I told a friend of mine that while hubs and I were taking our Gap Year in England we noticed that without children our relationship changed.
Not in a life shattering way but subtly.
There weren’t so many cross words or irritated silences to start with. There were no childish influences on our lives; there were only decisions to be made about us; disagreements ground to a halt as we wandered the path of self!
“Interesting,” she said having been single for more years than she’d like to admit..
“Give me an example…” my well heeled stranger of the homeschooling years was ever the socratic teacher.
Despite being put on the spot I came up with a few:
Children tend to insinuate themselves into your conversation throwing another dimension on the relationship.
When discussing dinner with hubs I invariably go for fish baked with pesto, cheese and crunchies (crushed crisps or cereal). Hubs always agrees and our prospective dinner date is set without a fuss, until a child happens upon the scene.
“You always have that Mum, can’t you have what Dad wants for a change?”
“Dad said he wanted fish a la pesto…didn’t you?” I look to hubs for verification and see a look of…what is it? A look of martyrdom? In this modern world?
“You have your fish like that every week, can’t you cook it a different way?” she persists. Not that she was staying for dinner but she loves our left-overs.
“I’m happy to have something else, it’s just that your father asked me how I wanted the fish and this sounds really good to me and I’m happy to cook the other piece of fish differently!” I look to hubs who is shaking his head. I am getting defensive… and irritated! Dinner runs the risk of being ruined by the heat of our words.
Children also play parents against each other but we are all too familiar with that not so subtle ploy…after 20 years I’ve learned to ask from the get go…
“What did your father say when you asked him?”
Then they always want to talk about themselves which leaves no room for personal conversations.
“What are you guys talking about?”
“The church we visited this week.”
We continue our discourse. She leaves, murmuring,
“Boring!” to which we respond,
“Well….what did you want to talk about?” We see little enough of her and less of each other it seems with our own separate home offices.
“I wanted to tell you about my day at work…but it’s okay, you carry on…”
She wins in the end so our moment of sharing on the visited church, in our quest for a new spiritual home, gets put on the back burner until it frizzles away to nothing of importance.
They are guilty of expecting the world to still revolve around them and we are guilty of allowing it to.
That may change with time…although maybe not…my parents went to their graves with me believing that my life was infinitely more interesting than theirs!
And as for me…I think my life is every bit as interesting as my offsprings’ and while hubs and I were alone in England, except for the odd, very welcome, interruption, we rediscovered our youthful dreams, remembered why we fell in love…with each other …decades ago, we rekindled our friendship as a couple and found we still had lots in common, and most importantly we worked on becoming the people God had created us to be half a century ago.
So…watch out for those children and their uncanny talent for playing the field of unconditional love for all it’s worth (without any understanding of it yet), they may define who you are at special moments in your life, but don’t let that be all you are.
Take some time to unveil YOU.
Well hello there! My name is Vivienne McNeny.
I am an empty nester exploring life as a Boomer…you could say I'm happily Boomering along!
As a homeschooling Mum I have finally quit the job of role model and mentor to my four children. I do what I want to do, eat when I feel like it, enjoy life with my blue eyed cowboy and clean my house once a month or so whether it needs it or not!
In true English form I write about the emergence of my true identity now that I can no longer hide behind my children as their Mum.
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