknowledge your life and beliefs. My problems with my parents couldn’t be solved with a weekly family dinner. Living in one place my whole life, like Lorelai, means that family will always be around, whether I like it or not. What a person chooses to do with that – and how you choose to shape that relationship – is entirely up to you. I choose community. I choose bad motherhood. I choose me.

I think Lorelai would choose the same.

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