It begins…
My mother-in-law calls my husband every Sunday morning. They talk for twenty minutes to an hour and a half. I’m kinda jealous, to tell the truth; I can’t imagine having that much to discuss with my parents.
Today, though, David cut off the call quite quickly. As it turned out, he’d been talking to his father, not his mom, and to butter up his father’s ego he’d asked for (unnecessary) advice about graduate school.
And his father’s response was that as soon as David had his Ph.D in hand it was time to start a family. Since that was what good old dad had done, don’t you know.
Ugh. I apologized to David.
“No, no,” David said. “One of these days I’ll tell him it isn’t happening. But I want to be prepared for it.” I agreed. Definitely one of those things where you want to set the stage, not let it be set for you.
I guess I’d feel guiltier if I thought that either my parents or my in-laws had a child-shaped hole in their lives. But, frankly, they don’t. My folks are happy with their gardens and their house renovations, not to mention that my dad is getting heavily arthritic and doesn’t need kids climbing around. My in-laws, especially David’s father, really don’t like kids a whole lot more than I do.
But it’s the Thing To Do. Or something. And because it’s the Thing To Do, David and I are in for some unpleasantness. Maybe a lot of unpleasantness. Oh, well, I can’t say I didn’t know it would happen. Best I can do is try to be ready to let it wash off.