"home" is an inside job
a bite-sized q&a with author j. dana trent
Most of my favorite people are parentified people.
Parentified people were the adults in the room before they were adults. Growing up, parentified people were praised for being responsible, reasonable, and (that-dreaded-of-all adjectives) resilient. They were called old souls like it was a compliment. In the absence of actual old folks doing their own work, parentified people were made to please, to smooth, to read the emotional temperature of the room. I think this is why I like them so much; they are unfairly but unfathomably skillful at caring for the kiddo in me. They serve my favorite snacks without asking.
And when these parentified people grow up and do their own work? They write the most unfairly and unfathomably skillful memoirs for us, too.
J. Dana Trent and I first bonded over our shared stories of not being parents, at least not biological ones. While I gave my childbearing years to raising other people’s children, Dana gave hers to caring for a mom with mental illness. Now she’s written a haunting and surprisingly hilarious book about what it was like growing up with not just one but two parents who fumbled to parent her. (Like, really fumbled. Dana was chopping drugs for her schizophrenic father before she was in kindergarten.) Read on for a bite-sized interview about how she—and we—make sense out of messy homes.
Erin Lane: What is your favorite thing about being an adult?
J. Dana Trent: Going to bed early. Oh, the irony of adult bedtimes, right? Another favorite: Eating popcorn in bed while watching baseball on TV. America's favorite pastime + America's cash crop? Yes, please.
Erin: You wrote a book! Tell us! What shitty script were you trying to tear up?
Dana: Between Two Trailers rips apart the narrative that we can never, ever go home when home is hard. It also dispels our idea that it can't be both/and. Home can be hard and joyful. Home can be fond memories and chaotic ones. Also: Let's get rid of the idea that we aren't a beautiful amalgamation of all our experiences. Can we belong to two different homes, regions, cities, cultures, and sides of complicated, wild families? Yes, yes, yes, yes!
Erin: Okay. Now flip the script. What truer, weirder story did you set out to write instead?
Dana: For anyone who wants it, there is always a path home. It doesn't have to be literal—home is wherever you feel loved and connected. It's where you experience belonging. And, sometimes, "home" is an inside job.
Erin: Writing—and springtime—is about the risk of resurrection. What was the scariest thing about bringing this book to life?
Dana: How my living family members would respond. I saw each of them on tour in Indiana, Tennessee, and Washington, DC, and their response to reading Between Two Trailers was gracious, as in, "thanks for telling the truth, even though the truth is hard to hear."
Erin: Publishing a book is a shiny milestone! What is something less shiny about a life well-lived you’re celebrating this week?
Dana: That I got to drink not one, but TWO Dairy Queen chocolate malts with extra malt in the Midwest last week. Home is where the chocolate malts are.
P.S. Want to celebrate Dana for doing her work and sharing her story? If so, consider joining me in donating to a nonprofit she loves: Methodist Home for Children, an organization that provides safe, stable homes where children can thrive.
P.P.S. Want to explore more about parentified people? Another “old soul” friend recommended this episode of the We Can Do Hard Things podcast on Healing from Emotionally Immature Parents with Lindsey C. Gibson.
P.P.P.S. Dana is currently on a book tour! I got to sit at her feet at the SOLD OUT Raleigh stop. Check her schedule below to see if she’ll be at a bookstore near you. She really is the most caring of writers.
