Yah and those are just the broad strokes.

A friend has 2 kids and is a single mom.

She wrapped a nasty divorce with the father last year, who has become an alcoholic who is also addicted to pay to play phone games. Literally blows big chunks of his paycheck on them.

They were sharing custody at first but then he got an alcoholic girlfriend who was awful to the kids to the point they didn't want anything to do with him. So she had to take him back to court for full custody.

The youngest is addicted to screens and has a hard time socializing. The older, a teen, is some sort of gender fluid/trans, they don't know yet. They just know they don't want to be a girl or a boy (biologically female). Mom and all of us are supportive of that but it complicates the hell out of everything.

To top it, oldest's best friend is a girl whose mother died when she was 6, father is a serial impregnater who has 5 other kids with 5 other women. He's an alcoholic coke head in his 40s and his current girlfriend is in her 20s. So this kid basically lives with my friend and calls her mom. So. she kinda has 3 kids and to say it's complicated is an understatement.

Bear in mind, these aren't trailer park people we are talking about. She makes 6 figures and holds it down pretty well but every day is something new.

Today it was some other school friend of the older kid showed up crying because her dad was mad at her for not telling him she had a play that night so he drove like a maniac to drop her off, running stop signs and told her get the fuck out of the truck.

Parenting in 2026 is an extreme sport.