baby brunch

06 Jun 2026

my friend, ben golder, came into town to see friends and hang out with me for my birthday a couple weeks ago. during the trip he told me about this amazing thing he tried this year for the first time called baby brunch.

i could probably write about this for a LONG time but to keep this in my ten minute writing practice, i’ll bullet point it as a plan. i’m also noticing a desire to generalize/abstract it to an easily replicable template and i’m going to do my best to resist that impluse and just write down what he did.

the plan

• invite all your friends with young kids over
• cook a simple meal that scales easily, keeps warm easily, and is customizable per serving (his choice: joanne chang’s egg sandwiches from her restaurant, flour).
• pick a good time (post morning but pre midday nap)

how did it go?

he said it was a huge success.

• 100% of the guests invited came. that is an UNREAL hit rate for parents with kiddos.
• the kiddos got to connect with and meet each other
• the parents got to have a meal they didn’t have to make
• the parents got to connect with other parents, some of whom are their friends (and i would imagine that they might get to know other adults/kiddos who might become friends, too)

my reflections

• wow what a brilliant alloparent move
• in some ways, it’s a thing that people used to get thru things like church or other types of community institutions like that. but at least where i’m situated, institutions providing things like that are few and far between
• scale: i bet this is the type of thing that could spread/grow in a couple of different ways (not that it needs to).
  • you could add an additional co-host
  • hosts could rotate so that, say with just 4 hosts, a baby brunch could happen 4 weekends each month without weighing too much on any individual host. how cool would it be if a crew of people set up a rotate like this and just had it rolling for their nibblings and their parents?

ok this is me stopping myself. so much is starting to flow and i’ll bottle it for now. thanks, ben!

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words / writing / post-processing
376w / 11min / 6min