I used to hate it when parents used to say, "You won’t understand X until you have kids." Now, since I've become a parent, they were totally right. There are some things that you can never understand until you have one. I say this like I have as many kids as Raphael, but I only have one who’s 9 months 😂. I understand fully why people choose now why not to have kids. But I wouldn’t trade this up for the world though.
Love the way you put the choice to not have kids -- the only sane thing a person can do. No, wait, that wasn't you. You said it was a series of conversations over the past ten years. Love that way of framing it.
When we first got together, I wanted kids and Brent most definitely did not. Over time, I came around to that point of view and haven't regretted the choice. On the other hand, since we're two men, the vasectomy was pretty pointless. But why take chances!
No wonder you and Anne Kadet get along so well. You both have a great way of interacting with others and then conveying that to the rest of us. I loved this post.
Raphael and his son remind me of that U2 song “Sometimes you can’t make it on your own.” There’s a line in it that goes “I don’t need to hear you say, that if we weren’t so alike, you’d like me a whole lot more.” The song often makes me cry because it’s the push/pull of a parent/child relationship that I feel like almost everyone can relate to.
I do not like the sound of mutilating a Mexican anything. It feels Trumpy-crimey. But I’d need to see a picture of both plants to make the right call here.
Baldy and I are child-free, not by choice. However, I have often been secretly relieved that things turned out the way that they did. It’s really hard to fuck up a cat, whereas it’s almost in the job description for a parent to fuck up a kid in some way. ¡Muy complicado!
Fun fact: did you know that there’s an organization called No Kidding! that is something of a social club for peeps who are child-free by choice?
1. I say, let the plants fight it out. Darwinism or whatever.
2. The fact that you have "a gardener" is the one piece of this I can't relate to. 😂I will say that gardening is a back-breaking pain in the ass and would probably have me considering a career change if I had to do it all day long. As it is, my yard looks like shit because I'm a writer with too much time on her hands and no budget for a gardener. Or an assassin.
3. Kids test our resolve to avoid doing the things our parents did that we resent them for. It's an ongoing test that swings between pass and fail almost daily in my case.
4. I'm a parent. My partner and I did that thing. A couple of times. And it worked. There are two more people here now. Whoops? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
3. Parents, by design I guess, are the ones tasked with “don’t”, “can’t”, and “no” … “don’t run with scissors” or “no, you can’t put that towel on your back like a superhero and jump off the roof”. We can’t forget the implied “don’t/can’t/no” of “time for bed!” So much seeming negativity. Kids are programmed to … uh … check parental/adult work.
4. Parent of three … 18-23 … we were in our early-mid to late 30s when they came along. Could I articulate “why” … I dunno. “We wanted to have them,” feels both fully self-explanatory and woefully insufficient as an explanation … but here we are. It’s humbling … not that I was ever overflowing with confidence … it humbles me still. If they’re not questioning me … I’m questioning me. Naturally both my wife and I have heard “you were like that,” more than a few times over the years. So … y’know … some perspective on those people who were tasked with the “don’t/can’t/no” of our respective youths. On the other hand, 20 year old Miss Thang is working at the same preschool she attended back in the day while she’s working towards her education degree. One teacher is still working there who remembers her well. Miss Thang was a notoriously difficult napper. (“Naps? We don’t need no stinking naps!”). What was one of the very first things with which she was tasked? Putting the hard nappers down. Bwwaaaaahahahahahaaa! And the circle of testing continues …
Oh my god I loved Raphael’s killer kicker quote at the end!
Knowing I did not want kids is maybe one of the least fraught and straightforward aspects of my life story. It’s weird. I was just very clear on this from the start and never felt the need to justify it or even have an explanation. And I am grateful for that. And I love my nieces and nephews and the freedom, time and energy I have for all my interests and other folks in my life.
And no I do not understand because I am not a parent and that’s ok, haha.
2: Somewhere buried my google docs I have a half-finished short story about assassins disguised as contractors waiting in their van for their target. Would be the perfect cover.
5: Very early in our relationship my (now) wife and I decided we weren't going to have kids. It was mostly her doing honestly. I never wanted kids but always figured I'd end up with them because that was what you did as an adult. We have a long running joke about what would have happened if we hadn't gotten together and I ended up as a dead inside suburban dad coaching soccer and owning a golden doodle instead of my current life of living in a big city and being an urban hipster.
Keep the sage. It's a plant with a history. Nobody ever cared enough to write a book or produced a movie about Riders of the Thread Grass.
You do have too much time on your hands, but you're right that gardeners hide in plain sight and be un-noticed assassins. Except, maybe my gardeners who set off the ring doorbell when they go by the porch.
1.) If Raphael is interested, tell him I have a little side job for him. Not gardening, per se, more along the lines of, ahem, assassinating. Any time before November.
2.) You might consider just moving the sage to some other place in your garden, replacing it with some things that are more compatible, like rosemary and lavender?
3.) I loved the parenting philosophy here, Michael. We try to raise them all the same, but they all turn out different. They are their own people. I have no qualms with remaining childless. We are not all cut out for parenthood. My boy made the same decision. Grandcats are good enough for me!
I was intrigued by the title of gardeners as assassins because I am an avid gardener who will assassinate plants with vengeance!
First question- what gives you more joy to look at, the sage or the thread grass? If you know, then you know.
If you don’t have an answer… is there space to move the thread grass to more sun? Is there a plant in sun that is struggling or not giving you joy? Rip it out and re-home the grass!
Finally and full disclosure- I have recently cut back my Mexican sage because it got too big. It has until June to convince me it is going to bounce back. If it doesn’t, I’m ripping it out. I love sages bushes, but don’t have a big enough yard to let them have their way.
Dink-Dink (our 15-year-oldish rescue Dachshund) is more than enough for us. I both admire and pity actual parents, but being a dog-dad has its challenges, like when I try to get too close to mommy.
Mortimer has had that boop coming for a loooooong time.
I had to look those plants up because they're definitely not common in the Northeast but: pretty purple flowers over feathery grass any day. I like to prune though so I probably would already have mutilated the bush.
Gardeners would make excellent assassins also because if they're digging a big hole and have something wrapped up in a tarp, no one would blink.
Kids test us because they learn us as they're learning everything else.
I'm a parent of one kid because the writer in me wanted that experience to draw from, and I wanted to know what it was like. It turns out my desire to be loved and to dote on and serve people is pretty well satisfied by it. It helps that he's a very snuggly kid even at 7 years old. I'm eating it up while I can. Go figure my kid loves babies and gets sad that he'll never have a sibling. Sorry, kiddo, we decided before you were born that you'd be the only one.
1.) Slash the sage - it grows back so fast, you'll never miss it and the new blooms are gorgeous and frehs. Mexican sage is forever, even when you decapitate it.
2) Gardners would make excellent assassins and also clean-up men. They are experts at chipping and hiding everything in the green recycle bin
3) Kids are born with a set of survival skills which includes locating the buttons to push when you want adults to disappear. Unfortunately, they do not discriminate between parents and other adults. It's like radar than can't be controlled.
4) I am parent. I cannot explain myself. It just happened. I am not sorry though.
5) I am also, now, child-free because my son moved out into the world at the age of 16 and he is now about to turn 49. We still push each other's buttons from time to time but it's more of a friendly- don't i know you from somewhere kind of thing.
I used to hate it when parents used to say, "You won’t understand X until you have kids." Now, since I've become a parent, they were totally right. There are some things that you can never understand until you have one. I say this like I have as many kids as Raphael, but I only have one who’s 9 months 😂. I understand fully why people choose now why not to have kids. But I wouldn’t trade this up for the world though.
Love the way you put the choice to not have kids -- the only sane thing a person can do. No, wait, that wasn't you. You said it was a series of conversations over the past ten years. Love that way of framing it.
When we first got together, I wanted kids and Brent most definitely did not. Over time, I came around to that point of view and haven't regretted the choice. On the other hand, since we're two men, the vasectomy was pretty pointless. But why take chances!
No wonder you and Anne Kadet get along so well. You both have a great way of interacting with others and then conveying that to the rest of us. I loved this post.
Raphael and his son remind me of that U2 song “Sometimes you can’t make it on your own.” There’s a line in it that goes “I don’t need to hear you say, that if we weren’t so alike, you’d like me a whole lot more.” The song often makes me cry because it’s the push/pull of a parent/child relationship that I feel like almost everyone can relate to.
I do not like the sound of mutilating a Mexican anything. It feels Trumpy-crimey. But I’d need to see a picture of both plants to make the right call here.
Baldy and I are child-free, not by choice. However, I have often been secretly relieved that things turned out the way that they did. It’s really hard to fuck up a cat, whereas it’s almost in the job description for a parent to fuck up a kid in some way. ¡Muy complicado!
Fun fact: did you know that there’s an organization called No Kidding! that is something of a social club for peeps who are child-free by choice?
1. I say, let the plants fight it out. Darwinism or whatever.
2. The fact that you have "a gardener" is the one piece of this I can't relate to. 😂I will say that gardening is a back-breaking pain in the ass and would probably have me considering a career change if I had to do it all day long. As it is, my yard looks like shit because I'm a writer with too much time on her hands and no budget for a gardener. Or an assassin.
3. Kids test our resolve to avoid doing the things our parents did that we resent them for. It's an ongoing test that swings between pass and fail almost daily in my case.
4. I'm a parent. My partner and I did that thing. A couple of times. And it worked. There are two more people here now. Whoops? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
There’s a dark comedy screenplay. Gardner Assassin. If Chicken Nugget can get made… (A woman steps into a machine and becomes a chicken nugget.)
https://www.netflix.com/title/81582269
Raphael sounds like a great find. I love our personable gardener-advisor too.
1. Murder the monkey flower.
2. Yes.
3. Parents, by design I guess, are the ones tasked with “don’t”, “can’t”, and “no” … “don’t run with scissors” or “no, you can’t put that towel on your back like a superhero and jump off the roof”. We can’t forget the implied “don’t/can’t/no” of “time for bed!” So much seeming negativity. Kids are programmed to … uh … check parental/adult work.
4. Parent of three … 18-23 … we were in our early-mid to late 30s when they came along. Could I articulate “why” … I dunno. “We wanted to have them,” feels both fully self-explanatory and woefully insufficient as an explanation … but here we are. It’s humbling … not that I was ever overflowing with confidence … it humbles me still. If they’re not questioning me … I’m questioning me. Naturally both my wife and I have heard “you were like that,” more than a few times over the years. So … y’know … some perspective on those people who were tasked with the “don’t/can’t/no” of our respective youths. On the other hand, 20 year old Miss Thang is working at the same preschool she attended back in the day while she’s working towards her education degree. One teacher is still working there who remembers her well. Miss Thang was a notoriously difficult napper. (“Naps? We don’t need no stinking naps!”). What was one of the very first things with which she was tasked? Putting the hard nappers down. Bwwaaaaahahahahahaaa! And the circle of testing continues …
Oh my god I loved Raphael’s killer kicker quote at the end!
Knowing I did not want kids is maybe one of the least fraught and straightforward aspects of my life story. It’s weird. I was just very clear on this from the start and never felt the need to justify it or even have an explanation. And I am grateful for that. And I love my nieces and nephews and the freedom, time and energy I have for all my interests and other folks in my life.
And no I do not understand because I am not a parent and that’s ok, haha.
2: Somewhere buried my google docs I have a half-finished short story about assassins disguised as contractors waiting in their van for their target. Would be the perfect cover.
5: Very early in our relationship my (now) wife and I decided we weren't going to have kids. It was mostly her doing honestly. I never wanted kids but always figured I'd end up with them because that was what you did as an adult. We have a long running joke about what would have happened if we hadn't gotten together and I ended up as a dead inside suburban dad coaching soccer and owning a golden doodle instead of my current life of living in a big city and being an urban hipster.
Keep the sage. It's a plant with a history. Nobody ever cared enough to write a book or produced a movie about Riders of the Thread Grass.
You do have too much time on your hands, but you're right that gardeners hide in plain sight and be un-noticed assassins. Except, maybe my gardeners who set off the ring doorbell when they go by the porch.
Move the Sage or the thread grass and let them both breathe.
Fire the gardener - who puts two overabundant creeping plants in the same plot?
Let the sage go nuts - you can put thread grass anywhere and it’s cheaper.
Or listen to Raphael’s suggestions - it will tell you if he’s an assassin. If he murders one, you’ll know. 😉
Kids are great. I grew up with mine although some call it re-living my childhood. They’re fun.
1.) If Raphael is interested, tell him I have a little side job for him. Not gardening, per se, more along the lines of, ahem, assassinating. Any time before November.
2.) You might consider just moving the sage to some other place in your garden, replacing it with some things that are more compatible, like rosemary and lavender?
3.) I loved the parenting philosophy here, Michael. We try to raise them all the same, but they all turn out different. They are their own people. I have no qualms with remaining childless. We are not all cut out for parenthood. My boy made the same decision. Grandcats are good enough for me!
I was intrigued by the title of gardeners as assassins because I am an avid gardener who will assassinate plants with vengeance!
First question- what gives you more joy to look at, the sage or the thread grass? If you know, then you know.
If you don’t have an answer… is there space to move the thread grass to more sun? Is there a plant in sun that is struggling or not giving you joy? Rip it out and re-home the grass!
Finally and full disclosure- I have recently cut back my Mexican sage because it got too big. It has until June to convince me it is going to bounce back. If it doesn’t, I’m ripping it out. I love sages bushes, but don’t have a big enough yard to let them have their way.
Report back please! 😀
Dink-Dink (our 15-year-oldish rescue Dachshund) is more than enough for us. I both admire and pity actual parents, but being a dog-dad has its challenges, like when I try to get too close to mommy.
Mortimer has had that boop coming for a loooooong time.
I had to look those plants up because they're definitely not common in the Northeast but: pretty purple flowers over feathery grass any day. I like to prune though so I probably would already have mutilated the bush.
Gardeners would make excellent assassins also because if they're digging a big hole and have something wrapped up in a tarp, no one would blink.
Kids test us because they learn us as they're learning everything else.
I'm a parent of one kid because the writer in me wanted that experience to draw from, and I wanted to know what it was like. It turns out my desire to be loved and to dote on and serve people is pretty well satisfied by it. It helps that he's a very snuggly kid even at 7 years old. I'm eating it up while I can. Go figure my kid loves babies and gets sad that he'll never have a sibling. Sorry, kiddo, we decided before you were born that you'd be the only one.
I'm with your father - Mortimer is the reason you opted not to have kids - that bastard!
1.) Slash the sage - it grows back so fast, you'll never miss it and the new blooms are gorgeous and frehs. Mexican sage is forever, even when you decapitate it.
2) Gardners would make excellent assassins and also clean-up men. They are experts at chipping and hiding everything in the green recycle bin
3) Kids are born with a set of survival skills which includes locating the buttons to push when you want adults to disappear. Unfortunately, they do not discriminate between parents and other adults. It's like radar than can't be controlled.
4) I am parent. I cannot explain myself. It just happened. I am not sorry though.
5) I am also, now, child-free because my son moved out into the world at the age of 16 and he is now about to turn 49. We still push each other's buttons from time to time but it's more of a friendly- don't i know you from somewhere kind of thing.