about halfasecond after andy and i got married, people started asking us when we were going to have children. poor little nosy souls… they were forced to wait for six whole years for us to fit quaintly into their definition of family. there was a lightness about those years (probably the sheer absence of diaper bags and clinging children) but people sort of regarded us lightly too. i didn’t notice this, of course, until my life became full of baby love, it’s accompanying luggage, and the sudden respect i received just for having a small human being in my charge. seemingly overnight, members of our community began respecting our decisions to bow out early from a parties, to let the answering machine field our calls, and to decline “invitations” to chaperon church lock-ins. this regard for our boundaries has been a lovely, unexpected parenting perk.

for me, six years was long enough to be married without children; it felt too long, in fact. but what about those who simply choose not to become parents? my friends who have opted out of the parenting thing report that they feel left out, at best, and badgered and disrespected, at worst. 

elizabeth gilbert has recently brought this phenomenon to light in her book committed. she writes of the questions and judgements imposed upon her and others who have chosen not to have children. but she also points out that our society is actually better for having “aunties” and “(s)parents.” she writes,

“Even within my own community, I can see where I have been vital sometimes as a member of the Auntie Brigade. My job is not merely to spoil and indulge my niece and nephew (though I do take that assignment to heart) but also to be a roving auntie to the world — an ambassador auntie —who is on hand wherever help is needed, in anybody’s family whatsoever. There are people I’ve been able to help, sometimes fully supporting them for years, because I am not obliged, as a mother would be obliged, to put all my energies and resources into the full-time rearing of a child. There are a whole bunch of Little League uniforms and orthodontist’s bills and college educations that I will never have to pay for, thereby freeing up resources to spread more widely across the community. In this way, I, too, foster life. There are many, many ways to foster life. And believe me, every single one of them is essential.”

my children have several “aunties” and “(s)parents” in their lives. the glee with which the monkey and bird approach our friends, ruth, martha, hope, sarah, and phil (just to name a few) is second only to the relief i feel when someone with renewed energy and delight in toddler antics enters my front door. i hear these “aunties” and “(s)parents laugh at my kids’ jokes. i watch them join my children for an afternoon of porch swinging and story telling. i see them get down on the floor and immerse themselves in legoland and the enterprise of space-ship-building. and then, when these friends leave, i am able to see my children more for the funny little wonders that they are and less for the little tornadic wind storms that they can be.

so to all of the “aunties” and “(s)parents” of the world, i say THANK YOU. i respect your place in life, and i am thankful for it. there really are “many ways to foster life.” and to those who foster life here at our house, i am so, so grateful.

[the elizabeth gilbert quote is from https://www.babble.com/elizabeth-gilbert-committed-marriage/.]

today is the first in a month of mornings that i’ll be waking up in the mountains of western north carolina. i’ll post more soon about our trip and the requisite en route adventure. but for now, let’s catch up on another amusing little episode, shall we?

a couple of weeks ago, andy and i, along with our raucous progeny, were speed-eating our way through dinner at el porton mexican restaurant. then, just as i was taking my first sip of my second margarita, a couple of high school girls, who were participating in some sort of a scavenger hunt, approached us with sombreros and a camera and explained that they needed a picture of a “normal american family.”

as you can see, not even the prospect of high school scavenger hunt fame can distract me from the lure of tequila. the next day, the picture appeared on facebook, and because the world is small, a mutual friend recognized us and tagged me.

but the point is, god help us all if our family is the picture of normalcy!

the monkey has a semi permanent “ear plug dread lock” in his hair thanks to his waxy blue plugs and embarrassingly infrequent showers (hello… doesn’t swimming count?). i still cut my hamburgers into quarters because my mom used to do this for me when i was little. in preparation for our current vacation, i couldn’t find one single toy to bring that was still in tact and had all of its pieces. for distraction purposes, i have given my infants tampons to play with at restaurants and my toddlers duct tape to play with on airplanes. my husband prefers to jog during the hottest part of the day, in what is arguably one of the hottest cities on the planet. our children were conceived through the miracles of science and are raised on a hodge-podge of common sense, superstition, tradition, book knowledge, and exhaustion-induced parenting moves.

but it is not just that our nuclear family is abnormal. we are the apples that have not fallen far from our eccentric family trees. my aunt, for example, is convinced that my deceased grandparents send us messages through blinking lights and other electrical anomalies. i wholeheartedly agree with her. andy’s dad has been known to buy enough plastic wrap at once to last for decades. we are aware of the longevity of such products because he proudly writes the purchase date on them with a sharpie and revels in this sacred “history” every time he is called to cover something up and put it in the fridge.

i would venture to say that i don’t even really LIKE people who seem to be living out the imaginary standard of “normal” living. i am much more drawn to the bizarre particulars that make people who they are.

i hope those high school girls won their scavenger hunt. but mostly, i hope that someday (and the sooner the better), they come to know that “normal” doesn’t really exist. there are many other standards one can employ to measure the quality of one’s life. take the amount of years that one uses the same roll of plastic wrap, for example!