Going it Alone --Written on: Saturday, Mar. 06, 2004 ~~ 16:29
I'm not really sure what this world is coming to. It seems as though every time I turn around someone famous on the radio is releasing a new song that's meant to relate to young people who are feeling frustration over rocky relationships with their parents. Now, I'm sure every teenager in the world hears these songs and thinks, "Oh, that is so totally me... My parents just don't understand me." Sorry kiddies, I really don't think these songs are for you. Not relating with one's parents is all part of being a teenager. It's expected. Most of the time there's nothing special or unusual about this situation. Sorry, it's normal. However, you kind of get to a point where you expect things to be different. You'll grow up, get driving and voting and drinking rights, become an adult and suddenly you and your parents will live in the same world and you'll begin to understand where the other is coming from. You'll see eye to eye once you grow up and throw off the thousand-pound blindfold that is hormone and inexperience-induced teenage ignorant bliss. You'll realize not so much that you didn't know anything as a teenager even though you were sure you did, but that as much as you knew then, you know so much MORE now. Somehow your parents will know that you know that and you'll be on the same playing field. I wonder if such songs existed, or were as prevalent, in the fifties, sixties or seventies? I'm wondering if they weren't, does this signal some shift in society? Are parents more critical now than they ever were? More unaccepting? Or is youth more bold and brash to stand up and mass produce messages that say "Screw you guys. I'm me and I can't do anything about it if that isn't good enough for you!" I fully expect that when I'm thirty-five I'll be telling myself what a clueless idiot I am now the same way I sit here now and pass judgement on my teenage self. However, there will be some difference then. I don't think I'll expect my advancing adulthood to make any difference to how my parents judge me.So anyway, that was the preface. I'm quickly accepting that there isn't a single blood relative beteen Jeff and me that will be happy when we announce next year, hopefully, that we are pregnant. Okay, well the neices will be happy, but they don't really count for my current purposes. My mother is the best bet, but that will only be after she comes to terms with the idea of being a grandmother... An idea that she dreads like it's some kind of plague. She lives in a perpetual state of a twenty-something lifestyle. She's not ready to be fifty soon and she's certainly not prepared for the idea of being a grandmother. In that case, it's not so much about me but about her and her view of herself. I've been over and over what I'm expecting from my father and all I'll say now is that will be a certifiable nightmare. Jeff's parents... I was on the fence about them. Over all, I mostly view them as reasonable people who maybe just worry a little too much about unnecessary things. Overreact a bit... His dad more than his mom. I think my view is shifting.
Last weekend, Jeff and I were at his parents' house leafing through a JC Penney's catalog. Not so much because we were looking for it, but more because it was just there, we came across the cribs and baby supplies. We chatted among ourselves about what we'll be looking for and his dad walks over and sat down.
"Are you guys shopping for anything in particular?"
We exchange a guilty glance... "We're thinking about kids."
Here it comes... He made the "OH GOD, not that" face. "Just thinking, or more?"
"Just thinking, right now."
His mom comes over and gets filled in. She more-or-less made the exact same face and had the same reaction. At the time, my thought was that they are just worried about what effect this all will have on THEM. That they are going to have to support our kids the same as they have to support the neices. I figured that a nice long sit-down talk will fix that, or at least point things in the right direction, when we have the announcement to make. I think I'm over-estimating them. I think I've forgotten that the problem has less to do with the neices and Jeff's sister and her mistakes as it does that Jeff's father has absolutely no confidence in him at all. I don't think a simple talking to will make a dent in that. It used to be that Jeff's father would lecture him about how "irresponsible" he is and Jeff would retract into his shell and mope around and not speak to me about much of anything for about 2 days until he was finally ready to get it out. We've come a long way, I guess. Now he pretty much just tells me about it and then doesn't want to talk about it at all afterward and moves on.
I think sitting them down and explaining that we'll be all right will just be paramount to a huge, unnecessary and mostly untrue attack on both of our egos. Jeff doesn't need that and I certainly won't need that once I'm expecting.
Jeff's parents are regulars at one of the places he works and last night in the middle of the restaurant Jeff's dad thought it would be a good time to lecture Jeff about debt and credit and money management and the future. "How much do you owe on your credit cards?" "You know it takes 20 years to pay those things off." "Why do you have to work 2 jobs?" "When are you going to find a real job that you can live off of?" "You need to learn to manage your money." Eventually Jeff just walked away. He told them about his asthma and the doctor, etc. His mom said, "Can you afford your medication?" Please... We may not be moving into a $500,000 house (or any house, actually) any time soon, but we are doing just fine and living within our means, for once. At this point all of Jeff's debt stems from either college tuition or from car repairs/service, not from frivolous spending sprees. I'm so frustrated, and though it was directed towards Jeff, I actually feel insulted, personally. I'm worried that if we sit them down and try to talk reason with them that it will end in me saying, "I can't stop you from saying these things to Jeff, but I'll be damned if I let you talk to ME that way." And turning around and walking out.
Jeff claims that this latest episode wasn't sparked by the cribs or the disclosure that we are "thinking" about kids, but rather that he told his dad that he spent our entire income tax refund and then some on his car repairs. He says his dad was upset that he didn't come to them for the money. What kind of a fucked up contradiction is that?!? Damned if we do, damned if we don't. He says the lecture about having kids and how we aren't good enough for that is still yet to come. I can't wait.
I said once that the Linkin Park song, "Numb" is in the running for a Showtune about my father and me. I've found a better song since then and I'll spare you all for now (well, mostly just Nikki, since I don't really have many readers here) since this isn't a Showtunes entry. "Numb" goes out to Jeff and his father. Word for word, that song is perfect.
Au revoir.
Before And After
Would I get a discount if I birthed the baby in the store? - 5/16/05
The end is near? - 5/13/05
The progession of me - 5/10/05
Cleaning update - 5/7/05
Pre-nesting - 5/7/05
