“We Are a Family”: Parenting in The L Word: Generation Q, S1E4

Let’s start the new year with something light: a look at the parenting storylines from the most recent The L Word: Generation Q! This week’s episode raises the question: What does it really take to achieve work-life balance?

Spoilers to follow.

Let’s start with Alice’s photo shoot for the LA Times to promote her talk show. Alice’s new partner, Nat, and her two kids are there to be photographed as well. The kids’ other mom, Nat’s ex, Gigi, arrives with a change of clothes for them. Nat’s down the hall with the young ones, though, and the photographer mistakes Gigi for Alice’s partner. “How has Alice changed from the first time you two got together till now?” she asks.

Alice fumbles for an explanation. “The woman who ran down the hall was my … Nat.”

Gigi tries to help. “Nat is her … yeah.”

“Nat is my person,” Alice concludes.

“And my ex-person,” Gigi chimes in.

“I assumed she was the nanny,” the photographer says, just as Nat reappears. It’s a moment many of us queer parents can relate to—even if we’re not co-parenting with an ex, we may get mistaken for the nanny if we’re not the same coloring as our kids, either because we adopted them or because our partner/spouse is the biological parent. We might assume the error hits Nat hard as the kids’ nonbiological mother, although the show doesn’t explore that angle (and Nat doesn’t look all that different from her kids, so maybe she hasn’t been subject to this before). Regardless, let’s all dispense with nanny assumptions in the future, shall we?

Nat explains that she just found her son Eli in the office kitchen, where he “ate all the seaweed” (because obviously any network that runs Alice’s show has the hippest snacks) but at least stayed away from the junk food. Alice then asks Eli, “Were you in the liquor cabinet? Were you drinking?” It’s clear she’s joking—but Eli’s an elementary school kid and this feels inappropriate. It’s clear Alice is still finding her way around this whole parenting thing.

The reporter then asks Nat how she and Alice maintain a healthy work-life balance. “I’m not sure we do,” Nat replies. Alice looks shocked, while Nat tries to recover for the reporter. “You know, it’s really hard, but we try our best.”

“But it’s a joyful hard,” Alice adds. Methinks she doth protest too much. Truth is, they’re trying to balance things as they go along, and not always succeeding, just like the rest of us.

Later, at Shane’s 40th birthday party, Alice confronts Nat about this again. Nat tries to explain that Alice’s job is very demanding, “and it’s all very new and it’s hard to navigate, you know, raising these kids, working, finding time to be with one another. It’s a lot.”

Still, they both agree they’re “doing great,” and “things are going great with Gigi,” who just happens to walk up at the moment.

Shane and Bette then appear with a framed copy of the LA Times piece on Alice, titled, “The Queen of Queer Life.” The featured photo, from the day at the office, shows Alice, Nat, the kids—and Gigi. “Alice Pieszecki with her family” reads the caption.

“We are a family,” Nat reinforces. Alice beams.

This is all massive foreshadowing for the later scene in which Alice, Nat, and Gigi end up in a threesome (for the details of which I refer you to the full episode recap at Autostraddle).

Was this a one-time event? A sign that Nat isn’t over Gigi and the two of them will get back together? A sign that Alice and Gigi have found a connection and will pair up, leaving Nat in the cold? A sign that they’ll form a polyamorous throuple, as hinted in next week’s previews? This is The L Word, so any or all of the above are possible over the course of the show. As long as the kids are loved and cared for, it’s all good, I say. Maybe three adults to two kids means the laundry will actually get done, dinner will be hot and ready, and everyone will get to soccer practice in time. Is work-life balance for this family like a stool, better on three legs? Stay tuned….