For Better or Worse

Marriage and parenting in the time of COVID-19 feels like we are in the middle of an unfun, poorly scripted game show, with new fears, stressors and challenges popping up daily. My husband and I just celebrated our 9 year wedding anniversary and this year in particular, we have grown together as a couple more than ever before.

It got me thinking, what would people suggest couples attempt as the ultimate test of patience, humor, and love? What tasks or events put us deep in the trenches of reality--referencing the “worse” portion of “better or worse” in the vows? I conducted a little market research and gathered the top responses from hundreds of married Moms, in the name of reclaiming lightheartedness on the internet.

The number one answer? Assembling IKEA furniture.

For the rest, grab your partner and “discuss”.

Around the House

How they load the dishwasher

Putting up the Christmas tree

Putting together a Barbie Dreamhouse

Putting together “Santa Toys” the night before Christmas

The internet goes down

Putting up wallpaper

Budgeting

Remodeling or construction within the home of any kind.

Building a Costco play structure

Hanging pictures

Hanging curtains

The tupperware cabinet

Playing Scrabble and someone challenges a word

Packing for a trip

Packing the trunk of a full car

Attempting a professional family photo shoot

The Middle of the Night

Getting a bat out of the house

Vomit.

One of the kids wets the bed.

The batteries in the smoke detector are dying and you don’t know which one.

Listening to your partner snore while feeding the baby.

Health

Quarantining during a global pandemic with any number of children.

Labor

Listening to your partner complain how uncomfortable the chair is that they are sitting in... while you’re in labor

Food poisoning

When your child brings you a handful of poop.

Hiring a doula only to have your partner compete with them during the entire 3-day labor.

One is the caretaker and one is the patient post-surgery.

The first, second, and subsequent calls to Poison Control.

Heavy Machinery

Backing a boat trailer onto the ramp

Backing an RV into a campsite

Docking a boat

Renting a mini-excavator and hitting a gas line.

One teaching the other to drive stick

Out in the World

Shopping at IKEA

Driving in a foreign country

Navigating a two-person canoe

Navigating a two-person kayak

Changing a flat tire without cell service

Riding a tandem bicycle

Being lost in a foreign country

Needing to go to the hospital in a foreign country

A 10-hour plane ride with a toddler

If only instead of rice, we could throw out these challenges to newlyweds as they recede down the aisle, it would paint a much more realistic picture of marital bliss. But there is a secret waiting at the end of these moments, and its whispered to both, once you reach the other side.

It says, “Look what we did. Look what we survived. And we did it together.”

The Pieces They Will Carry

I can remember the 1989 Earthquake. We were in Half Moon Bay, a dreamy coastal town, visiting family friends. I was 4 and I felt the ground trembling under my feet as I watched books tumble to the ground. I know dishes broke, but I didn’t hear them. I can’t recall the look of fear on my mom’s face as she used her body to wrap my sister and me into the door frame. Afterwards we took a walk and saw a neighbor’s solarium, made entirely of glass, completely shattered. I remember his face as he swept up the pieces. It’s curious the pieces we carry with us from childhood. The parts we take and the parts we leave behind.

My friend and I have started running together, 6-feet apart. We shared back and forth events in our childhood that stood out, grappling with what our young children will remember from all the events of this year. She told me about the time when she was 10, learning the atomic bomb wasn’t just an idea, a man-made creation—but a weapon, that had been used. She ran into her room and ripped down a sign that read “Love Never Fails” and tore it into tiny pieces. Recounting to me, she laughed and called herself a “Drama Queen”. I disagree. This wasn’t dramatic, this was moment she fell off the cliff--the time the catcher in the rye couldn’t save her. Or rather, wasn’t meant to.

One of the many reasons we have yet to take a Disney vacation is because I don’t want to be poking my daughters in line for Pirates of the Caribbean saying, “Remember and appreciate this moment. Now give me a bite of your $22 churro”. Parenthood is a delicate balance between protection and exposure. Shelter under the doorway, but observe the destruction. Wear the masks, but limit talk of death. Explain about racism, but how to explain about Trump?

Yesterday I took a shot at normalcy and we went for frozen yogurt at our favorite place across from where we would participate in Farmers Market.

Absolutely nothing felt right.

No we can’t go inside.

No we can’t serve ourselves.

No we can’t play on the playground.

Don’t go near the other kids.

Farmer’s Market cannot exist like it once did.

When we were done, Charlotte found a baby praying mantis. We took it home in the Earth-destroying tiny plastic container their sprinkles had to come in. The girls watched its regal movements before setting it free, as I ducked away. I became so overwhelmed with sadness, I needed to find a space to cry alone over the breadcrumbs of a childhood I feared I was giving them. But this was from my own eyes, not theirs. I hope they recall sitting on the bench together as sisters, or the miraculously tiny insect. I know, however, I have about as much control over which memories they will take with them during this time, as I do over the atomic bomb itself.

My friend, a sensitive and compassionate woman, grew up to be a high school principal for a continuation high school that celebrates diverse non-traditional students. Today my oldest daughter told me, that even though she can’t see my mouth behind my mask, she knows I’m smiling because she can see it in my eyes. I can only hope that’s the piece she will carry.