Families

THERE ARE AT LEAST FIVE REASONS WHY I SHOULDN’T BE BREAKING MY BLOG-FAST THIS WAY, BUT…

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…I couldn’t resist.  I thought it was funny.  “It” was tacked on the wall of an examination room at Princeton Healthcare, where I was waiting with Bill to meet a new doctor.  His old doctor in this particular speciality had retired, without much notice (and without being that old), and I had shoehorned myself into the initial meeting between Bill and new doctor to hear for myself what new guy had to say, so I could nag Bill properly between visits.

“It” (the thing I thought was funny) was a list of answers second-graders had given to questions about their moms, as published in some town newspaper unknown to me.  Immediately, I thought “Blog!”  (It was the sort of thing many blog readers, although not necessarily mine, seem to “like.”) Unfortunately, I saw no way of discreetly ripping it off the wall, so I had to wait till I got home to try to find it on the web.  And I did!

These are the first five reasons I can think of for why I shouldn’t be using what I found to reopen TGOB after having been absent for a while. (If I’d pondered longer, I’m sure I could have come up with more.)

(1) The website on which I found it was a Tea Party site.  (Boo, hiss.)

(2) It has absolutely nothing to do with getting old.

(3) I haven’t been a mother of a second-grader for thirty-nine years, and as best I can recollect, neither of mine would have given any of these answers.

(4) I don’t normally include God in my blog posts, as I really have no idea what that word means (I tend to think of it as metaphor), and am not at all sure what it means to other people either.

(5) It is beneath me, and perhaps also insulting to my readership, to pander to what I imagine is popular taste when I know everyone who has chosen to spend some time with TGOB is both highly intelligent and discriminating.

But I am a weak woman, riddled with human frailty, so here it is anyway.  Enjoy it if you can.  If you can’t, cheer up: For next time, I have in mind a wry observation about the international economic situation.

P.S. Also do feel free to comment on any of the answers.  I myself am quite partial to the second answer to the question of why the child’s mom married the child’s dad.

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Why God Made Moms

Answers given by 2nd grade school children to the following questions:

Why did God make mothers?

  1. She’s the only one who knows where the scotch tape is.
  2. Mostly to clean the house.
  3. To help us out of there when we were getting born.

How did God make mothers?

  1. He used dirt, just like for the rest of us.
  2. Magic plus super powers and a lot of stirring.
  3. God made my mom just the same like he made me. He just used bigger parts.

What ingredients are mothers made of?

  1. God makes mothers out of clouds and angel hair and everything nice in the world and one dab of mean.
  2. They had to get their start from men’s bones. Then they mostly use string, I think.

Why did God give you your mother and not some other mom?

  1. We’re related.
  2. God knew she likes me a lot more than other people’s moms like me.

What kind of a little girl was your mom?

  1. My mom has always been my mom and none of that other stuff.
  2. I don’t know because I wasn’t there, but my guess would be pretty bossy.
  3. They say she used to be nice.

What did mom need to know about dad before she married him?

  1. His last name.
  2. She had to know his background. Like is he a crook? Does he get drunk on beer?
  3. Does he make at least $800 a year? Did he say NO to drugs and YES to chores?

Why did your mom marry your dad?

  1. My dad makes the best spaghetti in the world. And my mom eats a lot.
  2. She got too old to do anything else with him.
  3. My grandma says that mom didn’t have her thinking cap on.

Who’s the boss at your house?

  1. Mom doesn’t want to be boss, but she has to because dad’s such a goof ball.
  2. You can tell by room inspection. She sees the stuff under the bed.
  3. I guess mom is, but only because she has a lot more to do than dad.

What’s the difference between moms and dads?

  1. Moms work at work and work at home and dads just go to work at work.
  2. Moms know how to talk to teachers without scaring them.
  3. Dads are taller and stronger, but moms have all the real power cause that’s who you got to ask if you want to sleep over at your friends.
  4. Moms have magic, they make you feel better without medicine.

What does your mom do in her spare time?

  1. Mothers don’t do spare time.
  2. To hear her tell it, she pays bills all day long.

What would it take to make your mom perfect?

  1. On the inside she’s already perfect. Outside, I think some kind of plastic surgery.

2.  Diet. You know, her hair. I’d diet, maybe blue.

WRITING SHORT: 33/50

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[Come summer heat, much of my blogging momentum melts away. Hence an experiment until Labor Day: fifty minimalist posts about whatever.]

An only child, I wanted an older brother. Someone who would show me the ropes, protect me if necessary, later on have friends who might date me.  Now I’m gender-neutral in my preference, with a slight inclination towards a sister, older or younger. Someone who’d remember our parents with me, remember our growing up together, the places we came from and the people we knew. Someone connected with my past.

So why would anyone discard what I wanted and never had? Why haven’t Bill’s second wife and her only brother talked for over thirty years? (She does stay in touch with one of his sons.) The two of them know; no one else does.  Bill’s first wife didn’t speak to her sister, ten years her senior, for decades. When the sister died at 89, only Bill’s son by that wife and his grandson went to the funeral.

Two of Bill’s three nieces don’t talk to their sister. The brother-in-law of Bill’s sister’s husband cut off all contact with his own brother, who later died still unspoken to. One of Bill’s first cousins won’t talk to his sister.

Bill says it’s not just his relatives, and not just siblings. That must be true. My second husband’s two nieces fell out over their mother’s care when she was dying fifteen years ago.  Since then they haven’t spoken. The only sister of one of my daughters-in-law not only refuses to speak with their father but to be in the same room with him.  That’s not between siblings, I admit. But she wouldn’t attend her own sister’s wedding because her father — also the bride’s father — would be there.  Neither bride nor father have any idea why.

How common is this? Among Bill’s former patients, a distinguished professor rejects his brother; a prominent cardiologist won’t speak to his. “Let me give you more examples,” says Bill.  “No, no,” I reply. “I’m writing a short piece.”

Perhaps bitter differences over the care of a dying parent  are understandable. But what are the other reasons? She’s too outspoken? He doesn’t carve the turkey right? I’d take that sibling in a heartbeat. Maybe someone with siblings of their own could enlighten me.