Though I’m really into seeing Mickey acknowledge some of his trauma, I think I’m a little troubled by the framing of both moving to the West Side and having a kid. These two things are steps on the relationship escalator--stages along a traditional timeframe that relationships “should” progress through according to the norms of society. Moving to the West Side also involves climbing the social ladder, or moving in a “desirable” direction of an idealised capitalism.
In both cases, Mickey’s reluctance was framed through the lens of his trauma--as something he might heal from in order to grow. In the scenes where they communicated, Mickey admitted that his reluctance came from the “pressure” that the West Side (or as Ian called it “a good life”) represented, and the idea that Mickey couldn’t be a parent because of his experience of being parented as well as maybe the implicit memories of Yev.
I love that Mickey is confronting this trauma and I think that maybe the show also provides other downsides to these decisions, e.g. the apartment in the West Side not being as great as they imagined. But I guess I wish there was more there where they explored the way that moving out on your own or having kids don’t have to be the goals of a relationship, whether or not communication around trauma has begun to take place.
