Wicked Mom...

Wickedly protecting my family... I always said I had a planned menu to cook for any potential mate my children might bring around. Spaghetti and corn-on-the-cob with artichokes as an appetizer.  There isn't anything as hard to eat completely gracefully as these three things so this was how I planned to put that potential family member under scrutiny.  Didn't happen with the first child because her intended sort of eased into our lives in such a comfortable way.  But we did run one potential suitor off.  We discovered very quickly that one guy didn't have enough of the right stuff to want to work hard to gain a place within the family.  We could detect he had unsuitable interests in our daughter.  After joining us for a fun weekend involving trimming juniper trees under the barbed wire fencing in the Hill Country of Texas, he was gone for good. My husband has a wicked streak, too.

It has long been a family belief that those who can work together and play together can be married together since marriage is made of work. Therefore we place high priority on family projects and family fun on my father's side, who comes from those Scots-Irish clans.  You don't marry the person, you marry the family!

I know a family whose test is a very grueling white water rafting trip for any serious potential suitor.  The idea is that if one can make it through the rapids, they can make it through other ups and downs that will be faced in the family future.

There is a genetic reason for this that drives the behavior I would surmise.  Raising kids is hard work.  Being part of a family is hard work.  Nothing is just a free-skate. 

Comments

[merry mama]

Never thought of this... you ARE wickedly funny...

HMMMM. I think I'll adopt both ideas....Hopefully I'll make it through five tests (five daughters) or however many it takes for them to find their true mates...

[Naomi Dagen Bloom]

surely you jest.

don't our children have the right to pick whoever--and leave us with the consequences? such as learning to get along with people "different from us," that message we worked so hard to get across.