Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. Pertinent to the lead story that we just heard from Michael Hill, how remote learning is going on this snow day that isn't really a snow day, at least in the New York City school system. Get ready for this if you're a parent or if you're a student. Later this hour, we're going to invite calls from parents whose kids are home today but not for an old-fashioned snow day off from school. Rather, for this new indignity visited upon childhood by the legacy of the pandemic, a remote learning day instead of a snow day.

Whether it's login problems, or they're not really doing anything, or whatever, we're going to invite you to call in and report how that's going. Also, and heads up, parents who want to alert your students or any teens who happen to be listening, we're going to invite students of any age, not just parents, to call in on that segment in about 20 minutes and give us one opinion about anything in the news. You have to be a student, high school or younger, for that one but here's the thing.

If you call, you can tell your teacher that Brian Lehrer said you should get extra credit in social studies for doing it. Okay? Maybe it'll even be fun. Gather up a cogent opinion on something in the news, kids, and call it in for extra credit. That'll be in around 20 minutes from right now. Meanwhile, ahead of Valentine's Day, which is tomorrow, by the way, in case anyone needed a reminder, and I think the price of roses just went up a little more just from me saying that, we now turn to the other relationships in our lives, our friends.

In a new book, producer, and editor of NPR's Embedded podcast, Rhaina Cohen, takes a closer look at why Americans put so much emphasis on romantic relationships and expect so little from friends. She asks, "What would happen to both partnerships if those roles were equally important in our lives?" She has a new book that shares stories of people who have made life partners of friends upending current expectations that spouses would always be our closest relationships. It's called The Other Significant Others: Reimagining Life with Friendship at the Center. Rhaina, thanks so much for coming on. Welcome locally to WNYC. I know you've been on via the Network.

Rhaina Cohen: Well, happy to be part of the public radio family right now.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we're going to open the phones right away on the fundamental question here. Can anyone relate to this concept of prioritizing your friendships over your romantic relationships? Has anyone made big life decisions with a close friend or friend group, like moving to a different city together? Maybe you even bought a house together? Do we have any friends out there that co-parent or are a caregiver to the other, perhaps?

How do you center that friendship in your life? Especially if you also have a romantic partner. What do you call that person? A sibling, your person, your chosen family, or any other title? Text or call us now with your ode to the friend at the center of your life, help us report this story. 212-433-WNYC 212-433-9692. Rhaina, what made you want to write a book about this?

Rhaina Cohen: I came to this for really personal reasons. I think you have to get there for a friendship like this which is pretty invisible. Like look, you don't even have the words to describe it. You have to ask people, "What do you call this kind of friend?" In my case, I just became extremely close to someone I met where I live in DC, and we would see each other four or five times a week. We were each other's plus-ones to parties. We hosted our own parties together.

Really, the term "best friend" didn't feel like it cut it, and I wanted to understand why a relationship so significant didn't have a term for it, wasn't recognized, and were there other people like us out there. I had a hunch that it wasn't just us and that, maybe, we could learn something from people who treated friendships in this really unconventional way.

Brian Lehrer: Want to tell us a story from the book? Maybe the story of Tilly and Kami?

Rhaina Cohen: Sure. Tilly and Kami met when they were in the Marines boot camp together when they were barely adults, and they just took to each other really quickly which is a common thing in these sorts of friendships. Over time, they kept in touch even when they had deployments in different places. They really reconnected and became closer after Tilly came back from the Middle East. Kami had a child of her own at that point and just life keeps going on.

Eventually, Kami and Tilly live in the same place in Oklahoma. One of them changed schools to go to the other, and they could take classes together and share textbooks. Tilly helps care for Kami's child and will be there at preschool pickup and the daycare workers are like, "Who is this person?" They've supported each other at these different stages of life beyond, I think, what people would often think about for friends.

One striking part of the story is that, at one point, Kami told somebody that she was dating that the friendship would come first, that a romantic partner wouldn't because she had had bad experiences with romantic partners assuming that the friendship was secondary. She really flipped the script in that moment, on that date, and in future dates with other men who took to the idea a little bit better that the friendship could actually come first.

Brian Lehrer: Do you find that this happens once somebody really does get involved with a romantic partner or is this a kind of relationship primarily for people who are not married or in committed romantic relationships?

Rhaina Cohen: I've seen people both who have a friendship as the central relationship and people who have a kind of co-equal setup where they have both a romantic partner and a platonic partner if you will. The reactions are very different from different people. In some cases, the romantic partner won't have it and is jealous or tries to undermine the friendship, or the friend who enters the romantic relationship divests from the friendship a little bit. I would say just as often or, maybe, more often, I've heard stories where a romantic partner is relieved or actively happy that not everything is going to be expected of the romantic relationship.

That they can each have their own lives and communities, and that there's a sort of multiplier effect of having multiple close people in your life. One person who I interviewed named Art went through a professional crisis, and not only did his best friend take care of him through that, his best friend's girlfriend was also sending him DoorDash gift cards and checking in on him. People certainly do have both romantic relationships and friendships like these and often find that they enrich each other.

Brian Lehrer: Anjelica in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC with Rhaina Cohen, author of The Other Significant Others: Reimagining Life with Friendship at the Center. Hi, Anjelica.

Anjelica: Hi, Brian. Hi, Rhaina. I was telling your screener that I'm a woman of a certain age, I'm 50, and I grew up in the '70s and '80s in New Jersey in what was-- We didn't call it an intentional, or rather our families didn't call it an intentional community, but it was very much just that. Grew up with a lot of what I called sister and brother friends and lots of other mothers and other caring adults in my life that I would absolutely consider other significant others.

I'm friends with them to this day. We've made many critical life decisions together. I was a single mother and absolutely co-parented with several of my women friends from that time in my life, so this is just always the way that I've lived. Right? It's almost like all I've known. When I meet people and they remark like that's a long time to know people, and it's a very particular extended family.

I agree with the multiplier effect when I've been in romantic relationships and my friends who are married and partnered and couples, these folks I grew up with, it just-- It adds more to it, and I very much feel like they are family, chosen or otherwise, and serve a lot of those roles that a so-called significant other would play. It's wonderful.

Brian Lehrer: What a great story, Anjelica, thank you very much. Rhaina, she's kind of your poster person, huh?

Rhaina Cohen: Yes. I think, actually, what she illustrates is that there are different ways to have these setups where not everything is on one person. I'm primarily in the book looking at people who have a-- Maybe one person who is a friend who is the anchor of their life, but you can also have a lot of different people. As a parent you can have a bunch of co-parents around. You can spread things more broadly.

For me, it was useful to look at people who had this really extreme kind of friendship because it really opens up the possibilities of like, well, if you can have a friend to be that important in your life, then maybe you can scramble how we arrange our lives in all other ways-- In other ways and have multiple friends who you build a life around.

Brian Lehrer: David in Brooklyn has a story. David, you're on WNYC. Hi, there.

David: Hey, Brian, good to talk to you. Across the hall from where I live, my apartment, building is my neighbor. She's a single mom. Her son now is 14, so I've lived there for nine years, so I've really watched his kid grow up. Me and her are really tight. I see her son as like a younger brother/-- I don't know. I could be like a father figure. I try and teach him and impart as much wisdom as I can on him, but he and his mom we're really close. We've taken trips together. I'll also add that, yes, I do have a girlfriend, and she don't mind. It all works together which is great.

Brian Lehrer: David, thank you so much for the story. Think about these two callers, Rhaina. The first one talking about a multi-family co-parenting situation. I'm reminded maybe even of the kibbutz model in the Israeli sense. With David thinking about how he becomes like an older brother, I think he characterized it, as if to the single mom. I wonder if, to some degree, both of those models are replacing what used to be more common, which is extended families living together.

Multi-generational households, a lot of cousins and their families living in the same neighborhood, that kind of thing. That just doesn't exist anymore with what's been for generations now, a sort of nuclear family-oriented world, and so people put the community back together in a different way and this is one way.

Rhaina Cohen: Absolutely. I think there is growing recognition that the nuclear family, which is held up as an ideal, two-parent family, is actually not even enough. That we need more people around. I see a version of this in my own life. I live with my husband and two of our friends and their two kids, and merely being a present adult around the kids can be so helpful to my friends who are parents. Then to the kind of more traditional model that you're talking about.

Like my brother and sister-in-law live in a house with my father, my sister-in-law's parents, and their young child. They were talking about how this baby was running for adults ragged. We really could use more forms of support in our lives. There is this-- The option of an extended family, but some people, it just-- It doesn't work out for some reason, or maybe the people that they are closer to, instead of being their families of origin or their biological families.

By opening up the options to look around and see who you could lean on more, it gives people more opportunities to get that kind of connection and support than what a nuclear family offers or the kind of package deal of the extended family where you don't necessarily have a choice in terms of who's entering the picture.

Brian Lehrer: Jovaughn in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Jovaughn.

Jovaughn: Hi, good morning.

Brian Lehrer: Got a story for us?

Giovane: Yes. A few years ago, I had a situation happened with a very close friend of mine and now that's my, I would say, my significant other. There's no romance, but I am disabled, and I just had a really good credit. I intentionally put my best friend on my credit report so that I could boost his credit because he's studying to be a doctor, and he should be graduating next May.

Then he was drowning in student loan debt, and I made a conscious decision to be there for him because that's a person that I'm able to depend on. They've revolved amount of their time and their schedule around me. I've never been in a romantic relationship, but family relationships and the dynamics between my siblings have changed because once I divulged that information, it comes with heteronormative comments of, "Are you married?" "Are you getting married?"

I'm like, "No, this is a person I trust more than my actual blood family, and I could depend on. That was something I was able to be willing to bring to the table. I made a conscious decision of the pros and cons on my part and on his part. That's something that we do for each other.

Brian Lehrer: That's a beautiful story Jovaughn. Thank you very much. It leads me, Rhaina, to something else in your book. A question that you raised that's very pertinent to Giovane's story, I think, which is that, in the US, friendship is outside of the realm of legal protections. Like marriage would have certain kind of protections built in. Whether it's access to the person when they're in the hospital or financial ones. Like Jovaughn linked his friend's credit report to his credit report. Is that something that you advocate for? That there be a legal status for committed friend relationships like there is for spouses?

Rhaina Cohen: I think that marriage being really the only option on the table in most states is leaving out a ton of people. While I don't necessarily think that we need to have a carved-out legal status for friends, I do think having other forms of legal partnership that are open to people regardless of whether they have a kind of romantic or sexual relationship is something that can help a lot of people, including people like Jovaughn, but also like siblings, for instance, who care for each other.

There have been different news stories that have come out where siblings who have lived together their entire lives end up having to pay tens of thousands of dollars in estate taxes because they're not-- They don't have the benefits that married partners would when passing down something like a home. There are all sorts of close relationships that just don't fit this marriage model that are left out in the cold. As you say, people can't get into the hospital. I've talked to people with stories like those.

They can try to get things like medical and legal power of attorney rights but-- I've also heard stories where those are not necessarily recognized immediately because these people are seen as just friends. I would get behind what different legal scholars have been saying and to have legal alternatives to marriage. Like domestic partnerships. There's a kind of model in Colorado called the designated beneficiary agreement. Basically, it's just a simple form that people fill out to exchange pretty important financial and medical rights.

Brian Lehrer: Last question, do friends like these do anything for each other for Valentine's Day?

Rhaina Cohen: Some of them do. There are these two men that I spoke to, Art and Nick, and they refer to each other as brothers, and they celebrate their brotherversary, to-- The anniversary their friendship, and they will also celebrate Valentine's Day. Their case was kind of interesting because one of them is a straight man and really had to get over some of his concerns that people would misread the situation and why should he care if people misread the situation anyway.

They have celebrated Valentine's Day. I remember they had-- They cooked a nice meal and went out to a movie. Yes, talked to other people who had celebrated their friendship that way. Today is also Galentine's Day/Palentine's Day. There is now, thanks to Parks and Recreation, the TV show, a day that is specifically carved out for friends, as I think we should have.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, I didn't realize it had a particular date. It's the day before Valentine's Day. It's today, Galentine's Day.

Rhaina Cohen: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: How about that?

Rhaina Cohen: It is officially February 13th.

Brian Lehrer: Well, that will almost do it with Rhaina Cohen, producer and editor of NPR's Embedded and the author now of The Other Significant Others: Reimagining Life with Friendship at the Center. I said "almost" because I see you brought a little bit of music to go out on. Do you want to set this up?

Rhaina Cohen: Yes. I was talking to a couple of friends of mine who have written a bunch of songs for people's weddings, like personalized songs, and they were up for the challenge of writing a song about friendship because we don't really have a lot of songs about platonic love. Mostly falling in romantic love and heartache. They wrote a song based on the book. There are details that you will appreciate if you've read the book, but even, I think, apart from that, it really feels to me like an anthem for friendship. The band who made this they're called Rings of Maple and this song is called Dear Friend.

Brian Lehrer: Rhaina, thank you very much, and let's go out with a little bit of that song.

[MUSIC - Ring of Maple: Dear Friend]

You're my person, you're my rock,

The one I call when life gets hard,

A part of my soul, a piece of my heart,

Dear friend.

You're my person, you're my life.

Ooh, and it feels so right.

I'll be there for you the rest of our lives,

Dear friend.

You're my person, you're my rock,

The one I call when life gets hard,

a part of my soul, a piece of my heart,

Dear friend.

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