Tonight’s commentary is a cumulation of years of observation that has been hidden in the recess of my mind.
About 3 years ago my niece popped into existence, and admittedly she had some help from her parents originating nine months before that.
I’d like to say that my sister gave up hard drugs, drinking, and smoking but I can’t… primarily because she didn’t engage in those activities in the first place. But good health wasn’t enough, she went in for ultra health. She gave up junk food, sodas, and fast food — all the staples that hold my life together. When pregnant, she even stayed away from prescription and over the counter medication.
The child turned out beautiful, free of defects that plague today’s society. She put the baby on a schedule from the start, and the baby knew from repeated behavior when it would receive food and sleep. The baby was always happy, the parents could sleep, and amazingly it was possible to retain a social life going out for dinner or even a movie — take the kid with you, but do the activity during a well predicted sleep cycle. By age one, my niece was doing sign language before she could physically talk; because she could communicate her needs and wants, she didn’t express the frustrations other kids her age did.
Consequently, I’d like to think my sister knows a thing or two about being a mom, especially after she repeated the same steps with identical outcomes when my nephew came on the scene two years later. It’s a career she’s wanted all her life.
My sister offered me a bit of advice pertaining to my own marriage. Advice I’ll share with you, reader.
“When your wife is pregnant, she will be filled with all kinds of hormones and waves of emotion. Don’t let her watch even the evening news, for if she sees a kid in a third world country starving, she projects the trauma onto her own child. Logic and reason are often fleeting. As such, always let her be right — even if her mind is changing faster than an aggressive driver on the beltway during rush hour traffic.”
I took this advice to heart. It seems compassionate and reasonable. Her body is perturbing her emotional state, go with the flow until the problem subsides on its own.
Cool.
Then I’m sitting at work, and a co-worker who’s eight months pregnant is scheduling a business trip with me. Uh, wait… pregnant… travel… doesn’t seem to affect her at all.
Then I reflect, I’ve been here for three months and she’s been the sweetest and most enjoyable person around. No signs of stress or emotionally instability.
Then I reflect further back, and I can recall pregnancy after pregnancy of co-workers over the 19+ years I’ve been working.
I’m now thinking, “wait a second… if these women can hold together composure in a stressful work environment, why can’t that common courtesy extend on the home front to the spouse?”
So, I approach my sister with the new revelation. She giggles, turns red, looks around, and finally explains that I need to understand that there’s a lot of stress being bottled up at the office and it needs to be released when a woman gets home.
My eyes squint as my brain tries to grapple with that.
“Uh, men have the same stress as women, both being in the same work environment. Exactly how does a woman obtain this get-out-of-jail card free that turns her innocent husband into a lightning rod of emotional venting?”
The response was giggles, not exactly the linear progression of explanation I had come to appreciate from prior conversations. About the best retort is, “work… it’s stressful… we women need to vent.”
Then the light bulb comes on over my head, “wait a second… you weren’t working! Where’s this stress coming from, and should it be dissipating over the whole course of the day.” …I wait for a response.
“Oops.” The snare of logic catches another victim.
So, to all those pregnant women out there… is there any truth to emotional degree experienced? And, if so, why is it women seem to be able to hold it together so well at the work-front, but the stereotypical example of the home front occasionally borders on the need for exorcism?