Parent Trip: Unexpected Roads to Form a Family
Anndee Hochman
Temple University Press
Published Feb. 2026
In her new book Parent Trip: Unexpected Roads to Form a Family, author Anndee Hochman gets into the weeds of IVF, egg freezing, adoption, and health scares. The book is made up of succinct selections from Hochman's Philadelphia Inquirer weekly column about off-the-beaten-path parenthood. A reader can meet one unexpected-expectant family while sipping coffee and meet another by the time they refill their cup.
With the punchy humor of a "Modern Love" column, the rose-colored quirks of a wedding announcement, and the fly-on-the-wall intimacy of TV's Couples Therapy, Hochman's book shares edge cases from one of the most universal experiences in the world: making a family.
Parts of the book were hard to get through. Babies are defenseless against society's projections; even more so for ethnic babies—they're more than "samosas and curries," dark eyes, and a reminder of an uncle who "married a Chinese woman," but you might not know that from the white parents' (or would-be parents') expectations professed on the page.
One story mentions a website where parents can find "adoption-ready special-needs kids in China." Another sheds light on why this phrase might exist: a couple adopts a Chinese baby whose birth parents scraped together money for one critical surgery but could not afford the next one.
Perhaps by nature of the format, these stories get wrapped in a bow. What was unsettling for me was the resulting solitude I felt in my alarm.
The section I breezed through most unburdened, most able to focus on the story at hand, was entitled "Parenthood and Politics." It's a twist I've come to understand as a fact of life. I'm going to think about the politics no matter what. When the narrative also echoes those considerations, I can loosen my grip; someone else has got it.
Hochman's intro to the "politics"-categorized stories came as a reprieve. "Everything that happens in our so-called private lives—who folds laundry, who pays bills, who does childcare and who goes out to work—reflects how gender, race and power play out in the larger world," she writes, describing the tagline popularized in the '60s and '70s, "The personal is political."
She goes on to say the "reverse is also true: The political is personal." Decisions made at the highest levels of government get pulled into hard focus for new parents.
Parents like: Natalie Catin-St. Louis and Numa St. Louis, who have their first date at an Obama rally and fall in love reading books like The Autobiography of Malcolm X. When Natalie says of her child, "We're seeing her personality already come through; I think she's going to be feisty," she's not just observing. She, a school principal, and Numa, a Philly politician, are clearing societal roadblocks for their kid's fiery future.
"Parent Trip" is an engaging read for anyone, parents or not. Sobering details of birth are important for future parents to know what they're getting into, and the repetitions in the collection provide insights into society as a whole. The phrase "Pitocin drip" feels like a familiar friend now, and I have a better grasp than before on the relationship between religion and the genesis of family.
The book is premised on untraditional paths toward parenthood; to me it served as an examination into the threads of tradition that remain in free-range lives. Many of these parents were avid travelers. Some built their lives around their hobbies. Something still tugged them toward the pitter-patter of little feet, with all the strings attached. The notion of a communal "village," an escape from the rigid box of nuclear family structures (and the theme of one of the book's sections, titled "It Takes a Village"), is older than us all.
Some of the last books I clung to before purging for my one-suitcase move from New Haven to Gwangju, South Korea, were about weddings and child-rearing, topics I had no immediate practical application for. I value these kinds of books as field guides for the society we live in. I'm not unaffected by these time-tested customs just because I'm Single-Income-No-Kids (SINK?).
I feel the same about Hochman's Parent Trip and the rollercoaster of stories it contains. It's a look into some of the most private times a family can have. Projections abound, and so do genuine moments of connection.
Anndee Hochman is visiting Edgewood community bookspace Possible Futures on Wed. Sept. 23rd at 6:30pm for a book talk and signing.
(Jisu Sheen recently moved from New Haven to Gwangju, South Korea, where she’s covering local arts and culture for the New Haven Independent and Midbrow. Sign up here to get Gwangju Midbrow email updates delivered straight to your inbox.)
