Welcome to Your Doctor Friend! I’m Mara, a family physician, mom, and writer. (Among other things! We contain multitudes!) I write about navigating health care, dismantling diet culture, and desperately keeping it together as a doctor mom. Thanks for being here.
I have hazy memories of my very first sleepover. I was probably in first grade, and I slept over at my next-door neighbor’s house. (Hi, B, if you’re reading!)
It was the late 80s or early 90s, no tablets or YouTube, but we definitely had VHS. There were movies and snacks. I can’t remember if the sleepover was at my house or B’s, but I remember a Little Mermaid sleeping bag purchased for the occasion.
And most of all, I remember it being really, really fun.
In the years that followed, sleepovers were one of my most consistent social engagements. There were big sleepovers – 10 or 12 girls stuffed into sleeping bags on the family room floor – and there were one-on-one sleepovers that signaled a close friendship or the beginning of one. We stayed up late. We ate ice cream. We called the radio station (yes, the radio station!) and dedicated songs to boys we liked.
I had sleepovers throughout high school; I went to a school that drew kids from all over, and some of my best friends lived 45 minutes away, so sleepovers were essential for weekend hangs.
Honestly, these days, I kinda miss sleepovers. Sometimes, friends will come stay with us in Philly, or we’ll rent an AirBnb with friends, and I’ll be thrust back into that casual intimacy of youth. It was so much fun to just hang out without any agenda or goal. To have a leisurely morning with friends eating pancakes.
It has recently come to my attention that many millennials are self-described “anti-sleepover parents.”
I became aware of this phenomenon when I saw a post on social media where a pediatrician was interviewing her physician friends about things that they, as medical experts, would never let their kids do: ride a bike without a helmet, use a pool unsupervised.
To my shock, a few of these physicians answered: “I would never let my child go on a sleepover.”
Thanks for reading Your Doctor Friend.
Why on earth wouldn’t you let your kid go on a sleepover? I genuinely couldn’t even imagine why not.
So I asked some of my friends: parents I like and respect.
My friend M was swift in her response. “I am definitely anti-sleepover,” she told me.
I asked her why. Her answer had to do with fear of sexual abuse. “It’s so much more common than we realize,” she told me. “I would just never forgive myself if something terrible happened.”
As a family doctor who cares for children, I’ve seen more than my fair share of abuse. It can tear apart families and cause deep and lasting harm. I agree that it’s probably under-recognized, because it can be so difficult for children to articulate and understand abuse when it occurs.
But far more common – a condition I would estimate affects more than half of the families I care for – is a profound sense of loneliness.
In my clinical practice, I talk daily to stressed-out parents who are overwhelmed with childcare, work, and household management. Sometimes, depending on the scenario, I’ll ask if there’s someone who could help watch their kids while they take care of something critical for their own health.
“There’s nobody I trust to watch my kids,” they’ll sometimes say.
When parents divulge how overwhelmed they are, I’ll ask them what it might feel like to confide in a friend.
“I mostly keep to myself,” they say.
Another response I often get: “I do have one close friend, from growing up. But she has her own stuff going on. I don’t want to burden her with my problems.”
I wonder if the fear of abuse – something devastating but uncommon – puts us all at risk of something much more common and easy to miss.
I posed the sleepover question to another friend who is part of a religious Jewish community, and she was immediately “pro.”
“Community is our family’s baseline,” she told me.
She gets to know other families through the synagogue, and then starts to trust them over time. Letting other adults supervise her kids is the norm.
(She also pointed out, kindly, that she’d gladly have me watch her kids and she hoped vice versa, and I’m not a member of her synagogue. It’s the mindset of openness and trust that she has cultivated by being part of her religious community.)
I told my friend M, the one who was nervous about sleepovers, that I trusted her and her husband to safely care for my own child. Our kids are a little too young for sleepovers right now, but I said that if I were in a bind and I needed urgent childcare – even overnight – I knew she would keep my son safe.
And instead of arguing with her about whether or not “millennial parents are crazy,” I instead posed what I hope was a gentle invitation.
She responded immediately. “Oh, you have my trust. I know that my kids would be safe with you if they slept over.” She was “anti-sleepover” with families she didn’t know.
I laughed, because of course I feel the same way. It’s not like I’d let my kid sleep at a house he picked out at random on the street.
So maybe amongst my millennial parent peers, sleepovers have a PR problem.
Why did M describe herself as “anti-sleepover” and I describe myself as “pro-sleepover” when we really have the same position: We think sleepovers can be fun with families we know and trust?
When I was pregnant, I read a provocative book called Small Animals: Parenting in the Age of Fear. The author’s impetus for writing it was experiencing an investigation from child protective services after she left her child in the car while she went into a Target. (I’d also encourage you to read the devastating book Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families – and How Abolition Can Build A Safer World.)
Small Animals was an unsettling book. I vowed after reading it that I wouldn’t let fear guide my parenting decisions; I’d foster my child’s independence and I’d be part of the “parenting village” that Hillary Clinton told me it would take.
And then, of course, my kid was born. I had scores of irrational fears. And even the things I wasn’t particularly anxious about – say, sleepovers – didn’t magically fix themselves simply because they didn’t keep me up at night. (If every other parent thinks sleepovers are dangerous, my kid won’t have anyone to invite over!)
I realized that “parenting in the age of fear” didn’t mean that I could just decide I’d be a chill mom. This was a systemic and culturally ingrained phenomenon.
Yet as a family doctor, I see every day in clinic how worn out my patients are. They’re stretched thin. They’re lonely. They don’t feel like there’s anyone they can rely on.
I’m going to get all the good snacks. I’ll let the kids stay up late but not too late. I’ll make pancakes in the morning.
Are you pro-sleepover? Nervous about sleepovers? How do you build community?
I went on NPR’s Life Kit podcast to talk about how doctors are finally taking women’s perimenopause symptoms seriously…
But also how menopause influencers often over-promise on what hormone therapy can deliver.
Give it a listen here, if you’d like.
My book HOW TO TAKE UP SPACE is about diet culture in medicine and it’s coming in Spring 2027. Stay tuned to Your Doctor Friend for updates.
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.