Please welcome Justine, my guest blogger for today. Justine blogs at Here Where I have Landed where, as chief memory keeper, she chronicles her life with her family and also reflects upon her roles as a mom who juggles a full-time career and motherhood, a woman who wants to contribute to the world but often forgets the reusable grocery bags at home, and a Chinese-Indian immigrant from Malaysia who tries to reconcile her pride in her cultural heritage with her love for her new country. Her struggles may not be unique. But her perspective is.
P.S. I’m blogging over at Justine’s place today. Stop by and check out a snapshot in the life of raising a boy.
When I was pregnant, we decided against knowing the gender of the baby. Well, by we, I meant me. I didn’t want to because I romanticized the notion of a surprise, but My Guy compromised with a “Fine, you get the first, but I’ll get the second” as if we were trading chores – You do the dishes this time, I’ll get the next round. The entire time I was carrying my baby, many seasoned moms and grandmas alike swore that I was having a boy using extremely accurate and scientific predictors: belly’s bigger from the side than the front, carrying the bulge lower, ass isn’t widening as much, my preference for lemons over ice cream, etc. – that last part was made up. (But then again, aren’t they all?)
As far fetched as those methods were, I started to believe them myself. In fact, up until the very end, I expected to be greeted by a penis, I mean a boy. So much so that when the baby was finally out, My Guy and I had neglected to inquire about the gender. For the first few postnatal seconds, we were just so elated to see our baby and hear the healthy set of lungs that it didn’t occur to us to ask or to look down there.
When the doctor announced, “It’s a girl!” we were both momentarily stunned. What?! And then we yelled for joy. We might have also given each other a high five. I think I was secretly relieved – I might have willed myself to expect a boy because I was afraid that I might be disappointed if it wasn’t a girl. It’s not that I have a preference; I just thought I would already be in familiar territory with a girl so the parenting gig would be easier. Hah! How naive I was. Now that I remember my own girlhood, I’m beginning to have second thoughts about raising one.
As a lover of lists, here’s my Top 10 Challenges in Raising a Girl (in no particular order):
- I am not a fan of pink. And while we don’t frequently opt for things of that color, others, like friends and relatives, do. If you’re an “other”, please note: orange and green are nice too. Plus they match our furniture better.
- Cell phone overages – my cell provider only has a 5,000-minute max for nights and weekends; judging from my teenage years, I know that’s not going to be enough. She’s going to need to get a part time job just to cover the bill. But since she won’t be old enough to drive, I will have to shuffle her back and forth to support her habit.
- When we’re finally the same size, we will have to share our clothes because I have to be frugal for her college education. (Read: I will borrow her uber hip jeans and too-cool-for-school t-shirt on the sly, and she’ll yell at me for showing up at her school dressed that way.)
- She will demand to know why I’m the only mom who doesn’t allow her to paint her nails at age 5, and I’ll always use the same flimsy excuse, “we’re Asian, that’s why!” in place of the real explanation, “because I don’t like it (and my mom didn’t allow me to do it either).”
- Preposterous wedding costs – I don’t understand why we still have this archaic practice where the parents of the bride have to pay for the wedding. I mean, I have to spend all this money for someone to take my daughter off my hands, but what if I like having her around (because she does the dishes, laundry and yard work)? Shouldn’t the groom and his family be the ones to pay me for her years of experience in child labor that will benefit their future home? Clean dishes, immaculate clothes AND a well-manicured lawn? Come on!
- I have to behave role-modelish, and that’s so not my style. But I am beginning to realize that parents are often damned if they do and damned if they don’t. If I’m perfect, she will resent me. If I’m imperfect, she will resent me. If I’m normal, she will resent me. If that’s the case, why sweat something I’m bound to screw up anyway?
- As if an insolent tween isn’t difficult enough, I will have to deal with her pubescent angst AND the monthly spike in mood swings and hormonal outbursts. It’s a really good thing that these teenagers…that they… I’ll get back to you on this one. Still struggling with the silver lining here.
- She will date at age <insert any number here>, and I will think she’s too young, but she will pretend she isn’t dating, and I will feign ignorance. Then she’ll come home with puffy eyes and listen to ungodly loud music one day to drown her sorrows from the first/second/third breakup. And I will have to console her without knowing why, even when I do.
- I will also be worried about certain questionable characters she’s dating, but if I said anything, it will just increase their appeal to her by 83 percent. Consequently, I will stress about my indecision – Should I say something? Should I let it go and see what happens? - and no matter what I end up doing, it will be the wrong thing.
- A boy (or a girl – it doesn’t concern me either way) will someday NOT break her heart and she WILL tell me all about this person; I will then see the happiness in her eyes and realize the time has come for me to let go. I know this will happen if I have a son too, but when it’s my daughter, there is a need to panic – who will lend me their my jeans when she leaves?!
The list may seem exaggerated, but remember, I am the same woman who convinced herself she’s having a boy so she isn’t too disappointed if it isn’t a girl. Similar theory here. (You can call me ridiculous; I’d like to think of myself as complex, even enigmatic). Truthfully, I’m just doing what I can to prepare myself for when she leaves our nest because I know when that time comes, my heart will break into more pieces than I can count to see one of the best things that ever happened to me go.
But I suppose once I re-purpose her bedroom into my hobby space and take that long-overdue Mediterranean cruise, I’ll get over it.
