[LJ Idol: Topic 20] If we moved to a parallel universe
My in-laws, it seems, don't quite inhabit the same reality that my husband and I do.
In their world, once the firstborn child of their youngest son makes her way into the world, all nine pounds and three ounces of curiosity and opinions, the best possible parenting advice is: "Well, you gotta show that baby who's BOSS! Don't be picking her up every time she cries - you'll spoil her!" Because, you see, a week-old baby is an evil little manipulative mastermind. This fits quite well with the rest of their worldview - insular, paranoid, mistrusting, and with the sincere belief that to be these things is to glorify God. Or, in other words, they are Dominionists.
If we truly lived in their world, I'm not sure my husband and I would be together at all. You see, my family is Eastern European (Polish and Ukranian) and my mother-in-law confused Eastern Europe with the Middle East and asked if I was a terrorist. (Yes, really. I'm not making this up!) I'm also four years older than he is, which probably wouldn't have mattered if the genders were reversed when we met - if he was 24 and I was 20, that wouldn't have been as weird as ALL that. I'm also not sure how we would have met, since I'm not sure either of us would have been participating in the SCA. Perhaps, instead, we would have been Civil War reenactors - it's my experience that the Civil War crowd, overall, runs a bit more conservative than the SCA crowd.
So, I'll keep things as similar as I can, to have any chance of this parallel universe being even within sight of the actual. We would still have met in the summer of 2002, perhaps with the same jobs we had when we actually met. I'm not sure I could have been living in the same neighborhood in Rochester, because it's mostly-not-white and my landlords were a gay couple, and neither of those things would do in this alternate reality, but to hold that job I can say that I was living in or near Rochester. Of course, living "in sin" wouldn't have been an option for us, so the timing of major relationship events would have had to be very different. Instead of moving in together in October, talking about getting married in November, and announcing our engagement in December, the engagement might have happened in October (around my birthday?) and the wedding in December.
It would have been a very different wedding. No cloved lemons as favors (and thus no kissing games), no gender-unspecific wedding parties, possibly no dancing. Being married in December would mean having a wedding and reception inside, probably the whole "church basement" thing. And of course, being married by a minister (probably one that believed in "love, honor and obey") instead of in the manner of Friends, as we actually were. And let's not forget that our names would be different - we would never have chosen to carry the last name I was born with, though I don't know whether we would have chosen the last name of John's biological or adoptive father.
I'm guessing I would have left my job to keep house (though, in this reality, I would have actually liked my job, and gotten along well with the same co-workers that used to drive me crazy with their random racist, anti-Semitic, and homophobic comments), and we might have moved somewhere near Olean, especially if John was still working at the convenience store he worked at when we met. Maybe he would have become a manager there, or maybe he would have started his own computer repair business. Of course, we wouldn't have used birth control at all, so we'd probably have had our first child in late 2003 or early 2004, and I'd probably have Baby #4 or #5 on the way.
The children of this alternate reality are its saddest part. We would not have our bright, bouncy, extroverted, affectionate Alex, nor our silly, smiley, inquisitive, mischievous Tori Jo. I might never have had the chance to see the way that my daughter and her father smile at each other, beaming with love enough to light up everything around them. Certainly, John would never have been the primary caregiver - after all, that's not what a "good Christian man" should do! His job is to work for his family; his wife's is to take care of the house and kids.
I would have thrown myself into the task of raising the kids well, and might well have gone the child-training route, doing everything I could to have obedient children in an orderly house, and hating myself (and resenting the kids) when I could not meet this goal. Some of the kids might have turned outwardly compliant and quiet, trying to hide their inner confusion and pain; others might have been angry and defiant, at best temporarily controllable by threat of, "Wait until your father gets home!"
It would be a small, impoverished, lonely life - a man, his wife, and their growing family, living in a trailer on a little patch of land in the Southern Tier, making do on a convenience store manager's salary (minus the tithe, of course). I would wonder, often, why my life had turned out this way, but I would do everything I could to crush those thoughts under the weight of my faith.
Would there be any joy for me in this life? Of course. I would still be married to the love of my life, and even in this incredibly altered reality, we would still love each other very much. I would probably be homeschooling, and while I know it's probably not the right choice for my actual children, it could be right for my hypothetical alternate-universe children and I know it's something I would enjoy. There is much about the role of homemaker itself that I would also enjoy, the creative bits of cooking and of making beautiful things out of whatever's at hand. And if I had faith strong enough to do what I was doing, I am sure there would be joy - of a sort - in that.
On the other hand, I think about this alternate life, and what I see missing is most of what brings joy and peace and contentment to my spouse. Gone would be the strong intellectual connections he makes with people - most of his friends are women, many of them queer women, and that wouldn't quite be proper now would it? While he would still be a father, he wouldn't be the Daddy that gets demanded in the middle of the night when his daughter wakes up alone and scared. He wouldn't have had the experience of being continuously, actively with children that has led him to look to a career in family law, advocating for the best interests of children. We wouldn't have so much fun together in the kitchen because a) in this alternate reality, men don't DO that and b) he would most likely have avoided trying much in the way of new and interesting food. If he wanted to give me a "night off", he'd bring home take-out, or (perhaps in a few years) the oldest daughters would stop "playing house" and start doing some of the women's work. But he wouldn't-couldn't-shouldn't cook, in the other reality, though in this reality his dinners and desserts put takeout to shame.
And, there would be another unfortunate and very real threat to his happiness (let alone sanity): In this worldview, mental illness is equated to demonic possession. There would be no Lamictal to stop obsessive thoughts of self-destruction, no competent licensed psychotherapist to provide an outside connection with reality, and plenty of patriarchial Jesus Freaks waiting to tell my husband that he could blame all of his problems on the rebellious spirit of his wife and kids. Or perhaps instead on the evil spirits that let Hillary Clinton become our Senator, so can't he please contribute to the anti-Hillary cause, even if it means that our power gets disconnected for a month?
Such a scary place, this other reality. I fear the world that my in-laws and others who believe as they do live in, even if it is only in their minds. I love the world that I live in with my husband and children enough to protect it from those who would turn it into this alternate world - even if that means from my children's own grandparents.
In their world, once the firstborn child of their youngest son makes her way into the world, all nine pounds and three ounces of curiosity and opinions, the best possible parenting advice is: "Well, you gotta show that baby who's BOSS! Don't be picking her up every time she cries - you'll spoil her!" Because, you see, a week-old baby is an evil little manipulative mastermind. This fits quite well with the rest of their worldview - insular, paranoid, mistrusting, and with the sincere belief that to be these things is to glorify God. Or, in other words, they are Dominionists.
If we truly lived in their world, I'm not sure my husband and I would be together at all. You see, my family is Eastern European (Polish and Ukranian) and my mother-in-law confused Eastern Europe with the Middle East and asked if I was a terrorist. (Yes, really. I'm not making this up!) I'm also four years older than he is, which probably wouldn't have mattered if the genders were reversed when we met - if he was 24 and I was 20, that wouldn't have been as weird as ALL that. I'm also not sure how we would have met, since I'm not sure either of us would have been participating in the SCA. Perhaps, instead, we would have been Civil War reenactors - it's my experience that the Civil War crowd, overall, runs a bit more conservative than the SCA crowd.
So, I'll keep things as similar as I can, to have any chance of this parallel universe being even within sight of the actual. We would still have met in the summer of 2002, perhaps with the same jobs we had when we actually met. I'm not sure I could have been living in the same neighborhood in Rochester, because it's mostly-not-white and my landlords were a gay couple, and neither of those things would do in this alternate reality, but to hold that job I can say that I was living in or near Rochester. Of course, living "in sin" wouldn't have been an option for us, so the timing of major relationship events would have had to be very different. Instead of moving in together in October, talking about getting married in November, and announcing our engagement in December, the engagement might have happened in October (around my birthday?) and the wedding in December.
It would have been a very different wedding. No cloved lemons as favors (and thus no kissing games), no gender-unspecific wedding parties, possibly no dancing. Being married in December would mean having a wedding and reception inside, probably the whole "church basement" thing. And of course, being married by a minister (probably one that believed in "love, honor and obey") instead of in the manner of Friends, as we actually were. And let's not forget that our names would be different - we would never have chosen to carry the last name I was born with, though I don't know whether we would have chosen the last name of John's biological or adoptive father.
I'm guessing I would have left my job to keep house (though, in this reality, I would have actually liked my job, and gotten along well with the same co-workers that used to drive me crazy with their random racist, anti-Semitic, and homophobic comments), and we might have moved somewhere near Olean, especially if John was still working at the convenience store he worked at when we met. Maybe he would have become a manager there, or maybe he would have started his own computer repair business. Of course, we wouldn't have used birth control at all, so we'd probably have had our first child in late 2003 or early 2004, and I'd probably have Baby #4 or #5 on the way.
The children of this alternate reality are its saddest part. We would not have our bright, bouncy, extroverted, affectionate Alex, nor our silly, smiley, inquisitive, mischievous Tori Jo. I might never have had the chance to see the way that my daughter and her father smile at each other, beaming with love enough to light up everything around them. Certainly, John would never have been the primary caregiver - after all, that's not what a "good Christian man" should do! His job is to work for his family; his wife's is to take care of the house and kids.
I would have thrown myself into the task of raising the kids well, and might well have gone the child-training route, doing everything I could to have obedient children in an orderly house, and hating myself (and resenting the kids) when I could not meet this goal. Some of the kids might have turned outwardly compliant and quiet, trying to hide their inner confusion and pain; others might have been angry and defiant, at best temporarily controllable by threat of, "Wait until your father gets home!"
It would be a small, impoverished, lonely life - a man, his wife, and their growing family, living in a trailer on a little patch of land in the Southern Tier, making do on a convenience store manager's salary (minus the tithe, of course). I would wonder, often, why my life had turned out this way, but I would do everything I could to crush those thoughts under the weight of my faith.
Would there be any joy for me in this life? Of course. I would still be married to the love of my life, and even in this incredibly altered reality, we would still love each other very much. I would probably be homeschooling, and while I know it's probably not the right choice for my actual children, it could be right for my hypothetical alternate-universe children and I know it's something I would enjoy. There is much about the role of homemaker itself that I would also enjoy, the creative bits of cooking and of making beautiful things out of whatever's at hand. And if I had faith strong enough to do what I was doing, I am sure there would be joy - of a sort - in that.
On the other hand, I think about this alternate life, and what I see missing is most of what brings joy and peace and contentment to my spouse. Gone would be the strong intellectual connections he makes with people - most of his friends are women, many of them queer women, and that wouldn't quite be proper now would it? While he would still be a father, he wouldn't be the Daddy that gets demanded in the middle of the night when his daughter wakes up alone and scared. He wouldn't have had the experience of being continuously, actively with children that has led him to look to a career in family law, advocating for the best interests of children. We wouldn't have so much fun together in the kitchen because a) in this alternate reality, men don't DO that and b) he would most likely have avoided trying much in the way of new and interesting food. If he wanted to give me a "night off", he'd bring home take-out, or (perhaps in a few years) the oldest daughters would stop "playing house" and start doing some of the women's work. But he wouldn't-couldn't-shouldn't cook, in the other reality, though in this reality his dinners and desserts put takeout to shame.
And, there would be another unfortunate and very real threat to his happiness (let alone sanity): In this worldview, mental illness is equated to demonic possession. There would be no Lamictal to stop obsessive thoughts of self-destruction, no competent licensed psychotherapist to provide an outside connection with reality, and plenty of patriarchial Jesus Freaks waiting to tell my husband that he could blame all of his problems on the rebellious spirit of his wife and kids. Or perhaps instead on the evil spirits that let Hillary Clinton become our Senator, so can't he please contribute to the anti-Hillary cause, even if it means that our power gets disconnected for a month?
Such a scary place, this other reality. I fear the world that my in-laws and others who believe as they do live in, even if it is only in their minds. I love the world that I live in with my husband and children enough to protect it from those who would turn it into this alternate world - even if that means from my children's own grandparents.