Artist: Run The Jewels
Album: RTJ4
Date Released: June 3rd, 2020
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Artist Background
The duo consisting of Atlanta rapper Killer Mike, and legendary underground produceMC El-P, known together as Run The Jewels, originally came together as a result of Adult Swim executive Jason DeMarco who introduced the two in 2011. After his 2011 album PL3DGE peaked at #115 on the US charts, Killer Mike told Jason that he wanted to make his own AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted. Jason informed Mike, “If you want AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted modernized, the only producer I know who comes close to the Bomb Squad-level of production is El-P”. The duo’s chemistry was immediate, as El-P went on to produce all of Killer Mike’s 2012 last solo album R.A.P. Music, and Mike featured on El-P’s final solo album Cancer 4 Cure. Mike and El’s respective albums released within a week of each other in May 2012, and the two embarked on a twenty-city US tour in the following months. After returning from tour, the pair had found a friendship growing between themselves, and made the decision to put other projects on hold and focus on the chemistry that had been sparked. Recording at an upstate NY studio beginning in April 2013, the duo re-appropriated the phrase “Run The Jewels” from the LL Cool J track “Cheesy Rat Blues", and released their self-titled collaborative album, for free via digital download, only a mere 2 months later in June 2013.
36” Chain vs. Pistol & Fist
Run The Jewels discography currently exists in a distinct pairing. With Run The Jewels as their debut, this record set the group's tone as a light-hearted, braggadocious duo with as much confidence in their abilities as swag in their punchlines. Just over a year later, the sequel Run The Jewels 2 took the foundation set from their freshman effort and dialed the insanity up to 11. RTJ2 pushed the boundaries of their aggression and flows to new heights; with incredible energy in their verses, and absolutely impeccable beats, blending El-P’s signature industrial sound with sharp synth arpeggios, chopped Zach De La Rocha vocals, and absolutely bonkers Travis Barker drums.
It was then nearly 3 years before Jamie and Mike followed up their breakout RTJ2, with Run The Jewels 3 being released again ahead of its scheduled release date via free digital download, this time on Christmas Eve 2016. Instead of these two attempting to outdo the pure insanity and in-your-face attitude found in their predecessor, Mike and El decide to evolve themselves as a group. The duo had noticeably pulled back on the swag and dick jokes which made such a splash on RTJ2, instead choosing a more subdued, electronic approach to their beats, as well as a clearly stronger political approach in their lyrics. This change in sound and style is demonstrated in the album cover’s artwork. The first two records featured the distinctive RTJ “Pistol and Fist”, with the fist tightly gripping a chain. The chain, in my opinion, represents the swag and braggadocio that drove the aggressive nature of their first two albums. In RTJ3 the chain is removed, leaving only hands that have transformed from bleeding and bandaged, to a pristine gold.
This brings us to early 2020. It’s been nearly 4 years of living in a post-Trump America, and El-P announces that Run The Jewels fourth record has been completed. Mike and El live-stream the first single “yankee and the brave” on Instagram on March 22nd, 2020. Lyrically and sonically, RTJ4 exists as the successor to Run The Jewels 3, with Mike and El again taking the good from their previous effort and launching it into the creative stratosphere. El-P’s beats are again leaning towards the synthetic, electronic side, this time with the intensity dialed all the way up to 11. From a lyrical perspective, RTJ takes the politically-charged lyrics from their predecessor, and again, up the ante, laying down some of the hardest hitting and politically poignant bars either of these two have ever spit.
Album Review
2020 was a year that none of us will soon forget. An unprecedented global health crisis kept the majority of us inside for months at a time. RTJ4 was announced on May 12th, 2020, with a release date slated for June 5th, 2020. However, with 2020 as the gift that won’t stop giving, the end of May was highlighted by the unjust killing of George Floyd. The phrase heard around the world, “I can’t breathe” instantly became a rally-cry for the oppressed to finally take to the streets to demand systemic police reform, as Floyd’s death was not the first time this phrase was uttered in an unjust police killing. In fact, a 2020 study by the New York Times showed that at least 70 people have died in police custody after using the same phrase over the past decade. As millions of American’s began organizing protests and demonstrations in the wake of Floyd’s death, Run The Jewels made the decision to release their latest chapter two days ahead of the scheduled release. El-P tweeted, just minutes ahead of the drop, “Fuck it, why wait. The world is infested with bullshit, so here’s something raw to listen to while you deal with it all. We hope it brings you some joy. Stay safe and hopeful out there and thank you for giving 2 friends the chance to be heard and do what they love”. In line with all past Run The Jewels releases, the album was made available for free digital download, two days ahead of its scheduled release date, on June 3rd, 2020.
THE RETURN (we don’t mean no harm but we truly mean all the disrespect)
RTJ4 opens with the first single, “yankee and the brave (ep. 4)”. Using the team names from their respective hometown baseball teams, Mike and El use the opening track to prove that they’re not just a hip-hop duo, they’re brothers, for better or worse. El-P kicks this installment off with rapid-fire, machine-gun esque snares, matching Killer Mike’s aggressive flow and tightly packed rhymes, before El jumps in to trade some dense rhymes as well. Mike and El depict themselves as outlaws, with Mike surrounded by cops with only one bullet remaining. He contemplates suicide instead of allowing the police to take him alive, until El-P jumps back in, offering Mike a way out, with a getaway car waiting outside. This tense situation is depicted lightheartedly in this song’s music video, which was released via Adult Swim and features the duo animated.
The trade-off between Mike and El’s short verses are reminiscent of late-80’s EPMD flows, while the production sounds like boom-bap that’s been sent to us from the future. This distinctive blend of old-school rap roots and forward thinking production is what continues to separate Run The Jewels from absolutely all of their contemporaries. While so many artists are continually playing catch-up with the latest trends, RTJ are side-stepping the trendy and moving forward with the mind-bending.
FLEXIN’ (ayo one for mayhem, two for mischief)
The second single “ooh la la” samples a Gang Star track "DWYCK (feat. Nice & Smooth)" as the basis for the chorus. I say “samples” as that’s how it is credited in the album’s liner notes, however it’s truly an interpolation of Greg Nice’s bar, slowed down slightly, and sung by El-P and Greg Nice himself. El-P is a true old-head at heart, and it’s abundantly obvious in his work, even going as far as to recruit legendary producer DJ Premiere to handle the scratching on the back end of this banger.
Out of key piano chords are looped to quickly create an unsettling aura surrounding the track, before El-P’s voice cuts through the infectious piano like a whip. Pounding, up-tempo drums are introduced after the chorus’ first iteration, creating what is possibly El-P’s first danceable beat. Lyrically, Mike and El-P initially seem scattered on this track, however the music video quickly makes their point very obvious.

”we imagined the world on the day that the age old struggle of class was finally over. a day that humanity, empathy and community were victorious over the forces that would separate us based on arbitrary systems created by man.
this video is a fantasy of waking up on a day that there is no monetary system, no dividing line, no false construct to tell our fellow man that they are less or more than anyone else. not that people are without but that the whole meaning of money has vanished. that we have somehow solved our self created caste system and can now start fresh with love, hope and celebration. its a dream of humanity’s V-DAY… and the party we know would pop off.”

The video envisions a society celebrating the fact that the class system we currently exist within has finally imploded. Money is worthless, and we have rejected the desire to bind ourselves to the constraints of capitalism. All creeds and colors unite to burn the system that has so effectively controlled us for over a century. It’s a party, and if there was a song to celebrate the end of the world as it is currently known, “ooh la la” is that song.
Mike’s last verse features a few metaphors and comparisons celebrating the destruction of capitalism, saving the most poignant for last:

I used to love Bruce, but livin' my vida loca
Helped me understand I'm probably more of a Joker
When we usher in chaos, just know that we did it smiling
Cannibals on this island, inmates run the asylum

Premo’s expertly cut scratches lead us into the equally hard hitting sample flip of “Misdemeanor”, by Foster Stevens as the basis for the beat to “out of sight”. Lending yet another nod to the old-school greats that laid the foundation for RTJ, “out of sight” samples the same track as The D.O.C.’s “It’s Funky Enough”, only adding a bouncy, electronic synth atop the inverted chord hits, and uptempo, industrial drums, to create an absolutely infectious groove for Mike and El’s dynamic chemistry to shine, rapidly jumping between each other’s two line flows in the first verse.
“out of sight” shows each MC providing insight into how each of them earned a living and achieved their current status. Mike and El’s opening verse each details themselves robbing people in order to eat. El alludes to the fact that he crossed his accomplices in crime for the whole bag, while Mike details the fact his assailant tells him it’s an “honor” to be robbed by his mother’s only son.
While El-P’s production is the obvious stand out on first listen, Killer Mike comes through with one of the most sonically pleasing and technically proficient verses of 2020.

We the motivating, devastating, captivating
Ghost and Rae relating product of the fuckin' '80s
Coke dealin' babies, never regulating, bag accumulating
It would not be overstating to say they are underrating
The pride of Brooklyn and the Grady, baby
We don't need no compliments or confidence
Our attitude and latitude is "fuck you, pay me"

The dense, intricate rhyme schemes smack you in the face, almost distracting you from Mike’s delivery and blistering flow on the verse; flexing his legendary status while paying homage to his drug-dealing past. This absolutely stunning display of technical skill, story telling, and complex rhyming illustrates how RTJ seamlessly integrates the best of both old school and new school hip-hop.
“out of sight” also features a guest verse from 2 Chainz, and he continues to lay the braggadocio on thick. Considering Tity Boi’s dedication to trap stylings, his verse feels right at home on the flex track, despite it’s late 80’s tribute sample, a considerable departure from his usual sound palette.
Up until this point, I haven’t mentioned any of the El-P’s lyrics specifically. El-P is a great rapper, but Killer Mike… Well, Killer Mike is an incredible rapper. He’s the guy who draws you in. El-P is the one who lays the foundation for greatness and Mike is the show stopper, and that’s generally the case for most RTJ tracks. But on “holy calamafuck”, El-P seems determined to make people stop and ask, “Who the fuck is this?!”.
A sharp, yet nearly minimalistic drum kit backing a heavily distorted synthesizer melody lays beneath rhymically knocking cow-bells. This aggressively set stage allows Mike and El to flex as the dynamic duo they are, until the beat suddenly takes a turn for the chaotic. A gnarled, ultra-menacing synth overtakes everything while Mike screams into the abyss, until a distorted snare, enormous 808s, and skeletal hi-hats cut through and launch the beat switch into another dimension. The minimal, yet incredibly dark soundscape allows El-P to snap in a way I have never heard from him previously. His rhymes schemes are reminiscent of an old MF DOOM lyric notebook, while his topics flawlessly combine flexing, psychedelic use, and his well-cemented legacy in the hip-hop community. Cutting and pasting a few of his bars into this review could not convey a fraction of how stunning El-P’s performance on “holy calamafuck” is.
Slightly later in the track list, making liberal use of the Ether song “Gang of Four”, “the ground below” samples and loops the sharp guitar riff and adds aggressive, pounding drums as the basis for the beat; this is finally reminiscent of the forward-thinking, stridulous production El-P has built his reputation on. Capitalising on the classic RTJ moment, Mike and El both flex in their own unique ways. Mike compares himself to Godzilla taking on Tokyo, and El-P demands respect for his name as the legend he is, threatening to smack dying children for mispronouncing his name with his middle finger to the world; his complete disregard for human life and confidence in his abilities are summed up at the end of his verse.

You see a future where Run the Jewels ain’t the shit
Cancel my Hitler-killing trip
Turn the time machine back around a century

SO¢IAL JU$T-ICE (until my voice go from a shriek to whisper...)
While the first few tracks aren’t without their social and political themes, the back-end of RTJ4 is where Mike and El start to bust out the heavy topics. “goonies vs. E.T.”. starts off light, with El-P pointing to the irony of how once he finally started to make it “big” in the industry, the world began to descend into chaos due to climate changes, increasingly obvious social injustice, and political madness. He culminates his frustration with our disregard for the Earth with a fantastic quotable.

Fuck y’all got, another planet on stash?
Far from the fact of the flames and our trash
That is not snow, it is ash, and you gotta know
The past got a wrath, it’s a lover gone mad

Mike’s verse takes the light-hearted frustration expressed by El-P, and turns the aggression to the next level. Aiming his sights against the ruling class and their society that’s been designed to oppress people for profit, who have very meticulously painted themselves as celebrities and idols to the American public. Mike accepts that he will be villainized by these people for speaking against them, but he welcomes the nefarious role, knowing that the working class will eventually eat the rich, no matter how much they are stomped into the dirt.
And this is just the warmup.
If it’s possible for a song to represent a moment in time that captures the absolute shit storm that has been 2020, “walking in the snow” is that song. It’s release coincided perfectly with the protests for George Floyd which were sweeping the nation. Killer Mike’s verse directly references the phrase “I can’t breathe”, the last words of Eric Garner, which also happened to be the last words of Floyd as well. The fact that this verse was reportedly written in November 2019 perpetually underscores the importance of the content and perfectly represents how persistent this problem is. “walking in the snow” is a true encapsulation of both a defining moment in time and an ever-persisting issue.
But he doesn’t just stop at the racial injustice. Mike goes on an absolute rant about the American education system; how it’s not designed to teach people, but to discriminate against poor populations, limiting their legitimate opportunities, and therefore disproportionately leading them into a criminal lifestyle. He calls out the media as fear-mongers, and the apathy of the American public in the face of indecency. Fortunately for Mike, by the time we finally had the chance to hear this masterpiece, we were already on our feet, using this album as a war cry to mobilize against a tyrannical government that militarized against its own citizens simply for asking that we recognize systemic racism and demanding change. Killer Mike has the best verse of the year, no doubt in my mind.
The only drawback is that Mike’s verse is so fucking good that it completely overshadows El-P’s, which is also amazing. A menacing guitar riff and haunting synths kick the track off into a bouncy groove, where El-P unleashes a flurry of internal rhymes that does not relent for about half his verse. Even adding layers of social commentary within the densely packed bars, El refuses to quit and continues on his political tirade; criticizing ICE’s detainment center practices and the “pseudo-Christians” who support them, with a bar that now lives in my head:

Pseudo-Christians, y’all indifferent, kids in prison ain’t a sin? Shit
if even one scrap of what Jesus taught connected you’d feel different
what a disingenuous way to piss away existence, I don’t get it
I’d say you lost your goddamn minds if y’all possessed one to begin with

The combination of two of the best verses spit by any rapper(s) this year and production help from El-P and long time RTJ collaborator Little Shalimar, create a bouncy, aggressive, deeply truthful banger. “walking in the snow” not only encapsulates the crux of 2020 with lyrics that will become more powerful as they age, but will also forever be associated with the Black Lives Matter movement and the determination to expose continuing racial and societal injustices.
The sonic palette of RTJ4 holds an extremely unique place in El-P’s discography. Jamie is the definition of a self-made 90’s hip-hop legend. This is the dude who put New York underground hip-hop on the map with Company Flow, and he did it with his unique flavor of dark, noisy, dense, boom-bap. Whether he was doing it with the help of Rawkus, or completely independently during his Definitive Jux run, El-P has never made music with the intention of becoming famous. Funcrusher Plus, Fantastic Damage,I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead, and Cancer 4 Cure are all highly revered as industrial, technical, abrasive, and completely unsuitable for the radio or a party. The fact that three songs on RTJ4 could easily be heard on the radio, at a party, or in a TV series credits scene is frankly, astounding. In a 2002 interview/documentary on El-P’s budding record label Def Jux, he stated that his friend bet him $500 that he could not make a beat that was “happy”. At the time of the interview, El-P said that he had not won that bet yet. While I might not qualify the beats on RTJ4 as “happy”, if you showed El-P the beat for “JU$T” in 2002, I believe he might have won that bet.
Pharell opens “JU$T” with the pre-chorus, spitting varied examples of how we’re all slaves to our current system throughout the track, over echoing snares and bouncy 808s before bright synth chords and up-tempo hi-hats burst in while Killer Mike delivers the chorus, pointing to the fact that the majority of the people featured on American currency owned slaves at one point in their lives. Mike’s verse touches on the fact that he has committed crimes to get where they are today. Mike is publicly open about his past as a drug dealer. So why is he a criminal, but Benjamin Franklin isn’t? These are the people who built our country, and they built it on the backs of slaves. He illustrates this theme with a more recent examples:

You believe corporations runnin marijuana? Ooh (how that happen?)
and your country gettin ran by a casino owner (ooh)
pedophiles sponsor all these fuckin’ racist bastards (they do)

When corporations are able to sell cannabis legally, but the government continually incarcerates people who trap, our president is a notoriously fraudulent businessman, and the people who helped put him in power run a pedophile ring, yet none of them face consequences and are allowed to continue to profit and remain in power while people suffer; well, we might be closer to slaves than previously imagined.
Rage Against The Machine frontman Zach de la Rocha also makes his mandatory feature appearance at the end of “JU$T”. As the only artist to feature on three Run The Jewels albums, Zach is essentially an unofficial member of the group at this point. His fiery verse is spit with the same “Rage” energy that set him apart in the mid-90’s, ending the track questioning his place in a capitalist society as a recipe for his inevitable demise, since his “breath”, or art, as his weapon to express himself is still being exploited for other’s profit.
Continuing with RTJ4’s heavily synthetic sonic palette, “never look back” features wavering synth leads resting above the slow-jams snappy snares and thumping bass, while a haunting voice echoes in the background. This unsettling aura provides additional gravity for Jamie and Mike to continue self-reflecting on defining moments in their childhood, and as well as how far they’ve come from those moments. Mike and El are both self-made men, and while they have a certain fondness for those gritty moments that defined them, moving forward in life is undoubtedly more important.
Skeletal drums reminiscent of a slowly pounding heart opens “pulling the pin”, before rhythmic hi-hats and textured, watery synths fluttering in the upper register resting above a bouncy synth lead, and punchy 808s, burst in. The track digs itself into a slower, marching groove and shows the duo figuratively doing exactly what the title implies. Painting a portrait of a society that has turned on itself, Mike and El are ready to pull the pin and start over.
The duo both detail their despise for the ruling class, pointing out multiple examples of how the elite have designed our society to keep poor people in their class. Simultaneously recognizing their own hypocrisy for profiting in a system that inherently discriminates; Mike reflects on his own success, knowing that living the lifestyle he enjoys is one built on oppression, and expresses the guilt that has caused him. El-P opens with a brutal metaphor for police, implying that they’re the root cause of the “wretched state of danger” our society exists within, and that the only effective corrective action is to numb yourself with drugs. Despite his advice, Jamie knows this is not a permanent solution, but one that causes more self-inflicted wounds.
The final piece of the puzzle that is RTJ4, “a few words for the firing squad” begins to close the album with ever crescending strings, and loud, thunderous drums which never seem to resolve, continuing throughout their verses. While the drums that lead to nowhere can be sonically unpleasant, the unresolved melodies are intentionally representative of their current mindsets. Their verses are reflective and grim, but simultaneously optimistic and envisions a world where tragedy is a less common occurrence.
El is grateful for what he has now but recognizes his entire life has been skewed by traumas, so out of place feels normal for him. He reflects on his current success, noting that the worst people tend to end up with the most, which makes becoming “rich” something not as desirable as it once was.
Mike opens up about the death of his mother who died while he was on an airplane, admitting his struggles to not cope with his trauma with opioids. However, his wife provides him the most important reason to stay clean “but my queen/say she need a king/not another junkie rapper fiend” while a heartbreaking saxophone solo highlights the gravity of his lyrics.
The track ends with what sounds the like wrap-up voiceover to a TV show, a conceptually satisfying ending, as the opening track “yankee and brave (ep.4)” began with El-P stating:

”This week, on Yankee and The Brave”

This voiceover paints the duo as brothers on the run from the law and crooked cops, and while this does close this “episode” out as intended, the critic in me is bothered by the slightly kitschy outro to such a spectacular album. The voices singing over and over, “Brave, brave, braaaaaave, Yankee and the Brave” would be, simply put, better left on the cutting room floor. The ending of this track alone is what knocks my score of this album down a few points. Despite its stellar lyrical content, with drums that never seem to reach that “holy shit!” moment, and the easily skippable outro, it’s upsetting to me that an album this great ends on such a low note.
Overview
RTJ4 is by far my favorite album of the year. El-P’s cutting edge approach to their sound, blended with lyrical content that continues to be more relevant by the day, the duo have come together with what is objectively their most accessible album to date. RTJ4 is the natural evolution of sound and subject matter for the duo; taking the foundation set by Run The Jewels 3 and evolving it into a more concise, more accessible, and more conceptual album. While I still personally prefer the “fuck the world” intensity and experimental nature of Run The Jewels 2, RTJ4 opens themselves up to a whole new world of exposure, and when you’re as talented as these two, you know they’re going to capitalize on it. RTJ is currently at their apex, and they’ve created an album that will make many new life-long fans going forward.
9.2/10
Discussion Points

How does this compare to other RTJ releases? How about in comparison to the member’s solo works?
Does the overwhelmingly positive critical reception of this album surprise you?
How will this be looked back on in 5 years?
What are your favorite lyrics?

Our roommate is stressing out our children to no end

Please make yourself comfortable as this is going to be a long one. I understand if folks skip through.
This past November my husband and I made the decision to drive from one state to another (a total of 46 hours round trip) to pick up a long time friend (we’ll call her Daisie) who had fallen in a difficult situation. She’s 33 and has Asperger’s. We set her up in one of our spare rooms until she can get on her feet and find her own place. She assured us she was willing and able to take care of herself and that she'd be able to get a place for herself. We did our usual, made it clear what was expected in our home, especially the treatment of our children. My son is 9 and also has Aspergers. My daughter is 7, has ADHD and other hurdles that can accompany it (Objective Defiance Disorder, Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria) We have worked with our children constantly in order to teach them ways of dealing with issues that may arise with both disorders, so that they are able to live their lives as “normal” as possible, but there are some things that need more patience and understanding, and we adjust to the situation in order to teach them. We do not baby them, they receive fair punishments when they go off the rails, and we make sure they understand why they’re in trouble. My friend is used to living by herself with her dog, and having people do everything for her as she commands it by making them feel badly so that they will. This is obviously a problem in our house since she had the whole talk about wanting independence as she’s lived her entire adult life having someone else take care of her money (which has been proven since she’s been here she has no impulse control and spends all of her money before she has realized it.) Her behaviors in the past 3 months have been what I describe as appalling, at least to myself and others who have experienced being around her at the house and heard about the situation. I’m the kind of person who wakes up with a clear idea of what I need to get done, and I work all day on getting those things done while I’m also in college and homeschooling both my children by myself. On top of this, I’m taking care of the entire household, cooking, cleaning, running errands, etc. While I realize that not everyone is able to do this, and I give more patience than I should to a lot of things, I’m finding myself very upset with this living situation, as is my husband and my children.
“Daisie” tends to spend all day either online playing games with her friends or constantly complaining about our children. If she’s not doing either of those things, she’s constantly knocking at my bedroom door, despite being told numerous times that I’m working on my assignments, to constantly tell me that she’s done one thing or another around the house. These things are usually minor to the point that you’d have never noticed if she hadn’t said anything. For example, picking up something that was on the floor, like a piece of paper, or putting an empty soda box in the garbage can outside. Conversations with her have become a nightmare. When not complaining about something she wants to have her way, she’s talking about what she wants to do, what she wants to buy, or something she thinks we need to put in the house just because she wants it, not because it is actually something helpful or something the house actually needs. She wanted a lock on her bedroom door and we agreed to a locking interior door, but she’s constantly arguing that she wants one with a keyed lock (where she’s the only one with the key, and has no reason to actually want it as no one goes in there but her. No one else can tolerate the smell or the mess laying everywhere.) She asked to paint her bedroom to match her “theme” she wanted, and I agreed as long as it’s not something I’m going to have to paint over when she moves out, and that it would have to be done correctly because I don’t want the carpet ruined or the trim until it’s time to replace it. (we’ve had plans for renovations for the past year or so) She has not discussed the situation with us any further, but she talks about painting it while we’re away, asking the help of another friend we’re renting a room to rather than saying anything to us about it, and discussing paint she knows we are going to have to cover when she moves out. (which I think at this point she doesn’t plan on moving out) She also doesn't really want to pay for the paint itself and has made comments to both us and the other roommate about someone else paying for it and doing it all for her.
Since she’s been here, I’ve heard a long list of things she’s allergic to, and we have done our best to accommodate those things, such as buying laundry detergent she’s not allergic to, but she has constantly complained about that. She says she’s allergic to every main brand detergent on the market with the exception of Dreft or any of the “free and clear” detergents. No questions asked, we bought this for her. Daisie has a very bad habit of not bathing, and to date, has had two showers since the day after we left to visit my family for Christmas (December 23). We only know of it because she makes it a point to tell us literally every choice she makes and plans she has as all of her conversations are about her, but back to the bath. She demands to take long hot baths in my tub, which is in the master bathroom, and quite honestly, I let her do it twice just to be nice when she first moved in, but now she wants to do this all the time and says the bathroom she uses is too small for a tub bath. This also kicks myself and my husband out of our bedroom because a locked bathroom door isn’t enough privacy for her. All the showers in the house have been fitted with shower heads that come off so that everyone can use them to clean everywhere on their bodies. Daisie is over 400 pounds. She’s almost the same size as my younger brother, who has used the same shower with no issues at all. I’m not small myself, I’m just under 200 pounds, which is why I provide everyone with the shower heads as an option so that they can really get clean as I know I feel gross when I sweat and just want everything washed. Daisie doesn’t want to use the shower head. She claims she doesn’t want to take showers because she’s claustrophobic and doesn’t want to close the shower curtain. She gives me every possible excuse as to why she HAS to lay in my bath to get me to agree, and gets upset that I won’t. I don’t enjoy scrubbing the ring out of my tub and she makes excuses as to why she physically can’t or won’t. Generally speaking, I do not let people hang out in my bedroom because to me it is a private space. Besides myself and our children, no one really comes in here and I like it that way because I need personal space to recharge myself after the world has emotionally and mentally drained me.
I’ve gone off tangent, but back on track to the laundry detergent. She made an offhand comment one day about how she liked the way that our laundry detergent smelled (which is Gain) and asked if she could use it, as miraculously, after a week or two of her hands supposedly burning while touching our clothes it stopped and she wanted to do a spot test to see if she had a reaction. I had no problem doing spot tests for both detergent and fabric softener, even put a dryer sheet around her wrist to make sure that wouldn’t give her issues as well. Lo and behold she’s had absolutely no reaction to any of it. So we share our laundry supplies with her with no problem, as we want her to be clean, and would do anything we could to encourage better habits that would get rid of the horrendous smell of body odor that overpowers any air freshener we have bought and tried.
We pay for all of the food in the house along with the bills. Daisie pays a small amount of rent each month, which we don’t HAVE to have, but she asked to “contribute” so we’ve just been either putting it away or using it when something unexpected comes up. She asked for a chore in the house and offered to use the poop scooper to pick up the dog poop in the yard every Sunday. She’s been here since the day after Thanksgiving and has only done this once… the day it was bought. It’s been sitting outside since and hasn’t been touched.
Ever since the second month she’s been here it’s been clear that she has an issue with wanting to control things. My kids have chores, minor things like wiping off the counters, picking up things from the floor in the living room, or organizing shoes on the shoe rack near the front door. We don’t give them too much of a load because we’d rather them focus on their studies and have some time each day to relax and have time for themselves. I’m usually always around to keep them on track as they can sometimes get distracted. If for some reason I have to step out of the room, either because I’m checking on my assignments, looking for something, or need to tend to something in another room, she is there hovering over them, barking orders at them, and insisting they clean to her standards, and if they don’t she will hound them and make them go back and do it again or constantly complain to me hoping that I’ll give in and make them go back to do it the way she wants. I know they’re going to make mistakes. They’re kids. If they don’t make mistakes they aren’t going to learn from them or grow. I simply point it out, and show them how to correct it in the future. They listen and they make sure next time to not miss that detail. It’s been a long going thing with them and it’s worked up until now. She makes them do the entire job over again, and will make them keep doing it until they get it to her idea of right. It's gotten to the point they have no room to even breathe. If they come out of their room, she's there. If she hears them talking, she's there. If they make any sound at all, she's there. She wants to know where everyone's going when they leave, and she's there to see what we are doing when we walk through the front door to come home. She keeps her bedroom window open constantly just to see who is going in and out of the house at any given time and always demands we buy her something while we're out if we're going to a store.
About two weeks ago I went out to the store with my husband and my daughter. My daughter (Mary, we’ll call her) asked if we were going home. I of course told her “Yeah we’ll be home soon” to which she says okay, sighs, and lays her head against the window before asking if we could go someplace else. I jokingly asked her “Why? Would you prefer not to go home?” and she quietly says “I really don’t want to go home”. I asked her why, and she sits quietly for a few moments before telling us both that she doesn’t want to go home because she’s always getting yelled at. I asked her who was always yelling at her, and she says it was Daisie. As a mother who spends a lot of time trying to make sure their children’s needs are always provided for and they have a safe place to be, this hurt my heart to say the least. So, like anyone who wants to help, I simply ask her what she means by yelling. It wasn’t yelling Daisie was doing, but it was her hovering over them and demanding they do everything her way rather than what they were taught to the point they were being made to do it over and over and over until they got it to her standards that was stressing her out. Mary can only describe it as yelling at her because she sometimes has issues associating certain words in sentence formation. Daisie had been pushing them and nagging them to the point that Mary felt she couldn’t do anything right anymore, and had absolutely no drive to attempt doing her chores. She said she didn’t want to do anything anymore because she was always anxious about it never being right. Mary had also told us that Daisie had been using the kids to do things for her that she wanted done because all the adults had gotten tired of her demanding them to do things for her because she didn’t want to do them for herself. She'd on multiple occasions tried to get my husband to make food for her too while he was trying to get food in him before his blood sugar dropped too low. She’d made the kids pick up things or put things away because she personally thought it didn’t need to be there, heat up food for her in the microwave, fetch something she didn’t feel like getting up to get (even if it’s 8 feet away in the same room), among other things. These are things she’d been asking all the adults to do for her that we stopped doing because it was almost like a full time job just to constantly do things she was capable of doing herself but didn’t feel like it. Since this has all been going on, neither child has wanted to do their chores, my son has started to whine about literally everything (he usually only whines a lot when he’s getting stressed or when he’s tired and needs time to himself. He would rather whine than constantly complain or explain his emotion sometimes.), my daughter has refused to even clean her own room because “If I can’t do it right, why should I bother doing it at all?” Mary has been through a lot in her 7 years. She was rejected by the kids’ biological father for being a girl, dealt with abandonment, rejection from other adults because she’s not what people expect, and struggled even early on in her school days with bullying. Our son, we’ll call him Alex, dealt with abuse and abandonment from their biological father as well. When we started working with Mary at home rather than forcing her to go to public schools, she blossomed. She no longer got overwhelmed and melted down, her demeanor was much calmer, and she has overall been a happy well-adjusted child, we didn’t have any issues other than her having issues holding her bladder when her anxiety got the best of her. (these have obviously since stopped as she’s gotten older but if she gets too anxious now she can wet the bed at night.) She only had issues with schedule upsets, when we had to change plans and do something completely different and even then, it wasn’t a major issue for her, she was just slow to adjust to the change. It stressed her out. This has started a lot of tension in the house, as I’ve had to put cameras in the kitchen and living room to make sure the kids are okay, which I don’t like in the least. Our home is supposed to be our safe space, and I’m left feeling like every day we’re not safe in our homes.
Before anything is asked, Daisie has always had a presence of something dark around her. Her presence is heavy, even kind of suffocating at times. We have on numerous occasions corrected her about how she talks to the kids, given plenty of conversation reminding her of expectations, and she still persists. She has on several occasions raised her voice to argue when she thinks my husband should do something her way, even going so far as to try to rope me into it to try to manipulate me into forcing him to do it the way she wants. I simply tell her this is how he does it, it gets the job done, to just let it be, because I’m not going to let her manipulate anyone so long as I’m in this house. She has a habit of manipulating people on the internet into giving her money once she’s spent all hers. She legitimately says things in a way that makes people feel bad for her so that they buy it, like wanting a new bed. She had spent all her money on a shopping spree at a local walmart and bought a bed frame but didn’t think about buying a mattress. So she did her usual “eventually I’ll have this”, which turned into “I really want this” with her comments progressing until one of her people online bought her a 200 dollar mattress against warnings from their parents (They’re in their early 20s and still live at home) Daisie has a very long history of making manipulative comments to try to steer things towards herself, and has on multiple occasions said or done things to make sure she gets the attention, even demanding an apology from someone who didn’t owe her one, but she wanted the satisfaction that someone felt badly for her not getting what she wanted in that moment. She has gone so far as to attack our religious beliefs because she doesn’t believe the same way. We are Catholic and have never once spoken to her about it unless she asks a question. We don’t try to make her go to Mass with us and have only commented about why we like the priest at our parish or when we have to leave to take the kids to Religious Education classes. She is Pagan and has not only made insulting comments towards us, but has made comments because we have a small amount of decor in the living room that reflects that. Nothing outrageous or in your face. She doesn’t like it to say the least. We have never once said anything about her beliefs. We don't care what others believe in. We respect others' differences in faith, and we would like the same respect given to us.
Last month we had just gotten in from out of town, and were cleaning the house because obviously nothing had been done while we were gone. She proceeded in the conversation, and in realizing my husband had a different opinion, started making sure she drove it home that her opinion and wants in the situation mattered more than everyone elses. My husband has been way more patient with her than he is with most people, because I explained to him that she has aspergers, and that we should try to understand how her differences work the same way we did with our son. We have tried that, and we don’t really see any symptoms that are anything of the sort, so we have been trying to take things one issue at a time, but to absolutely no avail. Anyway, since he wasn’t bending to agree with her and tried to explain the reasoning behind his choice, she got louder and started to argue more, before yelling out “you don’t have to yell at me.” I was there in the room, he wasn’t yelling at her in the least. He did, however, yell after that. In order to stop her trying to talk over him to invalidate anything he said and to stop her from constantly treating him like he was dumb, like she had always done to him, he came into the room quite loudly and said “This is yelling. Do you see that now? I will raise my voice in my own house if I need to. Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?” By that point she had covered her ears and immediately started crying, and generally, I’d have felt bad about it, but honestly this time I didn’t. Especially after she made a comment about wanting to hit him just because he walked out of the room rather than listening to a long list of what she wanted done for her. It made her angry at him because he wasn't going to do this long list as he is both working and taking his last few classes for his degree. So no, I didn't feel badly when he yelled this time. I calmly told him to mind his voice because the kids were home and didn’t need to hear him yelling. They were in the room with another friend we rent a room to, who was playing video games. My husband used to be a correctional officer and at that point, that training took over. What he saw was a person who was not listening, only demanding, and he is not one to be forced to bend to anyone’s will just because they want it that way. Our other friend, who we will call Dennis came out moments later and pat her on the back and asked what happened, to which I explained, and he stopped rubbing her on the back and said “ohhh” before walking back to his room. He wouldn’t stand by her on it. This was of course recorded on the cameras, to which we have only really shared it with a couple of family members to ask their opinion on the situation because we really honestly didn’t know where to go afterwards. Daisie went to her room and cried it out, before coming out to apologize to him. Her apology was a half apology, and half a blame game because she still tried to push the situation again but quickly realized that putting the blame on him wasn’t going to be had and retracted. The argument they were having was over the dogs. She never did much in the way of training her dog, and he had several times randomly attacked our 11 month old husky. He's a 3 year old Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever, and much larger than our dog. Her dog was not socialized, and she made a million excuses for his behavior and refused to try to remedy the situation. Eventually I took the dog and started training him myself as she no longer wanted him because she had been told that either she trains him or has to rehome him with someone who will. Where we live, had we reported her dog’s aggression, he would have been forcibly removed from her care. Since I trained him, the aggression stopped other than a few territorial growls, but when she was around him, he would get aggressive again because she would make it a point to not follow through with the things we’d taught him. Because of this we couldn’t leave both dogs at home when she was around because she'd not pay attention and he'd jump on our dog. With everything we’ve done, she will make comments and statements to acknowledge that she understands and will adhere to the few rules we’ve laid down, but when it comes to doing it she ignores it and just goes on doing what she wants to do.
My daughter has been asking constantly to spend the night with other people, because it hasn’t ended. I cannot leave my kids alone in any one room of the house, even the living room to watch TV without her coming in and hounding them to do something she wants them to do. I let my daughter spend the night with the neighbor as she’s best friends with her daughter, but that one night away has only increased her anxiety about being at home with Daisie here. She has started wetting her bed again as she’s too worried about what’s going on in the house. Both children have started showing multiple signs of anxiety and Mary has resorted to hiding things in her bedroom closet so that she can stay in there sometimes and not have to worry about what Daisie will have to say about it.
I want Daisie gone. I want her to move somewhere else, out of our house. I fear that if she doesn’t I’m likely to hurt her in ways I don’t even know I’m capable of. Since she listens in on our conversations I made it a point to tell my husband that if things don’t change I’m going to make a change that no one likes, and I don’t care who doesn’t like it because these kids don’t deserve to sit at home unhappy and stressed out because they feel they can’t even breathe without being told it’s being done wrong. My husband stayed silent and nodded in agreement as he had nothing to add to it. My son loves people. He loves Daisie too even though he’s lost all respect for her. My son is the kind of person who will do things to make people happy just because he likes to see them smile. If my son asks you for a hug, it’s because he sees something in you that says you need a hug. It’s not for himself. It’s for the person he sees as needing a hug. He always asks, he never forces it, and if you tell him no, he’s okay with that, but he’s doing that less and less lately because any time Daisie is around, she will remark that he doesn’t need a hug and that he needs to stop looking for constant validation. She has a few times now referred to him as creepy because he likes to make people smile. While yes, I do correct her in most of these instances, I'm glad he's not been around to hear it. He has on numerous occasions asked her if she wants a hug and she will reject it and tell him that he needs to stop forcing himself on her and has even tried to tell me I need to “control” him as his offers are inappropriate and she doesn’t like it. I simply pulled my son to the side and told him to leave her alone, that there aren’t enough hugs in the world to make her happy. He said he knew, but he didn’t want her to feel left out. I can’t with this child sometimes.
If she doesn’t leave, I’m probably going to hurt her. I don’t want my kids to see me like that. I don’t want to hurt anyone either, but this situation is stirring up mother bear reactions in me and I’m likely to tear someone’s head off and poop down their neck stump if she doesn’t leave. At the same time though, she has nowhere to go. The majority of people get tired of dealing with her mindset and attitude, or the smell, and they stop hanging out or talking to her. I introduced her to one of the neighbors and he no longer wants her over at his house because of her attitude. She’s met people in town who have been hanging out with her, which I see as a security risk to the house because she hd them come pick her up at our house after only talking to them for two days over the internet. We don’t know these people. They know where we live, and she’s been giving out the gate code to our community. We don’t live in the city, but we are in a larger town and you can’t trust everyone in the world in this day and age. These friends though, have started slowly canceling things they’ve planned to do with her, giving only short excuses that we can see through, but she believes and still gets angry because it’s not what she wanted, and has openly admitted she’s more angry because she can’t control the situation.
So she really doesn’t have anywhere to go. I do not like shelters in the least, but my mind has been thinking of putting her there and forcing her to do all of this on her own, because it’s pretty clear she’s making no progressive use of all the time she has on her hands. I am a busy person. As I’ve said before I wake up with a list of things in my mind that I need to do, and I work on getting those things done. I don’t have time to constantly have to watch her every move because she wants to be rude or controlling and demanding. Our kids don’t need the stress that’s been placed upon them. My husband’s parents have even suggested to her that maybe she’d be better off in a place on her own, but she argues with them and thinks that she’s helping us by being here. She doesn’t help, and isn’t needed.
What stops me from being a complete asshole is understanding that she has Aspergers, but at the same time, she’s used it in so many arguments it’s starting to feel more like she’s using it as a pass for her behavior rather than us trying to understand how she thinks or reacts. At the current, if I’m not doing something that requires me to be outside my bedroom, I stay in here. The kids do too. They get to watch tv in the living room either when she’s gone or in her room busy. If she comes out, they are brought into my room. They do their assignments in here, and we do lessons in here. I like to see it as we’re spending more time together like we wanted, but at the same time, I feel like the four of us are also prisoners in our house because of someone else. I don't honestly know where to go from here, but I know it's going to get worse if we don't get her out of here. It's pretty clear she's not going to stop her behaviors. I suppose I just need a bit of advice on how to proceed. At this point I no longer see her as any kind of friend and I just want her to leave and never hear from her again. There are very few people in this world who have done me wrong that I completely lose the ability to even care for their humanity or what happens to them, and she has joined that list. Our kids are everything to us and we are hurting because they are hurting, and that's what put her on that list.

My mom and dad said they’re too 1% parents which makes me question if I’m the problem but I think it’s them

TIFU I wish I hadn't let a good friend slip away

Hi all. First post ever. Be nice.
This didn't happen today, but it happened a couple years ago. I met someone that could've been someone really special in my life but like an idiot I let him slip away. Let's call him...hmm...Eddie!
I had heard about Eddie long before I met him. His mom started going to my church and was very cool. Her teenage son, Eddie, gained a reputation, however, for being a little talkative. Eddie needed rides in the morning but didn't have a car and his mom couldn't for whatever reason. My dad, being the wonderful guy he is, offered to drive him before going to work. However, because it would be a little weird for a grown man and a teenager to be alone in a car, my dad made me, his daughter, come along.
It was early in the morning before the sun came up and I was a cranky middle-schooler who was a ball full of raging, uncontrollable emotions. I was not happy to share the same car as this annoying, loud kid when I could hardly keep my eyes open. I hated the early morning car rides and I hated Eddie.
Guys, Eddie was noisy. I had a front row seat to hear his crazy. One morning, he told us about his plans to make a motorcycle from a bike and lawn mower engine he found. Another time he told us about how he was going to make a flamethrower out of some sort of contraption. I heard from his mom that he made an electric glove from a bug zapper he bought. This guy was unlike any other teenager I had ever met. He always had a story to tell. And, as my father pointed out, he was always chipper and happy, despite the fact it was early. I just rolled my eyes and despised Eddie.
Well, I eventually got into high school and shared a couple of classes with Eddie. As usual, Eddie talked my ear off. Even during lectures, he'd whisper a joke or show me something he drew on his worksheet. By now I was a little more mature and was polite enough to listen to him or laugh quietly.
For one thing, we both watched anime but liked reading manga better, a rare find. We both liked to draw silly stuff. We had similar tastes in humor and we both agreed that taco bell was the best fast food restaurant. It was little things like this that made me appreciate Eddie. In gym we'd run together and talk the whole time. In science, we'd work together on projects. In math, we would doodle on our homework.
He'd perk up whenever saw me and I did the same. He'd tell me about this funny video he found ("look at this spongebob anime!"), some weird story from work ("my manager made me clean up human poop in the lobby") or a random thought from his chaotic, unknowable brain ("if you could slap a past american president, who would it be?"). Eddie was funny and happy all the time. I only ever saw him upset a couple times and if I was angry, he was a good person to vent to. I grew really fond of Eddie, but I didn't even realize it. Looking back now, I'm pretty sure our classmates thought we were dating because we were always talking or laughing about something. We were, by far, the loudest people in class. Eddie was sucking me into his noisy, giggling, preposterous aura and I didn't care. I was just along for the ride.
Not everyone felt the same way about Eddie, however.
"That kid's annoying," a friend from work said.
"He talks too much," a classmate complained.
"Can you be quiet for one minute?"
"Dude, do you ever shut up?"
"You're so annoying."
I started to realize the very real possibility that Eddie had some form of ADHD. He really did talk all the time. His school assignments were always crumpled and he frequently forgot to do them. He often abandoned projects as soon as he had another idea. Eddie moved and talked too quickly for the world to catch up.
One time in class together, I was working on homework and his worksheet was already shoved, undone without even his name on it, in his backpack. We chatted and the topic of marriage came up in the discussion between us.
"I'm never getting married," he said, "I'm staying single forever. I'll be the cool uncle."
"Where're you gonna live?"
"Somewhere out in the country by myself. Or maybe I'll just travel, y'know?"
By himself? The thought of Eddie somewhere deep in woods or high in the mountains far from any other people confused me. Eddie, who would talk to anyone who would listen, wanted to be by himself forever? I knew it really was none of my business what Eddie did with his life, but I couldn't stop thinking about it.
One night, I overheard my dad talking on the phone. He was apart of a committee at our church who planned youth activities.
"We really should plan something Eddie would like next week. His mom told me he's been feeling really lonely lately."
I now realize the situation Eddie was in back then. At church, I almost always saw him talking to the adults and maybe one other guy his age. At school. he had a handful of friends. But mostly, he was ignored a lot. Treated like a problem. Somebody no one wanted to join their group. His mom was divorced and his siblings were either much older or much younger than him. Who did he talk to?
I never dived too much into Eddie's personal life, but I have a feeling now that he knew he was being shunned. He couldn't stop his voice and just needed someone to listen. He wanted to be with other people, but other people had pushed him away, told him that he needed to learn to shut up. Even I had done this at one point. If I hadn't been in those classes with him, I would've kept ignoring him, only making his problem worse.
Eddie was a year older than me, so he graduated my junior year. Near the end of the year, seniors weren't required to come to school the last couple weeks and my classes were noticeably more quiet and dull without Eddie. Life happened and I didn't see too much of him at church, either. He went to college across the country and his mother suddenly moved far away. Last I heard, he might've gone into the military. I didn't get his number, social media, email, nothing. I didn't think to.
I really hate myself for never getting any form of contact with him.
Eddie was honestly one of the nicest, coolest, and happiest guys I ever met. I sincerely enjoyed his company and I wished I had told him that. Told him to keep going, to keep ignoring people who put him down. Eddie was the kid who loved to laugh and joke in a world full of self-centered teenagers who would rather die than be caught with an embarrassing smile on their face. He showed me that you don't have to take yourself too seriously and that there was always something to be happy about. He could've been spiteful that no one wanted to listen to him, but he braved through it all.
I miss him, I really miss him. I miss his silly questions, his doodles, his jokes, his videos, his schemes. I really missed out on a good friend. We were good acquaintances, but nothing more. If I had gotten his number or something I could've kept in contact with him. There were a hundred different ways I could've gotten his number but I thought he would be around forever so I foolishly never did. This guy was prime best friend material. I even daresay I loved Eddie, maybe not in a let's-get-married love way but if he asked me to give him a kidney, I'd do it. I'd do it because goshdarnit he'd been nothing but kind to me and I know he'd find a way to make the process enjoyable. I like to think that we'd be racing around the hospital hallways in our wheelchairs.
My motto in life is "It's better to regret what you did than what you didn't." The fact that I missed out on being Eddie's friend rips me apart. Recently, I've been struggling with feelings of loneliness myself and I can't help but wonder if my life would be just a little brighter if I was able to text or call Eddie once in a while. Would somebody who knew loneliness so well let one of his friends suffer the same way?
Wherever Eddie is, I hope he's happy. I hope someone out there is listening to his jokes and laughing with him. I hope they know that someone like him doesn't come around often and they cherish the friendship they have now. If you somehow made it all the way down here, thanks for reading. Go hug your friends and always be on the lookout for someone who needs a smile.
And, in the teeny tiny itty bitty microscopic chance that you're reading this, Eddie, oh geez I hope I don't sound creepy. Please dm me. I miss you. I want to know if you ever made that motorcycle or what your next big scheme to change the world is.
TL;DR guy I knew was really happy and nice, but was perceived by annoying to others so he was usually ignored. I wish I had been his friend.
EDIT: Wow, wow, WOW thank you beautiful, kind strangers for the wonderful reception, upvotes, and awards! I've read each and every one of your comments. You guys are awesome. Seriously.
As someone pointed out in the comments, if I was willing to give a kidney to Eddie, then I'd be willing to go looking for him and dang I can't argue with that. So, I went looking for him on Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram. Accounts that I think belong to him have been dormant for many years. Hmmmmm...
After a little digging, I found his mom's number from an old exchange about babysitting Eddie's little brother. I wrote out a text explaining how I wanted to reach out to him, thought about it, hesitated for a good three hours, then sent it.
Guys, I'm about it cry. She responded!
Bless this wonderful woman. She told me that he's currently in Marine boot camp and that he's not allowed to use his phone until graduation but would love a letter from me!! YAY!!! I'm gonna write him soon.
Thank you guys for giving me the motivation and courage to look for him again. If anything more happens, I'll let you know.
Edit: fixed some wording. I sent him a letter and I’m planning on sending him another one for Christmas! :D
One last edit to anyone still keeping up: I received a letter back! He graduates in a week and was so happy to get a letter :D we're going to exchange numbers and get in contact once he's done!

Symbols and metaphors and allegories, oh my — MEGATHREAD

Been watching the show with my mom and the English nerds in both of us really jumped out. We’ve seen each episode about three times and made a running list of motifs we thought were interesting — no strong theories one way or another, but figured I’d compile them here. Might make some edits as the show progresses.
This is just my interpretation — not gospel. I’d love to hear y’all’s ideas in the comments and add them here.
After all, in the words of Dottie: “The devil’s in the details, Bev.”

Nature and the Natural World

There’s a lack of animals in Westview — not even a dog running around, no birds, nothing (save for Señor Scratchy). The closest thing we get are the bees at the end of E2, as well as the (magical) butterflies and the stork that happen in E3.
Butterflies are gentle and symbolize freedom. Bees are their antithesis — they live in symbiosis to assist a queen bee (much like everyone in Westview complying with Wanda’s world). Beehive hexagons and the number 6 show up through the series, too — from Geraldine’s earrings to the TV intros in E2&3 (and there are 6 infinity stones).
Giraffes pop up as well, albeit fake ones. Vision carries a plush giraffe out of a store in the E3 intro, and it later shows up in the corner of the twins’ nursery. In the same episode, two golden giraffes stand on their mantle.
Flowers and hedges also play a large part — the toy helicopter in Wanda’s roses, Dottie having “the best flowers on the block,” Herb trimming the hedges but hitting the wall. Geraldine has flower buttons on her vest, flowers embroidered into the lace of her shirt, and a blue flower ring on her finger in E3. There are also embossed flowers on the wall in both the living room in E1 and their bedroom in E2.
E3 deals a lot with water, too. The flood; her water breaking; the fish on Gerladine’s pants; her needing a bucket; the ad with the woman in the bath; Dr. Nielsen (Nielsen ratings!) wanting to go to Bermuda; Geraldine getting her boss a cup of water for hiccups; Wanda mentioning the new ice maker; the newspaper says there are two new fire hydrants on Main Street. It’s also worth mentioning that it seems chaos reigns when it literally rains; the streets are wet and slick with rain when Wanda and Vision see the beekeeper (bees?) at the end of E2, and it rains before she gives birth in E3.
E3 seems to make a large point about fruit, too. It’s constant — and not just because of the health food craze of the 1970s, either (It’s not like we ever see fruit growing on a tree).
There’s an idea, here, that the natural world is inherently fake because everything in this world is fake. Dottie’s flowers are perfect because they’re not real. The “real” animals (butterflies, stork, Señor Scratchy — even the lobster in E1) are difficult for Wanda to control because of their legitimacy. And after all, in E2, the community watch group opens their meeting by saying “Let’s say green. I mean, the other side could be dirt.”
Even the backgrounds in E3, flat and painted, are made to look unreal. Seems like Westview is always having beautiful weather, huh?

Appearances

Anytime anyone tells a story, they’re really telling a different story.
Take, for example, Vision’s meeting with the community watch group in E2. The conversation Vision is gearing up for at the library — neighborhood safety, security, action — is really a chance to gossip. Meanwhile, the conversation Wanda is gearing up for at the pool — gossip, cattiness, suburban life — is really about action and power imbalances.
At the community watch group, Herb talks about his “top secret intelligence”: “Now, you know how Johnson’s been braggin’ about that treehouse he built for his kids? It’s a prefab job. That blockhead can’t even swing a hammer.” Or from Norm: “I can do you one better. You know those bowling trophies Arthur’s always polishing? He bought ’em all at a yard sale in Hackensack.”
Things are not what they seem — everyone in Westview is lying to keep up appearances. Even the community watch group is surprised to find out Vision is a “real cut-up” and not a “square.”
Or take Geraldine’s story about her boss in E3 — paraphrasing here (the transcript’s not out yet), but Geraldine says “You know me, I’m cool under pressure,” and doesn’t pay attention to her boss’ feet “floating up in the air” while he’s recovering from hiccups. Considering Geraldine helps during the birth of the twins and is sure of a “logical explanation” for all of the chaos in the house — it seems she doesn’t pay attention to the fantastical things. The same goes for how she ends up in the box in E2.
That, of course, is strikingly countered with where her story stops — the seemingly “cool under pressure” Geraldine hears the stork and loses her sitcom voice. Her accent changes. Wanda’s does too whenever she feels threatened.
Analyzing the screentime between Geraldine and Wanda in E3 is interesting, even before THAT mic-drop line — count the number of times “real,” “fake,” and “truth” are said.
There’s even the vagueness of Vision’s job in E1 (a reference to the ill-defined office jobs men on TV had in the 50s). Vision’s got no clue what they’re doing there, but it’s important he appears as if he’s doing well.
Hell, even Ralph looks “better in the dark.” If we ever see him at all.
Dottie, the arbiter of appearances, asks Wanda who she is, terrified in E2. By the next episode, Wanda is asking Geraldine the very same question. Who are you?

Color

I know this feels obvious — but it’s very well-crafted. In E1, Vision asks if anyone’s up for Parcheesi, a game that requires a multi-colored board; the object of the game is to take your opponent’s pieces of the color you pick. Hard to play, considering everything is black and white (even doubled-down by the fact Vision can’t see the red helicopter in the bushes by E2).
Red, yellow, and blue are constant in E3: the stained glass of their home; Wanda’s dress; Vision (and his human outfit), even their kitchen has a brilliant blue stovetop. As the doctor leaves for Bermuda, he’s got a yellow hat, a blue car, and a red shirt on.
Red, yellow, and blue hold a significance; red is obviously connected to Wanda — their fence, the roses in her front yard, the helicopter crash, the blood on Dottie’s hand, the clothing on the doll Vision changes in E3. Vision is chewing a stick of Big Red in E2 and calls Norm a communist at the community watch meeting.
Blue dominates Geraldine’s clothing, but it also might represent something else — it seems to show up in spaces where Wanda is threatened (like water).

Music and Sound

Music is always about helpfulness, whether in subject or use. E1 makes a point about “Yakety Yak” and “Old MacDonald” as a way to bide time and assuage any trouble. The song “Help Me, Rhonda” by the Beach Boys plays over the radio before it explodes. “Daydream Believer” plays at the end of E3 with the soft instruction to “Cheer up, sleepy Jean.” Before that, the Sokovian song Wanda sings is in an effort to lull the twins to sleep. Agnes even tries to do Wanda a solid in E1 by bringing over some records for their dinner with the Harts.
Sound, however, is dangerous. The playful, cheeky score used in each episode completely disappears whenever something weird and Twin Peaks-y happens. The sound of the helicopter, the slamming, the stork, Tony’s reactor sound from the toaster — music is helpful and sound is sinister.

Literature and Culture

Take it from Vision himself in E3: “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”
A quote from As You Like It, which follows a woman, Rosalind, who flees her home court to find safety and love in the romantic Forest of Arden. Other than Midsummer, I’d wager that it’s Shakespeare’s clearest thesis on the trappings of city/courtly life vs. life in the country — another realm entirely.
The cooler at the beginning of E2 is listed as an A-57. In Avengers Vol 1 57, the final page quotes the poem “Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley, a poem about a meeting between the narrator and a mysterious traveler who describes a ruined statue he (or she) saw in the middle of a desert somewhere. The large statue, the former “king of kings,” was in decaying ruin — a commentary on hubris and the abuse of those in power.
There are the more oblique references to The Truman Show and Pleasantville, especially in E3, although I think those are self-explanatory.

Children and Home Life

“For the children” would be an excellent slogan…. if we ever saw any.
Even at the pool where the women meet to discuss the fundraiser, no children swim; just adults. No children are present at the talent show. The first thing Agnes asks Wanda is about is if she has kids; Mrs. Hart does so, too. We don’t see Dottie with children, even though she’s a real ‘60s soccer mom. Johnson made that sham treehouse for his kids, according to Herb at the community watch meeting… but we don’t see any kids. Swingsets sit in the background of the neighborhood with no one sitting in them; children’s bikes on the sides of houses. In the intro credits of E3: even a baby clothing store. But no kids until the twins show up (blink-and-you’ll-miss-it: the twin cherub lamp in Dottie’s house when she asks if her earrings make her look fat).
We also only see the Vision residence. Geraldine doesn’t have a home, according to Agnes and Herb.
A charming town, perfect to raise a family in — although we don’t see any “families” to begin with; perhaps Wanda has no conception of what one looks like. It makes the toy helicopter in the bushes all the more sinister… a toy for no one to play with.

Consumption

The deeper purpose of the ads in each episode can be debated — but, on the surface, it’s a clear reflection of how TV became the go-to medium for advertisements, purchasing, and perpetual consumption.
The ads sell a fantasy — the perfect toaster for Wanda, who can’t cook to save her life. The perfect watch for Vision, who thinks he’s too much of a “square” — and Wanda, too, who can’t seem to get her outfit right for the community meeting. The perfect getaway for a stressed-out woman (much like the stressed-out Wanda!); or, rather, the perfect getaway for a town that is the perfect getaway; soap to erase, clean, and scrub away the grime… much like Wanda does when she rewinds.
At first, Wanda is hesitant when it comes to consumption; she makes a joke about offering the Harts a single chocolate-covered strawberry. She is presented with a four-course meal and gets overwhelmed; breakfast is easier. When she consumes, she lets her guard down — like eating the cookie and clapping awkwardly in E2, or eating the fruit in E3 and letting the chaos of the house tumble onward. Vision similarly imbibes — on merely a stick of gum! — and faces hilarious consequences.
Everyone else in Westview is fine with consumption; Agnes drinks at the community meeting; the men pass around danishes at the neighborhood watch; Wanda clears stacks upon stacks of plates when the meeting is over; even Geraldine compliments Wanda on her fancy new ice maker and nifty pants.
If you buy into the fantasy, then maybe everything’s okay.

Freedom and Entrapment

I can’t sleep thinking about Herb cutting through the wall (the fourth wall?), not blinking, staring Vision directly in the eyes. He, much like Mrs. Hart, is on “autopilot.” But it also feels as if Herb is trapped inside his body; he clearly is trying to tell Vision something but can’t. Later, he literally can’t in E3, when he can’t get the sentence out about why no one can leave town. Agnes forces him to stop. Wanda’s “no” to the beekeeper is another hard stop; the same goes for Mr. Hart’s almost endless choking fit.
There’s something subterranean, here; the beekeeper — the natural world, the “real” world — crawls out of a sewer. Something lurks, trapped beneath the surface of the town.
The people in Westview are trapped, and not just in whatever this realm is. They’re trapped in suburban life: appearances, social convention, bad marriages (looking at you, Ralph), even their little everyday routines. But they’re also trapped in the conventions of television.
Dr. Nielsen can’t leave to go to Bermuda; he was never going to. It’s a sitcom — of course, he’s going to have to help with the twins and stay in town. When has the put-upon crotchety side character ever gotten their dues? Of course, there’s a logical explanation for everything in the magic act — what sitcom would change tones that quickly and reveal their zany secret? Even the “lines” that are being written feel forced; whenever Agnes wants to let the secrets of this world slip, she instead makes a funny zinger and exits the scene. It’s like Too Many Cooks dialed up to an 11. We see the townspeople thrashing against sitcom life, but it’s what they’re bound to.

Religion and Morality

Geraldine’s fish pants and her sword pendant look like an inverted crucifix; there’s even a near-Biblical flood happening in the Vision home. Plus, once Geraldine consumes and eats the apple in E3 — she lets her guard down, much like Wanda. She asks Wanda about Ultron and is banished from this fantasy world where only good things can happen; an Eden. And the bees… a land of milk and honey? Even Agnes makes a quip about how Señor Scratchy played Baby Jesus in the previous year’s Christmas pageant.
Greek things pop up too, including a Greek god fanning the woman in the ad in E3; twin cherubs form the lamp in Dottie’s house in the same episode. There are even some possible references to the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice: in some versions of the story, after Eurydice is chased by Aristaeus (the god of beekeeping!), she is bitten by a snake and dies instantly; her husband, Orpheus, ventures into the Underworld to save her, although loses his trust in her and condemns Eurydice to hell forever (for complicated reasons. This’ll explain it better than I can if you're not already familiar).
Morality is a real issue in this world we’re in — especially because it’s hazily-defined. Wanda clearly governs it, a Godlike being with the power to banish and intimidate whoever she sees as a threat.
It’s not ruled by overt religious mores, or any kind of creed, but instead by the moral code of sitcoms: there always needs to be a happy ending. Hijinks must ensue, but never be cruel. A lesson is learned. Gossip is tolerated, expected, even, but curiosity is dangerous. If the one rule of Seinfeld is no hugging, the one rule of this sitcom world is always hugging. Things must go right. And if they don’t, you can always rewind.
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Anyway, it’s 3 AM and I am exhausted. Please fund my thesis on this show. Will continue to update as WV goes on.
EDIT: a word

Some JustNo MOL Things

I call my partner's parents my out-laws instead of in-laws, as we're not married but might one day, and I call him my partner instead of bf. I've posted before about my mom, but here's some stuff about my MOL that has... troubled me. Nothing is truly a big issue, this is probably very BEC even though I like her very much. This is a long rant because I'm frustrated about some current stuff, and it gets rolled up in my brain as being all the same. Sorry if block of text, I'm on mobile and did my best.
She's a great lady, very caring, but she, what I call, "cares very intensely." My partner moved halfway across the country to move in with me after being LD for a while, and their first visit they sort of took charge. I had lived in my basically studio apartment (650 sq ft and the only door is for the bathroom, the wall separating the LR from the bedroom doesn't reach the ceiling and only has an entry way, my closet is literally the hallway to the bathroom, etc.) for over a year by myself so having someone else move in was already a shock to my very comfortable system, but they visited for the first time and were very determined to make it a more comfortable space for their son. Some things I was very appreciative of, like buying stacking things to make more room in cabinets, and new towels (even though they didn't match the bathroom color scheme I had, I try not to be salty about that because it's so minor) but reorganizing my kitchen? Nopeity nope. She moved all my canned food out of its cabinet and UNDER THE SINK. With the cleaning supplies! Actually, I think she moved those somewhere else that didn't work for me. I was very polite about it during their visit (after getting home from work to discover what they had done while I was gone) then immediately arranged it how I wanted after they left, such as not keeping any sort of food under the old leaky sink where the cleaning supplies live. It probably would have been fine but still grossed me out. To her credit, that Christmas she sincerely apologized of her own accord, realizing that wasn't a super cool thing of her to do.
I also get annoyed everyone time the OLs "upgrade" our stuff. It's such a nice gesture and it's usually expensive stuff so I don't say anything to them, but it means I have to either get rid of more of my stuff (not a hoarder exactly but moved around a lot and my parents would throw stuff away whenever I was at the other parent's house so I've got some unhealthy attachment to stuff I've been working on in therapy) or find a place to squeeze it in. I had really old pots and pans my grandma gave me, and I was fine with that as I'm not a great cook and hard on my possessions to begin with (ADHD is sooooo fun). They gave us really nice copper pans, which would be great except I had to store a lot of my old stuff at my mom's to make room, and I've totally destroyed some of them (not on purpose! Just not a great cook yet, and they conduct heat differently). Still usuable, but they look horrible and you can't scrub them with steel wool (honestly, tips would be appreciated, I dread them visiting again [in the distant future] and seeing what I've done to them). The worst was they gave us a really nice blender, they have it and use it all the time. It has individual cups instead of one big thing, and they're supposed to be great for travel or individual smoothies, prep the night before and boom out the door.
That would be great, except 1. Already have a blender that works great 2. I never drink a single cup of smoothie, I like refills 3. We don't GO anywhere, I lost my job in March and we're fully online students, I barely leave the house to go on walks 4. It's 15 pieces, including all the cups and lids and base, as opposed to my 3 piece blender, and again, I live in a 650 sq ft apartment. My parents have had walk-in closets bigger than my kitchen. I've let it sit in the entrance to the kitchen since Christmas, yesterday I finally unboxed it and became filled with anxiety over trying to find a place to keep it all. Figured it out, but it was like great, my MOL gave me an anxiety-inducing chore for Christmas. They've been bugging him to know when we try it out and if I like it and uh, no, I'm gonna keep using my blender thank you, if your son ever wants to make smoothies then he can try it out. I'm the only one who ever makes smoothies and he usually wants some so that would involve portioning into two cups then running the blender twice. No thank you, why would I literally double my workload?
Many years ago, in the early days of our relationship, she made a joke that if me and him had kids and she didn't like our chosen name, she would call them by another until the kid only answered to that. She meant it as a joke, but at the time I vowed to simply not let her around my kid until they knew their own name. She wouldn't do it (...I think) but it was very questionable.
Speaking of kids, last time he visited without me, they had a big family discussion (him and his parents, maybe the brother that lives with them too?) about the future. Normal parent stuff, right? Well one of the things they discussed is my complete unwillingness to be pregnant or give birth. He texted me during the conversation to make sure the explanation he was telling them was true. Slightly off-putting for him to share those details without me there but I'm really open about it anyway, so I explained that I would have to go off my life-altering meds (bipolar disorder, severely depressed without them) for the entire pregnancy and breastfeeding, I've already got food and sensory issues without adding the need to fuel another being completely reliant upon me, nothing about the side effects of pregnancy or giving birth sound appealing, and there's other options such as surrogacy or adoption. They of course said many women change their mind, and I had to be very clear with him that I find that disrespectful of my choices and he needs to do all future planning as if I will never change my mind. In fact, if the choice is pregnancy and give birth or no kids at all, I'll choose to be childfree. It's one of the things we disagree on long-term, he wants bio kids and to be there from day one, I wouldn't mind adopting an older kid. People who can handle, and even enjoy, pregnancy and labor are absolute heroes, but I don't want to do it myself. I tried to be understanding about them discussing this even though I find it weird, but I come from a broken home so I try to keep an open mind about families where parents actually communicate with each other and their kids.
The real reason behind my rant is the current issues with our living situation. This apartment is the longest I've ever lived somewhere without having to move since I was 4, so there's definitely an unhealthy attachment to it, but I can acknowledge that this space is too small for us, especially as I need a lot of alone time that is hard to get in a studio apartment, so we need to move. It's been difficult to find a place that is worth moving for, and within budget, especially as I graduate this summer into a completely unknowable job market and don't want to raise my rent then not be able to afford it. His parents offered to pay the difference for a year, meaning I would pay my current rent for a year, but I don't know what a year from now will look like! MOL has been helping us look, and there was one place we even put in an application for before realizing that while it had more square footage, it wasn't enough worth moving for with the steeper rent, and we would have to get rid of more of my furniture. We told her this, and she said go for it anyway and I need to get rid of more stuff, or store it at my mom's. Lady, for 6 years I had to move all my stuff back and forth between two houses and yet still have whatever I needed be at the wrong house, now that I finally have all of it in one place I'm not about to store it elsewhere, and I've already downsized as much as possible when your son moved in. The place after that both my partner and her were really into, despite me not like the location, price or aesthetic, she called the realtor first (we're adults and I don't need a parent speaking for me so I didn't love that) then had us call to arrange a showing, it ended up being when my partner had a doctor's appointment he forgot about so I went by myself. No one was there, the phone number disconnected, website said it had already been rented. I'm done, I'm mentally exhausted being the one to look for houses that she later sends me links to and schedule showings when I don't know if I'll have the money to pay for it, I tell my partner it is fully on him to house hunt and schedule now as I am stepping back.
She took this opportunity to tell me to consider moving back to Houston with partner after I graduate. His family is all from there, he lived there his whole life in the same house, I moved there in the 3rd grade then played musical chairs around two zip codes for 10 years. It's hot, it's humid, I have a lot of trauma associated with it, I left as soon as possible, I live in the mountains with snow again and I'm not about to sacrifice my happiness on this. I had to be clear with him again that every time they mention us maybe moving back, I feel disrespected. He can move back to finish undergrad by himself if he wants, but I'm not coming with. The topic of us moving back after I graduate was also discussed in the "future plans [if we can convince OP]" talk along with kids, he misses it greatly but understands my reasoning and doesn't want to move without me. That first conversation after he got back was not super pleasant for him, with me reiterating my feelings on this will not change.
Some of this reads like a JNSO problem, but he's great and knows my boundaries. The kids and living location issues are things we know we disagree on and might make us incompatible long-term, but right now we're young and I refuse to think about marriage until I'm 25, so we'll start couples counseling then to see if we're going to make it legal or break up.
I'm just frustrated after trying to find a place for a blender I didn't want, being told by yet another person I might change my mind about having a kid come from my own body, and yet again told I should move back to my personal hell because his tuition will be cheaper. I love my MOL in general, and she loves me and how happy I make her son and has always been welcoming, but as she "cares very intensely," she can be very forceful about getting her way, or what she thinks would be the best for her kids. A DOL who refuses to consider moving back where their family is or do the whole baby incubating thing myself doesn't fall into her plans of what is best for my partner. She's never said anything about the kids issue to me, but I also haven't seen her in person since they had the talk so maybe she will.
Her forceful personality has given her kids some bad habits. Early when living together he had a habit of taking stuff over if I was struggling and I had to make it clear that he can offer help but his family's way of doing something for someone else if they show any signs of struggling is not acceptable, and probably why all 3 of her kids floundered so much when adulting "on their own," such as not knowing how to do taxes (last year she tried to get the log-in information and I had to be like no just screenshare don't let her do them for you just because you had a question for her). Just because you dislike watching me struggle with a shoe lace knot and think you can do it faster doesn't mean I can't do it or need someone else to do it for me. I can't imagine being a kid and every time I had a tiny difficulty someone else would just... do it for me? How are they supposed to learn how to do it on their own? What do they do when mom can no longer intimidate people into solving their problems? Who thinks it's okay to silently take something out of someone else's hands to do for them??
This became a lot longer than I planned but it felt good to get it all out, sorry. I'm already stressed about finding a fulltime job after I graduate, I don't need someone telling me to sacrifice everything about my current life that makes me happy to move back to a place I still have nightmares about for the sake of my partner's family. I promise she's usually great but that doesn't mean I'll rugsweep the rest of it.

I want to kill myself so my mother in law has to tell my kids she's the reason they have to grow up without a mom

I’m in my mid-thirties, make $115,000 ($194,000 joint), live in the northwest and work in behavioral health.

SECTION 0: BACKGROUND
I am being deliberately vague about my age, location and job, to allow for greater transparency about my finances. I work in a very narrow field, which would make me pretty easy to identify if I more accurately pinpointed these details.
That being said, to provide some context about our decision-making about childcare, my family and I had CoVID in the mid-summer.
We had been doing everything correctly: We weren’t leaving the house, our children were out of daycare, my husband and I were working from home and running ourselves ragged also offering full-time childcare to a 2-year-old son and a 1-year-old daughter. We are both essential workers in different fields and we couldn’t lighten our workload. Additionally, I can only work set hours because that’s when my patients are available. So I was keeping a more traditional schedule while my husband was doing the bulk of childcare, and then we would both be with the kids for a few hours until bedtime at 7:30, at which point my husband would burn the candle at both ends and do the majority of his work in the evening and at night. It was completely unsustainable. It was bad for our jobs, bad for our kids and bad for us.
So we hired a nanny. She came from our daycare, because our kids already knew her and she effectively lost her job when we pulled our kids. The daycare has to maintain a specific child-to-teacher ratio and removing our children took them below the enrollment necessary for her. After 4 weeks of my husband and myself providing childcare, we hired her. She was a godsend.
Fast forward, she attended a staff training at the daycare (masked, gloved, the whole 9 yards) and at that time our daycare was struck with CoVID, which meant we all got it. My family, our nanny, several staff and several families. It was a blessing in disguise, because after we all quarantined and recovered, my husband and I made the decision to send our children back to daycare. The vast majority of the families and staff there had CoVID, we knew we had antibodies (thank you, American Red Cross), and we decided the risk was acceptable.

SECTION 1: ASSETS AND DEBT (ROUNDED TO THE NEAREST $100)
Investment balance (as of COB on 12/16/20) = $601,000

Brokerage = $104,700
My traditional IRA (from previous employers’ retirement accounts) = $41,400
My Roth IRA = $61,900
My 401K = $205,200
My husband’s 401K = $156,000
My husband’s Roth IRA = $18,000
My son’s 529 = $9,000
My daughter’s 529 = $4,800

Equity, if you’re a homeowner = $300,700

Main residence: Mortgage = $233,300, Zillow value = $455,200
Rental property: Mortgage = $125,300, Zillow value = $204,100

I used the Zillow value to calculate equity. Our real estate market is HOT right now, and houses are routinely being purchased after bidding wars at prices above asking, so I actually expect these to be underestimates of the values of our properties.
The rental property was a home I owned before my husband and I married. I paid 20% for the down payment with savings, and the house was worth substantially less when I bought it, making it very affordable. We made a 10% down payment on our primary residence from shared savings. Since we bought both houses, the real estate market in our area has blown up and it has stayed that way. We joke that we wouldn’t be able to afford our primary residence if we were house hunting right now, which puts us in a very fortunate position.
Savings account balance = $6,200
We try to keep at least $5,000 in this count as liquid emergency savings. Withdrawing funds from our investment portfolio can take several days, and if needed we want to make sure to have at least some cash buffer. See below for why this is higher right now, due to my Social Security deduction.
Checking account balance = $3,700
We use zero-sum budgeting, which means we use last month’s income to pay for this month’s expenses. All of our income is deposited into this account, we spend it throughout the month, and then start next month with $7,000 to spend that month (anything above this amount in our checking account is sent to our savings account).
Credit card debt = $0
I’ve never held credit card debt, and we paid my husband’s off before we got married.
Student loan debt = $0
I received a huge scholarship to attend a private 4-year college, and an annuity I received following my father’s death when I was in middle school paid for the rest. I worked part-time on campus to have spending money, and this job was part of the scholarship I received. I also received a full scholarship plus a living stipend to attend graduate school for my doctorate. My husband had approximately $10,000 of student loan debt for his 4-year degree that we paid off before we got married.
Car and motorcycle loans = $0
The KBB trade-in value of our cars and motorcycles is $16,500; all are over 10-years-old.
Net worth = $928,100

SECTION 2: INCOME
Monthly take home = $7,593 total (plus $416 from FSA reimbursement)
Main job = $103,000/year
I take home $2,000 every two weeks after deductions. This is $220 more than usual, because (as a federal employee and due to President Trump’s executive order) Social Security is no longer being deducted from my salary, through at least January, 2021. I expect in January I’m going to receive a double deduction for the period of this executive order, so we’re setting aside that extra money to pay for his choices.
Job 2 = variable based on several factors, right now it is approximately $12,000/year
I work as an adjunct professor at a local university teaching one class per semester and take home $353 every two weeks.
Rental property = $883.50/month in rental income
Minus the cost of the mortgage and the $66.50/month property manager cut, this equals approximately $97/month in profit. This used to be substantially more, but we took a cash out refinance to pay for a huge remodel in our main residence, which increased the mortgage payment by about $250/month. We previously sent the surplus rental income to our investment account.
Husband’s job = $79,000/year
My husband takes home $1,395 twice a month after deductions. However, he routinely takes home between $200-$400 more per paycheck, depending on various factors. We only budget for his base pay, as those other amounts are not guaranteed. Currently, he’s contributing the maximum allowed to his FSA account ($208/paycheck) for dependent care, which we receive twice monthly as reimbursement and which will switch to my paycheck in the new year.
Deductions: I am only going to include mine here, as my salary deductions include most of the family expenses. These are per paycheck. I am including my deductions as they were prior to the executive order that affected my Social Security contribution, which I anticipate will return to normal shortly.
Taxes (Medicare, state and federal) = $554
Insurance for the family (Life, dental, medical, disability) = $489
Retirement (401K and pension) = $905
I max out my 401K contribution and have since I started this job; my employer offers a 4% match. For full context, my husband also maxes out his 401K contributions, and his employer offers a 3% match.
529 contributions: $115 per child, so $230 total
Income progression
I was in school for a very long time. I went directly from a 4-year college to a Ph.D. program. As stated above, I received a stipend while in graduate school that amounted to $17,000/year, which was not a lot but enough for 22-year-old me. My first job out of graduate school was as a postdoctoral fellow, making $45,000, and then I went into academia and worked as an Assistant Professor making a similar amount. I decided to transition into practice after two years in academia, and I started my current job with the federal government making approximately $90,000. Scheduled salary progressions over the last six years have resulted in my current salary.

SECTION 3: EXPENSES
Monthly

Mortgage/taxes/insurance = $1,179.33 for our main residence, $785.78 for our rental property
Daycare = $1,520 for both children
Roth IRA contributions (both) = $1,000
Donations = $213.87. $100/month to GiveWell (an effective altruism organization), $100/month to Gold Standard (for carbon offsets), $13.87 to ActBlue.
Gas/electric/water = $169.25
Cleaning = $100. She comes twice monthly; she prefers to be called our “woman” vs. cleaning lady or housekeeper. She is masked and gloved every time she comes into our home. We paused her services though continued to pay her for the first few months of the pandemic. Once we’d had CoVID, though, she requested to come back. We would have paid her throughout regardless, but after a frank discussion with her about our continued risk with our children in daycare, she still wanted to come back and began to clean for us again.
Internet = $80
Pet wellness plan (for our very geriatric dog) = $79.95
My cell phone (my husband’s is paid for by work) = $47.18
Home security system = $45
Son’s gymnastics at daycare = $40
My husband’s gym = $16.95. He has not gone since 03/2020; he is continuing to pay to support them.
Satellite GPS/texting system = $12.41. My husband has a lot of hobbies that take him outside of cell phone service. We got this for him to allow us to text in case of an emergency, and to send me notifications of where he is physically camped so I can get emergency services to him, if needed.
Subscriptions = $35 biweekly for a Misfits Market box, $9.99 for Spotify, $8.99 for Netflix
Total monthly fixed expenses = $5,378.70

Yearly and Bi-annual

Car and motorcycle insurance = $416.60
Amazon Prime = $119
Costco = $60
My license = $200 every two years

SECTION 4: ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS
\*These are the questions others have said they wished Refinery 29 asked.*\**
What do money and success mean to you? What are your end goals?
To me, success and money are two very different things. I view money as a means to an end: Money equals security and stability. I chose to work for the federal government, even though I could make approximately double my salary in private practice, because of that need for security. My end goals are FIRE-light. My husband and I would like to save enough money to be able to reduce our work to part-time; we both really enjoy our jobs but would like more freedom to choose what to do with our time.
Are you a spender or a saver?
I identify very strongly as a saver. My mother raised me and my siblings largely alone (more on this below), and she was unmaterialistic. This has changed now that she has grandchildren to spoil! But that lesson was there from an early age: Things do not bring happiness. This has led me to a pretty natural saver orientation.
My husband was not a saver before we got together. He was not a huge spender, either. He just didn’t really pay attention to money. When we got together his retirement account was at approximately $0. He and I sat down and talked about our goals and decided to approach his retirement in the same way I approach mine, so we now max out everything we can.
He continues to be largely ambivalent about our finances, so I manage everything. This leads every once in a while to small conflicts, but we work it out. I try to include him in as many decisions as possible, but he genuinely seems not to care and pretty much goes along with everything I suggest. It helps tremendously that my husband and I share an overall view of our future, because I’m honestly not sure our relationship would work if he was a huge spender.
To combat some of the conflicts about money we might have, we give ourselves each a set amount monthly to spend as we want (me $385, him $415). He receives more because he does all of the family driving, and gas comes out of this allowance. This system works really well for us, because I would have a lot of problems with how he approaches personal spending, and vice versa. Joint or family expenses are paid for out of our joint checking account.
If you could go back in time, what’s the one piece of financial advice you would give your past self?
Invest early! Compound interest is something worth taking advantage of as early as possible.

\*These are the questions Refinery 29 asks.*\**
Was there an expectation for you to attend higher education? Did you participate in any form of higher education? If yes, how did you pay for it?
There was absolutely an expectation for me and my siblings to attend college. I was a very dedicated student and I wanted to be in my current role for as long as I could remember. I strategically selected the university I attended with the potential for graduate school admission as a strong factor in my choice.
I luckily have never had to pay for my higher education and I recognize how fortunate I was. My college expenses not covered by my scholarship were paid for with an annuity I received after my father passed away when I was in middle school. He had been very sick with cancer my entire life and he knew he was terminal for years. He worked until the month before he passed away and contributed heavily the entire time to life insurance policies to give my siblings and me this gift, as well as to provide enough for my mother to make up for the loss of his income. He passed away while working for the federal government at my current pay level, so I know he was making the equivalent to what I make now. At that point, my mom made less than half of what he did. It goes without saying, I would have rather had student loans with him alive than no student loans without him.
Growing up, what kind of conversations did you have about money? Did your parent/guardian(s) educate you about finances?
I don’t remember any explicit conversations about money. I have learned much more about my parents’ finances since I’ve become an adult than I ever knew growing up. All of my financial education occurred after graduate school when I had my first “big girl” paychecks. I knew I needed to know more, so I did a deep dive into the FIRE community for a few years, learned a lot, and have tried to follow those principles since.
What was your first job and why did you get it?
I worked at Dairy Queen starting when I was 15 to have spending money. While there, I ate far too much ice cream, gained like 10 pounds in 3 months, and quit because I recognized that was completely unsustainable.
Did you worry about money growing up?
No, I didn’t, and I’m grateful for that. I knew that we never went on vacations, aside from camping, because of my dad’s illness. I had no idea, however, that this was a financially-motivated decision vs. a health-related one. My dad wanted to save that money for us later instead of spend it on us at the time.
Do you worry about money now?
No, and I am very grateful for that, as well. I worry about making big purchases, because I have an inherent tendency to not spend unless necessary, though I acknowledge we can afford our needs and wants.
At what age did you become financially responsible for yourself and do you have a financial safety net?
I moved out of my mom’s house at 18 to attend an out-of-state college, and I never returned. However, I would say that I became fully responsible for myself at 22, when I enrolled in graduate school. Up to that point, I lived in dorms, had access to the college cafeteria and health center, etc.
I have a huge financial safety net in my family, which is an enormous privilege. I know that I never need to worry if I lose my income or if we had an emergency. That being said, one of the huge factors in my choosing federal employment was the security of the job. My husband was furloughed early in the pandemic, which was a strain on our finances, but we knew I never would be. It is a longstanding joke, but it is true that it’s almost impossible to lose a federal job within my agency once you’re outside of your probationary period.
Do you or have you ever received passive or inherited income? If yes, please explain?
See above; my family received a great deal of money from life insurance after my father passed away. I honestly have no idea how much, though it was enough that it funded a lot of my college expenses, as well as my siblings’, and allowed my mom never to worry day-to-day about paying for anything on her salary alone. I never received any of the annuity personally; my mom managed it and paid the college directly. Once I graduated, my portion of the annuity was resolved. My mom became extremely savvy with money management over the years, and still has some of her portion of the annuity remaining.

ONTO THE DIARY!
Full disclosure, my weekdays are very monotonous, so I’m going to give you a brief look at my schedule here and then try to limit myself to amusing anecdotes and spending only on Days 1-5. Days 6 and 7 will be more interesting.
We get up around 6:30, when my daughter (just turned 2) wakes up; it is unfortunate she’s always been an early riser. At 7:15, if he’s not already up, I wake my son (just turned 3) and get both kids ready while my husband gets himself ready. He takes the children to daycare, and then I get ready. I do a full face of make-up every day; it helps me keep in mind that I’m a working professional, although I haven’t worn a pair of pants with buttons in 9 months.
I see patients throughout the morning, working in 45 minutes of exercise (whatever Chloe Ting scheduled for the day, plus a Yoga with Adriene video to hit 45 minutes) and chores in between patients or if I have a patient no-show or cancel. This is infrequent, so usually these activities happen over lunch, when I almost exclusively eat leftovers. Then I see patients throughout the afternoon, before stopping to cook dinner. I meal plan heavily (entirely from Budget Bytes or Half-Baked Harvest); I love to cook but find trying to think up child-friendly, quick and easy vegetarian meals incredibly boring and frustrating. It helps if I outsource the creativity to others. My husband and I leave to get the kids around 4:50 pm.
Then it’s like getting hit by a clown car. Constant noise, constant activity, constant mess, constant chaos. The children go to bed around 7:30 pm, at which point my husband and I fall into an exhausted heap. I try to “reset” the house (e.g., pick up toys, get the kids’ school bags ready) before I sit down, because once I sit down I’m done. Most days I shower in the evening, and we go to bed around 9:30 or 10 pm. Sometimes we have sex, sometimes we don’t. Wash, rinse, repeat.
For your enjoyment, our meal plan this week includes:

From Budget Bytes: Spinach tortellini soup; vegetarian French dip sandwiches with oven fries; roasted broccoli pasta with lemon and feta; spinach and orzo salad with balsamic vinaigrette
From Half-Baked Harvest: Onion, spinach and cheddar flaky pastries; broccoli and cheese wild rice casserole

Also for those who are interested, my skin care includes: Water-only cleansing with a microfiber cloth, 100% pure organic argan oil for moisturizer, with Everyday Minerals and Physician’s Formula make-up. I have extremely temperamental skin and this is the gentlest combination of products that work for me.
**I will only tally my personal expenses and our joint expenses below, because I don’t have access to my husband’s personal account. If I know about his purchases, I will mention them for context, though they will not be included in the weekly total.**
DAY 1: MONDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2020 = $37.63
Morning: My husband goes to physical therapy ($37.63 copay) after dropping off the kids. He’s rehabbing a pretty significant injury from earlier this year and PT is necessary, despite the pandemic. Before PT, he was immobile. While I’m on a break between patients in the kitchen eating a banana, my husband storms in fake indignant because his Spotify most-played song of 2020 is “What Does the Fox Say?” I laugh; this was my son’s favorite song for months. If you haven’t heard it before, it’s worth a look on YouTube, so you can see the video.
Noon: Pull a load of laundry from the dryer. Find two of my son’s action figures amongst the clothes. So that’s where they went. Later receive a picture from daycare of my daughter crying. She apparently lost her gloves in the snow, and when the gloves were found the daycare staff wouldn’t let her put them back on because they were covered in mud and snow. This is clearly tragic in the life of a toddler. The caption on the photo: “Yeah, I’m a little mad.”
Night: My husband and I spend a few minutes lying in bed with each of our children before they go to sleep every night. Tonight, my son is incredibly focused on his discovery that he doesn’t have eyebrows and I do. He does, they’re just wispy and barely there. He spent a good five minutes feeling mine, then feeling where his “aren’t.” It’s adorable how confused he is to find out that not every body is the same, and I try to focus on teaching him that differences are beautiful. I feel this is a good lesson to learn and to learn early.
DAY 2: TUESDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2020 = $0
Morning: My kids are up kind of early today, so while I fix them breakfast, I send them to ride their scooters. My mom bought them these scooters that are both low-to-the-ground, so they fly across our hardwood, and narrow, so they fit between our furniture. We decided to keep them indoors for the winter to help the children run off some energy if it’s too cold or, in this case, too early to take them outside.
Noon: For lunch, I quickly assemble Budget Bytes’ Chimichurri Chickpea Salad from leftover ingredients and pantry staples and give my husband a serving. He accuses me of trying to turn him into a chickpea, because it’s my go-to protein. He’s not vegetarian, but he eats that way 95% of the time because I don’t cook meat except on very rare occasions. I tell him if he doesn’t like it, he can fix himself lunch, and fake try to take it away. He embraces the bowl like it’s a baby and fights me off. I see how it is. I also check the Red Cross app and find my CoVID antibody test from my most recent convalescent plasma donation is still positive!
Night: After dinner, we go into my daughter’s bedroom to play before bath time. I contemplate how ironic it is that we own a four-bedroom house, but usually only end up occupying about 16 square feet of space at a time. Then my children decide to sit on top of me. I exist right now as nothing more than an animate chair.
DAY 3: WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2020 = $0
Morning: After bundling up my children to send to daycare, I ask my daughter for a kiss. She’s moved beyond leaning in to allow me to kiss her to spreading her arms super wide and pressing her whole face onto my cheek. It’s the little things that make parenting awesome <3.
Noon: It’s the anniversary of our first date, so I pull my husband into the bedroom for some lunch time calisthenics #wfhbenefits. Feel totally betrayed afterward because during my Yoga with Adriene relaxation practice, she has us do two forearm planks. WTF, Adriene? I didn’t sign on for this! Do them, but begrudgingly.
Night: Tonight’s game: family nap. Somehow my husband got the kids to buy into the idea that they need to find a place to camp out in our house. They’re carrying around a pillow and blanket each and trying out various locations, like under our dining table and on our living room floor. I’m loving this game, because I’ve already found my perfect place to lay down: right where I already am.
DAY 4: THURSDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2020 = $183.48
Morning: My husband is an absolute expert when it comes to distracting the kids if they’re crying crocodile tears. This isn’t always the answer in response to their emotions, but sometimes it is. Right now, he’s trying to hang my daughter’s coat (with her in it) up in the closet without a hanger and acting over the top confused about why it won’t stay up on the closet rod. She’s dying with laughter. Classic.
Noon: My husband gets back from physical therapy ($37.63 copay) and walks in with a soda from McDonald’s for me as a surprise ($2.12 for his, too). So sweet! I don’t drink soda often, which makes this a welcome treat. Over lunch, I browse ThredUp. I buy exclusively consignment/resale, to reduce consumer-driven fast-fashion and because I can buy way nicer clothing if I don’t pay full retail prices. I buy four shirts and two pairs of pants ($143.73 of my personal spending money), though I’ll probably return half.
Night: Tonight is my book club’s holiday party over Zoom. I love these women and it’s so nice to step outside of my roles as a wife, mother and behavioral health provider to just be a woman. I’m incredibly lucky to have found this group that unequivocally accepts me for who I am.
DAY 5: FRIDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2020 = $0
Morning: I took the morning off to grade final exams, and my husband is heading up the mountain to go skiing. I have the house TO MYSELF! This happens so rarely, I almost don’t know what to do with myself when I’m alone anymore.
Noon: Silence, glorious silence. Decide to take a nap. This is freaking amazing. Wake up to a notice from the federal payroll office confirming I’ll be receiving double deductions of Social Security tax from my first 8 paychecks of 2021. Great.
Night: Spend the evening after my kids go to bed wrapping Christmas presents. My family seems to be compensating for the anxiety and sadness 2020 has caused by sending gifts. Watching the children unwrap presents this year is the thing I’m looking forward to most this holiday season.
DAY 6: SATURDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2020 = $251.65
Morning:
My husband gets up with the kids, so I get to sleep in an extra hour (he will be properly thanked for this later). We quickly get ready and head out the door, setting our robot vacuum to take a run around the house. The kids and I wait in the car while my husband buys a season ski pass from his own personal spending money ($371, for those who are interested). He got a discount because they credit him the cost of his pass from yesterday. I fully support this, as he intends to teach our kids to ski this year and I am invested in the long-term possibility of evenings and weekend days by myself, since I most definitely do not ski.
Head to a local indoor playground ($15.72, after a $7.60 gift card); our kids tolerate mask-wearing incredibly well, so we’re all masked anytime we go inside anywhere. We have gotten good at what I consider “stealth visits”: We show up the instant the doors open, stay until we cannot keep 30 feet from others, and then leave.
We grab coffees ($6.04), a weekend treat, and head to an outdoor park to run our children ragged until it’s too cold to tolerate anymore.
Noon:
We head home, bake a frozen pizza and have that and leftovers for lunch. New outfits for everyone, because my daughter is too young to handle pizza sauce without getting it everywhere. Then back out the door to make it back to the indoor playground by 1 pm (our passes are good all day). This is when most children are down for their naps, so as usual the place is deserted.
Unfortunately, my daughter is learning to jump and while at the playground she jumps and falls, bumping her head. This leads to the silent scream of doom that is every parent’s worst nightmare.
After we leave, to put our own children down to nap, my son asks for more snacks. I thought I had packed enough, but not so. I swear my son is growing by inches in front of my eyes. He has a hollow leg and often can eat more than I can. My husband and kids wait in the car while I run into an empty-looking gas station and buy string cheese, fruit, popcorn and seltzers ($10.05).
The instant we get home the kids go down for their naps and my husband and I have a moment of peace. I start the dishwasher, throw the food scraps to our chickens, take out the compost and purchase the items in our Amazon cart (a new robot vacuum [ours is on its last legs and we LOVE it], soccer socks for my husband, and two under $5 gifts for the gift exchange at my children’s daycare; $219.84). My husband cleans out our chicken coop; I’m not in favor of gendered divisions of labor, except in cases like this, when it means I don’t have to deal with chicken poop.
Night:
The kids get up from their naps and we immediately put them on the potty. We’re deep in the trenches of potty training, and this often dictates our routine. My daughter is 150% motivated by the M&M she gets when she goes potty; my son just wants to do everything his sister does, so he tolerates this part of his day.
Feed them dinner and then head out to drive through a famous neighborhood in our area to look at Christmas lights. We take air-popped popcorn and milk for the kids, to keep them entertained, and they love it. Back home and bedtime for the kids.
My husband and I pick up the house, watch an episode of Ink Master (feel free to judge, but I love this show), and head to bed early so I can thank him properly for this morning.
DAY 7: SUNDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2020 = $303.33
Morning:
My husband gets up with the kids again this morning, he must be feeling motivated because he’s already fed them breakfast. I jump in so he can get ready to go play indoor soccer. The facility where he plays is extremely cautious: masks, temperature checks, no outside guests, no loitering before or after the game, etc. He helps us get ready and out the door before he leaves so the kids and I can go to get our grocery pick up.
Groceries include the ingredients for our meal plan this coming week ($187.59). We also load up on a few staples like organic 100% grass-fed milk, seltzer, popcorn kernels and toiletries. Our overall fruit situation is looking good, as we participated in a local fundraiser and purchased a huge box of apples, pears, oranges and grapefruits, so I decided yesterday to donate our Misfits Market box this week to a food bank. The person at the grocery store indicates they have a couple of missing items from our order, including coffee (!!!), so the kids and I mask up and we run inside as quickly as we can to buy replacement items, including the absolutely necessary coffee ($19.04).
Then I take the kids on a little drive to look at Christmas decorations, and while we’re out I buy them a snack from a local vegetarian restaurant that has begun to do drive-thru service ($15.53). I buy gas for the first time in six weeks and head home ($13.73).
Noon:
My husband gets back from his game (they won), we feed the kids and then get them ready to go out again. If you haven’t noticed, we spend a lot of time outside of our house. Neither my husband nor I are homebodies, and our kids (surprise, surprise) aren’t either; the more time we spend at home, the more they spiral out. However, because the pandemic has gone on for so long, we have developed an amazing repertoire of knowledge for places that are accessible, kid-friendly and extremely sparsely populated (or deserted). It helps us keep the kids occupied, and honestly it makes parenting two toddlers much easier.
We go to a local warehouse that has converted into an antique/secondhand shop to look for a present for my sister from our children and find something amazing ($43.44 of my personal spending money). Head home, have lunch, and put the kids down for a nap. I spend the time finishing grading final exams, while my husband does the dishes and works a little bit to get ahead so he can go skiing this week.
Night:
My daughter wakes up and makes enough of a ruckus that she gets my son up, too. Immediately take the kids to the potty while my husband finishes what he’s doing. Cue an epic meltdown from my daughter because her brother gets to go potty first. My husband jumps in and starts getting the kids ready to leave again so I can go to the bathroom. My son joins me. Motherhood means never having (getting?) to go to the bathroom alone again.
We head to another local indoor children’s playground, because a snowstorm just started and we’re taking a gamble that it will be empty. It is! Spend a few hours there, then head home ($24).
I heat up Budget Bytes’ Make-Ahead Freezer Burritos for dinner. While they’re cooking, my husband gives the kids a bath and I put away laundry. My husband emerges from the bathroom looking like he’s taken an impromptu trip to Splash Mountain. At dinner, our kids immediately start to misbehave for some unknown reason (they’re toddlers). Parenthood is often a game of chicken: How far can they push it before my husband or I call the match in our favor. We separate the kids; I go to read to my son, my husband to my daughter, and we put them to bed early.
My husband and I watch another episode of Ink Master, read for a bit, talk for a bit, and head to bed.

WEEKLY TOTAL = $776.09 ($588.92 JOINT, $187.17 PERSONAL)

Food + Drink = $240.37
Fun/Entertainment = $39.72
Home + Health = $295.10
Clothes + Beauty = $143.73
Transport = $13.73
Other = $43.44

Reflection: Honestly, this is an average week for us. I’d say we don’t buy a robot vacuum every week, and I tend to only buy clothes once a month at most, but there’s always something. Generally speaking, we have a few dollars up to a couple hundred to save most months, but there are some months when we go over our budget. At this point, our day-to-day spending is relatively on auto-pilot and falls pretty naturally into a narrow range, so across the whole year, we tend to break even.

Sister blames me for her postnatal depression, because I didn’t worship the birth of her child - and I ruined Christmas!

Hello all! This is an anonymous account that I plan to keep for posting on this sub. In fact, this is my first post on Reddit ever. I’m mostly a reader and find myself coming back here often, it’s so reassuring to find others like me!
I thought about putting this post elsewhere like AITA or some other relationship issues sub, but there’s so much of it centered on being childfree, and I also feared that if posted outside of the childfree subreddit, I would be shot down immediately.
Apologies in advance as this will be a long one, so I suggest making a cup of tea for this ;) I promise it will be a good story. If you want to skip the backstory, skip down to Christmas 2019, or the TLDR.
I’ve talked at length with my husband and younger siblings over this piece of family history, but it’s keeping me awake at night sometimes, especially two issues I mention at the end, and I wanted to have a rant and hear the opinions of my people - you lovely childfree people!
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I (32f) decided back when I was 16 that I didn’t want kids. At that age, I went to the doctors on my own to ask about getting sterilised. I was sympathetically laughed at, told I would change my mind, and was handed a pack of condoms and the pill. At 32, I’m still adamant I do not want children.
I’m awkward with kids and not good with them. I've never had that feeling of wanting to fuss over them. When I hold babies (a rare occasion, officially child-holding free for 5 years), I don’t feel anything. I'm not broody or maternal.
As a kid, I always disliked the inaugural visit we did when there was a newborn in the family. Once there, I would be made to hold the baby and all the females in the room would make comments about how I should be feeling, how I will have babies of my own one day. I’ve been somewhat vocal about it since a young age, but now I’m trying to live more honestly in my adult years and I’m following through with actions.
Although I feel like this, I still try my best to get along with babies and children. Because they are innocent in all this and I don’t want to hurt their feelings. So in my awkward way, I try to engage with them - and sometimes this doesn’t go down so well due to inexperience on my part, and the age of the child (I've been known to high-five babies) - but it does get easier for me as children get older, when they reach the age of ten or so.
I have 3 siblings, my older sister (34), my younger brother (31) and my younger sister (26). Me and my younger siblings do not have children. I’m certain kids are not for me, while my younger sibs are on the fence, optimistic it will happen one day, but it can wait and they have better things to do right now.
I’m living in the South, my brother is living way up North, and the rest of my family is in the middle. I came to the South for uni, but I’ve been living here for 13 years now. I have a good job, a husband, great friend network etc.
If I go ‘home’ to see my family, it’s a 5 hour drive, if I have a car (I had one for a few years, currently I don’t). Otherwise it’s a 6-8 hour train ride, or a 10-12 hour coach journey. Despite this distance, I do make a fair effort to go home at least once a year, on average 2-3 times, and one year I managed 4 trips. My family on the other hand, don’t reciprocate this effort, and I would love for my family to come see me more often. I understand money is tight, but my older sister in particular has visited twice in the 13 years I’ve lived here. She has a car btw, and I have a spare bed.
My older sister has 2 children, my niece (9) and nephew (1). She followed in my parent’s footsteps of having kids, buying a house and getting married in her early 20s. Me and my siblings enjoy our child-free lives, two of us having gone to uni, all of us starting up our own businesses / being self-employed, doing lots of travelling. She has become a stay at home mum with various health issues.
My older sister was always big on babies and kids. She would constantly play with dolls as a kid. She would try to get me to play with her, but being a tom-boy, I was more into climbing trees with my brother. When our younger sister was born, (I was 7 at the time, my older sister was 8) my older sister practically treated her like a living doll. She became a second mother with feeding, cleaning, changing her etc. My response to my younger sister being born was “ok, cool” and I did not get involved in any of that.
As we became teenagers, I became more and more estranged from my older sister who would often bully me and my brother. We became polar opposites in our personality: she wanted to be popular, wear the latest fashion trends etc, I was happy gaming in my room listening to rock music. Eventually she moved out, and I shortly moved out too and went to uni. Over the years, we kept in touch on a very light basis. I would see her if I went home, and we would occasionally call each other up - but it was very superficial conversation. As time went on, we don’t call each other anymore, just text occasionally when it’s a birthday or such, and when we meet in person, it’s always in short bursts for a family meal or cup of tea.
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When I was 24, my older sister gave birth to her first child, my niece (who is now 9). I was genuinely happy for her, because she had a lot of trouble conceiving, had a few miscarriages and desperately wanted a child. I was asked to be her godmother (which I agreed to but now regret).
In my niece’s early years, despite my childfree stance, I really tried to make an effort. I would play with her on my level (not over the top make believe play), buy her interesting gifts (not toys, but things that would spark creativity and cognitive thinking, or books). However, with living on the other side of the country, I didn't often have a lot of time to spend with her, even though I would make regular trips. A lot of these trips are usually focused on a family occasion or festive event, so meetings are high-pressured and short lived, with lots of other family to see and get around. I never get to just ‘hang-out’ casually or even babysit, so I’ve never developed a natural relationship with her. I’m also not very confident to take her out by myself for trips out, but will happily go along when other adults are present.
At this point, I’d also like to state that I’m the type that doesn’t believe in “Blood is family. Family is all.” I’m very much into the concept of your family are those who are constant in your life. The ones who keep in touch. You can choose your family. Blood relation does not guarantee an instant relationship, and it certainly doesn’t entitle you to love. Any relationship requires work for there to be love. If I don’t see you or hear from you all that much, there’s not going to be a lot of love between us - whether related or not. This realisation has come from living away from my family for so long, and witnessing how little they keep in touch or visit. I’ve been through some pretty tough times over the years, and I know who has been there for me, and who hasn’t.
As my niece has gotten older, I’ve found it harder and harder to connect with her. She’s become this spoiled pink-princess of a child. She’s obsessed with screens, YouTube celebrities and videos of unboxing toys. She’s very self-centered and cannot see beyond her own wishes and desires. My mother assures me that she’s a very loving, caring and smart child, but I am yet to witness this side of her - but I could understand that maybe I just haven’t spent enough time with her.
Me and my husband do a lot of hosting via Couchsurfing, and we had a family stay with us last year: parents with a 10 year old daughter. I was nervous about having a kid in our home, but it was just an overnight stay and she was older, so agreed to hosting them. I was amazed at how much I connected with this stranger-child in one evening, compared to the lifetime with my own niece. This girl was so switched on about the world around her, the environment, political issues, had read lots of books etc. It was evident this had come from a great nurturing of her parents, who reflected the same values. I’ve asked my niece similar questions in the past and just received shoulder shrugs. I guess what I’m trying to say is that the influences in her life are turning her into a very closed-minded person, and she is starting to reflect the personality of my older sister. I feel like this is starting to cause a drift between me and my niece, similar to what happened with me and my older sister.
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Moving the backstory along. In Feb 2019, me and my partner (now husband) decided to elope and marry in secret. We decided that with all the family issues we both had, a private and intimate wedding was the way forward for us. We also didn’t want to splash a load of money when we have bigger priorities in life. We had a trip planned to visit my brother in April 2019, and decided to add our wedding to it, get hitched in his town with him as a witness. It was a great low-key day, and we made some great personal memories that day, it was fantastic!
In May 2019, we travelled ‘home’ to break the news to the rest of my family. Staying at my parent’s place, I cooked an amazing spread of food for a little family celebration, and invited my sisters round to break the news to them. The news was a shock of course, but they accepted it and were happy for us. However, upon hearing our news, my older sister decided to break some news of her own: she was pregnant again. Of course I congratulated her and was happy for her, but later I started to feel a little miffed at her ‘spotlight’ hogging. We didn’t want a big wedding, but what little celebration we had planned with my family was trumped by her announcement. It still irks me, but in comparison of other events about to happen, I don’t really dwell on it much anymore.
In November 2019, I had to go ‘home’ again, this time under unfortunate news that my grandma had passed. During this visit, I was sitting on the sofa at my parent’s place with my brother, and my older sister arrived with my niece. My niece walks in and looks at me with a strange look, this is the first time she’s seen me on this occasion. I said hello, she said hello back but she was still acting weird. My brother asked her “Do you know who this is?” referring to me. My niece shrugged her shoulders and said “Your new girlfriend?”. I honestly felt my heart sink at this point. I had a harsh realisation that the effort I was putting into the relationship with my niece was not going far enough. That with the physical distance between us, and her personality starting to reflect her mother’s, we were no longer connecting.
I raised this later with my older sister. Her response was that it’s hard for her to remember me because my weight fluctuates so much and I change my hairstyle too often, and that she’s only nine years old. I would like to point out that my weight can fluctuate between 9-10.5 stone (depending on how I’m training at the time), but the last time I was home was 6 month earlier, and I’d hardly gained or lost weight. Plus my hairstyle has been the same for years. I also believe that 9 isn’t an age when a child would struggle to remember someone. But okay then.
During this visit also, we all went to visit a cousin who had recently given birth. Cue the passing around of the baby for everyone to hold. I politely declined the offer, and the baby was passed on to my brother. He was enjoying the cuddle to be fair, but then it started. All the women in the room started with their “Oh are you broody? Oh you’d made a great dad. Oh he’s smitten. Oh when are you going to have a baby?” I had to say something. I loudly (probably louder than I should have) asked them to leave my brother alone, and to stop badgering him with these remarks, that not everyone wants children and they should respect that. It made the atmosphere a little icy, and their response was “We're only teasing him!”.
- + - + - CHRISTMAS 2019 - + - + -
Roll on a month later, and my older sister is due to give birth to her second child, my nephew. Due to her health issues, she was scheduled in for a c-section. I was down South during this time, and I suddenly became very ill with flu-like symptoms. I was under a duvet for a week, off work, not looking at screens, very out of it. During this time, I remembered she was due soon, but I hadn’t heard anything from anyone in the family. I checked Facebook (I don’t use it much) and looked at her profile. Sure enough, a day prior, she had posted the arrival of her son. I ‘liked’ the post and texted her my congrats, apologised for being late due to illness, and I went back to sleep.
I later heard from my younger sister, who informed me that my older sister was pissed at me for not checking in sooner. Apparently, I was supposed to be either psychic, or have the date on my wall like some countdown clock, eager for the arrival of the child. She was especially upset because “birth can be dangerous and who knows what could have happened”, and the least I could have done was checked in sooner. No. You went in for a scheduled c-section, in a very safe hospital environment, this isn’t the middle-ages. Yes, there is risk, but I felt this was clearly blown out of proportion with a “WHAT-I-FISM”. I felt bad for being late with the congrats, but I did apologise for that and I was very ill / out of it. Plus, someone in my family could have messaged me directly, rather than throwing it up on social media?
Anyway. I decided to travel ‘home’ with my husband for Christmas that year. Because a child has been born and it felt like the pilgrimage must be done. I was very nervous about this trip, because of the fact a newborn would be around, but I felt like my family was starting to finally understand where I stood on children, and I could handle it. This however, became the fuse for the subject line of this post. Here is my recollection of events.
The first few days, I spent with my younger sister and seeing my parents. On the third day, it was Christmas Eve and I had been out with my husband, showing him more of my home-town (it was his 2nd visit). We were on our way back to my parent’s place, it was around 4pm and the bus was going to be passing near my older sister’s house. I decided I needed to go see my older sister now, otherwise it would start to get tense. So I quickly texted, asking if we could pop round for a cup of tea and say hello. She text back instantly and said to come round.
We arrived at her house, and I found my parents were actually there too. On first entering the house, my niece and the family dog were causing a lot of chaos, but the first thing I did was go over to the baby’s basket, awkwardly wave at the sleeping baby who is barely a few weeks old and just say a casual “hello!” to him. That’s about as much as any baby will get from me, blood-related or not.
This was the first time I was seeing my older sister and niece on this visit, so we’re talking about everything and anything. My niece is in full-on show-off mode, trying to get me to look at her smartphone game, interrupting the conversation. I oblige her requests but I do also occasionally say “hold on a moment, I’m just chatting, I’ll come look in a moment” because she is thrusting the phone in my face.
I’m sitting near the baby’s basket, occasionally remarking about how quiet he is. But that’s all I’m doing. I didn’t ask her about the birth, the hospital, how he’s feeding, is he sleeping, is he gaining weight etc. All the usual questions I guess a mum is asked on the birth of a child. I’m assuming as it’s a few weeks now, she’s been asked these questions to death. Also, I’m not particularly interested in the answers, and would rather use the time to ask about what else they’ve been up to, how is my niece at school etc rather than feigning an interest if the baby’s bowel movements. This is my standard behaviour, and I’ve been the same way with friends of mine who have decided to have children; and afterwards they have even thanked me for focusing the conversation on other things rather than the baby, because it’s made them feel more human.
At one point, my niece turns to me and says in front of my family “I bet you’re really excited to meet my brother. Do you want to hold him?” I gently refuse and say to her “Oh, no, that’s okay… I’m not very good with children so I’m okay just looking at him.”
We had a quick cup of tea, and barely an hour has passed when it’s time to excuse ourselves so that Christmas Eve can happen for them. Just before leaving, I asked my older sister if I could just pop upstairs and see her cat, which she obliges to and then we leave.
I see them next on Boxing Day (26th for non-UKers). They arrive and hugs are exchanged. We’re all hanging out at my parent’s house and we have a big Christmas meal. My niece has brought some of her new toys which I play with her. Me, my husband and my younger siblings also play a board game, which my niece joins in too. I pass her my phone so she can choose some music on my Spotify account to play during this. Later, I’m a bit braver and ask a bit more about my nephew as he’s awake and wriggling about. When it’s time to leave, my niece gives me a hug and I jokingly say “Ew are you wiping bogies on me!” and she laughs.
I’m only ‘home’ for another day, and I considered squeezing in one more visit to my older sister, but decided against it and that in this short visit, we had seen each other plenty already.
In February 2020, I was invited to a hen-do which, although was rather expensive and I didn’t really want to partake, the location of it would mean that I would be a short train journey away from my brother up North. So I decided to go, kill two birds with one stone, and extend the hen-do weekend into a week with my brother too, which made the trip more financially viable for me.
During this time, I remarked to him that I hadn’t heard from my older sister in a while, even though I had messaged her birthday wishes since Christmas. His response was “Well, she’s not talking to you apparently for how you were at Christmas, and how you reacted with the baby. Apparently you were more interested in seeing her cat than him, and you ignored him the whole time”.
This was the first I had heard of this. I thought the whole Christmas occasion had passed with no remarks, no tense feelings, no tears. I honestly thought it had gone well and that my behaviour around children had finally been accepted. Apparently not. I recollected my version of events with my brother, the crux of it being that, yes, I had asked to briefly see the cat, but I didn’t ignore my nephew. We agreed that maybe I wasn’t the warmest, but when babies are not my thing, how else could I react? I felt like I stood by my values and reacted honestly for once, rather than forcing myself to be someone I wasn’t. My brother wasn't fussed by my behaviour, and agreed that she was being overly sensitive.
So I started drafting a message to her. It took me a while to get my thoughts down into words, I wanted to explain why I behave in the way that I do around kids, using a similar explanation like earlier in this post. I was reading this message over and over again, and I even sent it to a friend of mine to read over, who is also a mother, to just sense check it so that I wasn’t going to be perceived as angry or aggressive. She gave it the all-clear.
However, with Covid-19 came the UK-wide lockdown in March. As I mentioned before, my older sister has a lot of health issues, some of them mental. My parents are always requesting me and my siblings to be careful with what we say to her, or how we behave, that she’s sensitive and we should be mindful of that. So I parked my message for now, and decided to wait a little while before sending it to her.
It also came to me that I hadn’t actually heard this ‘fact’ of her not talking to me directly from her yet. I was acting on some hear-say from my brother. So I decided to test the water. Mother’s Day came by, so I sent her a message of ‘Happy Mother’s Day!’ - but no response. My younger sister informed me that my older sister’s dog had died, so I sent a message of condolences - no response still.
---
Then I got an email from her. And boy was it some email. At this point you might want to go get a second cup of tea.
It took me some time to read the email in full. Not only was it long, but each and every sentence had my heart pounding, my anxiety was spiking and I had to close it down a few times and walk away to digest parts of it. I couldn’t focus on my work, and I couldn't sleep.
She opened with a sucker-punch of a line of “my reason for developing postnatal depression was linked to you not acknowledging your nephew, rejecting your niece’s affection and upsetting her over Christmas by ignoring her baby brother.”
This is her account of how the Christmas visit went:
It was rude of me not to visit her and her newborn baby first. They should have been my number one priority on arriving in the city. But instead, I waited three days and decided to visit late on Christmas Eve, which was also rude. I should have known that Christmas Eve was a special time for her and her children, and that they had plans of baking cookies, watching movies, and having a special night. I would like to remind you, dear reader, it was 4pm at the time I went round, I checked if it was okay with her before arriving, my parents were already visiting, and we stayed barely an hour.
When I arrived, I supposedly didn’t congratulate them, and I didn’t acknowledge her newborn son, not even glancing towards the baby’s basket. Ever. In the entire visit. I’m not sure how she recalls it this way, because I definitely said hello to the child, and my husband confirms. I can only imagine in the chaos of arriving, my niece shouting, and the dog barking, it was all missed. Also, how many times does someone need to be congratulated? I had already done this on the birth, weeks prior?
Apparently, when my niece asked if I would like to hold my nephew, it was cruel of me to refuse her. And afterwards when I left, this caused her great confusion and she couldn’t understand why I, as their auntie, didn’t want to hold her baby brother, or talk to him like everyone else who had visited had done so. I also didn’t play with her as much as she wanted me to. This caused my niece to cry, which caused my older sister to cry, and I apparently ruined their Christmas Eve.
The icing on the cake was when I asked to go and see her cat just before I left. That is, how dare I ask to see the cat, when I was meeting my newborn nephew for the first time, and I paid the cat more attention than him. Again, a reminder of how it actually went: this was a brief request of 20 seconds to pet the cat before we left.
Because of the events on Christmas Eve, my niece was apparently very anxious about seeing me on Boxing Day, and didn’t want to go round to her grandparent’s house, because I would be there. She took a lot of coaxing to agree to going there. When finally there, I apparently continued to ignore my niece and nephew. Somehow my older sister doesn’t recall me playing with my niece and her new toys, playing board games and even talking more about my nephew. Also - as someone who is a long-term sufferer of anxiety, I sensed no uneasiness with my niece whatsoever. She arrived with a big hug, and not an ounce of shyness or worry. I don’t think a nine year old would have the ability to hide such strong emotions she was supposedly feeling. At this point, I strongly believe my older sister was projecting her own anxiety and emotions on to her daughter.
When they went to leave, and we exchanged hugs again, apparently I violently pushed my niece away from me (remember the bogie joke I made?) - that my older sister witnessed this, and so did my parents.
She goes on to instruct me that I need to work on my issues here, that they are my niece and nephew, blood related, and I’m cruel to treat them in this way. That I need to work on my anxiety around children and “If you can't do that for your flesh and blood then I'm sorry I can not be connected with you.”
She’s supposedly heard that I’ve apparently been faking my relationship with my niece this whole time, which I believe has been incorrectly paraphrased by my brother - I’ve spoken with him at length at how I don’t feel a connection has been happening with my niece, and it’s getting worse. My older sister has taken this as I’ve been faking it.
She asks why am I fine with other people’s children, such as that of an ex-boyfriend's nieces and nephews in a previous relationship, and the kids of my friends, and that I’m always talking about them. She claims she’s seen photos of me on Facebook enjoying social occasions with them. I can only imagine it’s because I’m in the frame with them, literally just sitting near them, and she’s reading way too much into it, creating her own narrative and story.
Aside from these gripes, she goes into details about our relationship breaking down as kids / teenagers due to the fact that she was under a lot of pressure back then. She claims to have experienced a lot of stress due to finding out our mother was having an affair and that my cousin sexually abused her - which she also goes on to say she wishes I was the one who was sexually abused and not her. At this point, I start thinking that she’s not quite mentally stable, that she must be having a particularly low episode and she is just looking to lash out at someone or something for the situation she’s now in - and I happen to give her the easiest punch bag in reach. Oh boy.
----
So I start drafting another message. It takes me 3 days to write something down and send it, after carefully reading it over and over again, just like the first message I was attempting.
In the email, I explained my point of view, why I’m childfree and how I don’t really relate with any kids. I acknowledged that I do keep my niece at some distance, but my intentions are always friendly and I’ve never been intentionally cruel or would do anything to cause her upset. I explained that I engage with her as much as I can in the short and chaotic time frame we have. I play with her sometimes, but I agree, not all the time - because there are boundaries and limits and she is not the only person I’m there to see.
I mention that I’m maybe marginally better with my friends’ children, but I would think it’s because I have a good relationship with those parents and I see them more often. My friends have a good understanding that children aren’t for everyone. They don’t try to force anything, respect boundaries, and have no expectation on how people should engage with their children.
On the subject of Christmas, I stated she could have always refused us calling round on Christmas Eve if it was such a precious time, but I apologised if I caused any inconvenience. I apologised for upsetting my niece by not playing with her enough on that occasion, but I did explain that I had more time to play with her on Boxing Day.
As for upsetting her for not holding her brother, I said to my sister that this was her opportunity to explain that not everyone wants to hold babies, and not everyone is great with children, and not everyone wants children, and that’s fine - some people are just like this. I go on to state that I believe children are able to comprehend complex human differences such as disability, sexuality, race - this is no different. I apologise that this upset her, but I would rather be honest and refuse to hold the baby, than lie and fake something.
I explained for the past nine years I’ve really tried to make an effort to get to know my niece. This has been difficult because of the distance. Although I try to visit as often as I can, it’s always under a tense and chaotic condition like a holiday or family event, and the time spent is very short and pressured. It’s not the best conditions to build a relationship, but I try in my awkward way to get to know her. I’ve tried my best to be part of her life with the time limitations and the distance between us, but it’s evident that I’m not doing enough, and there’s little more I can do.
I recognise in the email that I'm never going to be auntie of the year and I'm fine with that. I also tried to compare my relationship with my niece, as being similar to my relationship with an uncle of ours. This particular uncle was my godfather and I rarely saw him as a kid because he lived a small distance away. But when I did see him, it was friendly, fun and civil. I didn’t expect him to play with me all the time, cuddle me, or shower me with attention, and he would put me in my place when I was overstepping the mark as a child. But perhaps because he was a man, there was no expectation on him to be more involved or behave in a certain way. I feel that as a woman, it’s deemed socially unacceptable for me to be this way, and it’s expected of me to be more involved - an unfair gender bias but that’s evidently what society believes.
I go on to mention how I put in a lot of effort to visit them frequently, but the effort is little returned. I explained how it’s a financial strain on me, estimating to have forked out over £4,000 across the last 13 years with all my trips. However, I do it because I still want to see my family, and I prioritise this spending. I remarked that this effort is starting to feel one-sided and it’s unbalancing my relationship with the whole family.
My closing statement is that all this upset she experiences, comes from her own expectations of me, and how I don’t meet those expectations. That I understand she loves her children deeply, they mean the world to her and they are her number one priority - but they are not my number one priority and she should not expect that of me either. If she can lower her expectation of me, then there will be less chance that I will disappoint her. If she could do this one thing, she will save herself a lot of grief.
I agree to go no contact on her suggestion from the last email, and wish her well, requesting that she seek professional help.
----
It took me three days to draft this email. Her response came back within 4 hours, full of spelling and grammar mistakes, which leads me to believe she took no time in digesting what I had to say and just went straight for keyboard diarrhoea.
She opens with “You go on about my expectations of you. Have you addressed your expectations of myself? You're telling me how to parent my child!”. It really sets the tone for where this email is heading.
She goes on to excuse the behaviours of my niece, the obsessive screen time, attention demanding etc. She points out that I was a child once too and just the same as her.
She mentions how my brother is able to have a good relationship with her, even when living a great distance away, and why can’t I be more like him and take my niece out to places like he does.
She also tries to compare me to a friend of hers, who doesn’t like other people’s children but has two of her own??? Somehow that’s the same as being childfree? She says that this person “has no family with kids, doesn’t like kids, but if her sister was to have some, that would be different and she would make more of an effort for family kids!” and continues on to say “she attended my baby shower, she came when he was born to congratulate us, looked at him and asked questions about him and my wellbeing since birth! You did none of these things!”. Somehow, I, a childfree woman, should be able to act and behave in the same way as this woman who is a mother, has experienced childbirth, but doesn’t like other people's children. Yeah, totally the same.
On noting her baby shower, which I didn’t attend, she understands that I didn’t attend it due to distance and finances. But then she mentions how it’s funny I was able to go on a hen-do in the North (the one that coincided with seeing my brother) and that I went abroad for a christening. I’d like to point out this was the christening of my husband’s niece, who he was godfather to and part of the ceremony, plus this was my opportunity to meet his family for the first time. Kind of a big deal. But no, I apparently got my priorities all wrong and I should have attended a baby shower in my hometown instead.
In the same breath, she explains that I shouldn’t expect her to visit me, because I chose to move away. She’s seen my city twice, and that’s enough, there’s nothing else for her to see there. She has other places she wants to see and travel to, and I can’t dictate how she should be spending her time and money. I just love the irony of this. She also states it’s difficult for her to travel with the kids. Whereas I have many reasons to keep visiting my hometown, and it’s much simpler for me to visit. And so I ponder - if I did have a child of my own, would she still expect me to visit her so frequently, and she not at all? I also believe that if I lived somewhere more exotic, I would probably see them more often as it would be deemed a more suitable holiday destination and thus worthy of her time and money.
She ends with: if I want to have a relationship with my niece, like I had with my uncle, I have to at least try. Oomph.
----
And that’s where this story ends. I didn’t bother to reply to her, because it would only add more fuel to the fire. I said what I needed to say, in a very calm and collected manner. I wasn’t going to open myself up for more of her rambling rants and wild accusations. I’m giving her the time to chill out and who knows, maybe we will talk again in the future, but she needs help for sure.
I worry that my niece is now being told things that are untrue, that I’m a horrible person or something. I can only hope that when she’s older, she will understand and perhaps we will reconnect. I’m concerned for her though, because I can see a lot of my sister’s mental health issues rubbing off on her, with my older sister projecting her thoughts and feelings onto her children, behaving in such a way and being so entitled. I think this mental instability will cause friction in their relationship in her teenage years.
Over the last few months, my parents have occasionally put pressure on me to be nice, to make more of an effort with her, apologise etc, and that “oh you know what she’s like”, providing excuses for her behaviour. Whenever I chat with them, they have a habit of updating me on how the kids are and what she’s up to: and I have to remind them that we are no contact, that I don’t think my sister would be happy to know you’re updating me with the latest, and I hope they aren’t doing the same with her and my recent activity.
My younger siblings agree that she’s just not right at the moment, and there have been other instances in the last few months when her behaviour has gone off the rails. The latest was she threatened my brother that she would not allow him to see the kids again if he refused to answer a phone call from her. Yep.
----
If you’ve made it this far, I applaud you and you have my biggest thanks. I hope it was a good read, it’s been a particular crazy time for me!
I’m interested in hearing your opinions on any of the above, whatever you have to say. In particular, I’d appreciate any feedback on two occasions coming up that are stressing me out right now...
As Christmas is coming up, and so is the first birthday of my nephew, I’m unsure on what to do and starting to feel anxious that I should do something? I had the same anxiety over my niece’s birthday a few months back, I thought about sending a message but decided against it due to the rule of no contact. So the occasion came and went, unremarked. As a minimalist / non-consumer, I don’t do presents, but this year I’m planning on baking some cookies and sending them out to family, and unsure whether to include my older sister’s family on this list. Thoughts?
A more larger concern: my younger sister is getting married next year, and with all the Covid restrictions happening, this will probably be the first time I will see my family since that Christmas event. I know I’m placed on a table with my younger brother and older sister, along with our spouses and probably my niece and nephew. I don’t want to stress my younger sister out by requesting to be sat on another table (she’s already stressing about telling older sister she’s not a bridesmaid and how she will react). My plan is to not stay at my parent’s house, but rent a airbnb near the wedding venue. This will lower the risk of seeing her outside from the wedding at my parent's house, but also so I can leave the wedding quickly and easily if something was to happen. Also, I plan to only sit at the table for the meal, and will spend the rest of the wedding mingling with other tables. So that’s like an hour at most? But I’m unsure how to behave with her at that time. Short, civil and courteous? She’s the sort of person that will make a remark if you don’t do something, but will also find fault at the attempts you do make. It’s like I can’t win. I thought about contacting her prior to the event to set some ‘ground rules’ but not sure how well that will be received.
So TLDR: With on-going clashes between me and my older sister, me being childfree and her being a mombie; I ruined her Christmas last year, and apparently gave her postnatal depression for not praising the birth of her newborn child. Now we are no contact. I have a family occasion coming up and not sure what to do when I’m next in close proximity with her and her family. Thoughts? AITA?

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