I’m sorry…please don’t get me wrong. If you consider your life peachy-pie perfect because you and your spouse never argue, the kids never put a toe out of line, and the house looks perfect, well, good on ya!
But truly, that is my idea of hell. I’ve been a non-conformist since the day I was born (I was breech). I believe in speaking my mind, and I teach my kids to do the same. If my husband agreed with me 100% of the time (yeeees dear) I’d respect him a lot less. I EXPECT them to have differing opinions; THEY’RE DIFFERENT PEOPLE!
Kids who sit, very quietly in their perfect sweater sets and Buster Browns make me sad…I feel sorry for them. Give me a kid with grass stains on his jeans who laughs too loud and makes fart noises on his underarm any day.
Couples who dress in a coordinated manner and talk down their noses about their “perfect” marriage cause me to run in the other direction. I think I’d get bored pretty fast if I was with someone who thought the exact same way as I do about every damn thing. I know I’d run all over a man spineless enough to defer to me in everything.
Homogeniety is not necessarily a good thing. Independent thought and strength of character rise from conflict, not from idle sameness. We learn from debate. Especially good, intelligent debate, where both parties are confronted with new ideas. We grow as people by being exposed to new thoughts, new ways of looking at the same thing. It increases understanding and tolerance. Sameness just increases…well… stagnation.
[Paula Prentiss] “But Maureen, I was just going to make you some coffee. I thought we were friends. Why would you you do something like that? I was just going to make you some coffee.” [/Paula Prentiss]
The great tragedy of the self-appointed “guardian” of non-conformism and “freedom”: They look down upon those who freely choose not to live as they do.
Two of my cousins (we’ll call them S & C) got married within two months of each other in 2001. S and his wife fought constantly. Every weekend they’d have a big blow out, throw things at each other, and threaten divorce.
C and his wife were so in love it made you sick. They cooed, they kissed, they named their future 3.5 children and the dog. C thought she was a goddess.
Two years later, guess who’s still married?
S and his wife will never get divorced. They’ll be together until the end of time. After the first couple of years they stopped fighting so much and now only tease one another unmercifully. Everyone in both families didn’t think it’d last a week, and they’ve fooled us all.
C and his wife were everyone’s long-term bet for happiness. We imagined them growing old together, white picket fence, great-grandkiddies, etc. Then one day C comes home and his wife tells him she doesn’t love him anymore. That’s it. No explanation. Just wham, bam, thank you husband and get out. He’s devastated.
As my other cousin, Ch, said: “She married him when he was a drunk, broke and a pill-head, and when he cleaned up and started making money and treating her good, she didn’t want him anymore.”
My aunt says that couples who are confident enough to fight in public are the ones with a strong enough relationship to survive anything. It’s the ones who cover up their problems and pretend to be perfect who have the deep-rooted issues. I don’t claim to have any answers myself, but that’s how it played out in this case.
Here’s what I read, by Maureen Dowd in the NY Times
She says Frank Oz (director) and Paul Rudkick (screenwriter) are making it. Nicole Kidman does the Katherine Ross role, married to Matthew Broderick. Christopher Walken is the town founder. Bette Midler is her friend. Faith Hill is a zombie.
No info but they could cast it out of my church. The stepfords all are the same size (6), Stay at home - but have a sitter and a maid, have the same number of kids that are roughly the same age - with the obligatory cutesy names (like merydith and brooklynne), all have the same hairstyle (the shoulder length, curled under bob with bangs), and all have the same husbands (bankers or lawyers), no one ever speaks up or has anything to say that might be questionable. Everything is perfect and calm and absolutely nauseating.
I am fat and outspoken, I have a messy outspoken husband, we have cats not kids, and we live in the wrong part of town. And are ignored by the stepfords.
I guess I don’t understand the point. Who are you talking to? The oh-so-conformist and homogeneous Dopers? Is this a sort of counterpoint to the non-dysfunctional families thread? Did someone sneer at your grass-stained kid? Is this a Pit thread in disguise? Are Buster Browns even manufactured any more? I’m confused.
Genie , I’m talking to the same people you’re talking to. Everyone.
Yeah, it rather is a counterpoint to the “non-dysfunctional” thread.
I didn’t really want to spam it, though, everyone was so smugly perfect there.
No, it’s not MEANT as a pit thread in disguise (above comment notwithstanding), although I can see I probably should have put it there. I’m not trying to slam anybody. As I said, if that’s the kind of family that rocks your world, more power to you. I just prefer people who admit they are different and are proud of those differences.
I don’t know. I’ve always wondered why people feel the need to proclaim themselves nonconformists. If you truly are, then surely you don’t even worry about this stuff.
I don’t honestly think so, Bad News Babboon . I actually did think about my response (to you) before posting. Normal enough kidhood, enough trouble to get into to keep from getting bored, 2.0 parents, grandparents, house, dogs, cats, laughter, love, usual kid stuff… I’m just rather naturally skeptical of people who say “be like everybod else…WE are, and look how happy!” Rather Zolofty. But hey, if I belong in the pit…
Is it OK with her if we agree to fight in private, because it’s really nobody else’s business, and we don’t care to create a spectacle and make other people uncomfortable?
Mr. S and I have been accused of being a perfect couple, not because of material trappings (we don’t have any), but because we seem so compatible and affectionate. We don’t “pretend to be perfect”; we do have relationship dirty laundry, but we keep it in the hamper. When said laundry needs laundering, we do it at home; we don’t take it to the town square.
I agree wholeheartedly with Scarlett67. In my experience, the strongest couples tend to save both their fights and their displays of affection for private times.
