A field guide to growing up without growing apart
It’s time for the holidays! What’s on your Christmas list this year? For us, not much, really. Just, you know, fulfilling careers, new cars, family approval, and more than 24 hours in the day. Hopefully we Naughty Princesses have been nice enough to receive a […]
This week my husband is out of town for work, so I’m all alone in the house. This has happened before, but I always dread not having him here. Sleeping alone, coming home to an empty house, and worse—not knowing where he is or if […]
Get ready for a post about that life milestone that I’m sure is crowding everyone’s newsfeeds more and more these days, parenthood.
I married into a family where kids were already the main event; my husband’s two siblings had two kids a piece when we got married, and now they each have three, and one even has a fourth on the way. While it is super fun to be an auntie, and I love those kids to death, over the years I’ve felt a bit sad that I never got to know my brothers and sisters-in-law before they had kids. Of course, my husband did, but so much has changed since the days when he and his siblings could all hang out—it’s just a distant memory.
Things change when people get married and become part of a couple, sure. But they don’t change nearly as much as when those same people become parents. At least, in our family, having kids pretty much meant saying goodbye to a real, deep relationship with our siblings.
Now, every family event is oriented around the needs of the children. Their nap-times, bed-times, likes, dislikes, tantrums, and whims pretty much dictate what we can and can’t do as a family. When we do all get together, they take center stage (of course, since we’re all pretty enamored with their adorable-ness) and definitely monopolize the attentions of the grandparents. Even when we all stay at my in-laws house for days on end, such as during Christmas or our annual summer family week, there are usually just one or two hours in the evening when we can talk and interact as adults. And even that can be interrupted by a crying baby, or the fact that everyone is just plain exhausted.
My sister-in-law is a great example of someone who tries hard to give us her attention when we do spend time together—she’ll ask a great question about how work is going or what we’ve been up to, but then, inevitably, before we can answer in any depth, one of her kids has distracted her and the moment is lost. Then there’s my husband’s brother. I know my husband would love to have a closer relationship with his older brother, but they simply never get to talk. Again, when they do get together, they might be able to talk about video games or work for a few minutes, but it’s always interrupted before they can get deep. Furthermore, my brother-in-law is usually so exhausted from working full time and raising three kids that he zones out on his phone more often than he initiates conversations with his only little brother.
All of this is definitely exacerbated by the fact that we live so far away from everyone. Living abroad makes us miss our family more and be even more disappointed when the limited time we do get with them is cut short or kept at a superficial level. Take Skype calls, for example. With both sets of parents, it works great: we call them at least once or twice a week and usually are able to talk for about an hour. As a result, our parents know much, much more about our lives than any of our siblings do. But when my sister-in-law calls on Skype, it is literally a five-minute experience, max. Her three kids make faces at us or tell us what they want to be for Halloween (which is great, don’t get me wrong) but if their mom tries to weigh in or ask us anything about our lives, the kids soon ruin it by making noises, getting into fights with each other, crying, or just wandering off so she has to follow them. Regardless, we’re not able to have any kind of real conversation. The other set of siblings just never even bother to call us at all.
I don’t want to whine and make things all about me, but after spending the better part of three years in this family, I would have thought I’d have gotten to know my siblings-in-law better than this. I just don’t feel like they really know me, because we never get to interact. One day, their kids will be older, and maybe then things will be easier? But then the day will come that I’ll have kids of my own, and I’ll probably be just as frazzled and preoccupied.
Well, at least then we’ll have something in common.
This summer I took a 3 week trip to the U.S., much of which was spent staying with my family or my husband’s family. It was fun. It was a memorable trip. It was just swell. But… I think I’m finding it increasingly difficult to […]
Hey guys—I’m officially employed again! This week I started work at my new school, an international school in middle-of-nowhere, Middle East. I’ve ridden this rodeo before, so to speak, as far as working at international schools goes, but this here is a horse of a […]
Mom envy.
A term you may have heard, especially if you frequent the mom-blogs of half a dozen of your facebook friends (like I do…confession!), or find yourself reading parenting articles that you found linked on said mom-blogs. Mom envy is essentially what happens when a woman becomes a mom and promptly starts comparing herself to other moms. The interwebs and blogosphere definitely contribute to mom envy, because you can hardly scroll through facebook or Pinterest these days without discovering yet another adorable blog, written by a super-woman who is somehow able to invent new craft projects, upcycle old furniture, bake amazing cookies, and do it all one-handed while she homeschools her five kids (simultaneously documenting it all on her blog, of course). Even without the influence of virtual moms to envy, I’ve heard many women speak about their own experiences with friend and acquaintance moms they actually know in real life—and they envy those ladies, too. I guess it’s no surprise that we women tend to do this…isn’t mom envy just an extension of school-picture-day-outfit envy, high school boyfriend envy, and all the other kinds of jealousy we harbor growing up surrounded by female friends and frenemies?
However, the ins and outs of mom envy or jealousy in general are not really the focus of this blog. In fact, why is a topic like this on my mind, when I have no kids of my own? I haven’t crossed the threshold into motherhood, so I can’t participate in mom envy, right?
Wrong.
Weird confession time, guys. I’ve discovered that I sometimes struggle with mom envy, even though I’m not a mom and have no immediate plans to become one. Furthermore, none of my closest friends are moms, either, so it’s not like I’m stuck in some mommy circle that has inexorably rubbed off on me. But every now and then, I feel a green twinge. I feel a sliver of fear that someday, when I actually am a mom, I might not cut it.
Here’s an example. The other day my sister-in-law posted a picture on facebook. It showed her four-year-old son drawing some kind of scribbly blue diagram. The caption said, “Learning about watersheds during our ‘school’ time!”
Barf.
Okay, I didn’t barf. I actually thought the picture was cute, and I was glad to see my nephew was getting some “school time” (he has never attended pre-school, and she’s planning on home-schooling, at least for a while). BUT, intermixed with those pleasant feelings was the big, fat, panicky squeeze of mom envy. Here’s why.
If I were in her place, with three kids under five, pregnant with a fourth, and a house/urban farm to maintain, would I be sitting down with my son for a nice little lesson about watersheds? Probably not! Primarily because….what the fuck do I know about watersheds?
This isn’t the first time this has happened. Another time a few weeks ago I was having lunch with said sister-in-law and nephew, and she happened to use the fact that it was sunny to ask the little guy if he remembered how they learned about water reflecting and refracting light. That’s right, not just reflecting, but refracting! What four year old needs to know about that? Well, after these encounters, it’s got me thinking that perhaps ALL OF THEM DO. And if my future four-year-old can’t explain the difference between reflecting and refracting or diagram a watershed…well, I’m probably a failure.
At this point I think you can detect a note of panic here, and I want you to know I realize that the situation is truly not as dire as all that. Not only do I have years to figure out what a watershed really is, along with all the other parenting know-how I’ll need, I also know that over-reacting and over-comparing will never be helpful. I know it’s not really a competition between my sister-in-laws and me to see who can raise the best kids. But I still don’t want to lose.
I am aware that being a parent highlights all kinds of flaws and inadequacies, and generally leads to a lot of stress and freaking out. But should I be concerned about all that already? I can’t decide if this is an opportunity to motivate myself to become a better person (and future parent) or a time to let go of expectations and envy and just try to relax.
For me, I think my mom envy (at this point, at least) is concentrated around the idea of educating my kids. Making them smart. Preparing them for school and life. I couldn’t care less about upcycling furniture for the baby’s nursery or feeding them all home-grown, all-organic food. But their minds? I care. I care a lot.
This probably touches a nerve for me because of my profession. I spent 13 years in school and 6 years in higher education, all with the goal of becoming a teacher. I now have a diploma that declares me to be one, but what if my sister-in-law, who has a college degree she has never really used, is actually the better teacher, the better nurturer? She’s already doing it, day in and day out, with her kids, and I’m just not sure how adept I’m going to be when the same task is set before me.
In the last few years, you know, since finishing high school and college, and now graduate school, I’ve discovered that there were quite a few gaps in that education of mine.
Somehow, I graduated not knowing how to explain what a watershed is, and asking dumb-blonde questions like, “Wait, is a wolverine a real animal? Of course not, right? Wait, what?”
How am I going to fill in those gaps for my own children? Even though I’m a teacher by trade, I have zero interest in homeschooling, but I also can’t say I completely trust the public education system that produced me. I will freely admit that I am jealous of my sister-in-law at times, not only because she had her kids potty-trained before they were 2 (what??) and they are lovely, well-behaved kiddos, but because she clearly has more knowledge than I do in some areas, and she’s already doing a great job to pass it on to her kids. I don’t know if I can live up to all that. Mostly, though, I’m worried about how this will manifest in the future. If I already find myself giving in to mom envy when my children are merely hypothetical, how will I deal with it when I’m faced with real, flesh and blood little humans that are relying on me to be their first and best teacher?
I guess I’ve got some shit to figure out in the next couple of years.
It seems like every twenty-something has a list of dream travel destinations, or maybe, like Sleeping Booty, they’ve already checked off a bunch with a big trip. The world has gotten pretty small these days, as evidenced by the fact that the Naughty Princesses here […]
Last summer I posted about my youngest brother, Tweedle-Dum, and how he had dropped out of college. That was a hard summer for him and for my parents, who struggled to manage their disappointment and find ways to support him without enabling his laziness. Well, […]
Hello again, blogosphere. You may have never met me in person, so let me just tell you that I am not fat. I’ve always been on the thin side, blessed with a metabolism that has kept me about the same weight since high school. Sure, there have been slight fluctuations, but I’ve never had to diet or adhere to a super-strict exercise regimen to feel comfortable with my body. I know, I’m lucky.
Simultaneously, I really love to eat. I like large portions and sneaking bites while I’m cooking and stopping for a milkshake just because. In my house growing up it was acceptable to get snacks from the kitchen pretty much anytime we wanted, so I did. I still do.
But although my parents made no attempt to stop me from having a few crackers here, a handful of chocolate chips there, they often warned me that one day I’d balloon into an obese woman. My father cited several older women from his family, who I guess were quite overweight by the end of their lives. These were mostly great-aunts and such that I only met once or twice in my childhood, but that he clearly remembered for their fat genes. With these massive women in mind, he would tell me that I’d better watch out, because one day I’d wake up super-sized.
I always flatly rejected this prediction, though, because I could point to several other family members who weren’t overweight at all. My own parents could stand to lose a few pounds, I guess, but they’re in their sixties now—I can hardly blame them for being heavier than they were as teens. Mostly I objected to this idea because I believed myself to have more self-control than my snacking habits would indicate. Deep down, I believed, and still do, that I have the power to control my weight and make the lifestyle changes that would need to take place if my metabolism slowed down.
Well, it’s been over 10 years since my dad first started harassing me about getting fat one day, and I still think I look pretty darn good. But then the other day my husband busted out the same rhetoric on me, all because I had a piece of cold pizza for dessert, only a couple of hours after eating a hearty dinner. As I nibbled on my pizza, even sharing a few bites with him, my husband shook his head and told me, “You know, you’re going to get really fat someday.” Excuse me? I guess it hit a nerve because of having grown up hearing this a lot. I was ticked. Can’t a girl enjoy some cold pizza without being judged?
As I told him in our ensuing conversation, yes, I am aware that my body may not always look like this. In fact, I’m expecting it. I know metabolisms change as we get older, and pregnancy will alter my slender frame forever. By the time I’m my parents’ age, sure, I may well be carrying around 10-20 pounds of extra weight. But why assume that I can’t handle these changes and challenges? Why moan and groan about a future possibility, when you could just enjoy the cold pizza of the present? Yes, I eat a lot. Yes, there are many days when I eat more than my husband. Yes, if you leave me at home with a tray of brownies, I’m going to eat several. But here are some other facts—I’m much more dedicated about exercise than my husband is. In fact, on that very day I had gone for a three-mile run. I think that earns me a small slice of pizza, dammit! I also am capable of using self-control. There have been many times when I’ve chosen not to order dessert, not to make those tantalizing mini-cheesecakes I saw on Pinterest, not to add sugar or cream to my coffee, not to fry something when baking would do…I make plenty of healthy choices. I don’t need to be patronized. This lifestyle works for me right now, and when it stops working, I’ll figure out what to do. Until then, let me eat cake! And pizza. And ice cream. And bacon. I might as well enjoy this metabolism to the max while I still can, right?
A couple of months ago I mentioned that my husband wanted us to buy a house, but that this gargantuan, adult-sized task was freaking me out. Whelp…as of last month we are officially home-owners! The fact that I went from quaking in my boots at […]
Cue the pomp and circumstance—I finished my Master’s degree. Student teaching and my final course as a Master’s student wrapped up in the first week of May, and…that’s it! I was done. I started this program nearly two years ago, and have been taking classes […]
Something I’ve learned about marriage in the last two years is that two becoming one isn’t always the blissful, intimate, romantic idea that the pastor talks about on your wedding day. Actually, life was a little simpler when I was…one. Solo. The challenge of combining lives is totally worth it, but occasionally, I’ve found it means dealing with problems that were never yours before. If there’s a bounty hunter after your husband’s head, yours is in danger too. The other person’s hopes, dreams, shortcomings, student loan debt, bad habits…everything is now not just “theirs,” but, inescapably, yours.
Here’s a recent example from my marriage. Five years ago my husband found himself with an excess of scholarship funds (I know, who are you??) and wanted to invest. He ended up loaning about $10,000 to a family friend. The terms were favorable—a nice fat interest rate that would ensure he made money off the loan, and the guy promised to repay it within two years, just as soon as the property he was working on sold.
Well, you can imagine what has happened since: jack squat. My husband hasn’t seen a dime of the money, the property in question never sold and is now completely overrun with other liens against it, so it wouldn’t be of any value even if he could sell it. The deed of trust my husband was given was never recorded with the county, which is a fact I don’t fully understand, but I guess it’s bad. And until recently, the few attempts my husband did make to contact the debtor went unanswered. Not. Cool.
About a year ago we (notice I say, “we”) decided to get more serious about pursuing the money. More emails to the guy and to his brother, who is somehow involved in all this, though I don’t know exactly how. We contacted a lawyer, who told us we’d have a tough time reclaiming the debt because, “You can’t get blood out of a turnip,” but she’d work on it for us…at the rate of $375 an hour. Needless to say, with no guarantee that the guy will ever pay up, we weren’t going to start racking up legal fees, so that’s where it ended, for a while.
Throughout the process, my husband hasn’t been too eager to get down and dirty. He’s always pretty busy with work, and doesn’t like to deal with this kind of stuff in his leisure time. So I had to be a bit of a nag to even get him to reach out to the debtors and the lawyer in the first place. Then we got busy again and months passed, until, in January, I started to feel like we should take more action. One day, just fed up with nothing happening, I called one of the guys in question at his office and explained the situation. He seemed to know nothing about it (or was playing dumb—who forgets that they’re in debt?) and referred me to his brother, who I think does most of his dirty work for him. Several emails passed between my husband and the two guys again, and they said they were working on selling a couple of properties, and we’d get paid when that happened. It wasn’t the response we wanted, but at least we’d managed to get them to respond to us at all.
Well, now it’s June, and this issue has been resurrected again because we started receiving paperwork in the mail notifying us that one of the brothers’ company is going through bankruptcy, and we were named as creditors. This just confused us more, because the original loan was to the two brothers, not to this business. We weren’t sure whether to agree to take part in these bankruptcy hearings…would it affect our right to sue the brothers separately for the full amount?
So, once again, I found myself finding and emailing lawyers to try and get some advice. My husband spoke on the phone with one who told us what we already knew: we could sue, but it would be costly, and there would be no guarantee of seeing any money. So we’re essentially still back at square one—confused and probably screwed out of a debt that is now worth close to $20,000.
In some ways, I just want to run the other direction and put my head under a pillow when the topic of this debt comes up, because it stresses me out, and I am pretty sure it is a lost cause. Also, I don’t want to deal with it because I had nothing to do with the loan in the first place. This is a classic case of one partner’s choices pre-marriage coming back to impinge on both of us. To be honest, since it wasn’t “my money” to begin with, I honestly don’t care too much whether we ever see any of it again. But in marriage, I don’t get to just check out of this by playing the “it’s not my problem” card. In marriage, all of his problems are my problems too, and vice-versa.
It’s been a battle. I don’t want to be dismissive and say, “Figure it out yourself.” Well, actually, I often want to, but I know it’s wrong. I know my husband needs me to support him in this, help in whatever ways I can, and not hold any of this against him. It’s super hard, but I’ve relied on him so many times for help with “my problems,” and he’s never failed me. So I’m doing my best to overcome my annoyance, fear, apathy, and selfishness and help us handle this challenge together, as one. We might never see that money again, but maybe we’ll learn something about working together and supporting each other.