When my oldest graduated with her bachelor's degree, we were excited and proud. For one thing, she'd worked hard to get there. For another, my husband, myself, and all four of her grandparents do not have college degrees. All of my children have some kind of secondary diploma or certificate, which makes me happy.
Usually, when we'd tell people she was graduating, the comments were predictable - "How exciting!" "What's her degree in?" "What are her plans?" But one comment just landed a bit wrong. One friend of ours did not actually seem very excited, and said, in an almost scolding tone, "She is going to do something with that degree, isn't she?"
"Of course she is," I replied brightly, ignoring the implied criticism. "She's going to be educated."
This elicited a sigh. "You know what I'm saying, right?" they asked.
"Yes, I do. You know what I'm saying, right?" I asked with a bit more edge in my voice.
They appeared genuinely puzzled. "No."
Oh, for goodness sake.
I didn't try to explain how many things that I found wrong with their query, starting with the fact that good news should be met with congratulations (especially if you're then going to nit pick or gripe). Then there's the fact, as I previously mentioned, that her parents and grandparents do not have degrees. Also, they had chosen to direct this gripe to someone else (me) who has chosen, as their career, to be a stay at home parent.
I was totally clear that my friend was alluding to stay at home parents, despite my being one. I have heard, not just from this friend, but from many people, what a "waste" that is. I experienced frequent verbal bludgeoning, myself, most of it from people who liked or loved me. "But you could do anything!" they'd say, and they were completely unsatisfied by my response of, "I know I could. And I chose." It was annoying and exhausting to deal with people who were sure that no one would choose my life unless they were stupid or trapped.
I've endeavored to teach my children to avoid being job snobs. Sometimes it works. But just recently, I chastized my youngest for saying "Susie Homemaker" in a scathing tone that indicated that the occuption was less desirable than shoveling manure. "You know that I am a 'Susie Homemaker' by choice, right? And besides, do you want me saying (using the same scornful tone of voice) 'people who work retail'?" I asked, since she works in retail. She glared at me, but I'm right about this. Don't denigrate someone else's job. If you do, don't be surprised or angry when they denigrate yours.
Criticism of choosing to be a full time parent (or homemaker without kids) is often leveled at religious people, somehow coupled with the idea that men must have coerced or threatened women into staying home. That may happen occasionally, because humans are infinitely varied. However, most of the stay at home parents that I know are doing it because they really want to be at home. I am also a rarity among us; most stay at home parents that I know not only have degrees, I know a significant number of them with master's degrees. When my kid needed a math tutor, we hired a mom with a master's in math who homeschooled her own kids.
Here's another thing that bothers me when someone tells me what a "waste" it is for bright, educated people to spend their days with children. Do we want only stupid people to spend their time with kids? That's such a bad plan.
Anyway, I knew that was what this person was asking me - "Is she going to spend all that money and time on an education, and then waste it by having kids and staying home?"
At the time, she was headed straight into a job in her chosen field. Her degree is in education, and she wanted a job as a teacher. She worked as a teacher for 10 years, too.
Now, she is not working in her field. (She's not a stay at home parent, either.) I was tremendously proud of her then. I am tremendously proud now. (I would be tremendously proud if she was a stay at home parent.)
Two of my kids are working in their degree field. Two are not. I'm proud of all of them.
I understood why my oldest chose her first career. I also know why she left it. I'm not going to go into all the reasons here. In fact, I'm going to choose just one - money. After 10 years of teaching, she left, and took a job in insurance. Her new job requires only a high school diploma, and she walked into a starting wage that was higher than her wages after 10 years of teaching. It was also fewer hours - no at home preparation or grading time, no parent conferences, no finding and prepping a sub if you're sick. She constantly marveled, "When the work day is over, I just walk away, and I'm done until the next work day!" Her weekends were totally work free.
She's now been there for a few years, and her last bonus almost equalled her annual income for her last year in teaching.
So, even if this was the only consideration - and it's not - I think everyone is totally clear on why she'd choose this job, and not one in her degree field.
In my opinion (and I'm right about this, too), education provides you with two things - knowledge, and choices. She still has all of her knowledge, and all of the experience she gained in areas like time management, setting and achieving goals, "people skills" (how to deal with various kinds of people), and learning how to sift unreliable sources from reliable ones. She has choices, as she can now take many jobs that other people can't. There are many jobs, for instances, that would suit me, but I can't even apply, much less be hired, because of my degree status.
So, Friend, and any other critics, the fact that she is now not working in her degree field does not bother me, or her employer, or her husband or the rest of her family, in the slightest. She is still "doing something with that degree."
As she would be, in my opinion, if she did become a stay at home parent.
"Children need to feel that their parents are all powerful, especially in their early years," says a child development expert whose work I admire. I agree with him, really; I agree on most things he says. I just know that we did not achieve this with our first born.
We did all of the things that are supposed to make a child feel secure. We picked her up when she cried. Frankly, we picked her up when she didn't cry, because crying was rare. She rarely even cried to be fed; I had to watch the clock and say, "Feeding time!" or she'd only eat two or three times in 24 hours, even as a brand new newborn. We talked to her, sang to her, read books to her. I was a stay at home parent, so she was never without me. She was a quiet, easy child, so we took her out on our dates - to restaurants, to the movies. We wore her in a backpack when we couldn't carry her. As soon as she could do things like dress herself and speak, we let her make decisions - what to wear, what to order off the menu at a restaurant.
Everyone assumed she was happy, because she was quiet and self contained, and she probably was. She colored, she sang, she "danced" (she considered walking in a circle while music played to be dancing).
Even when she wasn't happy, she didn't demonstrate it by fussing. When her little sister was born, and she was 13 months old, I was in the hospital for almost a week. She didn't cry, and she loved the new baby, but she broke out in a head to toe rash.
As nearly as I can tell, she never thought that we were all powerful or all knowing, though. She didn't think that she was - that was our second born - but she didn't think that we, or any adult, was, either.
I mean, it's not as if either of us drank, or traveled for work, or that she ended up pouring herself bowls of cereal because I neglected to prepare dinner. We were there, we were attentive, our home and neighborhood were safe, we had extended family and friends and church members who were there for all of us.
And yet...
When she was 8 months old, we took a road trip to see my sister and her family. The route that is the most fun takes us down the California coast, with stops in San Francisco, Monterey, San Simeon, or other beach spots before heading to Orange County. That's the route we took for that trip. We have photos of her in the backpack on Daddy's back at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and on the beach in Ventura.
We didn't take a trip the next year, when we had a newborn and a toddler, but we did go the year after, when the kids were 2 and 3. Again, we went over the mountains from home, and took 2 or 3 days getting to Auntie's house, stopping at fun places along the way, and talking about how Ariel lived in the ocean.
We'd talked about how we'd see Auntie Lynne and her kids, and stay in their house, but knew that she'd have no memory of having visited before. Still, when we got there, both kids were having fun - who doesn't love the beach, aquariums, and cousins to play with? Plus, we went to Disneyland; it was a great trip.
The night before we left, I told the girls to start gathering their things, because we'd have to pack it all for the ride back home. I let them know that we had one more day at Auntie's, and then we'd drive home. It's about 7 hours in average traffic to get back home, so we wanted to do it in one day, which meant an early start.
"We're not going home," my three year old announced confidently.
"Not today, " I said. "But tomorrow, we are. That's why I want to start packing today."
"No! We're not going home!" she insisted. "You don't know how to find it!"
We reassurred her that, yes, we did know. "Just like we knew what roads to drive on to get to Aunt Lynne's, we know what roads to drive on to get home." We told her that we had done this many times, and that she had actually done it before, but she was a baby, so she wouldn't remember. She looked at us as if we were crazy.
The next day, she got more and more irritated every time we mentioned going home. Her attitude said that she could not believe that we were persisting with this foolishness, insisting that we could do something that was so obviously impossible.
We explained again that we had driven the roads before, and remembered. Then, we brought out our big California map book. (Remember the days of paper maps? I love paper maps.) We told her that these were drawings of where we were, and where we'd go. We showed her that the blue was the ocean, the green was land, and the lines were roads. "Even if we forget, these maps will show us which roads to drive on."
Still, she insisted, "We can't go home! You can't find it!"
I started to wonder if she understood that we were deliberately visiting family. Did she think that we'd just gotten lost, knocked on a random door, and had strangers take us in?
Of course, we insisted that everything be packed, and we got in the car and drove away. Our second born fell asleep in the car, even on short rides, so she was fine, but our oldest made indistict elephant noises - "EEEEE-eeeee-EEEEEE-eeeeee" - for hours on end. HOURS at a time; I don't know how her throat didn't get sore.
About halfway home, I said to my husband, "The next town we go through, find a park so the kids can run and play, because we all need out of this car." We have cute photos that he took of a smiling me pushing smiling kids on the swings. It looks blissful. It was, in fact, a break necessary in order for all of us to avoid metaphorically exploding.
When we pulled up at home, she was absolutely astonished. "You FOUND it! You FOUND it! How did you find it?"
So we told her, again, about how we knew what roads to drive on because we'd done it before, just like we knew how to drive to her grandparents' houses, about 30 minutes away. We reminded her, again, that if we got confused or lost, we had the map book. She looked confused. "But, how did you find it?" It felt as if we would have had more credibility if we told her that we read it in our tea leaves.
A few days later, I was talking about her astonishment with my brother. "Aren't we supposed to have another ten years or so before she decides that we're brain dead? This just seems way too early for teenage dismissiveness."
He laughed. "Well, she knows that she can't do it, so she figures that you can't, either."
I'm certain that he was correct about this. That's exactly what she was thinking. I just could not - still cannot - figure out how she came to that conclusion after watching us, every day, do things that she could not. We could read, we could drive, we knew how to operate the TV remote and the phone (that hung on the wall, and only made phone calls) and the oven. She knew these things; she watched us, daily, do things that she could not.
So, despite my belief that the psychologist is right - children benefit from a "my dad could beat up Superman!" mentality - I am obviously unclear on how we could have instilled that kind of belief.
Our church runs a week-long camp for girls ages 12 and up. After your first 4 years, you can be junior staff members, helping the younger girls. I went for 6 years, and loved it. I planned to come back at 18, but had to be out of state that week.
Although you can express interest in going to camp as a Tent Mom (supervising a campsite group, usually 6 to 8 girls), kitchen staff, first aid staff, or other adult, as with all jobs in our church, it's unpaid, and you are "called" by your leaders, and asked to go. I was only asked once, long after my older girls were adults, but before my youngest was old enough for camp. I thought that was slightly odd, since I'd always figured that if I went, it would be with one of my girls. Still, it wasn't too odd, and I was excited. I'd loved camp, I'd spent years as a Scout leader, and I felt prepared and enthusiastic.
Things had changed a bit since I was a kid. When I went, you didn't meet your Tent Mom or camp group until you arrived at camp. They've since changed it so that you all get together several times to meet each other, plan, get supplies, and the like. You also have two Tent Moms per group; again, having been in Scouts, I'd seen "two deep leadership" instituted, and I understood why. We had our meetings, figured out how many tents we'd need and who had them, and otherwise made our plans.
I'm used to camping. When I was a child, my family traveled frequently, but I only remember two nights in hotel rooms. We camped. I remember my parents choosing where we could go based on gas prices. We had a great tent and sleeping bags. My parents built a wooden "grub box" with a latch, to hold the dishes, silverware and food. Everything else, including the clothes we wore while camping, were too worn out to be used every day. They were the threadbare things, the things with holes, stains, or broken handles, the things that were mismatched. A towel or a pan or shirt or something else would get to the point that we'd relegate it to the camping stuff. This was pretty normal - I spent a lot of time in campgrounds, and everybody's camping stuff looked similar to ours.
When I was planning for camp as a Tent Mom, every now and then someone would suggest buying something new, and I'd say, "No, I have an old one that we can use." Our church leaders encouraged us to use what we had, and not spend too much, so I felt prepared and obedient.
Then we got to camp. The other camp moms and I were on totally different pages. People had bought brand new, themed and color co-ordinated stuff. There were pots still in cardboard boxes. At the camp site directly across the path from me, the Tent Mom had brought brand new, pale yellow towels. Yellow! In the forest! She had also brought co-ordinating art that she put on stakes and tied to the trees. Their camp theme was cherries, bright red on sunshine yellow backgrounds. She literally had a ruffled apron that she wore while she used a (new!) broom to sweep the paths. (I wanted to yell across, "It's all dirt! You won't get down to bedrock!" But I didn't.)
The other groups had hand decorated, personalized mailboxes for each person in their group. Our mailbox, that was for all of us in our camp, was a bucket. A non-decorated, non-personalized bucket. Yeah, I brought it. I brought the stained, used rope for our clothesline. Our one decoration was a posterboard with our group name (that year, all the groups went with cartoons for their group names). The mat in front of the tent was one that I'd bought years before on clearance for $2.54, then used at our home's door until it had balding spots. It didn't even say "WELCOME," or have a scripture printed on it; it was shaped like a fish.
I'm not exaggerating any of this.
Let me be clear - those kinds of women - the ones with new, co-ordinating everything - are impressive in a dozen different ways, and I admire them. I will just never BE them. If all evidence wasn't to the contrary, I would have no problem believing that we are from different planets. I felt, that week at camp, as I do pretty much every day, that other people were given a different owner's manual for their lives than I had been given, but that mine was the only one that made sense.
The other Tent Mom in our group was a lovely person, but she spent most of her time with the Tent Mom in the next camp over, because they were best friends back home. The girls were fantastic, and I loved them, but I did not have effortless conversation. They were all excited because when we got back home, the new Twilight book would be out; I love books, but not *those* books.
Anyway, all of that is incidental to the story; I just want to set the scene. I never "fit in."
The girls are divided by age, so all the 12 year olds are together. That was our age group. There were other 12 year old groups, as well On the first day, just after we'd set up our tents, the "First Year" groups were asked to send a leader up to a meeting with the camp director and her staff. I went for our group. There was a girl there who needed a tent group. It was explained to all of us that she hadn't lived in the area while we were planning, so she hadn't been assigned a group, and didn't have any friends to join. They wanted to know if any of us had room for her.
The first group Mom said, "Oh, I'd love to, but we just don't have enough." They had already made personalized everything - mailboxes, sweatshirts, gifts for each girl - and she didn't want this girl to be the only one without what the others had. The second said roughly the same thing. They'd planned meticulously, bringing just enough of everything, all matching, for the girls that were already in their group. Plus, their tents were small, and pretty full. The girl looked uncomfortable.
And there was me. We had no personalized anything; even our mail just went in a bucket. Yes, I'd brought gifts to give to the girls over the week - stickers, pencils, note cards - but I'd also thrown in extra of everything, "just in case." Plus, I remembered being partnered with a girl in my first year of camp, a girl who'd signed up late, and had no "camp buddy." It was great - we had tons of fun.
"We have plenty of room!" I said.
"Are you sure?" the leaders asked. "We don't want to put you out."
"I'm sure! No problem! We'd love to have her!" The girl smiled.
We had another girl in our group who'd come to camp without a buddy. She'd been with our group all through our preparation, but we did have an odd number. With the new girl, now we were even, and those two pretty much instantly declared each other to be their designated buddy. They were soon inseparable. All of the girls got along well, there was physical room in the tent, and we were glad to have her. Everything was great, and we all had fun. The other Tent Mom agreed with me that it was a good thing that we could add the late girl in.
And nobody griped that our stuff was old and weird and not pretty.
Those were the days before social media - imagine such a time! - and I lost track of most of "our" girls. Our camp had girls from all over the city, so we didn't even attend church in the same congregations. I was never asked to go to camp again. I assumed that either I'd taken my expected turn and all was well, or that I was just too out of step to be asked back. No hard feelings; I am out of step.
Anyway, years later, I found out that the girl who had arrived late had become so close to the girl who'd immediately become her friend that she became a frequent visitor in that girl's home. Time passed, and she actually ended up living with them, then being legally adopted by the family. And after a few more years, she got married, in the temple. (Our religion teaches that weddings outside the temple are "til death do we part," but marriages inside the temple can be forever.) I saw photos - she looked so happy, and so beautiful, and her adoptive family looked so proud.
It just really spoke to me that I'd had a teeny part in that. I certainly can't claim credit for anything in her life. It was a small camp - she would have met her sister there anyway. Because I am religious, I think that God put her in camp so that she could. What spoke to me was the idea that the weird leader, the one who was out of synch and sloppy and chaotic, the one who never fits, didn't get in the way of the plan.
And it's pure chance that I found any of this out. Nobody sought me out to tell me, personally. The girls might not even remember me.
Remember that the next time that you leave a situation feeling totally out of place, wondering why you were even there, and if somebody else shouldn't be doing it, instead. Maybe you're one piece in a puzzle whose completion you will never see. Maybe you helped good things to happen because you weren't quite as perfect as everyone around you. The way you are is OK, anyway, and doesn't hurt The Grand Plan.
And maybe, sometimes, you'll get to see some of the other pieces of the puzzle fall in around you, and you can see that, hey, I do fit.
Even though I expect it, in theory, I am still constantly surprised by how differently people view the same - or similar - circumstances.
We all do this, I think. We're sure that the facts point to a certain conclusion. Of course, there are often many valid conclusions. Life isn't so much a coin with two sides as it is a D&D die, with 20 possible sides.
Years ago, I was talking with another mother about something to do with kids being sick; maybe one of us had a sick child at that point. Then we talked about being grateful that we had medical insurance. As a young mother, I saw our medical coverage as pretty magical. For the first two decades of raising kids, a doctor's visit was $5. When people talk about "Cadillac insurance," that was what we had.
"Yeah," she said, "sometimes my parents couldn't even take us to the doctor without worrying. Or, they'd wait until we were really sick."
"Mine, too," I agreed. My parents had 4 kids, and our income was pension checks and a part time job. We never applied for any kind of assistance, either; that was for "poor people," moochers, or impending starvation. At the beginning of every school year, in the beginning of term forms, schools sent home a one page form for school district sponsored insurance. We'd get that when I was in school; it didn't help much, but it did help.
Being sick always meant waiting to see if an illness got worse or got better. If we started to feel better after two or three days, we knew it was a virus that would pass on its own. If we got worse, it meant prescription medicine, so that's when we went to the doctor. It seemed really normal to me - why panic if it was something that would just pass? My husband's father always phrased it this way - "Going to the doctor's office just exposes you to a bunch of sick people. That's where they all are. Why take your kid there unless you have to?"
The other mom started telling a story about her brother being sick, and how her parents waited to take him to the doctor, because they couldn't afford the visit. I can't remember what he had; honestly, until a certain point, this conversation wasn't really memorable, so I likely would have forgotten it entirely until it took an unexpected turn. At this point, it was all totally familiar and expected to me, like a conversation about getting dressed every day.
"By the time they went, he was so sick!" she said.
"Yeah, I remember what that's like." She'd reminded me of an illness that I'd had at 11 or 12. "Mine did the same thing."
"He could have died!" Years later, she was still upset about it.
"Me, too."
At this point, I thought we were still on the same page - we have a ridiculous medical system in this country. No other "first world" nation makes its citizens choose between medicine and food, doctor's visits or rent. No parent should be forced into that decision.
So, here I was, thinking that we both blamed the system. I was wrong. She blamed her parents. And the fact that I did not blame her parents deeply upset her. "I would do without anything for my son! I would take him to the doctor even if it meant that we'd end up homeless! No decent parent lets their child get sicker and sicker!"
Ouch; so, here, our opinions parted, because I agreed with my parents' choice, even when I was the sick child.
The illness I was thinking of started predictably. I always got sick easily and severely. It wasn't until I was in my 40s and had my thyroid removed that I could pinpoint any possible reason for that. It was just how it was. Being sick usually meant a week out of school, and often two weeks, even if it was "just a cold." I got the same illnesses every year. It was ordinary, like having to scrape your windshield.
Strep throat was one of those illnesses. I could pretty much guarantee that I'd have it at least once a winter, and often, more than once. It sometimes showed up in the warmer months, too. It just seemed to like me.
When I was in 6th or 7th grade, the winter that I turned 12, I got a case of strep that didn't respond to antibiotics. We went back to the doctor, and he prescribed stronger antibiotics, but the illness still didn't respond. It had been a couple of weeks already at this point.
I wasn't worried about schoolwork; my teachers sent it home, and I did it and sent it back, so I was maintaining good grades. (If I'd had the same attendence requirements that schools have now, I'd have failed at least three grades. Back then, they just needed you to do the work at home.) But, I was miserable. I was feverish, tired, headachy, and probably dehydrated, because it hurt to swallow even my own saliva. My mom made sure that I had juice, Jello, popsicles, and soup, but even cold, smooth food hurt, so I avoided eating or drinking too much.
When we made the decision to take me back to the doctor again, my dad insisted that we drive across town to see his doctor, instead of going back to my pediatrician. He was frustrated and angry that my doctor hadn't been able to find an effective treatment, and he wanted a second opinion. He trusted his own doctor more, he said, since mine was "failing" to help.
So, tired and grouchy, I was bundled across town to see my dad's doctor. He seemed nice, and his nurses seemed nice. They did the usual exam, and asked about symptoms - how long, how severe. He made sure to ask if I was actually taking my antibiotics, not just spitting them out when my parents weren't looking. I was mildly offended, but figured it was a fair question, since he'd never met me before and the drugs had worked in the past.
Then, he took both of my parents into his office, to have a private discussion. I was always annoyed by being excluded from conversations or decision making, especially when the decisions were about me, so I got a bit grumpier.
When they came out, they had a treatment plan. He explained that if the medications I'd already had hadn't worked, they'd have to give me something much stronger, and that meant shots. "This treatment isn't available orally," he said. I'd have to come in every single day to get shots until I improved, then taper down to every other day until I was well.
Shots never scared me or made me cry, but I've never liked them, either. Plus, I'd have to get out of my pajamas into real clothes and leave the house to go clear across town every day, which didn't sound great. But, being well again did sound great. So, OK, daily shots - let's do this.
He gave me the first shot before we left, and he and my mom discussed what time I'd come in every day. And, we went home with a plan.
It worked; after a few days, the fever was down, the pain was down, the headache was down.
The nurses tried to be cheerful, and alternated giving me the shots on the left and right sides, in this case being alternating butt cheeks. "Which side did we get yesterday?" a nurse would chirp while readying the premeasured vials of yellow liquid. I'd try not to roll my eyes. I mean, it was sweet, but there was no way to make this experience pleasant.
After a week or so, we tapered off to every other day, and that lasted another week or so. After that, I was back to school, back to normal, upset only at the quarter sized stain on my favorite jeans from an injection that bled. But, I was glad to know that there was a treatment that worked when others didn't, in case we needed it again some day.
When I was 14 or 15, I was talking to my mom about some illness or other - I probably had strep again - and said, "Remember when I had to go get shots every day?"
Of course she did. And, now that the danger had passed, she let me in on, as Paul Harvey would say, "the rest of the story."
That treatment plan had been a compromise between what the doctor wanted and what my family could pay for. The strep was turning into scarlet fever, and the doctor wanted me hospitalized.
Strep alone can be deadly, and often was in the days before antibiotics. There is a theory out there that Mozart died from strep. Scarlet fever can be even more deadly. In one scarlet fever outbreak in the U.S., there was a 5% fatality rate. For comparison, COVID-19 has a fatality rate up to 1%. If you read the Little House on the Prairie books, you know that Mary Ingalls went blind due to scarlet fever. The illness that took Helen Keller's sight and hearing is believed to have been scarlet fever.
When my parents said, accurately, that we could not pay for a hospital stay, they and the doctor collectively came up with this alternative. I would get shots every day. If I improved, fine, I stayed at home. If I did not improve, he would hospitalize me against my parents' wishes, and ask the state to take emergency custody of me, and therefore the state would cover the cost.
My immediate reaction was, "Thank you! I would have been so stressed in the hospital that I would have gotten so much worse!" Knowing that we'd dodged a hospital stay was the big deal for me as a teen.
Sometimes, I tell this story, and other people will say, "Oh, of course, being away from your parents would be so scary!" That's not quite what I meant. Sure, it would. But being around other people, 24 hours a day, was what sounded awful. Back then, children's wards were big open rooms with beds down both sides. It was easier for the nurses to watch over and care for multiple kids this way. You could get semi-private or private rooms if you had a lot of cash, but we (obviously) didn't. Being in a room full of other kids either meant that they'd exhaust me with chattering and interaction, or ignore me while chattering with everyone else. That was what happened every time I was in a group, especially of people I didn't know. Neither option was comfortable. Add in nurses and doctors checking on me at all hours, and it was exhausting to even imagine. I couldn't imagine getting well that way.
I still dislike being in the hospital. I do not understand people who find it restful or reassuring.
Still, my comfort was not my parents' primary concern. They didn't make their choice in order to spare me from awkwardness, even though my first inclination was to assume that they had. It's pretty easy for someone to say that "any reasonable parent" would hospitalize their child "no matter what," but there were 5 people at home. My dad was retired, with a heart condition. They simply could not prioritize me, or any one of us, over the other four, or over their continued ability to pay our bills.
It took years before I started thinking of the other side of that coin, the "emergency custody" side. To do that, the doctor would have had to allege medical neglect. I would have been a ward of the state. After I was well, my parents would have had to petition the court to regain custody of me. Now, I can see how terrifying that must have been for them. I can imagine them asking a judge to send me home, and the judge grilling them - "How do we know that this won't happen again? How do we know that she'll receive adequate care? How do we know that your other minor child is safe?" It would have been a nightmare.
The worst part of that scenario, of course, is that I absolutely was not neglected. They had taken me to the doctor, repeatedly. I was taking medication, as prescribed. They weren't hermits who refused all medical care. They were trying their hardest, but their kid was sick, and getting sicker.
Despite my friend's conviction that sleeping in the car would be a reasonable choice at that point, she was a single mom with one child. We didn't even have a car that would sleep all of us. Besides, being homeless, especially with a sick child, is likely to result in your child going into foster care. So, while I think that she's a compassionate person and a dedicated parent, I can't agree with her about this.
I think that both my parents and the doctor handled the situation properly. Defer to parents' wishes, but have a plan B in case the child's life is endangered. Everybody's rights and opinions are respected. The child gets treatment, which is the entire point of health care.
My anger is not directed at my parents, who were doing everything that they could. It is not at the doctor, who recognized the illness and its possible consequences. It is at a system that makes parents choose between hospitalizing their child and facing financial ruin for the whole family, or losing custody of their child. No parent should ever have to make that choice. Ever. The only thing worse would be being faced with that decision, and then criticized for it - which is what happens when you decide that all "good" parents will do things the same way.
Our system treats medical care the same way it treats unnecessary consumer products - the whole idea that demand will even out supply and cost. It's not a purse or a car, it's a life. They're different.
So, while I am beyond glad to have had our "Cadillac insurance" while raising my kids, I still view the system as profoundly broken. And I become more and more impressed by my parents' ability to navigate this hostile landscape.
I'm going to talk about homes. I'm not intending this to be an endorsement of anything or anyone political, just so you know. Yeah, sure, I have opinions on leaders and laws and how to be a good person, but mostly I just believe that it's my job to put information out there, and it's your job to decide what to do about it. And when you put info out, I decide. That's just how it is. Anyway...
I grew up with three siblings, my mom, and my dad in a 3 bedroom, 1 bath house. In some ways, it was really idyllic. We had a big yard, fish, gerbils, a rat, cats, dogs and horses. We ice skated in our own back yard. We rode horses. We built clubhouses, climbed trees, and borrowed my mom's jewelry to be "pirate treasure" and bury it and dig it up again. We took a week long vacation every year, and often smaller trips as well.
It was also pretty tough, money-wise. As a single man, Dad had no savings and no credit. He lived in a studio apartment, and ate out daily. He was 50 when my parents got married. It was my mom's second marriage, so my parents started their married life as a family of four. Then, they had two more kids. When I, the baby, was six months old, my dad was encouraged by his employer, the fire department, to retire as a consequence of heart problems. I no longer remember the exact nature of the problem - whether it was a heart attack, a-fib or what. But his boss felt that firefighting was too physically difficult for Dad anymore, that it would aggravate his health and endanger himself and his co-workers. So, at 56, with 4 kids and a mortgage, Dad retired. Dad was, for the record, bitter about this.
They'd planned on mom being a stay at home parent, but now, if we wanted to eat, Mom had to work. Dad did not want to feel that she was the primary breadwinner, though, so she worked 20 hours a week. Every now and then Dad would take on a part time job - distributing seeds to retailers, night watchman at a warehouse. But mostly, we lived on his pension and Mom's paycheck.
I realize now that we would have qualified for all kinds of government assistance, but I can only see my parents requesting and accepting that help if it was a matter of life or death. And it never was; we could only invite friends for dinner on spaghetti night, because there wasn't enough to share on any other night, but we always knew we'd be fed. I usually owned one pair of pants at a time, but we had clothes. Vacations meant sleeping in a tent and cooking on a camp stove, but we went some amazing places.
And we never, ever worried about losing our home. My parents bought the house in 1960, and paid it off when I was in my teens. I remember how relieved my mom was, how much of a weight it took off of them.
It would be impossible to do that today. I'm not exaggerating - it would be sincerely impossible. Can you imagine buying a home on part time wages and a pension? Can you imagine raising four kids on part time wages and a pension? Can you imagine doing it without any assistance, from family or church or government? Of course you can't. But my parents did it. They were careful. We did without a lot of things. But it never, ever felt perilous, because it could be done.
My husband grew up a couple of miles from our house, with his two sisters and his mom and dad. Their house was a 2 bedroom, 1 bath, built in 1927. The house was 1204 square feet. I don't know what they paid for it, but the average home price when it was built was $6000. In 1956, the year my inlaws were married and bought their house, the average price was $11,700.
My parents' house was built in 1959; when they bought it a year later, the average home price was $12,400. It was, at 1318 square feet, slightly larger than my inlaws' home. For years, people expected to have a bedroom for the parents, and one for the children. By the time my parents got married, people expected a third bedroom, so they could separate the boy children and the girl children.
I remember my parents being flabergasted when their house first assessed at $50,000. "Can you imagine?" they said, over and over. It seemed like an incredibly large sum to them.
The first home we bought was a single wide trailer on an acre and a third; we paid $29,500 in 1987. It had 3 bedrooms and 1 full and one half bath in roughly 700 square feet. In 1989, we bought a factory built ("manufactured") home with 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. It was 988 square feet; we paid $50,000. Nothing was being built anymore without 2 bathrooms, or at least one full and one half bath. People usually expected a "master suite," a bedroom with an attached bath.
Our current home was built in 1972, when the average home price was $39,500. This house had 4 bedrooms and 2 baths (no master suite). The owners added a family room, 2 more bedrooms and another bath (in the new master suite). We bought it at 2304 square feet in 1994 for $110,000.
I'm sure you noticed, but I'll point it out anyway. Houses have been getting larger and larger for decades. Things that are considered "standard" were once luxurious. Our former house, with a separate laundry room (something my mother never had - her washing machine was in her kitchen) almost qualifies as a "tiny house," as those are considered to be anything 900 square feet or smaller.
So, why am I bringing this up? Why all the numbers? I'm getting to that.
I (too) frequently see something in the news about homelessness, and they'll have a family just like the one I grew up in - only something happened to them. "We were doing OK until Bobby got sick." "We were fine until my car accident." Usually, both parents will be working, but they'll go from "comfortably middle class" to homeless faster than they ever imagined possible - especially if there's a single income (like, having a single parent household).
My parents had no health insurance. And life happened to us - a traffic accident for my brother, my sister being bitten by a dog who nearly severed her upper lip, me having an illness (strep throat becoming scarlet fever) that should have hospitalized me. Part of the difference, for us, was the policies and expectations of our doctors, dentists, orthodontists. Every single time I remember getting any health care at all, my mother would say to the receptionist, "I need a payment plan." The receptionist would say, "Certainly. How much can you pay per month?" She'd write it down - even if it was $5, even if we already had a balance - and that was that. You can't do that any more. Even if you can find a doctor who'll take uninsured patients - and good luck - you can't just set up payments with the provider, on the day of service, for whatever you think that you can afford.
I was 7 when my brother was in the accident that not only caused soft tissue damage, but broke the bones and cartilege in his face. He needed reconstructive surgery, and they feared that he might lose the sight in one eye. That's exactly the kind of thing that can derail families who have very little financial leeway. At that point, if we'd been paying rent somewhere, it might have been the breaking point. Or, it could have started an avalanche. The last time that I lived in a rented apartment, the rent went up three times in twelve months. About a year after my brother's accident, we bought a family car that quickly became known as The Lemon, because it always needed some kind of repair. About the same time, my sister had her dog bite accident, and she too needed a reconstructive surgeon. Of the six of us, four needed glasses, two needed orthodontics. Imagine all of that happening, all at once, to a family on a tight budget.
If we had been renting, if we had fallen behind on mortgage payments, if there had been a variable interest rate or balloon payment, if we had to choose between medical care and food, everything may have unraveled for us. Maybe we could have moved in with relatives, but with six of us, it would be nearly impossible long term. Maybe my brother and sister would have had to leave before they were really ready, because we had no room. My sister is the only one of us with a university degree; maybe that would not have happened if we were homeless. Maybe my dad, in his mid 60s with health issues, could have found a job in, say, retail; maybe not. All of this is conjecture, because we never had to find out.
Instead, we stayed in our own home, Mom planned our meals around grocery store sales, and I have great memories of backyard campouts, getting permission for my friends to ride horses with us, and posters on my bedroom walls. The house not only held all of us, but housed various family members at times of crisis or relocation or out of town visits, over several decades.
That's not the only way that our parents' homes benefitted us, of course. Grandparents on both sides of the family rented to our children, at below market rates. Both grandparents' homes were offered to our children after their grandparents' passing. My son and his wife are buying one of those homes, with terms that make it comfortable for them. Our home's mortgage was paid off by money from my inlaws' estate. Money from both families' estates gave us down payments for "investment" condos.
We bought the condos specifically in order for our family members to have somewhere affordable to live. Long term, we may live in one ourselves, or sell them, or use the rental income during retirement. (Because, owning homes gives you choices.) But, mostly, our motivation was to give our kids somewhere affordable to live.
I realize how enormously privileged we are to even be able to make that choice, believe me. It sounds obnoxiously affluent to even say it out loud. But, I stand behind that decision.
The first one we bought was a 2 bed, 2 bath model, not far from our home. Everything went seamlessly. The mortgage agent said, "Just so you know, I can qualify you for 5 more at this price." We put it up for rent (our kids were either living elsewhere or still in school), asking only a small amount over our mortgage payment. (You've gotta have a cushion for repairs and emergencies.) We got a lot of inquiries that ended with, "It's cute, but I can't afford that much." We rented to strangers for a while, and when they moved out, my nephew's family moved in.
Two or three years later, we put an offer on a 1 bed, 1 bath condo. It's adorable, and in a bigger complex, so there are more amenities (playgrounds and tennis courts, as well as a pool, clubhouse, BBQs.) It cost half what the 2 bed condo cost. But, local prices were starting to skyrocket, and we wanted something that our youngest could afford, even if the only job she ever held was her high school job at a fast food place. (At my age, I look at market rates for even studio units, and think, "Who can afford that?")
We didn't anticipate any problems. Our credit is good, we had the down payment, we were remembering what the mortgage agent said last time - "5 more at this price" - and this was, I can't emphasize this enough, half the cost of our other condo (which made sense to me, as it's half the bedrooms and bathrooms). So, we didn't get financing in place first, since we anticipated it being a breeze.
It was not. Our first choice of mortgage company wouldn't finance it. Neither would our second choice mortgage company, or our credit union. The problem? "There are too many rentals in that development. Choose another development with more owner occupied units." But we didn't want another development, we wanted that one. Meanwhile, the owner was getting grouchy because he'd received an all cash offer right after he accepted our offer, so now he was tied up waiting for us, instead of closing a cash sale.
The fact that we bought the condo at all is due to two things - 1. our realtor has known us for years, and was willing to work a little bit harder, take a little longer, and be a little bit unconventional, and 2., we know someone who has a large family trust, and was willing to loan us the money at just over bank interest rates.
Which, of course, got me thinking; the price and payment should have put the condo in the price range of people with limited incomes. Someone working for minimum wage, or just over, could afford it even without making 40 hours a week; they'd probably need 30 or so - and that's a single person (or couple with a single income). Then there'd be more owner occupied units, too, so everyone would be happy, right? But here's the thing: if middle aged people with great credit, low debt and no current mortgage couldn't get financing, how could somebody young, working in a fast food place, qualify? Banks don't want the loan, and young people (let's face it, any people) are unlikely to know someone wealthy enough to give them a private loan. See the problem?
And it's not like this was a slum that no one would want to live in. Aside from the fact that I'd personally be happy there (or I wouldn't have bought it), looking for renters was a stark contrast to looking for renters just two years earlier. We heard from friends, relatives, acquaintences, strangers, and friends and relatives of our friends, relatives and acquaintences. We were again asking only a bit over our payment, but this time, nobody asked if we could go lower or said, "It's cute, but I can't afford that much." We had families of three and four asking if we'd consider them, even with only one bedroom. I felt quite overwhelmed by the need, and referred everyone to our property manager. She did all the credit checks and made the final choice.
What had changed? Rents in our area skyrocketed, with the news that a couple of large companies with good wages were going to be locating here. Many rental prices doubled; some tripled. Renters who'd been in the same place for years suddenly could no longer afford their homes. We made the national news for our "housing crisis." And everything new being built was "luxury units," because, "that's where the demand is."
This, of course, is not true. It's where the money is.
In making inquiries about putting a house on an inherited piece of land, one of my family members found out that even owning the land free and clear doesn't make things easier. In asking about the cost to put a modest sized home - less than 2,000 square feet - on the vacant land, the answer from the owner of a local construction company was, "Here's the approximate cost per square foot. But I can tell you right now, nobody's going to be willing to work on a house that size. The money is in 3,000+ square foot custom and executive homes. No one's going to turn down one of those to come build a smaller house, especially one without the high end finishes." The same applies for apartments; nobody wants to build units for baristas, maids and fast food workers, because the money is in "luxury units." This is true no matter how many hotel rooms, fast food restaurants, discount stores and gas stations (and their employees) there are in my city (that depends on tourism).
Of course, it isn't just my city. My brother lives in another state. He is recently retired; he's living on Social Security and a small amount of savings. He's rented the same home for years. (He previously owned a house, but lost it in a contentious divorce with an ex who exploited a legal loophole to take virtually everything.) For years, his rent remained the same. Then, the landlord died, and the heir "doesn't want to be a landlord" (which is absolutely his right), so he's selling the house. This means that my brother was dumped back into shopping for a home literally decades after he last had to, he's been paying 1990s era rent, and he has no wiggle room in his budget. Oh, and throw in a looming deadline.
Waiting lists for low income senior apartments are 2 years long. Most senior housing in his state is in mobile home parks, meaning that he'd have to buy a mobile home and then rent the space, putting himself at risk when the lot rent goes up (and you know that it will go up). Plus, lot rent was often more than he had available, more than the rent he'd been paying. (Plus, after he dies, he couldn't pass the house down to anyone, unless they were over 55.) There are programs designed to help low income seniors buy homes, but they will not cover condos, mobile homes, factory built homes, or older houses. There's renter's assistance, but it will not cover living anywhere owned by a member of your family. You know - you can't get help for anything that would actually be affordable for a senior living on Social Security.
He got one call back from a woman with an assistance program who said, "Oh, sure, we have a great house right in your area that I can get you into." The mortgage would have left him with $400 a month to cover everything else - food, utilities, gas, clothing, medical care. That's not doable. Just his glasses and dental care could potentially eat all of that up, if he needed them both in the same month. He lives where it not only snows, it snows a lot, so he needs heat. You can't even eat ramen noodles and take the bus on $400 a month.
He has siblings, he has other family members; he immediately had offers to live in 3 different homes, rent free. But, all of those would mean moving to another state, shopping for doctors (he's diabetic, he has an ulcer that tends to bleed, and he has a heart attack and bypass surgery in his past), giving up his friends and what he loves, hiking and photographing his area. I mean, it's certainly doable. But, aside from concerns like doctors and interstate moving costs, a man who's lived on his own since the last century does not want to move into somebody's spare bedroom, like he's a college kid.
He panicked, the rest of the family panicked, everyone scrambled, there was a deadline. Do you know what - who - saved him? Our grandmother and our mother, who've been dead for years.
Grandma had a vacation home - what we call a cabin and she called a cottage. When she died, our mom put the money from the sale of the cottage in a separate account, and just let it sit there. When Mom died, it went to her children. Some of it was still left - almost enough for a down payment on a home. But, my brother couldn't qualify, because he was retired, on Social Security. Family members offered to buy a home, but the one he wanted was a factory built house, and the bank wouldn't let them buy it unless they were going to live in it. The bank would approve them for other homes, but then my brother couldn't afford the payments, and nobody in the family can afford to make them for him. But, with Grandma's money, and relatives willing to co-sign, and the bank being happy because one of the applicants was going to live in the house, and family members being able to pitch in the rest of the cash needed, he now has a home.
It's a beautiful home, he owns it; this is a happy ending. But, in the middle of all of this, we were stopped at the McDonald's attached to the store where we were grocery shopping. There was a woman who appeared to be homeless, sitting at one of the tables eating food she'd gotten in the store. My husband bought her a McDonald's meal and a drink, so she'd be a customer, and get to sit there and have a meal out of the January cold. We've done stuff like this before. But, as he sat down, my husband said, "I just had to. I look at her and think, if everything didn't work out, that could be your brother."
Without so many pieces - my grandma, my mom, sellers who were willing to come down on price, a realtor who worked his butt off looking for inexpensive properties, mortgage company employees who worked their butts off to get financing that worked, and relatives willing to put up money and co-sign, and other relatives willing to offer a free room if the purchase fell through, yeah, my brother could be homeless. I feel that reality on a gut level.
Our oldest brother is in his 70s. He has more education than my husband and I combined, is multi-lingual, has a great work ethic, has an educated, hard working wife, and told me the last time I talked to him that neither he nor his wife was able to retire, that they probably never would be. Why? Their home - a modest, older home - still has a mortgage. Instead of paying it off, they've helped their children and grandchildren over the years. So now, they keep working, instead of retiring - but everyone has somewhere affordable to live.
If we either rented or sold our condos for market rate, my husband could retire now. Instead, he keeps working, and we rent below market rate, so that others can have affordable homes. Because if you work, but can't afford anywhere to live, it's not just you who suffers. Society starts to crumble.
We don't all own a Bailey Brothers Building and Loan. We all ride on the choices of our parents, our grandparents, our great grandparents. But we can all try to make it easier not just for us, but for everyone else.
I spoke to a friend recently about a family member of theirs who's going through a hard time. A mother and adult child had an argument - an ordinary kind of argument - but Mom passed away unexpectedly the next day, so this meant that the last thing that they ever said to each other was angry (and maybe unkind). This sent the child into a tailspin. Child is having a really hard time coping with the idea that they "never got to settle things;" they worry that the relationship is somehow frozen in that angry moment, and can't ever be fixed.
Here's what my kids, my family, my friends might need to know if I die after we've argued: don't sweat it. Seriously. I won't. Our relationship is what took place over the whole time we knew each other, not on one day.
Plus, if you ever made the mistake of thinking that I never argue with people, give that up right now. I disagree with most people about something. I have very little filter. Pretty much daily, I tell someone that they're wrong, or they tell me that I'm wrong. Plus, I'm a stubborn person, from a long line of stubborn people. Heads get butted, feelings get hurt.
I don't really know what it would look like to always agree with people. I grew up practicing a religion that was different from the other members of my household. I don't belong to the same political party as my husband. There are more people in my life who differ from me than there are people who are similar.
That's undoubtedly why I don't get overwhelmed by differences. I just expect them. And sure, there are people whose company I don't enjoy. But I don't wish harm on any of them. I hope that they live happy, healthy lives. I just don't need to be in the same room with them while they do it. But, lemme tell you, that list is so small, the chance that you personally are on it is next to nothing. And, I can't think of a single person to whom I couldn't be civil - and times that I choose not to be, anyway.
There will be arguments, hurt feelings, the stuff of being human. And that, too, is expected. So, I don't really need to "settle" things. I'm not waiting for an apology. (If you're waiting for one, know that I'm sorry that your feelings were hurt, sincerely. But you don't need to please me, and I don't need to please you.)
I don't plan on any "saying goodbye" scenes before I die, either. There will be no calling people to my side to impart last words of wisdom or love or anything else. If I think it really needs said, I've said it. I'm not waiting to hear you validate me.
So, look, whatever either of us may have said or done or not, we're good. It's OK.
If your mom or dad or best friend or boss or anyone else left unfinished business, I'm really sure that they want you to let it go. They knew what you wanted to say. It's alright. Don't lose any sleep over it. It doesn't define your life, or theirs.
Before I met my oldest brother, I had no idea that anything was missing from my life. I didn't feel any holes, any missing pieces.
The story of my mom's first child, adopted by his wonderful forever parents, wasn't part of the story I knew of my life, of my mom's life.
Since he found us, though, so much in my past, and my mom's past, makes more sense. Looking at things with the lens of added knowledge, there's so much more clarity.
For instance, Mom never expressed any overt hostility toward her hometown. She shared positive memories. There was no, "I hated every moment, and I couldn't wait to get out." Still, she never wanted to go back. She left at 19, and died at 83. She went back to her hometown exactly twice in those years, and one of those times was to deal with my grandmother's move out of her home and into a nursing facility.
When she got high school reunion invitations, I'd say, "Don't you want to go?"
"No," she'd say. "There's nobody that I need to see. I don't even know what we'd talk about."
Still, she's an introvert, very happy being alone, miserable in crowds, so that was fairly expected.
Mom hated crowds and noise, so it goes without saying that she disliked large cities; it would never have been her choice to live in one. She didn't even like to visit large cities. So, it was a tiny bit puzzling when she was also vocal about not wanting to live in small towns. "Small towns are terrible," she'd tell me. "Everyone knows your business, and everyone's in your business."
"I don't care," I'd say, especially as a child. (I wanted to live in a town that went beyond "small" and into "tiny.") My personality veers more toward TMI than it does toward close mouthedness, so having people know my business didn't seem like too big a drawback. Also, I'm very good at brushing off people who want to make my decisions for me. They annoy me, but I can ignore them.
That was viewing things through my lens. Through Mom's, things look different. I cannot begin to comprehend what it felt like to be an unmarried pregnant teen in the 1940s, in a small town in the Midwest.
My family probably already looked pretty scandalous to those with wagging tongues. My grandparents were divorced. My aunt was about to get a divorce. Mom was pregnant out of wedlock.
I can imagine the force of all of those well meaning advice givers and all of those judgement passers mostly from Mom and Aunt Jeanette's reactions - move 2000 miles away, and never come back. She never, ever spoke of it to me, my siblings, my cousins, but I don't have to hear the details; I see the results.
And, I can't count the number of times Mom told me that small towns were gossipy and judgemental. I chalked that up to her experiences during her divorce. In the picture perfect 1950s, she left a handsome husband and a pretty house to marry a never before married bachelor 20 years her senior - and he and her first husband worked together in a small town fire department. "Grandma," my daughter told her decades later, "you were scandalous!" She humphed, and smiled a small, amused smile. Now I know that, by then, she was a pro at navigating societal disapproval.
(In the turbulent, "free love" 1960s and 1970s, she was a faithful wife and mother. Whether she did it intentionally or not, I'm tickled that she swam upstream, against prevailing currents.)
How Mom described us now carries more meaning for me, as well. When someone asked how many children she had, my mother would say, "My husband and I have four at home," and, as the older kids were no longer at home, "My husband and I have four." It was invariably "we," not "I." If she said "I," it was usually with details about one or another of us - "I have one who's turning 30 this year." I always looked at it as her way of looping my dad in - two of us were children of her first husband, not my dad (her second husband). Still, he raised them, so I always liked that she always phrased it as "we have" four children, not "I have 2, and my husband has 2."
I'm still certain that was part of the intent. Mom presented us as a unit, because she saw us as a unit.
Now, though, I know that there was a second, unspoken part to that statement. "My husband and I have four" was accompanied in her head by, "And I have an older son." He was always in her head, always in her heart, just as the rest of us were.
So much of her life was colored by her first child, by this brother that I didn't meet until I was in my 50s. And now, I get to love him, too. And I love the way his life touched my mother's. I enjoy understanding her better. She was an outstanding mother, friend, aunt, sister just because of her own personality, but her experiences with her firstborn made her a better one. Having my brother had a huge impact on the kind of person she was, and the rest of us siblings (and our friends) reaped the benefit.
A family member recently asked on her Facebook page if people let their kids decorate the family Christmas tree, or if they did it themselves, because they wanted it to look "picture perfect."
The majority of her friends who responded said that they had the kids help. Some admitted to tweaking the placement after the kids were in bed, but only slightly. I remember doing that; I have a photo of my two year old hanging every ornament that she had on the same branch. We told her what a big helper she was, and moved them after she was asleep. I'm not going to have a discussion about ideal placement (and branch strength) with someone in diapers.
The discussion made me think of a conversation that I had with a friend, years ago. She wanted a perfect living room, so she put up a tree in another room, not visible to visitors, and, in her words, "made it a junk tree." I looked really confused, so she explained - "You know - hanging up all those crappy looking things the kids made." Oh. Well. Those are some of my favorite ornaments. My daughter was thrilled at 5 when I used the angel she made out of a paper plate for the top of our tree; at 15, she was mortified. I still loved it.
I admire trees with matching, themed, color coordinated ornaments. I really do. They're lovely. But I want my tree to hold memories.
Every year, we got the children a new ornament. When they got old enough, we let them choose their own. We end up with ornaments like this on our tree:
We get a little grief for it. "Oh, yeah," one visitor said. "Nothing says Christmas like Darth Vader." Hey, that Vader makes my son happy, and it makes me happy.
You can tell a lot about my childrens' interests by the ornaments they chose.
These came in children's meals at a fast food place one year; all of my kids got the full set of 4 (there's also a Whoville house, and Max the dog with a tied on antler).
My son made this one at Scout camp.
We generally commemorate events of the year with ornaments. This is from the year that my youngest daughter danced in "The Nutcracker" on a local showroom stage.
These were actually on an onstage tree the year 4 of us were in "A Christmas Carol." That's a laminated ticket tied on when the ornament came home after the show, and went on our tree.
Years ago, we decided to start collecting ornaments when we travel. Most of these were bought on vacation; sometimes, we buy something after we've gotten home that reminds us of the trip. (There's no shortage of Eiffel Tower ornaments in stores!) The photo is from the Big Island of Hawaii, commemorating our hike in to the island's green sand beach. We've also printed wedding photos onto metal ornaments.
These are from Germany. My maternal grandmother's family emigrated from there; I bought these when I visited Germany for the first time. The visit helped explain some of my grandma's taste; there were red geraniums everywhere.
Sometimes, we go with things that aren't actually designed to be ornaments. The one from Hawaii is supposed to be a bookmark; the Minnie hat is an antennae ball. The swordfish was just what my son chose one year when he couldn't find an ornament that he liked. Hey, we can adapt.
Until this year, when our immediate family reached 9 with the addition of spouses, we tried to add a personalized family ornament every year. Sometimes, they're travel reminders, too. We got the orca the year we went to San Diego at Christmas.
Some of our ornaments are more traditional. I cherish my mother's delicate glass ornaments. I remember breaking many of them during my childhood.
All together, they make for a beautiful tree that makes me happy every time I see it.
It's that time of year again. Every day, there are commercials on TV telling me to buy my loved ones luxury automobiles or diamond jewelry for the holidays.
It's not going to happen.
Look, I'm not going to tell you how to spend your money. Do whatever you want - spend it, don't spend it, give gifts, don't give gifts. If you want to give me a car, I'll take it and be grateful. Just know that my idea of ideal gift giving and yours do not mesh.
I think that gifts should, ideally, be small. They're meant to say, "I thought about you!" The last time I made a "wish list" for my husband, it had brown eyeliner and bed sheets on it. We also have a deal - there will be chocolate in my Christmas stocking.
I will totally admit to occasionally giving expensive gifts, but that usually involves travel. (Once it was scuba classes.) Experiences are more valuable than things are.
Again, I'm not telling you what to do, but this is what works for me.
People have told me why they think that big ticket items are something that should wait for special occasions; I know those reasons. I just feel that, if you've taught yourself to expect a car with a big bow on it in your driveway, just because it's a holiday (or birthday or anniversary), you've 1. put the emphasis in the wrong place, and 2. set yourself up to be deeply disappointed if the gesture isn't huge. And how many huge gestures are even possible, much less likely, in an average year or an average life? "Going big" ceases to be big if it's commonplace.
If you'd be happy with some candy, some warm socks, a good meal and a good book, you can pretty much guarantee a happy holiday. Think about that - guaranteed happiness! Who doesn't want that?
If, however, you've trained yourself to expect a two carat solitaire, you'll be disappointed with a one carat solitaire.
Years ago, I worked with a lovely, delightful, bright lady, who came from a family with more money than mine had. I remember clearly one November, when she announced, "I've just paid off last Christmas!" I was horrified. I said something (undoubtedly indelicate, like, "Are you crazy?"), and she looked puzzled. "That's how it's done," she said.
"Not in my family!"
"In every family."
We tangled about this for a few minutes. She thought that I was just being ignorant of family finances, and I was assuring her, "I'm not talking theoretically." My mother handled the money in the family I grew up in; I handle the money in my family. I know how it's spent.
She's a lovely person, but she may have felt a bit attacked, because we ended with her saying something about how "most people" wanted their holiday to "be nice," and credit cards were how that was accomplished, so my holidays were undoubtedly not "nice."
I beg to differ. My holidays were lovely. They still are.
I'm gearing up for this year's Christmas celebration. We'll have dollar store candy and discount store clothes and a fantastic time. I love this time of year; it's my favorite! No luxury cars or diamonds are needed.
"Is your family close?" a classmate once asked me.
"Like, am I close to my siblings?"
"No, the rest of your family, like aunts and cousins."
"Oh, yeah, my family is really close!" I said with enthusiasm. "We get together every holiday, at my aunt's house." I looked forward to those family parties.
"Every holiday?"
"Yeah. You know - Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, Fourth of July - holidays." The girl who'd asked was looking really puzzled; I thought that the concept of "holiday" was pretty clear. "All my relatives on my dad's side are there. Not the ones who live really far away, but the ones who live an hour or two away all come, too."
"That's when you see your cousins?"
"Yeah, usually." There were a couple of cousins that I saw more often; we'd go to my cousin Lynne's cabin for a week in the summer, for instance. But if you asked, "When do you see your cousins?" the answer would be, "On holidays."
She gave me a look like she'd give to spoiled fruit. "If you only see your family on holidays, that means that you don't really like each other."
What? That made no sense to me. "No, it doesn't! We get along great!"
"I see my cousins at least three or four times a week," my classmate said. "Sometimes, every day."
What? I couldn't imagine that. Not because I didn't like my cousins, but because I couldn't quite imagine seeing anyone that often, unless they lived on the same block. Who drives to other people's houses several times a week?
Turns out, lots of people do. More power to them; I think that's great. I just come from more solitary people.
(Once my husband asked me, in aggravation, "When you get older, are you going to become a complete hermit?" My brother was visiting, and he answered for me: "It's inevitable; it's hereditary.")
I feel like I have a lot of friends, and a lot of close friends. I feel like my extended family is close. That doesn't mean that we see, or talk to, each other frequently. I always thought that "being close" was about how comfortable you felt with people, how much you liked them - not how often you were in contact. One of my long time friends said it well: "I don't have to see my friends every day to know who they are." You know that "pick up right where you left off" feeling? That's pretty much how I define "close."
I am often baffled by other definitions. "If you're important to someone, they'll make time for you," people say. Well, sure, but how frequent does that time need to be?
I once upset someone who was telling me how ignored by their sister they felt. Their examples were making little sense to me; it wasn't "She won't answer my phone calls," it was, "She doesn't call often enough." When I was, I guess, less sympathetic than she wanted me to be, she snapped, "How would you feel if you went weeks without hearing from your sister?"
"I do go weeks without hearing from my sister. I routinely go months without hearing from my sister. Sometimes, I hear from her twice a year - my birthday and Christmas."
She looked aghast. "Have you had a fight?"
"No! I adore my sister! She adores me!"
"Are you sure? It doesn't sound like it."
"Yes! I'm sure!"
Truly, the sister in question - I have two, one who lives near me and one who doesn't; I was speaking of the one who lives hundreds of miles away - is one of the nicest, most considerate people you will ever meet. I feel positively cherished by her. I don't think that I have to hear from her frequently in order for that to be true. She loves me, she'd be here in a heartbeat if I said, "I need you," she'd give me her internal organs if I needed them. And she calls every few months. This is OK! And if I needed to hear from her more often, I'd call her - it's not healthy to put my needs on her (or anyone else). I'm responsible for meeting my own needs.
I have four siblings, none of whom I see frequently, or call frequently, or go out to lunch with regularly. There are no festering resentments, no issues, no "grit your teeth and get through obligatory contact" on anyone's part. This makes sense to me. It makes sense to them.
It's the same with my friends. At least, it is on my part. Honestly, the last time I had a friend who felt that we had to get together, or at least talk on the phone, two or three times a week, I felt absolutely oppressed. I found it excessively clingy and needy. I also found it weird that she'd approached me in public just because our kids were roughly the same age. I mean, I liked her, but I was glad when a move meant that she needed a new, in the neighborhood, buddy. I can only be readily available for so long, and then I'll start hiding in the bathroom, and feigning illness.
I hear about women feeling alone and isolated, desperate for mom friends, and I know that they really are in pain, but trust me, I am not. We can't expect everyone to want what we want.
Two of my close friends are the kind of person I honestly thought was a myth before I met them. They are the kind of person who strikes up a conversation in line at the grocery store, in line at amusement parks, with the people at the table next to them in restaurants. They often walk away from meeting new people with names and phone numbers. Just the thought of it makes me exhausted enough to collapse into a puddle on the floor. If I thought that I had to not only make conversation but forge a lasting connection with someone who stood next to me waiting for Splash Mountain, I would just stop going places.
And, of course, they would be unhappy living my life.
I think that's the key - are you happy? If so, OK. If not, then you do what you need to do to fix it.
And if you think that someone's ignoring you, don't take it personally. They may be happy as a clam, thinking that you're best buddies.
Because, hey, if my cousins don't like me, well, I'm blissfully unaware, and what we have going is working for us. I like them, I think that they like me, and they don't have to hang out with me every week. Bam! Success.
