A field guide to growing up without growing apart
So I got jealous this week. For our annual family and friend river trip we went to Desolation Canyon, spending 6 days rafting and drinking with a group of people I dearly love. But when I should have been relaxing and enjoying the phone-free natural […]
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, […]
I’ve been working on a Master’s in Teaching for the past 18 months, and the end is in sight. The last thing I need to do to accomplish this goal is complete 16 weeks of student teaching, and that pursuit has led me halfway around the world to my hometown, where I am now interning at my former high school. It’s a great opportunity, but it comes with a price—exchanging my husband for my parents and younger brother for the next four months.
I’ve now been living at home for two weeks, which equals or exceeds the number of consecutive days I’ve spent in this house in the last several years. Obviously I’m grateful to my parents for having me: the free food is awesome, and I’ve commandeered one of their cars, too. But do the perks of living at home outweigh the annoyance?
My brother, Tweedle-Dum, plays video games all day since he is unemployed until he joins the Navy in a few months. The first day we spent together drove me up the wall—it was maddening to watch him waste away the hours sitting on the couch while I ran around doing productive things. Then there are my parents. Where to begin…
It’s a funny thing I’ve noticed about becoming an adult: suddenly, I am hyper-aware of my parents’ shortcomings. Things that never bothered me growing up are suddenly HUGE pet peeves. For example, their housekeeping. My parents have never had a clean or organized home, and since I am not a neat freak, this never bugged me too much. Of course, back then my brothers and I were a big part of the problem, since we were pretty lazy and were always trying to find ways to get out of doing chores. But since then I must have matured, or something, because suddenly the endless clutter and mountains of dirty dishes are atrocious eyesores I can’t stand to be around. I’ve been visiting the kitchen compulsively, not to snack but to tidy up, throw away random trash left on the counter, or check on the status of the dishwasher.
I think I’ve become accustomed to a different lifestyle, since after moving abroad I haven’t been able to accumulate that much STUFF, at least not nearly as much as my parents have in their twenty-something years of marriage. I like things simple. I like there to be space around me, not piles of Christmas decorations and stacks of unfolded laundry. I like to be able to walk through my garage without needing parkour moves. Is that really so much to ask?
I feel a little bit better, though, knowing that it isn’t just my parents who are hoarding slobs. Today I was having coffee with a good friend who also recently returned home for a while. As we described the headaches of living at home it was like we were telling the same story; apparently she, too, is frequently overcome by the urge to have a massive garage sale while her parents aren’t home and clear out all their crap. The only problem is, I know it would all accumulate again in no time. Even my in-laws show the same symptoms—they have multiple properties filled to the brim with boxes that haven’t been touched in years!
Though the clutter is my main beef with my family right now, there are other things too: the way they cook, their habit of buying way, way too much food, the fact that my dad comes home from work and turns on Fox News…But the thing about these idiosyncrasies that I find fascinating is how we twenty-somethings come to separate ourselves from our parents. Even two or three years ago, I don’t think my family’s dirty kitchen would have bothered me too much, but now it does. It really, really does. How does that happen? Our families shape our values so much, so why is it that I find myself wanting to abandon things that have been standard in my home for as long as I can remember? What other influences in my life have made me the adult that I am today, and what determines where that outside influence diverges from my upbringing?
Of course, I love my family and appreciate much of what they have taught me. But living at home again has made me realize more and more that I am my own person, and that will probably continue to develop for decades to come, until the day when I’m annoying my own grown children by being set in my ways.
A couple of weeks ago I posted about my frustrations with my youngest brother, Tweedle-Dum, who has dropped out of college and refuses to talk about anything real in his life. Now let’s return to Tweedle-Dee, the middle child. At least with him the picture […]
Cinderslut’s recent post on brothers has inspired us all to think more about our sibling relationships. And so I’m taking you on a journey into the depths of my relationships with my brothers. I am the youngest of three, and the only girl in my […]
I am the older sister to two younger brothers. Let’s call them Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum, and yes these are real nicknames my parents sometimes used for them when we were growing up. I haven’t mentioned them much on the blog, most likely because I live so far from them now that they’re not a part of my daily life like they used to be. But also because anytime I talk about them, or even think about them, it causes me a bit of angst.
Both my bros are in college. Well, that used to be true. But the latest development in Cinderslut’s family drama is that my youngest brother, Tweedle-Dum, is dropping out of university after just completing his freshman year. As someone who has always excelled in school, the idea of dropping out of college is anathema to me. I’ve always secretly looked down at the people from my high school who ended up bumming around our home town because they couldn’t cut it in college, but now I am related to one of those depressing townies!
I do realize that this judgmental attitude is wrong. People have strengths in different areas, and not everyone needs to pursue a 4 year degree in order to be successful. In fact, these days I’m less and less a believer in college, seeing as how many people come out with no job prospects and no more direction than they had when they went in. But still, deep inside, I always considered my family an educated family. And educated, to me, meant going to college and getting a degree, preferably with plenty of scholarships and honors tacked on along the way.
So should I cut Tweedle-Dum some slack? Well, you might think so until I tell you a few stories about just how royally this kid screwed himself over in his first and only year of college. First of all, he failed every single class he took the first semester. Every one! Not just Calculus. He failed English 101! As a former English major and current English teacher, even writing those words is painful. Because seriously, who fails English 101? My only hypothesis is that he simply stopped going to class somewhere around week 3, and stopped turning in assignments. And same with his other classes. I can respect someone who tries his best and fails, but I cannot respect someone who completely refuses to try.
Here’s another story: After returning to school after Christmas, he accidentally left all his socks at home, where he had been doing laundry (as all college students are wont to do over the holidays). This put Tweedle-Dum in a predicament. He was now stranded across the state from his clean socks. Solution…go to Wal-Mart and buy some more? Ask my parents to mail them? No. Instead he went sockless all winter, just wearing his slip-on moccasins every day, sans socks. In the snow. You are probably starting to get the picture that my brother is not just academically unmotivated—he’s socially awkward as well. The combination basically ruined what could have been a perfectly fun and successful freshman year.
So now he’s living at home, and though he’s applied for jobs, nothing has panned out yet, most likely because he has zero work experience, and a 0.0 GPA doesn’t exactly impress potential employers, even at McDonalds. What will he do with his life? He doesn’t know. I don’t know. And it’s killing me.
I actually do think this fresh start will be good for Tweedle-Dum, much better than having him continue to wallow in a place that was just not working for him. I’m working on my judgmental nature and my superiority complex, and I’m hopeful that my brother will find the direction he needs in his life, along with supportive friends like the kind I was so blessed to find in college. But the truth is, this development has rocked me, my brother, and my entire family. We’re not entirely sure how to handle it, how to support him best without allowing him to stay stagnant. The saddest part is that I know he feels bad about himself, but I don’t know how to help. I’ve always been close with and had a special place in my heart for Tweedle-Dum—the one who was young and adorable for so many years while Tweedle-Dee was filling the role of “the obnoxious one.” But telling him what I think only backfires now, because he gets defensive and likes to deal with his problems by denying that they exist (like with the socks, and the classes, and the homework). I feel like I’ve done nothing but worry these past few months, even to the point where I had to have the suicide talk with him, because I feared he might be giving up hope on life. Basically, I feel helpless. And I wish I could make it all better. See, angst! Tune in next time to hear my complaints about the middle child, Tweedle-Dee.