My Friend and I Bonded Because We Shared the Same Big Question. Now That I Know the Answer, Our Friendship Isn’t the Same.

Care and Feeding Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by red_pepper82/Getty Images Plus. Care and Feeding is Slate’s parenting advice column. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here. Dear Care and Feeding, I’m the mom of a beautiful 9-month-old baby girl. She’s my first, and I’m so happy I had her. For most of my 20s, I wasn’t sure I wanted to be a mom. I think I always sort of leaned “yes,” but it also seemed impossible to be 100 percent about something I wasn’t in a position to do (as a student and then young person making little money and having no partner). And then at 30 I met my husband. We fell in love instantly and were married a year later, and then a year after that our baby was born. Almost as soon as I my husband I realized I wanted to have a child with him. It was like all my reservations totally evaporated. My friend “Dana” and I met in college, and a lot of our conversations over the years were about motherhood and whether we thought we’d do it. Of course, I’ve talked to Dana about my decision many times. My problem is that she still wants to have the old kind of philosophical conversations about to-be-or-not-to-be a parent with me, but I feel like that kind of conversation is so boring now, because I know the truth! Obviously she should have a baby! This is the most amazing thing to ever happen to me, and I can’t believe I almost talked myself out of it. I have told her this several times, that I really think she should try to have her own baby, even without a partner, and she says she’s just not sure. I just think she’d be much happier. It’s annoying to know what is best for your friend and not have her listen. How can I convince her? Because obviously my own happiness isn’t doing the trick. —Happy Mama Dear Happy Mama, You can’t convince your friend to have a baby, and you should stop trying. You know that having the baby was the right decision for you, but you cannot know if it will be the right decision for your friend. Nobody can! The unknowability of it is why it was such a rich conversational topic for the two of you for so long. Falling in love and getting married changed the calculus for you. Maybe that’ll happen to your friend. Or maybe some other experience will spur her to do it alone. Or convince her that her life is complete without a partner or baby. Or one million other things could happen. The future is unknowable, and so is your friend’s heart and mind. She doesn’t expect you to have the answers (like I’m sure you didn’t expect her to have them, before). She just wants to talk it out. If you can’t stomach the conversation anymore, let her know that. But if you want to be a good friend to her, try to open your own mind to the possibility that her life can be full and rich with a baby or without one. Please keep questions short (<150 words), and don‘t submit the same question to multiple columns. We are unable to edit or remove questions after publication. Use pseudonyms to maintain anonymity. Your submission may be used in other Slate advice columns and may be edited for publication. Dear Care and Feeding, My friends with kids all make their own baby food, for example, roasting vegetables and then pureeing them for the baby. They say it’s because it’s so much healthier and better the babies and that all store-bought food has heavy metals in it. I am pregnant and the idea of doing this makes me feel overwhelmed. I don’t have the energy for it now, I don’t know how I’ll do it once I have a baby. Is this really something we have to do now? —Worried Mom-to-Be Dear Mom-to-Be, Great news! You do not have to make your own baby food. “Heavy metals in baby food” makes for scary headlines, but if you read the articles that accompany those headlines, you’ll find that bot the amounts and the risk are very, very low. The FDA ensures that the food being sold for babies is safe. You can feel good about feeding your baby food made for babies. A lot of moms are going to do a lot of stuff that they say is essential, and they’re almost always wrong. You know what’s essn There are many ways to raise happy, healthy children, including homemade purees, sure, but also including jars and packets. One isn’t better than the other. (And while we’re at it, same for breast milk and formula!) You’re going to do great. Congratulations on your pregnancy. —Logan More Parenting Advice From Slate A couple of years ago, my parents decided to downsize. They sold our family home and put the cabin where we spent much of our childhood on the market. The cabin was in a perilous state but obviously had fond memories so, after they had it professionally valued, I offered their asking price and bought it from them. I then refurbished it and now use it as a holiday rental. The problem is that my sister-in-law has now decided that our refurbished cabin is now a communal family asset available for her use at will. 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