we are having a bridal shower for [J] at a coffee shop next sunday at 11 do you think your mom would like to come if so I would be happy to pick her up. Let me know.The reality is not just that my son is marrying a girl whose mother is illiterate. It is that they are really moving forward with their crazy plan. I still want to know what the hurry is, why get married before graduation, why get married over the Christmas break, etc. What is it, 1953 again, and they are planning a last-minute out-of-season wedding because they expect to get unexpectedly pregnant? I know it's about them and not about me, but I am not at all ready to give of myself what my son deserves me to give on the occasion of his marriage. I simply cannot take it seriously; and this woman excitedly holding a bridal shower lo these many months ahead of time strikes me as someone a lot more excited about marrying her young daughter off into non-poverty (if not exactly wealth) than she should be about her making wise life choices. Indeed, I don't know that my son's plans haven't ultimately been driven by the dragon lady mother-in-law. At least my fiance had the sense to have zero love for or trust in her mother and hence owned all her motivations and plans herself. This fiance, I don't know. She might very well be a mama's girl, one of those women who actually likes and is influenced by her mother. I have no impression that they are inclined towards fearless or at least open and honest communication, either.
Well, neither were we, and I was able to grit my teeth and survive and even enjoy it for a very long time. So it can be said for just about everyone I've ever known who got married before they were thirty. And in our society, such a cop-out is truly normal and anyway it happens to align with the wise realization that life is best lived, not planned, and that us old people worry way too much about the young. So, what shall be, shall be. But got dammit. You know?
9 comments:
Yeah I agree you know kids just are in a hurry these days and there isnt much to do about it is this K or J didnt J finally detach from the jailbird?
Son the young or Son the Elder?
The Younger. I don't know about being in a hurry. I really don't know what the rush is, or the attraction for that matter. Most people I know have tried marriage, and they liked it for what it was in a season of their lives, but no one who got married so young is unequivocally happy about it. And why the hell go through life equivocating? On the other hand, we can't go through life being overly rational either.
I understand. You, that is. I do not understand the young'uns. Against my advice and her father's, my eldest married while still in college. HS sweetheart. Runrunrun into the marriage. A year later, not even, and she was realizing it was a mistake. Everything I had said to her was correct, onc her vision cleared.
If you could get thru to the lad, it would be a rare and amazing thing, you ask me.
Still. They are adults in training, this they get to make their own mistakes. We parents get to gnash our teeth.
I go on the assumption that mothers are horrible people unless proven otherwise. It's the last refuge of a power tripper. So to me that is the creepiest part of this.
I just wish you could shoot people with contraceptive poison darts in circumstances like this, so that when they actually figure out what reality is -- and that they hate it -- they aren't anchored to it by a ball and chain. Sigh.
Well, there's the cake. Otherwise, I don't get it.
Just when the marriage is about to take place, I mean right when the vows are about to be said, have a Marine Force Recon extraction team go in and get the young man and spirit him away to a black site in the desert for deprogramming.
Extreme, but that oughta take care of things.
I agree with Paula about the cake.
I am very bad at not pushing my child toward things I think she should want, irrespective of what she actually wants. She's nine, so some of that is justified. But if she made the decision to get married as young as these kids are, I hope I could handle it with the kind of grace that you seem to be. Of course they get to make their own decisions. And of course I'm not such a life-genius that I can assume my way would work better than theirs. But eek, so hard to watch sometimes.
Also, I'm happily married and I believe in marriage. But I suspect that's because I got married relatively late (30), when I had a better idea of what I was doing. I'm imagining marrying the people I dated in college and... it's freaking me the fuck out. Just saying.
I believe in marriage too. I believe in people learning to be brave and true with themselves and thus with the world and especially the people they love most. Marriage follows that, and it is not a job for children; and when I see the "planning" and so on, I fear they are still children. But there's no magic moment when anyone is suddenly qualified for life. Best we can do is respect them when they are brave enough to make decisions, and of course love without condition.
But argh anyway!
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