Some of you (that is, all three of my regular readers), may have noticed I deleted a post I wrote last week about how I see myself when it comes to marriage, children and second mortgages. Well, apparently, I really got myself thinking (self, you’re so inspiring!) and now I’m not so sure about anything I wrote.
On Balls…and Chains!
Do I eventually want to get married? The honest answer, I suppose, is yes, but it would have to be under very special (and I don’t mean “special”) circumstances and done very much on my terms, which, should work out because I can’t imagine marrying someone who thought about this institution differently than I do.
For one, it would have to be an agreement entered upon by both parties equally and not by one trying to contractually obligate the other from making it harder to leave in the future. For another, and this goes hand-in-hand with the first, it would have to be based solely on love. Not tax breaks, not societal expectations, and certainly not because either of us just wants a big wedding.
In fact, in the case that I do eventually get married, the ceremony would have to be tiny. I’d prefer it to be just me, my man and the Elvis impersonator, but would make concessions to my partner if he insisted on having an audience of family and very close friends. Or even a priest not dressed in a bedazzled jumpsuit. However, it has to be clear that I don’t want bridesmaids in matching colors; I don’t want a “destination wedding;” I don’t want a $5,000 dress; I don’t want a ring (fun fact: I have slightly webbed fingers that disallow jewelry anyway); really, I don’t really want anything. Knowing I’ll be able to wake up next to the love of my life through sickness and in health, for richer and for poorer, is enough. (Cue the collective “awww!”)
However, what I wouldn’t mind is a big party afterwards. Not the kind with rubbery chicken and chocolate swans filled with mousse, mind you, but the kind where you come as you are to drink a few libations and indulge in all the bean-dip you can eat. Hey, any excuse for a party, right? Maybe I’ll even spring for Tino and his jorts to perform.
Los jorts de Tino son muy guapos, pero donde está el sweet fringe?!
But don’t bring a gift. I would think about setting up an option to donate to a charity of my and my partner’s choosing in our names, but I would never want to burden anyone I care about to buy me a gravy boat from Williams&Sonoma. In fact, I think wedding registries are extremely tacky. Sounds cheesy, but it’s gift enough that my friends and family would show up to celebrate this happy event in my life. (Although I wouldn’t turn down a Beanzawave. There’s a different between gifts from the heart, like desktop bean-can microwaves, and, well, just more stuff.)
So, yeah. I guess I would get married. But, like I said, only out of true love, which strangely for a cynic like me is the only topic about which I’m a complete idealist. I believe in the kind of love that distance, sickness or other mostly uncontrollable circumstances can’t destroy. True love is a New York City cockroach — it lives forever.
On Spawning New Humans
As far as kids go (and I’m only talking about popping out my own and not adoption here — my views on adoption are a bit different), well, that’s more complicated for me. There’s only one person on Earth that I would ever even consider getting fat to have a child with. But even then, I’m not sure if that’s something I’d be up for and I’m not just talking about the getting fat part. Parenting is a big deal to me and something that I fear some people take too lightly. I think a lot of people have kids for selfish reasons. Either they think it will force a love that’s not there between them and their boyfriends, girlfriends or significant others, or they simply want to make sure a kid carries their genes into the next generation. I mean, it’d be comforting, I suppose, to spawn a person who you can guilt-trip into feeling obligated to take care of your senile old ass when the time comes (or at least make sure you get put in the good home), but should that be reason enough?
I don’t know. Maybe for some people, but not for me. If I ever have a kid, it would have to be very well thought out and done for the right reasons — reasons that I don’t know if I’ve discovered yet. I would have to have a man who I was not only in love with enough to possibly marry (see above), but one that I was convinced would be a proper parent for a new human. I myself, would have to change significantly and make sure I was ready to be a proper parent, which means, no more randomly hopping off to Chile to learn Spanish. At least through the kid’s formative years.
Let’s be honest, I’m sure it’s not hard to deduce that I’m not a planner. I’m not a list-maker. I’m a doer. (That’swhatshesaid!) But that’s because I’m usually the only one held accountable, so if I screw up, I’m the only one who suffers. (Hmm. Maybe I should start making a lists…) If I were to have a kid, though — no matter how great and great-looking of a partner I had one with — I would really have to sit down with a pen and paper. We’re talking pros and cons and a possible essay about WHY I would want this enormous responsibility in my life. Like I said, to make sure I don’t get dumped at Shady Pines in 50 years is not good enough.
So, yeah, on the kid front, I suppose I’m a little more wishy-washy than I originally thought.
On Idiotic Self-Inflicted Debt
Regarding the second-mortgage in the suburbs? That’s something I’m 100 percent sure is Never. Gonna. Happen.
Marissa Payne 
Wow, do women really think so in depth about hypothetical situations?
I’d love to be a fly on the wall when you reveal this to the lucky chap you select from mankind!!
You should get it down on paper. In the form of a contract, perhaps! About six, seven months into the relationship. Lay all this on him, slap the document down on the table and see what happens.
Well, by the terms given here, if he then ran for the hills, he’d obviously be the wrong person.
Shark–
Hmm. You either have a short attention span, or maybe you’re just sexist in that you hear a woman talking about marriage and children and you automatically think suffocation.
Now, if you actually read my post, you’d see I’m quite the opposite. I’m actually probably more like a dude when it comes to these issues than most dudes. For me, marriage is unnecessary to maintain a super longterm relationship. In other words, it need not be a final destination. In fact, 50 years with someone you’re not married to is almost more romantic than 50 years of marriage, as there is an unfortunate number of people who play the marriage card to try to create something that may not have ever been there. But if two people stick it out together for 50 years on their own sheer will to be together? Well, that’s love. Marriage is more icing on the cake to me. But it doesn’t make the cake. It’s also a good excuse to throw a party. I thought I did a good job of spelling that out…
And re: kids. Like I said, I’m not sure if I’ll ever be into that. What I do know is that I would never use a kid to try and mend a broken relationship, nor would I use a kid to try to justify a marriage not based on what I call true love. In fact, in my opinion, marriage and child-rearing don’t necessarily need to have anything to do with each other. I wrote about them together in one blog post for simplistic purposes. That, and most other people seem to think one necessitates the other.
So really, any man who I fall in love with and vice versa would have to be quite unique himself.
And it’s not like I’m hiding anything. Anyone can read this blog and if what I says scares a guy, then yeah, like Ben said, “he’d obviously be the wrong person.” Not that complicated.
I wasn’t so much what you said (if you say you are more like a dude than a woman then that’s between you and your gynaecologist), it was rather in how much detail you went into considering it’s a hypothetical situation (your use of the 2nd conditional tells me this).
Although, I have to disagree with Ben. If the guy ran off it would mean firstly, he can read (always a bonus) and secondly, he’s in good physical shape (you can’t say that doesn’t appeal to you).
I firmly believe that your other half is out there. I, for one, am rooting for you.
I’m sorry, but in an if/would scenario, what other verb tense should I have used, in your e-tarded opinion?
And really, why do you even disagree with Ben? I think he’d actually agree with you, at least on your first assumption, that any guy who could run after reading what, really, is probably the un-scariest take on marriage and children to be written is literate. However, your other point about a runaway dude being in good physical shape, well, that’s dependent on whether someone actually reacted to this post by physically running away. Now that doesn’t seem very plausible, considering whoever is reading this online is probably not sitting next to me. Ergo, if he “ran,” it only need be in the metaphorical sense, which means one actually cannot deduce his physical condition.
Gracias for the well-wishes, though.
I for one am glad that you have a healthy view of marriage and having children. I have seen first hand (not me) the havoc that marrying someone just to have a child can cause. It’s not fair to your partner and it is certainly not fair to the child. And the debt that some people get into just t have a big wedding, whew, you’d think that the wedding was the point and not the marriage.
From reading your blogs and meeting you in person, I knew you had a good head on your shoulders. But from reading this post, I can see how intelligent you really are. I’m serious. So stay the free spirit that you are and follow your own road. And if you meet your life partner along the way, I am sure he will be the incing on the cake or the spice in your beans.
Ahhh shucks. Kind words from an equally kind (and muy inteligente) chica.
And this? “And the debt that some people get into just to have a big wedding, whew, you’d think that the wedding was the point and not the marriage.”
Exactly.
I think that you would be a very conscientious and loving mother if you ever chose to have children. I also think that whatever man you eventually find, if you decide that this is what you want, would be very happy and lucky.
I’m not so sure that’s true, but I guess one never knows. And yes, clearly I agree wholeheartedly with your last sentence. 🙂
I dont mean to be rude but the comment by “The Mysterious Stranger” may be intended to be nice but obviously they dont get or are completely ignoring that you probably dont want to procreate. Moving forward from my own divorce, I agree with your stance on the romantic notion of 2 people staying together without a piece of expensive paper (expensive for the wedding and worse for the divorce!) legally binding them together and I 110% agree with your postition on procreation – besides I can buy the biggest gas guzzling SUV on the planet and still not make as big of an environmental impact as kids do. Finally Shark is a douche.
I understood what she was saying. She also said, basically, that you never know what will happen in life. All I was saying was that if she did ever want to have kids she would be a good mother. I also think that a positive word needs to be said for marriage and children in general. Sure, no one’s family life is perfect, but this sort of thing can’t be judged against a mythical perfection. In other words, you shouldn’t decide not to have a family just because it’s not going to be like ‘Growing Pains’ or the ‘Cosby Show’. Most families are more like the one in that Christmas movie where Ralphie almost shoots his eye out: Flawed but charming. That’s the sort of imperfection that brings character to life. Having kids or a family of any kind isn’t necessarily about status or just doing it because it’s what you’re supposed to do. I would argue that things like playing catch with your son or going to a daughter’s tea party with stuffed animals is, in and of itself, a good thing. As for the environmental issue, people have been claiming since 1800 that we were about to face environmental catastrophe. Who knows, by 2020 you might have cars that run on fuel produced by bacteria or cities powered by microwaves from space or whatever. You can’t make decisions based on negative projections alone.
Hmm…I didn’t take MS’s comment like that, but then again I’m a bit of a narcissist, so that shouldn’t surprise anyone…
As far as whether I want to procreate. To be honest, I’ve never had that inkling to have one like so many people seem to have, but I can’t say I would rule it out ENTIRELY at this point as a potential option under the right circumstances. My thing is, I don’t know what circumstances those are yet. I might never know, in which case I probably won’t have kids of my own. But who knows, I can’t plan what I’ll feel like 5 years from now.
Also, I get the environmental thing, but honestly, that would not factor into my decision. What could factor in, however (assuming I decide I want to parent), are all the unwanted kids scattered throughout the globe. To me, it makes sense to give my time to a kid who already exists who is in need than to make my own. But even then, one does not preclude the other.
That, and when you adopt a kid you don’t have to stop enjoying wine for 9 months 🙂
Re small weddings — my parents were married by the Oakland mayor with two random people from the old folks’ home across the street as witnesses. They hit their 40th anniversary last June. My best friend from high school married his college sweetheart with only three people there to watch. (I was one of them.)
The small ones always made more sense to me — there’s much more that one can do with the money involved… many trans-Atlantic tickets that can be bought, hotel rooms booked, etc.
Re: the money saved to use elsewhere (esp. on travel) — EXACTLY.
More people in this world need to think in terms of opportunity costs.
I totally agree with you on the small wedding. I’m too young to even contemplate marriage/children so I can’t say I agree or disagree. Looks like the Shark migrated from Sara’s blog to yours…sorry about that. I think Moving Forward just about summed up my opinions about him.
Yeah. Some people get their kicks out on the Internet in bizarro ways, I suppose. But to each his own.
Amen! What is the obsession with big weddings and marriage all of the sudden? (Is marrying for visa purposes still okay? JK). Anyways, I see where you are coming from. I vacillate in and out of that one myself.
I honestly think there is nothing wrong with it no matter what certain carnivorous ocean dwelling animals think even if they know how to spot a conditional verb when they see one.
I think females are brought up to imagine themselves in some sort of big, dream-like wedding, but I never got into that. Not saying anything’s particularly wrong with having a big wedding, but for me, that just sounds like a waste of time and money. Money and time I could be spending with the love of my life hiking in Nepal or something.
And also, I think we should invite Shark out. I’d love to hear him comment on our apparent cankles in person.
Hmmm… It would probably be the first invite the little culturally insensitive, mono-linguistic, prick has received in a while. For some reason I’m imaging extreme social awkwardness and retreating into an internet fantasy land? Do you think I am far off?
I imagine you’re spot on. I’m imagining he would never accept, though, as I’m sure he loses his proverbial balls offline.
Amen, hermana
Thanks! I’m glad I gotta witness.
Couldn’t have said it better myself. If I have to ask someone if they want to be with me for all eternity, I think I know the answer.
Um, I’m punting on this whole topic. (I know. I didn’t have to write that. I just wanted to use the word “punting.”)
I thought you were engaged to Norm Coleman.
Seriously though, your challenge will be to find someone as funny and smart as you are. Otherwise you’re going to be really bored, even if your life doesn’t involve a second mortgage in the suburbs.
Where we differ, I think, from previous generations, is in our willingness to be bored.
We just aren’t. We get divorced, we have affairs, we do whatever just so that we aren’t.
Not necessarily better than previous generations — probably not, actually — but that’s how we (or some of us) roll.
Maybe we should train our offspring to avoid our mistakes — actually, isn’t that what the Regency generation did, and isn’t that what gave us the Victorian Era?