Favorite Posts, Mentions, and Top Comments Week of 1Apr2013
Kyle and I have been in CA since Wednesday and are flying home tonight. It’s been a quick trip, but we’ve been able to spend a lot of time with Kyle’s parents and aunt and uncle and saw some other family and friends briefly as well.
Last Sunday we had our busy Easter morning and brunch and then watched our team get demolished in the Elite Eight (I’m still not over that injury – holy cow). I spent all of Monday and Tuesday preparing for a presentation I gave to our collaborator’s lab meeting on Tuesday afternoon. The meeting went well and I had a good conversation with my advisor in which we agreed that I will write a grant (for the experience) and take some other career-prep steps.
During this trip we had a rash of people ask us when we are going to have our first baby – maybe it’s a death/new life kind of thing. We were also around some babies/toddlers after the funeral and my FIL was fawning over them, which was really cute but provoked a lot of wink wink nudge nudge looks like you need to give him some grandchildren soon. Normally people don’t ask us this question; it has only come up a handfull of times in our 3 years of marriage. I think it’s our dual-student status that protects us; many of our relatives probably don’t even realize we have a decent income while in grad school! Anyway, I have been glad for the break from the when-are-you-going-to-get-to-the-next-stage questions that we’ve had over the last few years. For about 2 years prior to our engagement people were constantly asking me when we were going to get married, particularly after 1) I converted to Christianity (Kyle’s faith) and 2) I moved to Durham to live near Kyle oh wait and get a PhD at one of the top BME programs in the country, forgot about that part! Anyway I got really sick of those questions because getting engaged was out of my hands. I started telling people that they needed to ask Kyle because I didn’t know. I’m not nearly as annoyed by the baby questions, I suppose because I feel a bit more in control of the timing, at least to start trying, and I’m not annoyed by them at all if they come in the context of a longer conversation and genuine interest in our lives (not just nosiness). Kyle says that the way we should respond to these questions now by saying that we are “in negotiations,” which is true (but we’ve been in them since we got engaged). Anyway, I don’t ask my friends when they are going to get married or reproduce (even though I do want to know) because I got so tired and frustrated by the engagement ones – I wait for them to bring it up. What has been your experience with well-meaning people asking about your family formation progress – and how do you ask about it if you do?
Posts I Liked
Robert from The College Investor offers a clever way to remember the “order of operations” for retirement savings.
Jenna from Beyond the Bridge outlines at Budgets Are Sexy four non-monetary ways to give to the homeless.
Lynn from The Adventuring Spirit shares at On Target Coaching the amazing story of how her family paid off $90k in debt in 2 years while living Los Angeles! I don’t think I would have gotten through 2 weeks with $1 in the bank without turning to credit cards – they are so strong!
Well Heeled Blog lays out the eight factors that influence how people decide where to live.
Carnivals
How to Spend Less When Attending Out-of-Town Weddings was featured in the Carnival of Money Pros and the Financial Carnival for Young Adults.
Our Experiences with Paying Off Debt was featured in the Financial Simplicity Carnival.
Marginal Tax Brackets, Deductions, and Credits Explained Graphically was featured in the Carnival of Taxes #115.
Top Comment
nicoleandmaggie fought the man and won! “Don’t be too exhausted to complain. We have Sprint and have had exactly the same problems. Every time our contract changes, they mess it up and charge us more than they’re supposed to. Every month for 3-4 months we call until they make it right, including getting reimbursed for previous mistakes. Eventually they make it right. (It has gotten so I make DH open the bill, because every time I open it, they seem to have screwed something up.)”
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Filed under: weekly update · Tags: babies, funeral, travel
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What’s really annoying is when you get the baby questions and you’ve been undergoing infertility treatment Just sayin’.
We have a “things not to say” post coming up in a couple of weeks and other people’s fertility plans is on there.
nicoleandmaggie recently posted..Ask the grumpies: When is a school good/awesome enough?
Yes, if we experience infertility these questions will go from annoying to truly painful. I felt a fraction of that toward the end of our dating period. Kyle and I decided we wanted to get married and then I had to wait for him to actually propose, and that was quite a difficult time – I actually sought out counseling. I guess it makes a difference if you are open about your struggles – I wasn’t with anyone about my hope for becoming engaged and certainly with infertility you wouldn’t tell strangers but perhaps there are a few you could confide in. I look forward to your what not to say post!
To family members, I tell them that asking me about it just postpones the decision by a year. That usually shuts them up pretty effectively for a while. To nosey acquaintances, I just tell them that Mr. PoP and I each have 2-seater cars, and we’re not currently in the market for a different vehicle.
If/when we decide to have kids, I’m betting we’ll be that couple that doesn’t say anything to anyone until I’m big enough that it’s impossible to deny.
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If I want to be honest with people I tell them I want to be married for 5 years before we get pregnant and also that we wouldn’t want to get pregnant while we’re living apart next year. But I don’t want them to have the expectation that we’ll start trying at 5 years either because we still might not be ready by then.
I also want to have the plan to never tell anyone even when it becomes obvious! I think it would be a great long-running joke but I am a terrible liar. However, a while ago I watched a bunch of “we’re pregnant” announcement videos on YouTube and it was so sweet that I want to give our families an experience like that. But maybe we’ll just tell them and swear them to secrecy even when people start asking. 🙂
I used to tell people that I was too young to get married when they asked me when I was getting married. My mom says that’s not really a valid statement anymore considering that I’m practically 25. I also tell people that I can’t marry someone who doesn’t play one of my sports and there aren’t very many single guys my age that play that sport here, so marriage is a ways off 😉
Whenever my parents ask about grandchildren, I ask them if they want me to have kids before I get married. They quickly say no and shut up about it. They haven’t bothered me about it since!
My parents didn’t even meet until they were a bit older than me and my dad refused to get married until he was 30, so I think I’m reasonably safe from them. The married friends are the worst. They seem to think that everyone is happier married and spend a lot of energy setting you up on dates. It is so annoying!
I have a friend who has been trying to get pregnant for awhile. I have, surprisingly, been one of the few people she’s confided in somewhat. It’s been an interesting learning experience. I don’t know if I want kids, so I can’t really imagine what she’s going through, but I couldn’t imagine wanting something so badly and not having any control over getting it. You almost have more control over getting engaged since at least some other person is in control of it rather than science/luck/faith.
Leigh recently posted..March 2013 net worth update (+3.0%)
Haha I will have to be sure not to be that annoying married friend! I never try to play matchmaker, though. I don’t think I know people well enough to guess who would like each other.
We got married when we were slightly younger than my mother was (the youngest of our 4 parents) and waaaaaay younger than Kyle’s father. They ALL thought we were too young to get married but I think they can see now that it’s working out. Definitely none of them were pressuring us to get married, it was mostly other relatives and slightly older peers.
I’m not really trying to compare not-getting-married-yet with infertility because I’m sure the latter is much more difficult and painful, but actually waiting to get engaged was a BIG learning experience for me in patience and trust. It’s easy to see from this side of it that we eventually did get engaged and married, but from the other side I really wasn’t sure if Kyle would propose (in a timely manner). I had control over us not getting engaged in the sense that I could have refused his proposal, but I didn’t have control over whether or not he would propose or how and when he would do it. It’s a matter of trust in your SO in the engagement case and a matter of luck and effort and biology, like you said, for getting pregnant – and it’s scary to trust another person. We’re going through a similar exercise again in our relationship now.
I haven’t walked with any friends through infertility, though Kyle has. We know some others who are having trouble but we’re not clued in on how they are doing often. I’m sure I would go nearly crazy not being in control of that.
Thread-jack: I’d say I had control over when I got engaged – I pretty much laid all my cards on the table and told my husband that I love him and want to get married, but if that’s not where he see our relationship going then it’s best for all if we cut our losses. It’s OK to want to get married, and women shouldn’t feel like they have to cede all the control to the man on that very important matter that should be made as a couple.
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I think the way that you and your husband came to the decision to get married made a lot of sense and I admire how frank you were with him. The decision to get married, though, which is what you discussed in your comment, is rather different in my mind from the action of getting engaged and the action of getting married, which is more what I was writing about. In our case, the determination that we wanted to get married was made by each of us individually over a period of about a year, then we discussed it with each other and decided to move toward engagement. But still we weren’t engaged until Kyle actually proposed and I accepted. I’m not trying to say that every engagement needs to start with a man on his knee with a diamond ring, but that was what was best for our relationship (for three independent and important-to-us reasons), only one of which had anything to do with gender.
We ALWAYS have people asking when are we going to have a baby. It’s pretty much a weekly thing now and just last night we were probably asked 5 times. However, we do know that we want to wait until at least 5 years from now.
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Oh my gosh that frequency would drive me nuts! Do you tell them you want to wait 5 years or say something else?
Thanks for including Lynne’s Guest Post! Great story that needs to be shared.
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Thanks for the mention! Glad you enjoyed my post!
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I definitely got a few raised eyebrows when we announced our engagement along with the fact that we planned to wait a while before actually tying the knot. No one bugged us about it during this time though (but people were definitely all ‘FINALLY! ABOUT TIME’ when we set a date).
I imagine the kid question will start rearing its head after that, probably more on his side than mine (as EVERYONE has kids in his family, though usually young and unplanned, which only solidifies my wanting to wait). On my side it’s more along the lines of ‘when will you be buying a house of your own?’
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I wouldn’t think that a family with a lot of unplanned kids would ask when you plan to have a kid! I do think it’s odd when my friends get engaged and seem to have no plans to actually marry – but I don’t tell them that. 🙂
My partner and I have been together 5 years and have no plans on getting married or having children. When people ask, I tell them that. Then I get a whole other slew of questions! People can’t comprehend a woman NOT wanting to get married or having kids.
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My sister has said she doesn’t want to get married or have kids, either. I don’t push it!