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A Q&A with The Washington Post advice columnist Carolyn Hax on her 25 years of daily advice

A Q&A with The Washington Post advice columnist Carolyn Hax

Should I tell my daughter why we’re getting a divorce? Is it bad that my wife doesn’t want to spend time with my mother? Should I remain friends with my ex-boyfriend if I still love him?

When Washington Post readers have questions, they turn to Carolyn Hax. She has written the newspaper’s daily advice column for 25 years and is syndicated to over 100 newspapers nationwide.

Like most journalists, Hax’s path to becoming an advice columnist wasn’t a straight one. She was a history literature major in college with the goal of becoming a lawyer, but after working as a paralegal, she decided her skills translated to becoming an editor. After a two-year stint at Army Times, she landed at The Washington Post’s Style section, where she’s remained for a quarter of a century.

“I just sort of made it up as I went along,” Hax said. “When you get into a job or publication, you do the job you’re hired to do for a little while, then you say, ‘Okay, how can I stretch my muscles a little bit?’”

In a unique arrangement, her column also features a daily cartoon by her ex-husband, “relationship cartoonist” Nick Galifianakis. Despite the apparent awkwardness, the two continue to work together daily. Hax has workshopped every line that appears on a cartoon, and Galifianakis acts as an editor of her columns.

“We worked well together even during the awful years,” Hax said. “You learn a lot about respecting the other person and leaving whatever other stuff that’s going on outside the workspace. You just do the work.”

Hax talked to Editor & Publisher about how she became an advice columnist, how her approach has changed over the years, and the advice she regrets giving. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

You’ve been writing your advice column now for 25 years. Did you ever envision you’d be writing it for this long?

No, I never envisioned becoming an advice columnist, and then once I became one, I never really thought about how long it would last. I guess I’m looking forward now a little more just because I’m 55 and I have to think about how long I want to do things.

So are you contemplating the idea of ending your column?

Not anytime soon, no. But I definitely don’t want to do it into my 80s, either. So there will be a time when I wrap it up. I want it to be my decision. I don’t want to slip into obsolescence.

When you launched your column, it was intended for readers under 30. As you have gotten older, how has the column changed?

The whole point of proposing the column to begin with was that I found the current crop of advice columns almost unreadable, but they were so tired. The form was tired, the writing was tired, and the subjects were tired. So it was just like, ‘Okay, why don’t we

get somebody sort of yelling it in your face doing this kind of column, and let’s see how that flies.’

For the 25th anniversary, I had to read back some of my old columns… I found that a lot of it was just difficult reading because it was much more aggressive than I would be now… But the world has changed so much since then. It’s not just me. I was 30; I’m now 55. And I’ve been through a lot more, I have hurt on my own a lot more, and I have known a lot of people who have been in pain. So I feel like maybe people don’t need to get into this ‘in your face, back and forth’ over some of these painful things.

But the culture has also changed so much. Everything has gotten so coarse and mean in public discourse in the last 10 years that it’s really out of step with how people are hurting right now. COVID was awful; politics are awful. It feels like things are on fire.… In the boom times of the 1990s, you could be a little fun and combative. But now there’s no fun and combat; it just hurts. So that had to go away.

What I found myself wanting to do was to go for longer, more nuanced answers on more complicated things. There are basically three elements changing — I’m changing, the culture is changing and what I want to do with the column is changing — just as a natural progression. Now it’s longer answers to questions and more compassion for people who are hurting, and I hope more wisdom gained through my own experiences.

When you were reading back your old columns, was there advice you gave that you still think was good, or conversely, was there specific advice you regret?

The stuff that I read from 25 years ago that I would still say again today is a lot of the stuff on boundaries, like, ‘What is your decision? What is your business? What is your right? What is somebody else’s?’ I think that’s something that has been a consistent message that hasn’t evolved much, even as I have because I guess I’ve always had a problem with people telling me what to do when it wasn’t their place. I bristle at that — ‘Get out of my business. I want to make my own decisions. I don’t want to listen to you.’ That combative part of me that was very much a part of the column early is still there.

The stuff that I would change is when people were talking about dating and marriage and romantic interactions. I came into it with a much narrower vision of how things would work, and now I’ve known too many people making too many things work that I wouldn’t necessarily be part of myself. I’m much more supportive now of anybody trying what they think is right, as long as they’re not hurting anybody.

In addition to receiving emails and phone calls from readers, you do a weekly live chat on the Post’s website on Fridays. How does that work?

It gets a lot of traffic for the Post. I think people appreciate the fact that there’s no editor. This is me answering on the fly, and nobody’s screening the answers before I post them. There’s a certain amount of tightrope walking that goes on. And it’s also highly interactive.… It’s actually sort of an institution now because I’ve been doing them since 1998, I think.

I have mutts, and they make an appearance each week, and they’re the most popular part of the chat. So, if you want actual traffic to this, I’ll send you a picture of my dogs.

Why not pivot into offering advice for dog owners? You’ve got the expertise now.

No, because all of my advice for dogs is to let them up on the couch and give them cookies whenever they want [laughter]. It would be the worst advice ever. ‘Choose your dog over your people.’ I think that would be the three legs to the stool of my dog advice. ■ 