No, I’m not pregnant.
It turns out that one of the side effects of having a first child is that people now feel free to pressure you to have a second one. There is a social taboo against asking people who don’t have kids if they’re going to have them (even though lots of people ignore it), but once you’ve had one child, you’ve shown that a) you want kids and b) there’s no physical reason you can’t have them. I’ve had at least three different people, all with two children themselves, earnestly explain to me in detail why I should have another child. Somehow “we don’t want another one” just isn’t a good enough reason to stop at one.
Terri Cullen at the WSJ explains her financial reasons for stopping at one:
….in 2005 families grossing $70,200 a year or more spent $279,450 to raise a child through age 17. … And that’s just to get the kid through high school. If that high-income family planned on covering all college costs as well, they’d be looking at an additional $62,492 for a four-year, in-state public university, or $134,693 for a four-year private school, assuming an 8% rate of tuition inflation….
Obviously, there’s more than just money involved in the decision to have a second child, but the financial picture has an impact.
It’s kind of the sequel to Why Girls Are Weird
, although one really has nothing to do with the other. The plots are different, the people are all different, they take place in different parts of the country. But it’s still about growing up and figuring out who you are; in this one, there’s also a lot more figuring out who the hell you’re related to – seeing your parents and siblings as people, and not just an extension of yourself. It’s not always easy to do, and figuring out how to do it isn’t always pretty.
And there’s a lot that I found distasteful in this book – some of it I was supposed to and some of it I wasn’t, I suspect. The messy, overfilled house? That was supposed to gross me out. The cute boy in Virginia she crushes on? Probably wasn’t. Although, now that I think about it, maybe I was. Hm. I’ll have to think about it more.
Ultimately, though, the reason that I’m recommending this is that I got it late on a Friday afternoon, and read it practically in one sitting. It’s not a fast read in a bad way, and I’m certain that I’ll read it again, but it was so engaging that I didn’t want to put it down.
Why Moms Are Weird
: Recommended
I’d kind of like to live in the house that the Dunlaps live in. It’s old, kind of falling apart, yet sturdy and solid in ways that only old houses are. Beams that are too thick, walls that will never fall over. It has a history. Multiple generations have lived there, had their lives etched into. It’s no longer the ideal house, although it once was.
It’s also a good symbol of the society they live in. the only people allowed into the house are people who live at this socio-economic level, no matter how odd they are. The Dunlaps have known them their whole lives, their parents and probably their grandparents.
It’s telling that the family matriarch never felt at home in the house and that’s the first description we get of her. You know she’s doomed when the only room she can be comfortable in is the one that’s had a skylight put in that the patriarch can’t remove.
The family can be described much like the house: they’re old and formidable. You imagine even the twenty-two year old main character as having long roots in this place and memories that go back to before she should be able to remember. Her family is sturdy and solid. Despite her parents’ divorce, the family exists, and will always exist. There’s a long history here that will both never be talked about and will never change.
Their family, like the house, is no longer the norm in society. We move around much more and don’t keep lasting relationships. The Dunlaps don’t really fit in anymore. But they don’t care. Are they still the ideal house and family? In some ways, for some people. I can see the attraction of the stability, always knowing what’s going to happen. It’s comfortable. You’d need the denial of the Dunlap grandmother thought to think their position in society is going to stay comfortable with the outside world.
Ultimately, I’m bad at comfortable. Which is why the house sort of appeals. I’d like to take it in hand, fix its problems, take its history for mine and try to print mine on it. Unfortunately that rarely works.
The Hazards of Good Breeding: Recommended
