Princess Overload.

how to be a housewife.

A couple of weekends ago, my cousins from New York came up for a visit. It’s always nice to see them, and they always bring with them huge gift packages for the little ones. This time Hugga made out with a magic wand, a pocketbook, a couple of dolls, and a coloring book — all emblazoned with Disney Princesses and Fairies. I certainly don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth, especially since Hugga loves all these gifts (and a few of them have come through in the clutch, like the Fairy Princess sippy cups we received for her birthday), but how do I politely request to turn down the girly?

I have a very special hatred for Disney Princesses and vowed I’d never spend my own money bringing the paraphernalia into the house. I’ve also changed a few of my own behaviors for Hugga’s sake. I’ve become hyperaware of how I express and deal with my own insecurities and issues with self image.

But my daughter is two, and she’s clearly not an idiot. She’s already picked up a few gendered behaviors despite my best efforts to keep her toybox balanced. I don’t necessarily worry about her aspirations — I’m confident in our abilities to show her that she can be more than just barefoot breeder. But she’s two and suddenly interested in playing with makeup brushes and “being fancy.” She also hardly ever leaves the house without her fairy pocketbook. Should I be worried?

Between gifts and hand-me-downs, my efforts aren’t enough. I strongly believe that over-sheltering is wasted effort — she’s obviously being exposed to this “playing makeup” without my help, and I’m not about to be more of a psychotic asshole to my family over something as harmless as letting her carry around a tube of chapstick.

I should mention, it isn’t like she’s obsessed with makeup and it’s the only thing she likes to play with. She likes to read and draw and play with trucks and building blocks. So is this indicative of a bigger issue I need to deal with, or is she merely trying out different types of play?

Tags: daughter, femininity, feminism

Wanderlust.

9 inches when hugga was born

If there’s one thing my CT cousins and I share besides the bloodline, it’s this: none of us want to live here anymore. We’ve all been on this same track since this summer, just hating it more and more. And every time winter rolls around, we all declare that this will be the last winter we spend here.

My cousins and I curse our parents for landing us here in the first place. If you’re curious, they (my mom and her youngest sister and brother) came here in the early seventies from the Philippines and settled in CT because it was the first spot their older brother found a job. They stuck together with some really basic things on the dome: survival and having a better life than what they had in the Philippines. It’s what kept them together while raising us and what motivated them to work hard to give us everything. Three of us became homeowners before age 30. One has an Ivy League education and his brother attended a great local Catholic university. One has already bounced to Manhattan. Our parents succeeded in giving us a better life; we have everything and now we want more. Warmer weather, sunshine, stuff to do.

It will be 38 degrees Fahrenheit today, and that’s considered relatively warm for February. Leaving the house not only requires an extra ten or fifteen minutes to warm up the car (which is very much a pain if you don’t have a remote starter and actually have to dress up to go outside), but you also have to lug around a five pound jacket on your person wherever you go. Add to that a small child with her own two pound jacket and boots that needs to be stuffed into a 5-point harness, and it just doesn’t seem worth it to ever go anywhere from mid-November to April.

Winter is just one piece of the misery pie. Year round, Central Connecticut is devoid of anything interesting to do that doesn’t require money and insurmountable effort. To go to the beach takes too much out of you; it’s an hour drive from where we live, we have to roll at least three adults deep (at least one to schlep the children, one to schlep the cooler and blankets, and one to park the car two miles away), and on a sunny summer weekend it’s impossible to find a spot on the sand that’s bigger than like four square feet.

I know part of it is in my attitude, and I’m sure I’d have less to complain about if I had never left home. But Huz and I both came from CT and I’m sure in our social circles of yore, we were always the ones with the biggest aspirations and dreams to leave. Since I left CT in 2000, I had always been the friend with the crazy life and the unbelievable stories and the permanent states of transition. I moved all the time, had a billion different jobs, had the built in refresh of semesters when I was in school, and I felt like I was in a constant state of transition. Even after I graduated, living in LA was always, always exciting. Huz and I knew all types of hustlers: people fresh out of college and feeling out careers, people trying to chase their dreams by any means necessary, people who treated their day jobs as day jobs and didn’t allow it to suck the life out of them, people in their middle age with a newfound entrepreneurial spirit (though everyone in LA lies about their age).

Now we’re back with all these people who never wanted much more in life than to start a family and “settle down.” And 2009 is the first year of my life where nothing changed: same job, same partner, same house, same car, same same same. I mean, I’m mad that my life is totally stable, that I have a drama-free marriage, job security, some money in the bank, and a healthy kid? I know, I know, it’s actually nice not being mad about worse things, but this settling down bullshit just isn’t us. I love stability, but not boredom.

My cousins and I all had a different idea of how we’d be raising our future families, and we figured it wouldn’t be any different from the way we grew up, but it’s just not turning out the way we envisioned. As willing as we are to help our cousins out in a jam, we don’t have such a heavy shared experience as trying to survive in a new country to bind us. We have the internet now, video conferencing, jobs we can do on the road, and frequent flyer miles. Why would we stay?

Tags: family, home, hometown, la, moving

The Rich Kid Military.

graduation day 2006

The ratio of college grads in my generation of fam is a pretty even split to those who haven’t finished school. An interesting statistic I learned in my old Filipino American culture class is that the second generation turns out less college grads than our immigrant parents, who usually come to the United States with degrees. Even fewer family members have gone on to more advanced degrees. Of the first generation, I’m pretty sure my mom is the only one with her master’s. As for my generation, I can actually only think of two: my doctor cousin in Upstate NY, and the cousin closest to me in age, my main gay, who got some science degree from an Ivy League institution and is planning to apply to law school later this year.

My mom is sort of a special case — she went back to school in her mid-life and had her master’s degree funded entirely by the company she worked for. The advice she gives me about grad school is mostly that it’s worth it if it aligns with your current job responsibilities and you can use your employer’s educational benefits to pay for it. Neither of those apply to me. I highly doubt my employer (or any employer, for that matter) would willingly fund an advanced degree in the humanities in this economy. So…

Since my main gay is the only other person in close proximity who gives a shit about higher ed, I’ve been obsessing with him over the subject a lot lately. There isn’t really a doubt in his mind that he’ll see a return on his education, even if statistics say otherwise. Also, he’s single, a few months younger than me, went to private schools his whole life, and went for his M.S in Chem right after graduating from a private uni. There are a ton of other factors that I won’t get into here, and he is my main gay for life, but let’s just say that he’s not the most realistic point of reference for when I’m trying to get to the bottom of whether or not grad school would be a practical move for a working mom.

Penelope Trunk has a scathing but interesting review of the grad school idea and I’ve also found another interesting essay on how painful academia can be. It’s hard enough for me to fathom having the time for grad school between a full-time job and a kid (or two), and based on these articles I have neither the wallet nor the stomach for an advanced degree.

Here’s the thing: I’ve already applied to an MFA program. Just one. I wasn’t actually interested in grad school until I found this program, primarily because full-residency programs didn’t seem possible to me (Quit my job so I could go back to school? Hilarious!), so I went for it. I’m trying to brace myself for rejection by coming up with a couple of back-up plans, but grad school keeps creeping into my consciousness as an actual option.

I’ve been researching programs I could apply to in a year or two, but if it isn’t that one program I’ve got my heart set on, then is going to grad school for something like English or Asian American studies even practical or realistic for me? If my career plans don’t require an advanced degree, then should I even bother? Why do I want to go to grad school anyway?

The first reaction anyone has when I even broach the topic is, “You can’t go back to school. You’re a mom. You have responsibilities now.” I’m not denying or trying to downplay the importance of my obligations, but I’m just not willing to accept the idea that I can’t go back to school because I’m a mom. It’s possible if I want it to be possible, but I want to know whether or not it’s practical.

My cousin is so often pegged as the rich kid who doesn’t want to face the real world. Older fam keeps trying to convince him that no amount of school debt will change the fact that work will always kind of suck. I don’t think it speaks to his ambitions, but I get where the olds are coming from. You come out of college feeling all kinds of entitled to a great job that gives meaning to your life, and when you don’t find it, grad school can seem like an easy escape hatch from the real world.

Seeing two sides of the coin, I wonder if my heart is really in it. I know right now that unless I really want to go into teaching, sinking thousands of dollars into a grad school program will probably not help me professionally. Going for an MFA has always been a fantasy of mine that I can’t explain away. It might not get me where I want to be professionally (no guarantees on publication or actually coming out a better writer), but to spend a couple of years working intensively on my writing with a community of writers just sounds like utopia to me. On the other hand, I can’t just ditch my responsibility to my family because I miss being in school. And it’s always been obvious to me that I can become a legit writer without having the advanced degree.

So why am I thinking of an M.A. now? I know being a mom supposedly gives you mental advantages but between chatting it up with a toddler most of my days, and then having to socialize with other young moms who can’t see past the walls of their own home, my brain is turning to mush. I already like my job as much as I can like any job, but even work doesn’t offer much in the way of intellectual conversation or engaging reading.

And as much as I champion the idea that children are supposed to change your life, I almost see this as the one thing I could have done if I hadn’t had my daughter so soon. I hate to admit it but I feel like I’m just trying to prove to myself that I can still be just as ambitious as I once was, that having a kid doesn’t give you a pass to lower your expectations of yourself, even if grad school wasn’t really in my plan.

Tags: career, college, grad school, mfa, writing

Infinite Possibilities.

no more hiding.

Well, the cat’s out of the bag.

We had a family gathering on Saturday wherein Huz mentioned to my mom and aunt that he was planning a trip to LA to job hunt and get back on the radar with all the folks he used to work with, probably deliberately so that I could no longer avoid telling my mom the truth. Up until now, I tried to tread lightly and talk about LA like it was some pie-in-the-sky, someday type of plan to spare her feelings. She grilled me on it this morning and I had to finally tell her that we’re planning on moving this summer.

She asked for a lot of details and was obviously a little hurt and disappointed, but I think she understands. I had to pull the marriage card and basically explain that now that we’re married (which is what she was always hoping for, right?), it can’t just be about me and my own family anymore. Plus I reminded her that since she works remotely, she can spend winters with us in the California sunshine. I think she was actually sort of excited about that part. So it feels good not having to keep it a secret anymore. Really good.

I’m half comforted that the news is out there in the open, but now that it’s real I can’t help being anxious and terrified. Huz and I had a serious heart-to-heart a couple of weeks ago about all the things that are making me nervous — mostly having to do with leaving my mom (effectively my BFF) to share a space (however occasional it may be) with my mother-in-law. I felt better after having that conversation, but all of that old anxiety is creeping in again.

Everyone in my family and every article I read tells me that no matter how well you get along with your in-laws, moving in with them can have dire consequences. Unsurprisingly, women in Japan were found to be three times as likely to suffer a heart attack when they lived with their in-laws. And mothers-in-law actually seem to be the leading cause of divorces in Italy and Malaysia.

I’m inclined to say that we have all these factors in place that make our situation “different.” Firstly, it wouldn’t be a full-time living arrangement, as Huz’s mom spends much of her time in Seoul. Also, my husband is far from being a spineless mama’s boy. If anything, he’d sooner be tired of the arrangement than me…

But the anxiety! I’ve lived in my own space since 2004, and Huz has been on his own for at least a decade. Are we caretakers to his mom’s second home or are we moving back in with his mom?

I’m trying to keep an open mind and have faith that we’ll be okay as long as we always keep the lines of communication open. Plus, he moved back to this boring ass, no future place to be with me before we even had any plans for a real future together. He deserves an honest shot from me. I guess there’s a way to be mindful of the possibilities without expecting the worst case scenario.

There are, of course, more things that scare me about moving that I’ll probably bring up in the coming months. The future here in CT looked boring and miserable, but at least it was predictable — have another kid, stay at the same job, essentially stay in the same industry, work from home until the kids are both in all-day school. Now we’re open to all these possibilities… go to grad school or have a kid first? Can I do both and continue to work full-time? Can we afford a nanny? Should I consider a career change within the next five years?

It’s a little overwhelming.

Tags: divorce, family, grad school, la, love, marriage, mother daughter, mother in law, moving, school, work

In Like a Lion, Out Like a Lamb.

brave baby yeti.

We had a misfire at Bugaboo Creek last night.

If you’ve never been to Bugaboo Creek, it’s an average chain family-friendly restaurant (the only kind there seems to be around here) with decent food. I know — shoot me, very unsophisticated and whatever, but we live in CT and have a two-year-old now. More importantly for us, it’s on the edge of all the hustle and bustle, so it was easier to get a table on a Friday night. It has a hunter’s lodge motif, and I thought the talking animals might amuse Hugga, but that was an obvious miscalculation.

We were happily munching away on our appetizers when she looked to her right and saw a giant moose head mounted to the wall. She looked at it and said nonchalantly, “Mommy, it’s scary.”

I looked up. “It is a little creepy,” I agreed. Huge mistake.

For the next ten minutes, she couldn’t stop looking at it through the fingers that were covering her eyes. We tried diverting her attention and rearranging seating so she wouldn’t have to look directly at it, but all hope was lost. By the time our food got to the table, she had her hands over her face and couldn’t stop crying, and it was obvious we’d have to take our food to go.

The joys of parenthood…

Two has been a very difficult age for all of us so far, and I think my mom might have jinxed us. Hugga has always been a sweetheart, if not a little strong-minded, and every time my mom saw a kid going through his/her terrible two’s, my mom would say, “That will never happen to my angel.” Even my cousin had to roll his eyes at the comment.

But since the new year, I feel like we’ve spent half of every day just battling with her. She continually tests her boundaries, she does the exact opposite of anything we tell her, she insists upon doing everything herself (thus adding an extra half hour to any ten-minute task), and she is so easily frustrated. When she can’t immediately do something — for example, when she can’t get her butt to sit right on her chair — she totally loses her shit. I know I prayed for an independent, tough little girl, but sometimes this is just ridiculous. She hasn’t lost her sweetness, she just gained a lot of stubbornness.

Anyway, yesterday we had a hard time getting her to do anything, to nap, to eat her lunch, to keep her socks on, to put on her boots so we could leave, etc. By the time we’d sat down to dinner, Huz and I were exhausted. And when she went apeshit over the moose, it was too easy to get upset. It wasn’t a battle, really — I took her to the waiting area, put on her jacket, and we went to the car while Huz wrapped everything up and took care of the bill — but I was disappointed.

I felt so guilty for that on the drive home. She was scared and looking to me for comfort and protection. How do you get disappointed with a kid who’s scared of something legitimately scary? I know I’m getting way ahead of myself, but the same kind of thing will happen well into her adulthood, and she’ll need me to be supportive, not annoyed and inconvenienced.

It’s hard knowing when and how to separate those kinds of moments, especially because she is so tough, but I’m still new at this. I guess making these mistakes is the only way I’ll get better as a mom.

Tags: motherhood, parenthood, terrible twos, toddler