Dear YY,
Just when I thought I had my life philosophy generally in order, I am being asked to explain it. And it’s not until you have to explain and teach something that you realize the gaping holes in your own logic!
As B talks more and more, he asks more and more questions. Some of them he can answer himself, and I can see how his logic is developing and the leaps he makes in his mind. For example, he asked me the other day, “Mama, what do fish eat?” I asked him, “what do you think?” And then he goes, “Well, cats eat cat food, so fish eat…fish food?” Click.
But then we got more philosophical. “Mama, what’s married?” Good question. When two people love each other…nah, they can just cohabitate of course. When mamas and daddies want to have a baby…nah, they can also just cohabitate, or they could be divorced. Ummm…”mama and daddy are married.” Blank stare. I don’t blame you, kid. When you get to stuff that is either arbitrary or symbolic or both (depending on your own views), good luck explaining that in simple terms. B is a smart kid, but I just can’t for the life of me get to an acceptable (to him) explanation of marriage and weddings.
Frankly, I’m not sure I totally understand it. Sure, we’re married. I would say that 70% of the reason we got married is for legal reasons: if anything happened to either of us, it would be a royal pain if we weren’t married. Plus, you know, health care. It saved us a small fortune once R started staying home with B. Then there’s 20% that can be attributed to various friends and family members being uncomfortable about us not being married. Should we have ignored that? Perhaps. But I see it as similar to the battle to wear whatever you want to work, you know? I mean, fight the man if you must, but in the end you’re just hurting your own chances at a career. I get that this is a controversial opinion, but that’s how I think about it. I pick my battles very carefully and this wasn’t one I was going to fight. Besides, what difference did it really make to us if we were married or not? And that gets me to the other 10%: there was something about marriage that was attractive, in that I felt sort of like “this is what comes next…right?” It was part of the relationship trajectory, in a way. But why? I can’t explain that. And certainly not in 2-year-old vocabulary.
Love,
US
