A big meeting

This Christmas The Flautist is going up to spend four days with my parents along with me, Wendy, and Pinkie Pie for the first time.  Having my girlfriend and wife both be part of family holidays is a thing I have wanted for a long time.  It is partly that I want that to be a normal and accepted thing to do, but this isn't just a move for the sake of advocacy; I actually think that everyone will have a good time together and get along well.

I know a number of people in nonstandard relationships who have tried this sort of thing and usually it has not gone well.  Mostly this was due simply to family members refusing to acknowledge or respect the relationships in question rather than any real incompatibility.  I don't think this is likely to be an issue for me though as my family ranges from wholly supportive to uncertain and concerned, but I expect everyone to conclude that the best thing to do is just grin and carry on.

After all, they all know that telling me not to do this is going to accomplish exactly nothing aside from making me grumpy, so might as well just accept it.  My parents have never made even the slightest attempt to control who I am involved with and I don't expect that to change now that I am on the latter side of 40!  This is something I really appreciate, as even though they noticed that Wendy was a great fit for me long before I did they said nothing and waited for me to figure it out.

I will never forget when I told them "So, yeah, Wendy, who I am renting a room from, and who just got divorced two months ago... she and I are dating now, while her ex husband, my buddy, is also living in the same house."  I figured I was going to get a lecture, and instead the reply was "What took you so long?" 

The funniest bit so far was when I mentioned this to a friend and she asked why I would do this at all.  I started explaining about poly dynamics and treating partners well and she cut me off with "No, no, I get that, but why would you inflict your family on someone you like?"

I actually like both my girlfriend *and* my family!  I enjoy family Christmas!  I guess this is not something everyone assumes is true.

Honestly I think the trickiest part is just going to be food.  The Flautist is a vegetarian with gluten intolerance, and that means that 90% of the meals at my parents' place won't work.  It is going to take a bit of adjustment, no doubt about that.

Really though, if the hardest part of the whole thing is that I have to cook a lot to make sure the meals all work for everyone, that is a pretty small challenge to overcome, all things considered.

Run, a teenager!

Pinkie Pie is 13 as of this week.  I know what this means - she will become withdrawn, sullen, and bitter, believing her parents to be insufferable idiots.  She will begin dressing in ways that offend my sensibilities, consorting with individuals I am suspicious of, and rebelling against the social order I work so hard to defend.

That is the usual story, at any rate.

I don't think that is going to happen, especially the social order part.  The consorting with individuals I am suspicious of is probably true, because I naturally have high standards for the people she hangs out with.  However, her friends are vastly more progressive and aware than my friends were at her age, so on many fronts she is doing far better than I did when I was young.

They are still a bunch of clueless teenagers, of course.

I am biased though, to be happy about these times.  Pinkie Pie was struggling mightily for a couple of years with serious mental health challenges, and things have gotten dramatically better in the last few months.  She is back at school, and although it isn't perfect, it is basically working.  She is learning things, has a variety of friends and activities, and her teachers say that she is improving rapidly.  There is still a long way to go yet, but we can see the light at the end of the tunnel now.

This is in stark contrast to a year ago where things were a total disaster.  We were trying homeschooling, but she wasn't able to cope with it at all.  Pinkie Pie's life was a mess, and my life was a mess as a consequence.  There is still much work to do these days, but this year it feels like a lot of work to do whereas last year it felt like drowning with no hope of rescue.  That is a big improvement, no doubt at all about that.

I am not dancing in the streets quite yet.  There are still many years to go, many tragedies to cope with, many challenges to navigate.  But I can see that the dark times of recent past are receding, and better times are coming.  These experiences do make me laugh at other parents at times though, when they complain about their struggles with their children and the challenges they have had to navigate.  The contrast between various children's difficulties is so stark.

One parent I talked to recently was bemoaning parent teacher interview night, because his kid gets straight As and every interview is "Well, the kid is great, so I have nothing to say".  The parent was grumpy about having to attend interviews when they were so pointless.  I was tempted to say that I was so glad that my kid is still alive, and straight Ds would be a huge improvement over last year, so how about shut the hell up, but managed to keep that to myself.

But I try not to get too uptight about this, because when I visit Sick Kids Hospital, I am reminded that my kid being alive isn't a given, and others have more struggles than I do.  Plus Pinkie Pie is kind, generous, and hopeful.  I would rather parent her than a straight A student who is an asshole, and there are plenty of those.  I suppose by that measure I am doing pretty well... though that doesn't stop me from wishing I had it all.