Category Archives: family

“When is Daddy coming?”

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It’s been almost a week and a half since Chris left for Australia. To keep in touch with us and to get some contact with Kaia, he’s been calling on FaceTime most nights. She always gets excited, but at the same time, she gets very upset when it’s time to hang up. The other night, she also got to interact with Chris’s mom, and she had a melt down afterwards. That night, she didn’t fall asleep until past 9:30. That was brutal.

This morning when she was eating breakfast, she asked, “When is Daddy coming?” I wondered if she meant, “coming back,” but she did mean to say that she wants Daddy to come. So it made me think about the phrase her former nanny used to always say, and what I also hear the daycare teachers say, “Mommy/Daddy always comes back.” Once upon a time as a baby, she did not understand that when an object gets covered that it’s actually still there, and that you just need to lift the cover or blanket to see it again. As young babies, they also don’t understand that when mommy or daddy leave the room that they are not gone forever, that they will, in fact, come back. And then as she got a little older, “peek-a-boo” becomes exciting because there’s the realization (and developmental milestone) that people/objects that you cannot see, CAN actually still be there. She still loves peekaboo, and I’ll be honest: I love playing it with her, especially when I’m in one room and she’s in another further away.

So it’s hard to confirm, but maybe she does understand when I tell her that Daddy “went to Australia to see Suma, Topa, and Shushu, and that he will be back soon.” First, she would say, “I want to see Suma, Topa, and Shushu,” too! Then she would whine, “I want Da-TEE!”

In just a day, she can change dramatically. She can do new things with her feet and hands. She can jump higher or do a more complex physical move. She can also say more complex sentences and new words and actually understand what they mean – in English and Chinese. Just today, she said a full Chinese sentence that I say a lot, but before, I wasn’t ever 100 percent certain she understood. But she said it in the totally correct context. I was overjoyed. Chris realizes this as he’s away and hears her say new things over FaceTime. I’m lucky to be able to work full time, have a flexible schedule, and witness as many of her moments as possible in her development.

The relationships you have (and don’t have) with your parents

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Yesterday, my friend came over for dinner, and eventually the topic of our parents came up. While her relationship with her parents is not as fractured as mine is, she definitely has strained relationships with both parents and wish it could be better. In her family, she somehow always gets labeled the “selfish” one who needs to be accommodated, even when she actually bends over backwards to do the exact opposite. And her older sister, in her usual pattern, always plays “victim” and has both parents feeling sorry for her and blaming my friend in the end. It makes no sense, but what does in a dysfunctional family?

I told her that I hadn’t spoken with my mom since end of February after she accused me of being mad at her for not sending money to Kaia (and as for my dad, I haven’t spoken with him over the phone since right before our August 2022 visit with Kaia, when he (figuratively) fell off his rocker and called me a bitch for no legitimate reason). I think it should go without saying that I’ve never had a track record or any record of being a gold digger or seeking out my parents solely for their money. So it’s beyond insulting to think that she’d come up with this crap in her head. It’s just yet another sign to me of how poisoned my mother’s brain has become over the years. She once had so much promise and positivity about the world, but as the years have gone by and bitterness through her experiences has chipped away at her, now she is just a mentally unstable, negativity inducing old woman who chooses to see the worst in everyone. And when there is nothing “bad” to see, she decides, in her head, to fabricate lies about what some given person has said, done, or “thought.”

That just reminded me of my bad memories growing up, being frightened that my mom WAS actually the thought police, policing my thoughts and trying to tell me how to “feel” or even “think.” That was pretty awful, to say the least.

I’ve tried to give my parents nice experiences through vacations that they were never grateful for (and nitpicked over what they spent money on vs. what Chris or I bought for them). I’ve tried buying them nice gifts. I’ve paid for meals for them. I’ve tried spending time with them in various ways when I go back to San Francisco, which they have rejected, complained about, or in one case, where my dad just stormed off and said he didn’t want to go (on a stupid walk, of all things). I said very flattering and gracious things about both of them at my wedding during speeches. I think I’ve tried what I can do to in order to make our relationship better from my side. But it’s not fair for me to do all the work. It takes both sides of a relationship to make it better, and they just keep doing everything in their power to make our relationship worst, whether they are aware of it or not. They have pushed me away, so far that I don’t really think we’ll ever recover.

So, I think back to what my therapist told me two years ago. “It’s okay to mourn the relationship you wish you had, but don’t,” she said. I told my friend this, as well, and she agreed that it was a good thing to hear and be told, and even reminded of. My therapist reminded me of this a few times, and I probably really needed to hear it. Usually, I just brush it off and try to be strong about it. I hate feeling sorry for myself, especially when I know that all around, I’ve lived a very privileged, fun-filled life with rich experiences and good relationships. “Why do you have to say that?” she’d ask me. “So, what… because you have some privileges, you’re not allowed to be sad about what you wish you had or don’t have?” Okay, fair point.

But I have moments of real sadness, especially when I see and hear of other people around my age who have very healthy, loving relationships with their parents. I feel a bit envious and wonder why I got the shit end of the stick when it came to parents. They don’t even have a relationship with my only child, their only grandchild. It’s beyond senseless. And when I think about it really deeply, I just get incensed to the point where I want to bash their faces in.

So, that’s part of what my friend and I talked about last night, and I suppose it’s fitting since Father’s Day is this coming Sunday. I’ll send my dad a gift and probably barely get a response or thank you over text or email, and we’ll all carry on with our separate lives as we always do. I’ve made peace with it because I know in my heart that I’ve done everything in my power to improve our relationship… while they have done absolutely nothing because they continue to live in their own past trauma and lack the emotional maturity to treat their only living child even decently.

Suma and Topa, coming then going

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It’s been a fun several weeks with Suma and Topa visiting. Kaia has loved having extra affectionate family close by every day, especially being able to have extra people to hug, kiss, pick her up, and play hide-and-seek with. Though she is surely becoming a little person with her distinct desires and opinions, she has loved having all the extra attention of her paternal grandparents. She has back and forth conversations with them and shows them things she can do that will “impress” them. I love watching Kaia shriek with delight and giggle endlessly when she successfully finds Topa during their repeat games of hide-and-seek. We’ve also found new cognitive abilities of Kaia during this visit, such as the fact that she’s actually able to understand when we ask her to fake an emotion, whether it’s laughing or crying. Then, she wants each of us to fake cry and asks us, one by one, to cry. It’s the cutest and most hilarious thing. Before these moments over the last couple of days, I wasn’t even sure her brain at this stage had developed enough to understand that, but clearly it has.

In addition to enjoying watching them all interact, it’s also been fun to spend time with Chris’s parents. I always tell my friends and anyone who will listen how lucky and fortunate I am to have a good relationship with my in-laws. They always appreciate the littlest things I do and are always thanking me and expressing gratitude. It’s taken a lot of adjusting to be used to it and accept it, but I do appreciate that they appreciate me.

Here’s something small and funny that happened in the last day: I was organizing some things in our bedroom (they sleep in our bed when they visit, and we sleep on the sofa bed in our living room), and I noticed that the tissue box was empty. So, I promptly replaced it with a new one from our closet. When they returned home for the day, Chris’s dad noticed it had been replaced, and he came up to me and thanked me for replacing the tissue box. I laughed and said that was silly — no need to thank me; I just wish he had told me it was empty sooner so that I could’ve replaced it earlier, as I had no idea it was all done. He said it really wasn’t a big deal; since he had been under the weather, he had just been collecting extra napkins from restaurants they’d been to and been using those!! It was completely ridiculous: replacing the tissue box or toilet paper is just a normal, household maintenance thing to do, guests or no guests. And it would be particularly embarrassing for me, as a host, to not replace tissue boxes for guests and instead expect them to use externally sourced tissues! His dad had expressed worry that he didn’t want to “deplete our supplies,” but I said that was completely crazy; these things were bought to be used!

But that’s what I mean when I say that Chris’s parents are always so appreciative and thankful, even for the smallest (and seemingly most ridiculous) things. They are truly good humans, always trying to do the right thing. It’s refreshing to be around; Chris and his brother have no idea how good they have it. They are leaving us for the next legs of their trip, heading to Malaga, Spain, then Verona, Italy, before heading back home to Melbourne. So we had to explain to Kaia before her nap that Suma and Topa were leaving, and she’d see them in a few months. She kind of/sort of understood they were leaving, as she kept insisting on hugs from them. But then, when she woke up from her nap, she acted as though nothing had happened or changed.

I’m always sad when they leave, especially now that Kaia is here. Because I know that a lot of time will pass before they are all able to enjoy each other again. But I suppose distance can make the heart grow fonder.

British-style baked beans at home for Topa’s 71st birthday

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Since my college days, I’ve always been fascinated by recipes for dishes that we typically eat store-bought, whether it’s from a package at the supermarket or from a bakery. I like seeing recipes for things like Oreos, pop tarts, and even Goldfish crackers because they’re just nostalgic: they evoke a sense of childhood and, well, pure youthful ignorance of what kind of crap goes into the food you consume and ultimately put into your body. Why am I saying this? Well, if you are aware of the food industry, you will know that packaged food items that are shelf stable and meant to last a while, such as Oreos and pop tarts, are shelf stable because of all the preservatives and artificial ingredients that are added to it. And no, those things are typically not great for your health. So it’s always fun to see homemade “upgrades” of these foods.

I did not grow up with baked beans. During the times when I did have them, they were typically a side to barbecue, usually ribs or brisket. Chris’s dad’s daily breakfast while he’s back home in Melbourne is tinned British-style baked beans, usually out of a Cole’s brand can, mixed with some sambal oelek sauce for some heat, on top of toasted multigrain bread. That’s a very British breakfast, one that is 99.9999% of the time always from a can for Brits. So when I saw that Serious Eats posted a recipe for British-style baked beans, I thought it would be a nice treat for his birthday, to have fully homemade baked beans made from my Rancho Gordo eye of the goat heirloom beans.

I soaked the heirloom beans for four hours (for heirloom beans, they say to never soak them more than six hours). Then, I rinsed and simmered them for another three hours. Finally, I made the sauce, which is a base of diced tomatoes, apple cider vinegar, onions, fish sauce (as a sub for Worcestershire sauce, which I never have), garlic, brown sugar, bay leaves, and thyme. I blitzed it in my blender and added it to the pot of beans, then simmered it down until the sauce became a thick glaze. And the flavor was most definitely an elevated version of the canned British-style beans; it had this interesting, savory, sweet, tangy flavor, with a nice bite from the velvety eye of the goat beans. The flavor was complex, but still reminiscent of the tinned beans. I was pretty pleased with my final result.

British-style baked beans are nowhere as sweet as American-style baked beans. I even reduced the sugar in the Serious Eats recipe a bit to ensure they weren’t too sweet. And I think they came out perfectly. This recipe is definitely a keeper.

Mother’s Day 2024 at home

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Mother’s Day is one of those heavily commercialized holidays in the U.S. that businesses absolutely love. They love that people are willing to shell out extra money on things like overpriced (and over salted and buttered) meals, hand bags, flowers, and jewelry on the one day of the year they need to at least show that they care (even if they don’t) about their mothers. So in the weeks preceding Mother’s Day, you will constantly see ads everywhere outside and online for Mother’s Day sales and specials. If you don’t know Mother’s Day is approaching, then you truly must be living in a cave.

I’ve never liked all that hoopla because my general thought was always: mothers and fathers don’t need a day of appreciation; they need a lifetime of appreciation, expressed in small and large ways constantly. If Mother’s Day is the only day you choose to express appreciation for your mother (or the mother of your children), you probably deserve to die a slow and painful death.

Chris’s parents arrived on a very delayed flight back from San Antonio this morning, so I decided to prepare brunch at home for all of us. I made asparagus, goat cheese, and bacon frittata, vegan caesar salad with chopped walnuts and crispy chickpeas, and vegan chocolate chunk banana bread sweetened just with ripe bananas and ground dates. Chris fried some thick cut bacon from Paulus Farm Market that we picked up in Pennsylvania last weekend, and then toasted some thick slices of olive bread from Il Fornaretto Bakery. It was a tasty meal.

A few of my friends messaged to wish me a happy Mother’s Day and asked what I did. I told them I made brunch for the family, including Chris’s parents. And some responded, “You’re not supposed to be cooking on Mother’s Day! Leave that to Chris!”

He insisted he made the bacon and bread. He definitely did not make the bread. But my response here is: I love cooking, and thus cooking makes me happy. Plus, I’m a control freak, so honestly I’m not sure I would want Chris making me a frittata. Some things, if you want them to happen, you really just need to do yourself.

As for what Pookster did for me for Mother’s Day? She prepared a Happy Mother’s Day sign for me with her hand print on it in green paint at school. And at 6:30 this morning, I had an abrupt awakening when she decided to jump on top of my stomach while I was half asleep. Yes, it WAS a happy Mother’s Day from her!

In-laws and their quirks: on steaming vs. ironing clothes

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Every time Chris’s parents come visit, I can inevitably expect the same usual exchanges and things to happen: Chris’s dad will do a full recount of their entire journey to get to us, including details about the lounges (and alcohol) they enjoyed, the food in flight and overall inflight service, movies he had watched, and how comfortable his seat/bed were. He will talk about the ride to our apartment from the airport and whether he had any chit chat with the Uber or taxi driver.

Chris’s mom will marvel over any food I had prepared for them and eagerly ask if she can help with the food or cleanup. She will then try her best to wash and clean up as many things as possible. And eventually, she will ask me if I have an iron… to which my answer is always… “No, but we have a steamer!”

Then, she will say her usual comments about how a steamer is okay, but it’s not enough. While a steamer is able to get out wrinkles, it isn’t able to iron on those nice lines/pleats that she likes on her pants (to which my Gen Y brain would immediately think, “Who cares or even sees your dumb lines on your pants? DO YOU EVEN SEE THEM WHEN YOU WALK?”

When we moved into this building, somehow, I could not locate where my iron went. So I discovered the magic of a small travel-sized steamer and have never gone back. It is quick to heat up, it de-wrinkles in seconds, and it’s light and easy to clean up and put away. I realized that none of my clothes ever required an iron or any “lines,” and all my summer clothes that required heat would be cured by a steamer. So I’m fully in Camp Steamer over Camp Iron.

So, every year, I chuckle to myself whenever Chris’s mom asks me about an iron. Because I always know the face she will make when I offer my steamer…

Mother’s Day flowers in a dusted off butterfly vase

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Since today was Thursday, Chris did his usual Whole Foods grocery run after dropping off Pookster at school. He came back with groceries and bouquet of 16 red-orange roses for me and his mum, who will be back along with his dad this Saturday evening from a side U.S. trip to San Antonio, Texas. The flowers are in honor of Mother’s Day, which is coming up this Sunday. It will be the first and only Mother’s Day we’ve celebrated with his parents since Pookster has been around.

I unwrapped the flowers, trimmed them, removed excess leaves, and added them to a round vase. They dropped to one side clumsily, so I wrapped them with a rubber band so that they’d all stay together. Because the flowers do not “fill” the vase, they still all stayed on one side and looked a little depressed. So I went back to my closet and unearthed a slim rectangular butterfly vase that my friend had gotten me over 12 years ago when I was still living in Elmhurst, Queens. She said she was at a gift shop at a science museum back home, and when she saw this vase, she immediately thought of me and bought it. I realize that I hadn’t used this vase since I lived in Queens, so I decided to try these flowers out in the butterfly vase. And it was a perfect fit: the flowers fully filled the vase and all stood beautifully upright. You could enjoy both the flowers as well as the beautiful butterfly prints on the clear glass vase altogether. I added some ice cubes into the vase to keep the flowers fresh for longer.

I thought about all the shopping mailing lists I’m on for one of my email accounts and how this year, there seems to be more awareness about how triggering of a holiday Mother’s Day can be for some people. I’ve gotten at least four different emails asking if I’d like to opt out of Mother’s Day related emails and promotions; I don’t recall ever getting these before this year. Whether it’s because people have lost their mothers, have a difficult relationship with their mothers, or are actively trying to become a mother but have not yet succeeded, there’s a lot of reasons that Mother’s Day and the period around it can be a painful time. I’m fully aware of that since I was once in the shoes of someone who wanted to be a mom but hadn’t yet gotten there. And for my whole life, I’ve had a difficult relationship with my own mother… and still do. I see those who are struggling and their pain, even if they choose not to be open about it. I can fully relate.

My father-in-law cannot crack an egg

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We drove back to New York today, but of course, en route back from Harrisburg, we had to stop in New Jersey for a Costco run. While at the Wayne, New Jersey location, we bought no less than $400 worth of produce, meat, seafood, alcohol, and household supplies like toilet paper (how could you not?), baking soda (MY FAVE), and baby wipes. I even scored a much coveted tub of over 20 ounces of Maldon sea salt for only $7, which typically goes for over double that in the U.S. if you buy it online. Chris didn’t really understand what the big deal was, (“Do you really need that much salt?”), but when you know, you know.

As a final stop before we went back to our apartment, we went to Fort Lee to have some delicious soondubu jigae, spicy Korean tofu stew. I can’t even remember the last time I had eaten here was, maybe nine or ten years ago? But regardless, I was pretty excited. I got the medium spicy tofu stew and savored my rich, savory broth and the silky smoothness of the freshly made tofu (while Kaia made up for her lack of veggies over the last couple of days and went to town on the crunchy sesame broccoli banchan). And I also got a kick out of watching my father-in-law attempt to crack his raw egg into his stew bowl to enrich his broth.

Chris’s dad is a very intelligent person. He is educated, well traveled, knowledgable about history, the world, and people who don’t look like him. He has endless curiosity about things he learns he doesn’t know (and finds Wikipedia to be his best friend). But one area that his entire family teases him about is his… lack of common sense in doing seemingly basic things, like cracking an egg, knowing whether chicken is raw or cooked (he has legitimately eaten an entire meal of raw chicken that his wife had left on the counter to marinade… not realizing the meat was not cooked), eating with his hands, and anything really that is related to getting his hands dirty. I once talked about making things from scratch vs. a box, and he had a puzzled look on his face; Chris later explained and said, “He has no idea what “from a box” means!” Whenever any kind of meat is on the bone, he struggles to eat it unless he can neatly cut it off with a fork and knife. So when the eggs were presented and we explained they were raw and had to be cracked, dropped, and mixed into the stew, Chris’s dad got uncomfortable and gave a helpless look to his wife. Chris insisted that he crack the egg on his own. I then proceeded to record him on my phone to see if he would be successful. He tried to crack the egg weakly about three times before he finally gave up, gave another helpless look to his wife, and his wife conceded and just cracked the egg for him into his bowl.

It was a bit pitiful to watch, but pretty amusing. And now, I have it documented for rewatching forever!

Weight loss: suggestions and inaction

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Chris’s brother had always been self-conscious about his appearance and weight. A number of years ago, he had a traumatic incident at work, which left him wounded and wanting to seek change. So he sought therapy, changed his diet abruptly, and started an intense workout regimen that resulted in him slimming down so much to the point where people didn’t even recognize him. We were all very proud of him and his journey, and it’s made me happy to see how dedicated he is to exercise and how he’s made it a daily habit.

He said he hoped, as I did, that his journey would have encouraged and even inspired his mother to do something similar, or at least, finally get to a gym and exercise regularly. His mom, for as long as I have known her, never stops talking about her weight; she’s always been extremely insecure about being “fat” and constantly complaining about how much food she eats with us. While she does go on leisurely walks, she’s never committed herself to a real workout regimen that is that rigorous. And unfortunately, Ben’s journey was not inspiration enough. So this year, Ben did research and found his mom a nearby gym that fit her general criteria, and she finally committed to going about 2-3 times per week in February. Though she’s said she can feel herself getting more tone, she has complained daily since they arrived about her weight, once again.

This morning, Chris served his parents breakfast made of foods that were leftover from previous meals that I had made, and his mom complained, saying she didn’t understand why he was feeding them so much food. “I just have to stop eating!” she exclaimed a number of times. “Eating just makes me gain weight!”

I lightly suggested to her that since she now has a gym membership, perhaps she can increase her gym sessions to meet a weight loss goal. She insisted back that exercise didn’t work for her, and she didn’t have time to go to the gym more often (I refrained from responding to that last bit, especially given she barely works part-time. And I doubt Chris heard her say this when she said it). “Exercise just doesn’t help me. I’ve been active my whole life and I lose no weight!”

“Active” her whole life… according to whom?

I didn’t want to let this go, though, without a response. As someone who has been exercising regularly her entire adult life and had an interesting journey to figure out what works and what doesn’t, I know what I am saying is correct. In general, I just don’t think her relationship with exercise is fully rooted in facts, nor does she recognize that exercise can actually be fun, as she keeps insisting she wants to “get it out of the way” first thing in the morning… which then means she misses out on classes, which she has always said she enjoys most. You can’t be that committed to something like exercise unless you enjoy it, so you can have it one way or the other: look at it as yet another “chore” and “get it out of the way,” or actually look forward to it like a class, which she claims to like. I told her that I didn’t think that her exercise was rigorous enough in that her heart rate was unlikely going up to a point where her body could burn fat properly. Heart rate matters, especially as you get older, and you need to be challenged. Rest times between exercises matter. Making sure things aren’t “too easy” matters. It is pretty much impossible for someone doing regular, rigorous exercise to see zero results.

She wasn’t thrilled with my response, as she insisted that even without the gym, she walked regularly; some people just can’t lose weight while others do very easily (well, this changes as we age. But I could tell she thinks that I lose weight just by clicking my fingers, but she has no idea how much work it actually takes every day, plus the willpower to get up so early every morning to make this a daily habit). But I pushed back and said that if walking doesn’t do anything for her from a weight loss standpoint, then it’s clear she’s not walking fast enough (power walking) to burn fat. I sent her a calculator to figure out what her heart rate has to be to be in the “fat burning” zone. I hope she takes a look at it and considers it.

She continued to say that Chris made them eat too much while here. And I suggested seriously that she go to the gym with me each morning while here if she was really that concerned about eating too much. She hesitated and said she only had leggings and no t-shirt. I suggested she borrow a t-shirt from Chris, which would be easy. And she said, “We’ll see.” I don’t want to push her, but I do want her to recognize, even a little, how impossible her attitude is towards weight and exercise.

The truth is that she can’t have it both ways: she can’t complain about all the food she’s eating, then when given the opportunity to exercise, refuse. She’s basically saying she wants to take no accountability for her actions, blame Chris and food, do no exercise, but still wants to lose weight, which makes no sense. It’s hard to have empathy when all suggestions and offers are rejected repeatedly. Everyone has to take their health into their own hands; no one is going to give you a magic pill to solve all your health woes. Eating relatively well and exercising regularly are an investment in your health, and it’s odd that so many people don’t seem to understand this.

Whole-Brain Child

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I just finished reading my tenth book this year called The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind, Survive Everyday Parenting Struggles, and Help Your Family Thrive, by Daniel J. Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson. While I did find it annoying and almost exhausting when they would keep saying “the left brain does this,” “the right brain does that,” and the upstairs/downstairs brain does y and z, I did find a lot of the tips to be very compelling and summed up in easy-to-digest-and-understand ways. Also, I think recent science has debunked the notion that different hemispheres and parts of the brain operate independently, as the brain is far more complex than that: the brain’s different hemispheres are not, in reality, like two separate personas taking turns thinking and processing information. In pretty much every situation, you are using both sides. What does hold water is that as young brains are developing, they are far more emotional than they are rational, and that’s where parents can help guide their children in the right direction. We can help them understand that an emotion is a temporary state and does not define them as people; we can help them understand the importance of things like a routine, sharing with others, and caring for others. Although the jargon and framing was a bit annoying and questionable, I did enjoy the book overall and think it does have a lot of practical applications, especially the last part, which has a “worksheet” you can use to apply their recommended strategies to kids of specific age ranges.

I really enjoyed the ending of the book, too, where the authors say this:

“It’s not how our parents raised us, or how many parenting books we’ve read. It’s actually how well we’ve made sense of our experiences with our own parents and how sensitive we are to our children that most powerfully influence our relationship with our kids, and therefore how well they thrive. It all comes down to what we call our life narrative, the story we tell when we look at who we are and how we’ve become the person that we are … Our life narrative determines our feelings about our past, our understanding of why people (like our parents) behaved as they did, and our awareness of the way those events have impacted our development into adulthood. When we have a coherent life narrative, we have made sense of how the past has contributed to who we are and what we do.”

People who don’t “get it” and lack empathy and deep emotional understanding always say, “the past is in the past.” The reality is that it actually isn’t because as the authors say here, the past and your past experiences shape who you are and how you see and interact with the world today and into the future. I personally found pregnancy and motherhood very triggering in a lot of ways because it forced me to reckon with my past experiences as a child with my mercurial, emotionally immature parents. I had to do a lot of thinking about what kind of parent I wanted to be, what I wanted to emulate of my parents, and what I wanted to steer far away from. In the most random moments, I would be reminded of some negative, toxic experience I had with my mom or dad, or that I witnessed between my parents and Ed, and I’d just feel anger and disgust that something so senseless and psychologically damaging could have happened. And I’d think to myself, I never, ever want Kaia to know what that type of treatment is like, ever.

I know why my parents are the way they are: my dad had absentee parents who left him at home as a latchkey kid to fend, feed, and care for himself. One parent was what my aunt called “like Dr. Jekyll and Hyde,” emotionally void and always distant; the other parent constantly criticized everything and everyone because nothing was ever good enough. So my dad became fiercely independent and expected his kids to be the same; he refused to teach us anything and expected us to learn everything on our own (one of Ed’s most painful memories that he used to recount to me from time to time was the morning of his elementary school graduation. Ed had never worn a tie before, but my mom wanted him to wear one for the ceremony. He asked my dad to help him. My dad snorted in response and said, “If you don’t know how to tie your own tie, you shouldn’t even be graduating”). My mom’s dad died when she was young, and her mom didn’t even want her because she was not only the youngest, but a girl. I’ve come to terms with how they are who they are; I’m an adult now, after all. I just don’t think I have to suffer their verbal beatings all the time anymore.

Awareness comes first. Action is in little steps every day. I’m just trying my best to be the best parent I can be, and I hope when Kaia is an adult that she will still want to spend time with me and enjoy it. The book suggests trying to find mutually fun things that you can do with your child as they get older that are fitting for their stage of development/age. Otherwise, they say, your child as an adult may not want to have anything to do with you because they will have nothing to do with you! That could not be truer for me: my parents and I literally have nothing we can do together other than eat, even when I’ve attempted to take them on light hikes and walks. Even a walk is not something they want to do altogether. That’s sad, isn’t it?