Faking It

I spoke to my sister on the phone yesterday. She and her family went to visit her in-laws over Valentine weekend and had a nice time.

She was telling me that about 3:00 on V-day her mother-in-law mentioned that while Bjyo and her husband went out, she was going to host a tea party for the children. Bjyo thought it was a little strange but whatever. But by the time her and Jody were ready to leave the entire house was filled with people.

Jody is the baby of the family by a bunch. I'm guessing his next closest sibling is around 20 years his senior. And he has 4 or 5 older siblings. All living in the same area, all married, most with grown children of their own. And apparently everyone available drove over to attend the tea party.

When Byjo tells me stuff like this, stuff about Jody's family . . . I always smile. I've met them. Have been to many of the same family get together over the years. They are wonderful. In fact, I am pretty sure all those good old shows (Leave it to Beaver, Mayberry, Brady Bunch, etc.) were designed from this family unit.



However, I also understand her inability to comprehend WHY they would do it. My own mother didn't tell me she loved me until I was over 22 years old and forced it out of her. I didn't have a birthday cake until I was 36 and that was baked by a co-worker. We were never loved or cuddled by our family, much less the larger family unit. We really had no value as children, no one would have walked next door to attend a tea party hosted for us, much less across town.

I feel this same sense of disconnection and inability to feel like I belong when I am around my husband's family. Hell, unless I'm drunk, or they visit me all alone, I feel the same with my own extended family.

We have some idea of what we are suppose to be feeling or how we should be behaving; but we don't. The best we can do is try to pretend we do. Hoping that our participation, our faking it, will be enough to cement our children's real enjoying and bonding in this aspect.

Hoping that 25-30 years down the line, our children will able to visit their own in-laws and be around people and not have to fake it. Hope they will never know we ever did. That it will just seem normal to them. If in this alone we have succeeded, than a step in the right direction has been taken in the evolution of our family.

The old quote, "Fake it until you make it", takes on a whole new light in our circumstances. Feels like it was written specifically for us half alligators.

Play on dear sister, play on.