My sister came in the back door, girls wet from the pool in tow. “Here. Kaelyn’s shoes,” she said to my brother.
He pulled open the refrigerator door. “Little girls gin yang?” he said. Did the little girls eat yet? “No? Okay, I make you something.” And he pulled out some food to make for my two nieces, Kaelyn (age 6) and Jacqueline (age 5).
Kaelyn is my brother’s daughter, Jacqueline, my sister’s. They are cousins but are raised more like sisters. It was such a simple little moment, but it stood out to me as a moment to remember and carry with me, for it spoke volumes for how my family operates. It was so seamless, so unselfconscious, how my sister took care of keeping track of the girls’ things and how my brother made food for them. The shared love and the shared responsibility. It’s not: this is my kid and that’s your kid and I’ll take care of my kid’s food and you take of your kid’s shoes. It is: these are our kids. Not just on special occasions like the 4th of July, but every day.
I suddenly realized there’s a very subtle but powerful hierarchy for raising children in the family (my German in-law calls it a “clan”, in a way that I think might be equal parts sarcastic, impressed, and curious). All the adults have a role to play with raising the children, and all adults are respected equally. Everyone remains aware of where the kids are and what they need (whether it’s food, kisses, or a gentle warning) and addresses them as simply as breathing. For special treats, like spending the night at a cousin’s house, the parent always must be asked for permission and is the final authority. My mom, the grandmother, is the one all the grandkids go to for a both sympathetic and wise ear. She is the person to talk to when you don’t understand or don’t know what to do. When you need friend and counsel. Or just a really good bowl of noodle soup. Grandpa is the one you really don’t want to mess with. But it’s okay because if you tickle him just right, he turns teddy bear. As a kid, if you do good, there’s a whole caboodle of people to puff up your ego. If you mess up, someone will tell you straight up that what you did wasn’t cool. But there is always someone else you can run to who will understand and tell you it’s okay, we still love you. (If everyone tells you you messed up, then you really know!) There is always both discipline and forgiveness to be found. And there is always someone to offer food and love and something fun to do.
Even when part of the family is broken…a divorce…and the part that left tries to spread bad thoughts and feelings about our family to the child stuck in-between (and can I just tell you how much that makes my blood boil?)…the family rallies together. It does everything it can to heal the wound, to teach love for both mommy and daddy, no matter what. It does not try to spread the foul back. Every one of us just tries to show by doing what our family really is about. The child may be confused and hurt now (and we are all forever sorry for that). But one day the child will be a teenager. And one day she will see for herself what is truth and she can decide what is right for her. The love is tight, but each individual is free: free to be themselves, free to discover for themselves.
And every time I go home, I am overwhelmed by the desire to be more of a part of the lives of my nieces and nephews. To them, I am always gone away, to some mythical place called Santa Barbara. I come in and out of their lives to play for a day and then I am gone again. I want to be more constant than that.
But there lies the rub. Where my family lives. The actual city, the county? I can’t stand. I don’t like the atmosphere, I don’t like the society, the way people behave there. It’s fake most of the time and mean underneath, mostly because people there are just plain more afraid. My mom says she fled from Bangkok because it suffocated her. Where my family lives suffocates me. On top of that my husband hates the area too and refuses to ever live there. We can visit as much as we want, for we do love the family. But living there? His answer is “hell no”. Up until now, I’ve agreed. Wholeheartedly. Bring kids into the picture? Now I’m not so sure.
My mom keeps saying when I’m ready to have kids we really need to move to the same home town, to raise the kids with family. At first I thought she meant help with babysitting and taking care of the kids that way, which I’m sure after a.m. feedings, and crying, and diaper changing, and never-clean house and oh-my-god-can-I-just-get-a-break, there will be moments I’d really love/need that. But now I see there’s more. There is so much more. Of course it is totally possible to raise absolutely wonderful children without all that and millions of families do it all the time. But I do see its worth. And growing up away from that, our kids won’t have the same closeness to their cousins that their cousins share. They’ll miss the everyday camaraderie. They’ll always be just a little bit outside. Loved, for sure, but a little bit outside. I know because I am.
Thankfully I don’t have to make this decision yet. This decision is at least a year or two away. But it’s on the horizon and on my radar. I feel it weighing on me. And my hubby and I will have some figuring out to do.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. How does your family operate? What decisions have you had to, or will you have to make?
Mothers are tillers of the earth,
I’m sure we’ve all heard of penis envy (Oh Freud, did you ever even talk to a woman, really?) But is there such a thing as womb envy? Do men ever feel envious that they cannot bear life? That the powerful changes and emotions of the pregnancy experience is something they can only try to imagine? Certainly, they provide a necessary and vital function in the creation, protection, and rearing of future generations. But they never feel another heartbeat beside their own. Nor do they feel the warm glow of new life within.
