Marrying into a Divorce: Part 2

I know, I know, I know. It's taken me forever to get back to this charming topic, because of reason reason reason reason. Anyhoo.

I ask Google everything. Back when I was teaching for an online university, if I thought something was plagiarized, I would place an entire sentence or more into the search bar, and sometimes, BAM, I would find a source containing some or even all of the sentence(s) I searched. It was much faster than using the plagiarism software we had.

Once I searched "What to Expect When You're Expecting a 16-Year Old," but it turns out nobody has written that book yet. (Btw here's what to expect: nothing that you expect to expect about parenting a teenager is guaranteed to really help you when you're parenting a teenager.)

I admit I was kind of surprised when I couldn't find any "top" web results about what it's like to have two sets of in-laws. I mean, it can't really be that uncommon for people who got married in the 90's to have grown up in a divorced household, right? There's a ton of stuff out there to read about step parents and step siblings and half siblings and most any combination of relationships that occur with divorces and remarriages. So why does a web search turn up nothing for the poor lucky extremely flexible always good-natured daughter-in-law who needs to build and maintain relationships with two totally distinct "sides" of in-laws?

I felt a little like an alien searching for others like me. There HAS to be somebody else out there whose spouse has two moms, two dads, and two entire sets of half-siblings who all happen to be exactly the same age.  Daughters like me, with a mother and a mother-in-law and a step-mother-in-law, have three chances at doing lots of things wrong, and that can really add up! We're a heavily scrutinized group! Somebody else has to have written about that!! Besides, there's nothing like reading about someone else's predicaments that helps me feel less whiny about my own. Kind of like how I feel about my own house after an episode of "Hoarders."

Seriously, if you've ever read anything from a double daughter-in-law like me, I'd  love to read it. Send it on over. Don't send me stuff about getting along with "a" mother in law. That stuff is fine. But for me, it's only applicable to the degree to which I am capable of splitting myself down the middle and trying to apply advice to two totally different mothers who've had two totally different impacts on my husband. It's pretty impossible.

So, fellow double daughter-in-laws, I have heard the question you didn't ask, and have written down some thoughts about our delicate balancing act.


1. If you have two mothers-in-law, it's likely that they couldn't possibly be more different from one another. You have two options:
Option 1: Split yourself down the middle. One half of you always has professional manicures, perfectly coordinated outfits and accessories, and fourteen sets of matching holiday towels. The other half of you cooks from scratch, sews your own curtains, cuts your own hair, and crochets baby blankets. Spend fifteen years like this.
Option 2: Toss that crappy option 1 out the window, and keep whatever you actually like. It's impossible to be a mini-version of each MIL just so that you have stuff to talk about or to gain approval. Stop trying. Just be you, even if it takes fifteen years to find out who the heck that is.

2. At around four years old, each of our kids begins trying to straighten out the various grandparent relationships. Eventually, we find ourselves in "explanation" mode, where we explain who is married to whom, who used to be married to whom, and which aunts/uncles came from which side. For us, "step parent" has never been a bad word or a term we've avoided. We use the prefix "step" often, and always have. My husband did not have any sort of "blending" growing up; he had two very distinct sides, and they were not one big blended whatever at all. He almost always called his stepparents on each side by their first names. So for us, and based on what he was accustomed to growing up, we use "real" terminology when explaining relationships to our kids.

Oh. And the kids will ask unsettling questions while they're figuring it all out. (See #3) No matter how positively you spin it, this conversation has always brought up sad little questions from our kids: what's a divorce, didn't they love each other, didn't they love daddy, etc. They always understand more than I think they will, but they also take the situation very personally. I generally handle the bulk of this conversation, because even after more than 35 years, my husband still gets a little rattled by it. You're going to have to gloss over details at your discretion, but in the end, be sure to emphasize that all their grandparents love them.

3. When (not if) your kids ask, "Am I going to have a step-mom or step-dad?" try to understand that this is not an irrational fear. It is the example set before them by most of their grandparents, whether anyone wants to admit or or not. People get irritated at me when I make the observation that a divorce impacts generations of family members, but after addressing this question over and over independently with each of my kids, I have no other reasonable conclusion. I have to be the buffer and quell my kids' fears that their parents will also get divorced. Thought: the best way for you to convince your kids that they need not fear a divorce is to set a daily example for them that you and your spouse will do whatever it takes to keep your marriage strong and permanent.

4. Double or triple holidays, birthdays, special occasions are only fun when you are 8. When you are doing the cooking or the hosting, or traveling to a relative's home, or any combination of either or both, double and triple time is a pain in the bahookie.

Simply alternating between three sides never works. I have made schedule after schedule for which "side" to spend whatever with and something always comes up that wrecks the plan. It's never fair enough, and it's never "even." We have gone to extraordinary lengths to try and split holiday time up fairly, and it usually ends up with me in tears at some point. I spent way to much time trying to make things "fair," and I often placed my own family's happiness dead last. Tip: you, your husband and your kids deserve holiday traditions, too. They deserve some predictability and stability. You don't have to be nomads if you don't want to be. The few holidays we've had with just the six of us have been amazing.

5. The whole MIL/DIL relationship has had plenty of scrutiny over the years. Can we get through one discussion about it withOUT bringing up Ruth and Naomi? I'm guessing their story is in the bible because it's, let's say, atypical. Here's a great article exploring the whole Ruth and Naomi thing.

Fellow double daughter-in-laws, you are excused from trying to live up to the Ruth/Naomi impossible standard. Don't choose which mother-in-law to be all Ruthy for. Sometimes people on each side unwittingly (or wittingly) reaaaaaaalllly want you to choose sides. Your words and actions will probably be misconstrued at some several points to make it look like you have "chosen" one side over the other, but that is probably not your fault. That's left over divorce crap that you are not responsible for, but unfortunately you still get to pay for it a once in a while. I feel for you.

For now, that's all the advice I have.
I know there's a popular saying about how you don't just marry your husband, you marry his whole family. But in reality, you literally married only your husband. It's great when we can navigate all the sides of our extended family in harmony, but sometimes that just doesn't happen. And if/when it doesn't, remember you married YOUR HUSBAND.  Then there's the whole man leaving his father and mother and woman leaving her home and they cling together bit... THAT'S what's important. Do that.

Two people in this picture. Not eight or eighteen or 45.

If you remember from Part One of my short series on marrying into a divorce, I mentioned that I was fascinated by a quote from a cultural anthropologist: "... there is no society in the world where people have stayed married without enormous community pressure to do so... ." I think I'll be ruminating on that quote for the third installment. It's painfully obvious to me that the "enormous community pressure" that I once took for granted is not so enormous anymore.

 In the meantime, anyone out there have a similar situation with two sets of in-laws? What about if both parents had remarriages and you're dealing with four sides? Do you just want to move to Mars sometimes or have you found ways to work it all out?

Awesome Wedding, Disaster Honeymoon, and our "Insert Almost Any Adjective Here" Marriage.

Last week, we had our 20th wedding anniversary. Our wedding was lovely. We had beautiful engraved invitations, around 300 guests, two priests, and amazing flowers (Like a Laura Ashley store exploded all over the place.) We had piano, a string quartet, drums, base and acoustic guitars, and professional vocalists during Mass. We had simple flower centerpieces on so many lovely tables in a hotel ballroom, a nice dinner, and a lovely traditional cake with a bride-and-groom Lladro on the top. We had a DJ and fun music. It was a beautiful day.

But most of our wedding pictures are terrible.

This one's not terrible. I like this one. See the Star Trek communicator? We were nerds before it was cool. I guess that makes us hipster nerds. That sounds way less cool though.

The above picture is one-third of the sum total of photos we have from our wedding that highlight just the two of us. The other two are not the not-exactly-posed type pictures: one of us outside after Mass, and one of us arriving at the reception. We're squinting and looking pretty awkward in general in them. We spent very little on photos, and it shows. It didn't occur to us (or to our photographer) to actually, oh I don't know, take a few shots of just the two of us. And we didn't even notice until we'd been married for like three years.

Also, our honeymoon was basically a disaster.

This is a super windy spot at the top of some mountain on Oahu. I don't remember what it's called. I like this photo. It reminds me that we had a few happy moments on our "honeymoon," which is a term that can only be applied in the loosest of terms to our visit to Hawaii.

Seriously. I once had a friend who literally sent our story to Oprah for a honeymoon do-over episode: "Tell us why someone you know needs a second honeymoon!"  No. We didn't win. I guess that means it could have been worse!

Some family members gave us airline tickets, and happily informed us that Jason's great aunt and great uncle, who lived on Oahu, would be in California during the week after our wedding. So, all we needed was to get over there, and they were going to let us stay in their house and even let us use their car for the week.
Sounded amazing, right?

Then a couple of days before the wedding, we were told that Aunt and Uncle Hawaii weren't actually leaving right away- they might be there for a couple of days- but that they would still be leaving...probably.

Um. well, ok. That's fine. After all it's so very generous, we're certainly not going to complain about not being alone for a couple of days...on..our..honeymoon but whatever. It'll be ok.

So then focus on wedding, etc., etc., we didn't worry about it.
We left at 6am the day after the wedding. Too early. Very rushed.
Flight to HI, had a lovely greeting with the aunt and uncle, had a small argument in the cortisone aisle at the first pharmacy we saw (thigh high nylons+ roasting hot Arizona August wedding day+ a limo driver who wouldn't turn o the A/C because our reception site was "so close to the church anyway" = a wicked heat rash, soon to be immortalized in any and all honeymoon photos where I am in a bathing suit. Purty.)

So we arrived at the house and are presented with  twin beds in a lovely guest room. Um. well, ok...
We saw there was another guest room down the hall with a queen bed- why couldn't we have that one? But we said nothing.

My charming new husband asked them what their schedule was- you know, for when they were, uh, leaving? for uh, California?

...chirp...       ...chirp...       ...chirp...   (those are crickets.)

"Oh," said Hawaiian Uncle the Cheerful but Quite Puzzled, "We're not leaving. No no no, we weren't planning on going anywhere. Be ready at 1800 hours for dinner at the Officer's Club! We have a really full week ahead of us!"

Oh uh, ok. Then we were finally alone behind closed doors for the first time all day.

It hit us:

WHAT???? Seriously, what??? They're not leaving?  Why on earth would we be told they were leaving if they're not? Obviously they're not loaning us their car either- this is a mess! How much money do we have? Yeah- that's not going to cut it for a hotel and a car!! We NEVER would have come all this way if we knew this was going to be a chaperoned honeymoon! WHAAAAAAAT??????

We gathered ourselves. When trapped on Hawaii, one might as well try to enjoy Hawaii. Aunt and Uncle Hawaii are lovely people and we have the rest of our lives to be together, so oh well. No private romantic honeymoon for us after all. We'll be ok.

Uncle Hawaiian Guided Tour himself made sure we saw every bullet hole in Hawaii. I swear he showed us every cemetery, every memorial. There are a LOT of war memorials in Hawaii. Eventually we rented a car for the last couple of days and got to run around by ourselves at least a little during the day, but I can't tell you we had a disaster honeymoon without including this next part:

Aunt Hawaii wore a wig. She served us raisin bread in a skullcap. She wore a house coat. I'm not making fun of her, I just want you to picture this. I went down to the kitchen one morning without Jason.
Now, I was 21 when I got married, and very, well, new to the whole "married" part. ok? So I cannot begin to describe my horror when Aunt Skullcap and Housecoat inched slowly toward me, to tell me about their walls...

Apparently, the walls are very thin.
Apparently, the aunt and uncle hear every little noise in this house.
And every little noise in the bathroom.
They can't possibly have guests in the room above theirs (aha, that's the one with the queen bed) because of their sensitivity to noise, and apparently, it's not much better in the way back bedroom; they just hear everything!
Every
Single
Sound

(She was pretty much right in my face at this point.)

Got it?

My head was spinning. I turned beet red. Did she just say what I think she said? Straight to my face? I was too new, too young, too polite, to respond; I just wanted out of there as quickly as possible. And then I had to find a way to explain this lovely exchange to my husband.
Get me the hell off this island!!!

All I can say is I was so glad it was over when it was over. We spent literally every last dime we had, we had been totally unprepared, and we were as naive as it gets. (Not to mention the fact that we thought we'd been quiet too! Guess not!)

I had a meeting to attend literally the hour after we stepped off our return flight, and was prepping my classroom for my first teaching job the next day. Back to real life, fast. And no, we never informed the people who gave us the airline tickets about the little misunderstanding over the arrangements.

We had this ideal honeymoon arranged, we thought, and it was not what we expected at all. Sometimes it feels like we've been chasing that ideal for the last 20 years. Chasing time together. Chasing security. Chasing predictability. Chasing peace. Sometimes we find it, just for a moment or two, and it makes the madness of living together and raising four children together all worthwhile.

Our priest says, "On their wedding day, the couple doesn't actually know what true love is. They're just signing up to find out."

I love that description. That really is what we did that day, 20 years ago. We signed up to find out. We've dissolved a lot of illusions. Our substandard wedding photos and chaperoned honeymoon were just the beginning. We don't live in a fairy tale. We knew marriage and family would be hard work and it is. We've discovered truths about love and being a family that we wouldn't possibly have known until we'd had 20 years of failures and successes together. Think of an adjective, any adjective will do, and I bet we've had between one and one thousand days of that kind of day. Amazing, scary, wonderful, awful, inspired, bored, incredible...yep, just keep going.

Yesterday was a really crappy day. We had tons of running around, a throwing up preschool-er, and our two-week post op daughter fell in the bathroom, breaking quite a bit of the bathroom but fortunately none of  herself. At the dinner table, things were tense. We slowly unwound enough to joke around a little, and at some point we were comparing who could do the "live long and prosper" Vulcan thing with our fingers. All our kids and I can do it on both hands. My husband can't do it on his left hand.  Our oldest daughter laughed and said, "His ring finger is just not capable of moving. It's like, it's taken on attributes of your marriage or something, and is staying there, unmovable and rock solid."

haha! That was it. Crappy day melted away. We laughed and started to get ready for another day together. Every day might not be a day on a Hawaiian beach, but it turns out that's not all it's cracked up to be anyway.

Aloha!

Yep. Pretty terrible photo quality, as usual. But we're happy! This is at a Hawaiian fusion restaurant where we went on our 20th anniversary, and the food was better there than anything we had on actual stupid Hawaii.

Shark in the water! Right? Is...is that a shark?

My kids are watching Jaws 3 again and they are laughing their heads off. There's totally a severed head and everything in that movie. It's all la-ti-da  "isn't a lovely day at Sea World" and then all hell breaks loose.

Anyhoo, that's not what I should be writing about. I mean...about which I would be writing. (groan) I thought my next blog would be part 2 of the series-in-my-head on the lasting impacts of divorce, and I will get to that. 

Ha. Here's the part where they just saw the baby shark and are trying to keep it in the park. They're so excited about what this could mean for the park. They're going to make a spectacle of the thing...

My blog description says:

"Observational humor and social commentary

 from a Catholic mom on parenting, social politics,

relationships, and swimming upstream." 

Most of the time I'm all la-ti-da my kids say funny things, and isn't life full of poignant lessons, and here's some stuff I've learned because I'm over 40 and if I don't write it down, I'll forget it.

But the divorce thing is really the first social issue I attempted to write about. It's also the subject that got me my first "hide post" and even a "hide all posts." It's reasonable to suspect that if you put something out there, not everyone's going to like it. I can try to write about a touchy subject as carefully as possible, but someone's still not going to like it. I'm going to have to be okay with that. I've said it before, this blog is open because I appreciate that something I have written or experienced might resonate with other people and ultimately let them know they're not alone.

Oooh they moved the shark from the holding tank to a display tank... the shark's health is still precarious, so that was really dangerous, and oop- look, it died in front of everyone. The poor marine biologist resigns to let those evil media folk photograph her prize, now gone...

Hot-button issues wasted no time at all in overtaking social media. Social sites quickly became not just a place for family and friends to share news and photos, but a place to express an expanding universe of politics and philosophy. I have two teenagers. My oldest is 18, and is basically part of a "flagship" generation on social media. Over the course of her teenage years, we have watched an eruption of media sites. There's no stopping it; it's been my job to set expectations for my teens' activities on these sites. Their online behavior (that I have seen) has been, for the most part, perfectly within reasonable limits.

Here's the hard part. I don't always know what they read. I can't always tell who they follow. I can't 100% control what they're exposed to. (um,..to what they are exposed?) I don't drive myself crazy trying to limit screen time. I expect them to come when I call, get their chores done, respond the the "real" world before the online world and other we-live-here-in-our-real-life, not just on-the-internet ideas. All I can do is try and model how they should respond. Sometimes I'm pretty good at that. Not so much other times.

Wait wait just a sec.. the shark's mother is inside the park!?! oh holy night what now... Are they going to try and catch that one too? No wait- I think they just go straight for the kill...

I got super duper mad at my oldest a couple of days ago. She tweeted a note she had written and I went ballistic. We did a terrible job communicating with each other about what made me so upset. I huffed.  She shut down. She didn't want to talk to me, She didn't want to discuss the issue. We resorted to messages. I begged her to read articles I had picked, without considering her sensibilities. She sent me an I-will-not-be-responding-to-this note. My temper got shorter and she got further away- even though she was only in her room.

Oh haha- that little girl sees the mama shark and tells her dad to look at the cute little fishie...

We were at a stand off for about a half-day. Then, a local Catholic university called her back and reported to her that she's qualified for a ton of scholarships. Turns out they really want Catholic High School grads who want to major in Theology.

uhh...

Oh yeah. That's what she wants to do.

um...

  

Holy carp (intended)-

there is no shark here to kill us. It's a little fish, not a shark.

I congratulated her, but our unresolved issues made it strange. We had to fix things. I changed my tone. I sent her another article that struck kind of a middle ground, and she changed her tone. I sent her another note asking her to help me with a do-over. We both realize that while we have different opinions on the gravity of the matter about which she tweeted, we don't have to see a shark. We can see a fish. 

Sometimes people need a do-over. I can't control what kind of do-over they think they need.

Her tweet was about a do-over, and I am posting it with her permission:

I really don't like the f-word. I don't like the "accept it or f-off" tone. I don't fall comfortably into using the pro-noun "she."

But seriously. That's all I don't like in this tweet.

I'm not going to presume that she can completely understand why those things make me uncomfortable. I did not ask her to take down the tweet or change it in anyway. We spent some time talking about how "accept it or f-off" is uncharitable to some groups of people, and applauded by others. We talked about how our consciences are all still in formation. We talked about how forming our consciences with reputable resources that cover all angles of an issue is necessary. I suggested that maybe part of her calling to Catholic Ministry would be to help navigate these relatively uncharted waters in a pastoral way.

Oh hang on-they blew up the mother shark. My 12-year old is laughing her bloody head off.

After wading through it all, I was happy when we settled into a dialogue about mercy. It is a skill to operate from a point of mercy. I believe that mercy is the only thing that can connect people who cannot or will not agree about something.

Mercy Definition

dictionary.search.yahoo.com

n. noun

• 1. Compassionate treatment, especially of those under one's power; clemency.
• 2. A disposition to be kind and forgiving. a heart full of mercy.
• 3. Something for which to be thankful; a blessing. It was a mercy that no one was hurt.

I'm not going to comment much on Caitlyn. I didn't know Bruce. I know my daughter, and I care about her formation of conscience. She's 18, and I may not be the official responsible party for her formation anymore, but my behavior is still a model for her all the time. I take that pretty seriously. She is on the edge of making an impact on the world I cannot predict, and the best thing I can do with any touchy issue is to make sure she knows what the official Catholic teachings are, and then teach her about mercy by the way I act and the way I treat others, both here in our real life and on the internet. I started to get a little passive aggressive about Caitlyn on Facebook, and I initially chimed in a little here and there, but I deleted and "unliked" a few things that sent messages in a less than compassionate way. I'm not going to view this as "apologizing" for my perspectives. It's not. I know what my perspective is, and it's just not needed out there today. Besides, I linked in Fr. Leo's post because I feel it resonates well with how I feel right now anyway.

The first thing I saw when I read her tweet was a shark. I went straight for the kill. I missed. We almost created a situation that could have caused a lot more damage than it did. That phone call came in at the just the right time. I asked for a do-over. She gave me one. No blood in the water. 

There's so much that can be said about the use of this quote, but seriously I can't do everything for you.

P.s This post exposes my daughter's perspective. Don't comment negatively about her.  Believe me, I will not be inclined to be a cute little fish about it. I'll be, you know, the other thing. (as nicely as I can)

Marrying into a Divorce: Part 1

A few years ago, a friend of mine found out she was expecting her third child. She was 41 and her next youngest child was 11 or 12.  Her oldest was 16. Among her many concerns about this pregnancy, was that she feared people would think she was...

that she was...

(divorced.)

She's not. I empathized with her, and found myself observing the dread she showed at the prospect that someone might think she was divorced. It was obviously very dear to her that she wanted nothing to do with the culture of divorce. Her logic made sense, as it would be quite common today for moms or dads with a particularly large age gap between children to have "traded in" their first spouses. That's a quote from another mom with a large age gap between her kids, who once boasted to me that she traded in her husband for an upgraded new model. I laughed instinctively (awkward), but I sure hope she doesn't talk like that in front of her older child- you know, the one with the substandard dad. cuz oh haha.

A little over four years ago, I was pregnant with my fourth child, and there was a seven year age gap between him and my third child. I remembered my friend's fear that people might think she was divorced. I wasn't overly concerned about what strangers might think of my family.

I was, however, in the company of juuuuuuust about no one else. The reality for me was that many of the moms I can think of with large age gaps between children really do have those large age gaps because of a divorce. Among the moms I know around my age who have both an 18 year old and a four year old, I am the unicorn.

mmmmm......... not funny. I really dislike divorce "humor" *

And speaking of unicorns, let's talk about divorce.
(sorry, I just couldn't think of a better segue.)

My mom was really good at planting anti-divorce wisdom into my head while I was a teenager. She didn't call it that, but that's what it was. My parents have been married for 44 years. They've maybe had more bumpy years than not, and our childhoods were far from idyllic. But the message they sent was that families stick together, though thick and thin. She would say things like "You can love a lot of people, but you can marry only one." She taught me about the bonds of shared memories. She would remind me that getting married in the Catholic Church gave us sacramental grace, which would carry us through the hard times. She taught me that getting an annulment in the the Catholic Church was never a guarantee, can take several years, if granted at all, and that those facts are not weaknesses of Church Law, but rather serve as a both deterrent from divorcing and a message that the sacrament is taken very seriously. She encouraged long engagements and big weddings. (Turns out big weddings often correlate with good marriages.) Living together before marriage would never have been tolerated, as it increases the chances for divorce. (It used to. It still might.) I never planned on marrying outside my faith for many reasons, one of which was that I had experienced first hand the steep price our family paid when my parents did. For me, as a second child and classic rule follower, if my mom said something would increase the risk of divorce, I paid attention. I had no intention whatsoever of ever getting divorced.

My parents were not really intrusive when it came to dating, but they did expect to at least be informed about who we were seeing, and would expect to see them at our dinner table regularly at some point. (If that didn't scare them off, not much would.)

My mother warned me, when I told her I was dating someone whose parents were divorced, that I should proceed with caution. (This was not a personal remark about my future husband's personality; this was, in her view, simply a fact.) She mentioned divorces tend to "run in families." (They kind of can. But a couple's choices can overcome this.) Being 19, in love, and sure I knew everything, I was unfazed. I simply quipped that each of his parents were re-married and had been for maybe 13-14 years each at the time or so, and I joked that at least they both "got it right the second time around." haha. (Obviously I had not developed my disdain for divorce humor yet.)
"Uh-huh," mom said, "and so what does that tell you about the realities he's grown up with?"
"I don't follow you."
"That the first time around is when you get it wrong, and that the first time isn't the only time."
"oh." That did give me pause.

Little did I know, that was the tip of an iceberg I would not more fully encounter for years.

“Divorce can be deceptive — legally it is a single event but psychologically it is a chain, sometimes a never ending chain, of events, relocations and radically shifting relationships strung through time, a process that forever changes the lives of people involved.” 
--Judith Wallerstein, Adult Children of Divorce Researcher


I didn't discover Judith Wallerstein's work until I needed to. She passed away at the age of 90, and was still writing a column for the Huffington Post on divorce and its permanent impacts on children. Specifically, her research and studies focused on how divorces impact the life-course trajectories for people whose parents had divorced as children. She began her unprecedented study in 1971, in the earlier years of the divorce tidal wave that swept the USA between the late 60s and early 80s.


Here's an excellent summary of her findings. Suffice to say, Dr. Wallerstein did NOT conclude that a divorce was a short-term event to be absorbed with a child's presumed "resilience," which was and still is sometimes, a prevailing thought.

In 1972, Dr. Wallerstein documented a conversation she had with Dr. Margaret Mead, a famous cultural anthropologist. Dr. Mead said to her: "Judy, there is no society in the world where people have stayed married without enormous community pressure to do so, and I don't think anybody can predict what you will find."

Right now, my plan is to write two more posts eventually, about how I am literally married into a divorce. My husband's emotional well being is a priority for me, and while I have at times been inundated with stories from both sets of his parents about his upbringing, surprise surprise, they don't really have the whole story about his feelings. After nearly 20 years of marriage, he's divulged enough to me about his perspective as a child of divorce that explains so much about his basic wiring. Some of this didn't click for me until very recently. Turns out you really can learn new things about your husband after 20 years!

This will not be a series about either of those noted researchers I mentioned earlier.

This will not be a series about whether I think any couple should or should not get divorced. (Not my circus, not my monkeys. I have my own, thanks.)

This is a series about how a 35 year old divorce still impacts my life, my husband's life, and our children's lives, and how my family still makes adjustments. 

Next up: Guess what? If I ask the Googles for advice in juggling two sets of in-laws, I get NOTHING. (I'm sure there's another circus joke in there somewhere.)  So I'll write my own.
After that I think I'll write about that "enormous community pressure" Dr. Mead referenced. I just find that statement both fascinating and of paramount importance. Stay tuned!








*Someecard used with permission

Confessions of a Former Mother's Day Hater

If you're a mom, or if you know a mom, want to be a mom, have a mom, or know how to spell "mom," do not Google "I hate Mother's Day."

The results are devastating. All 38,700,000 of them. I read a few blogs and some of them are pretty funny, poking fun at burned-toast-and-runny-eggs breakfasts in bed, wearing those dreadful carnations at church, or having your three-year old stuff ant-laden flowers into your hair. Those are the sort of playful haters, if that's a thing. They might really just need a good night's sleep and a long shower (alone), because if they have to wade through spit up stains and goldfish crumbles for one more second they might explode.

Other "I hate Mother's Day" posts are sad, sadder, and saddest, recalling broken relationship after broken relationship between every possible combination of grandmothers, mothers, and children in tones either bittersweet or with downright vengeance. I wish I was totally unable to connect with any of those stories.

It's not always pretty out there.

I have been a mom for 18 years, and about three years ago, my impossibly wise oldest daughter saved me from the Mother's Day Haters Club.

On my first Mother's Day, I decided I would send Mother's Day cards to all the mothers on both my husband's and my side. I counted up all the moms, a step-mom, grandmothers and step-grandmothers, and wound up with a whopping ELEVEN moms and grandmothers:
my mom
my grandmothers -2
my daughter's godmother
his mom
his step-mom
his grandmothers -2
his step-grandmothers -3

I didn't know it at the time, but I was setting up an impossible precedent for myself. I did it anyway, because
I wanted to LOVE the wonderful day that is Mother's Day. 

And I wanted it to show.

I was so thrilled on my first Mother's Day that I truly felt called to celebrate every mother-figure that ever impacted our lives. Eventually, that yellow list would shorten a little at a time. Some sort of naturally fell off the list if there was not much relationship to begin with. In other cases, there would be a massive falling out and our relationships were lost as a consequence of purportedly irreconcilable differences between the person and someone else in our family. Like I said, I wish I couldn't relate to losing a relationship. After a couple of years, the list was shortened to:
my mom
my grandmother- 2 1
my daughter's godmother   (She just really didn't expect a card or gift, This was totally ok to let go of.)
his mom
his step-mom
his grandmothers -2
his step-grandmother- 3 1

Now, it should be noted that during our first couple years, we always went to brunch with my husband's mom, usually one of his grandmothers and one of his step-grandmothers, so that meant small gifts/cards for all of them, plus making sure that I stopped by and dropped off cards/flowers/little gifts for my mom and grandma, AND sent cards to the others on the pink list. And no, it never occurred to me to have my husband take care of his side and I would do mine; I did it all and he just signed his name. It just never occurred to me to NOT try and control it all.

Are you exhausted yet? I was, but I just kept it up anyway. See how in control and organized I am? SEEE??

We did this for a few years, until we moved out of state. We had three Mother's Days with just my little family. I didn't know how good I had it there. My two kids were still little, so I never expected much, and their dad was always good about helping the kids do some cute little things. There were cards to ship and that was okay, but there was less running around to do.

When we moved back to our home state, we picked right back up with the brunch tradition. But now we had three kids. Each year, I would start to stress out completely about trying to make it "fair" for all the mothers and grandmothers try to coordinate it so that each mom/grandma had some special recognition from us, and I would shake myself into a little corner just thinking about it. In the beginning of May I would start to fret about coordinating it all, and my husband would wish I could just chill out about it all, but year after year I still juggled the brunch, three kids, church, gifts, cards, flowers and "stopping by's" for:
my mom
my grandmother
his mom
his step-mom
his grandmother
his step-grandmother

 I hated Mother's Day. I hated the very idea. I hated the juggling. I HATED it.

And it showed.

About three years ago, on my 14th Mother's Day, this time with four kids, we went to a very early Sunday Mass, then to my husband's step-grandmother's church for an early brunch, then to a later brunch with his mom and his expanding side of the family. We sent our usual cards and flowers out of town, probably late. I didn't acknowledge it, but I was an impossible stressed out train wreck. I don't know what I was trying to prove by keeping that kind of schedule; I was just trying to be agreeable to each invitation we'd gotten. Our day started at 7am and we didn't get home from all this "celebrating" until after 3pm. I had been already exhausted and a wreck at the second brunch, and my nervous behavior ended up further straining relationships that were already in precarious places. I was a disaster by the time we got home.

In the late afternoon, my 14-year old daughter looked at me and said something like this: "Ok. We spent all day doing what other family members planned for their Mothers' Days. When does it get to be YOUR Mother's Day? When do WE get to plan something nice for YOU?"

It hit me like a ton of bricks. My kids were old enough to have their own list, and in their world, their list looked like this:
their mom (me)

I had spent years and years and years, robbing my kids of the peace of knowing that they had the time and space to do something nice for me on Mother's Day. And now my oldest was 14, and the years with all of us under one roof all the time were quickly speeding by. I had very little time to change things around.

But I did.

I would never have wanted to stop visiting my mom or his mom, etc., but I just hadn't seen how my focus was so heavily centered on them and all the grandmothers on my lists that my own kids felt like I was practically forcing them to ignore me for much of Mother's Day, year after year. 

We haven't been to a single brunch since. And guess what? The extended families seem okay with it. I had to say stuff that was VERY uncomfortable for me when we were first declining invitations, but my husband was there to soften the changes. He was thrilled at the idea of having a wife who wouldn't be shaking herself to death with the stress of making things "fair," so he's been great at making sure to find other ways and times to celebrate the very worthy mothers on his side.We split up a little now to do lunches with our respective sides BEFORE Sunday, and still make sure to send flowers and cards to the non-local moms/grandmas.

Now, my list is much shorter. Some of our grandmothers have passed away and we have unfortunately lost touch with another, so it looks like this:
my mom
his mom
his step-mom 

My husband and his siblings took their mom to lunch a couple of days ago, and we sent along a card and small gift; one of my sisters and I and some of our kids went to a great place for lunch with our mom today, and we sent flowers to his step-mom.

I totally LOVE Mother's Day again.

It shows... to my kids for sure. It's not nearly as important that "it shows" to anyone else anyway.

My last three Mother's Days have been absolutely fabulous. My hubby and four kids shop and cook for meals at home, or sometimes we go out to a meal, just the six of us, and we just chill. We go to a late Mass. I don't do laundry or cook, and if they serve me burned toast and runny eggs, I am genuinely happy about it. I read or crochet and they plant flowers. We don't do any running around. We spend the whole day just being together without any stress and it. is. amazing. 

I only wish I had thought of it sooner. ;)

The One with 20 Tiny Log Cabins

This actually happened. A couple of years later, when I laugh about this story with my son, he looks at me with that deer-in-the-headlights-look as if he still doesn’t understand why this is so hilarious. Men.

He was 13, and the Facebook post went kinda like this:
Darling Boy: Mom? Do you have clay, spray paint, a cardboard box, glue, and can you help me make 20 miniature log cabins out of real sticks?
Me: Oh *&@#. Is this due tomorrow?
Ever So Darling Boy: Yeah- so, do ya? And can you type fast?

In no time, I dismantled a train set, a Lego set, and a bulletin board. I arranged a hundred frilly toothpicks to look like trees and built a paper dock and tiny boats. I set up log cabins made with toothpicks and a crafted a rocky beach out of real rocks. Remembering briefly this was HIS project, I put him in charge of…glue. We soon beheld a magnificent graphic map of an imaginary island and its hearty inhabitants who, sustained by the ocean and their rich cultural traditions, were sure to astonish the teacher and the whole junior high.

I got a B.

I mean, he got a B.

It was a hostile takeover, and I had taken a prisoner. Darling Boy learned a valuable lesson. He learned that I would shoulder the burden of responsibility and all he had to do was nod and glue.

Middle schools have lists of learning outcomes for their students, and “Expects parents to craft and complete school projects” is not one of them. I KNEW this. I was a high school teacher myself, but I did the project anyway. I was weak. (And secretly I actually LIKE building these things. I kind of want to do all their dioramas and projects because I HAVE SO MANY IDEAS. Pathetic.)

Once, for sort of a job interview, I used this story to write a little how-to essay on what parents should do to help their children do these kinds of projects themselves. It was obnoxious. Here’s part of what I wrote. Insert your own gag responses:

To avoid over-helping your student, because let’s face it, the last time you built an island the rest of your family had toast for dinner, nobody did the dishes and the baby went to bed at 10 p.m., follow this simple, sage advice. (Oh. My. God. I am the worst. THE worst. "sage advice?" I would hate me.)

1. Create a time line with your child. Even if this is a dreaded last minute “it’s due tomorrow” assignment, a time line will diffuse anxiety. If you have only two hours, you need to get the most out of those two hours. To create a time line, ask your child to outline the steps he or she must take in order to finish the project. Assign a firm deadline to each of these steps. Agree upon a set number of times you will check on the project’s progress. Don’t allow the “checkpoints” to exceed 5 minutes. (Puke. I have never done this successfully. What a load.)

2. Create a quiet space for your child, point him or her in the direction of the craft supplies, set a timer and walk away. (No! Don’t! Go build the island! If you don’t he might make a really crappy one and it will look terrrrrible!!)

3. No really, you can do it, walk away. (Oh, no. No, I can’t. Pack of lies.)

4. Praise your child’s hard work. (Yep. I do this. He can really glue!)

Then I wrote a bunch of crap about how junior high isn’t just a tricky place for kids to start growing up; it’s a time when parents have to adjust to letting their kids grow up…blah blah blah. It was terrible, but writing the essay was a catalyst for me to actually try letting my kids grow up. I didn’t have an epiphany after I built the damn island. No, I had it after reading my little essay about it and realizing my advice was just wishful thinking about tips I never followed myself. After the essay, I actually started to try and let go.

Oh wait, I built the Cathedral of Notre Dame out of diaper boxes first, and THEN I started letting go.

Well, it’s more of a two-year plan to start letting go.

I’m still working on it.

Two cups of coffee

I ran across a mommy blog yesterday, which yet again repeated a new mom mantra. Something like: "I'm a new mom. I started this blog to show you how I'm not going to let motherhood change me, and how I refuse to turn into one of 'those' moms."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHHHHHAHA

Sorry, but just BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! New mom blogger, you already are one of them! haha!

You already are.

Yesterday I poured myself a cup of coffee. I set it down on the counter and was legitimately surprised when I saw another cup of coffee there on the counter, right next to it.

It was still hot.

I'm the only one home, and my 2-year old does not, that I am aware of, drink coffee. Unlike the footprints in the sand, I'm fairly certain Jesus did not set that cup there.

But okay, sure, motherhood has not changed me. I just dragged along a husband and four kids live to live in my stagnant, never changing, always predictable, supremely satisfying world of not-one-of-those-moms-awesomeness. And it was super easy and fun!!!

All moms will be "one of those" moms. It's just a fact. The sooner we know it, the better. We all have these pre-determined categories of what "those moms" are, and if we do manage to avoid the types we think we want to avoid, we will invariably create some new horrifying category type for other new moms to kid themselves into trying to avoid.

So you know, relax. It is utterly impossible to become an ANYTHING and not "let" it change us.

I definitely drank both cups of coffee.

The time I had to take an ax away from my 2-year old

Warning: potty language.literally.

We had just been to Jason's office holiday party, and how fun for us, we had a comedian perform there. Mostly marriage and parenting stuff- very relatable for us. "Jimmy Kimmel's sister," I mean Jill Kimmel-Bryan is pretty funny, and I told her I was gonna find those cameras she must have hidden in our house. Turns out I'm not the only mom who ever said that to her. Whaaaaaat??
On our way home Jason was telling me about this meeting he had the next day, at the Ritz. Poor thing, turns out he doesn't think the Ritz is all that. (Actually, it's not.)
The next day, I was reflecting about his wah-wah boring meeting at the dumb they-burn-quiche hotel. I remembered where he was AFTER I sent him this text:
Me- I hate your dog
Jason (at Ritz)- uh, what?
Me- Oh I forgot you're at your meeting
Jason- Everything okay?
Me- uh, yeah, sorry, I'll e-mail you.

And so I did.

Subject line: Why our house is way more fun than the Ritz‏

Hi there-
Since Jill-Kimmel-whatever-her-married-name-is-and-I-bet-she-hates-that basically spies on us in the mornings for her material, she ought to get some good laughs off of what she likely saw today.

I sweetly encouraged Anna to get out the door by 7:15 and then (ahem) "elevated" my tone, prompting a "don't rush me" "I have to" "no you don't "then go!" exchange. I fed Luke pink applesauce and dragged him with all his blankets and sickly Sophia out to drop Jack at school. I called her school on the way back to let them know she wasn't going in, while Luke screamed at me the whole time I was on the phone. Lucky me it was the actual secretary and not the recording, so it sounded like this: "This is Mrs. Price, stop that Luke, Sophia's not, Luke stop it, Sophia's not, Luke quite please, Sophia's not, Luke! Sorry my two year old is yelling, Sophia's not, Oh my gosh!!!, Sophia's not coming in today (click!)"

We got home to a dog who had thrown up in his kennel. I cleaned that up. Luke had an accident, I cleaned that up, Sophia needed her sinuses rinsed, we cleaned that up. I administered anti-biotics, advil, cranberry juice, waffles that she wanted and then didn't want, sausage that Luke wanted but the dog ate, and dog kibble that the dog wanted, then didn't want, and then threw up. again.

I handed Sophia a Newberry Award book to read by tonight so she could do her book report tomorrow since the quarter in ending and she only has two of three she needs done, went out side with Luke so she could get a break from his demanding two year old stinker pot self, where he got stuck in the swing. He then insisted that I jump on the trampoline with him, so I took off my shoes and stepped on a thorn and then crawled up onto the trampoline anyway to jump with him. Outside sounded like this: "Swing to the moon, count to ten, jump with me, ouch! I'm peeing! Then go inside don't just say I'm peeing!" Inside sounded like this: "Scoot your tushy back scoot your tushy back scoot your tushy back, I don't have to wash my hands, yes you do." Sophia needed quiet time, so we went back outside to water the plants. Peaceful watering commenced. I'm a moron and I never learn my lesson about what happens when I'm on the phone, so I called my sister.

I called Becky to apologize to her for judging the way she used to handle Aaron when he was 2, and to commiserate, and then I literally had to take an ax that you left out by the orange trees out of Luke's hands, and then with a phone in one hand and an actual ax in another I stepped in dog doo. Thorn in foot, crap on shoe, Becky is hysterical laughing at me, graciously accepting my apologies, and I quickly grew another arm with which to take the full size shovel which suddenly appeared in his hand away from him. He yelled that he wanted both the shovel back. It sounded like this: "I want the shubel I want the shubel gimme the shuuuuuubelllllllll!!!!!!"

There's more, but you know, it was only about 10:00 when I texted you that I hated the dog, and having just now pulled his furry bum out of the trash again, I can confirm that yes, I do pretty much hate him. These are the reasons our house is more fun then the Ritz.

Love, Katie (Luke in background: "I think I'm poopin'!" me: "Then go to the potty!")

and you're welcome, Jill.