Judgmental Breeders

Dear Snarky,

How do I kindly suggest to people that they mind their own business with regard to our plans for procreating? Do I dance around the issue or rudely put them in their place. The army is a small world but I'm tired of the questions.

Thank you,
Tired of Ridiculously Nosy People

Dear Tired,

Boy, do I feel your pain. Back in the day, I was childfree and frequently suffered rude comments and judgment from breeders. For some reason, milspouse convos led to these moments much more frequently than civilian convos. Three guesses on my theory about that....

My favorite response came from a friend in Bahrain, another childfree type who also braved the commentary from her mother. She decided the next time her family asked why she wasn't squeezing out the sprogs yet, she'd feign tears, wail about all the pressure she was getting from them when she couldn't get pregnant, etc. In other words, she'd make them feel very bad about butting in on something that isn't their business.

Great idea, but that's not so effective when you're at a function with folks who don't have a personal stake in your happiness and sanity. So a better option might be to make a pointed comment regarding the inappropriateness of their questions and suggestions. For example:

Breeder: Why don't you have kids yet?
Tired: Wow! That's kind of personal. Do you want the results of my last pap smear, too?

Breeder: Why did you get married if you don't want kids?
Tired: My husband is good for more than just depositing his sperm in my twat. We like to do crazy things together. You know, like having deep discussions and making fun of narrow-minded breeders.

Breeder: Don't you like kids?
Tired: If my progeny were to turn out like yours? Definitely not.

Breeder: Who's going to take care of you when you get old?
Tired: The nice folks in the amazing assisted living facility I'll be able to afford after not spending all my money on diapers and juvie fines.

Breeder: The Bible says it's your duty to fill your quiver.
Tired: Deuteronomy says disobedient kids need to be stoned by their community. So you just hold yours still for a sec, and I'll go grab some rocks.

Breeder: It's selfish not to want kids.
Tired: It's ignorant to assume everyone should have them.

Breeder: I just don't know what I'd do with myself if I didn't have kids.
Tired: I'm sorry your life is so unfulfilling.

Yes, it's a small community, and word might get around that you're touchy about the sprog questions. But would that be a bad thing? At least you wouldn't need to worry about constant pestering at every new duty station.

If all else fails, you can burst into tears and run from the room the next time someone asks. That would shut them the fuck up, I bet.

Get Some B-12,
Snarky

The Milspouse Magazine Convo

We moseyed to Little Creek yesterday because husband didn't believe me when I said it takes half an hour to get there (I showed him, though!). Went into the exchange to get some a/c filters since the previous tenants apparently never once installed any (nor did the rental folks - nice!). As we stood in line, sprogs lobbied to get some gum. Husband and I recited "no" while looking at the magazines.

YodaMan ogled the Muscle and Fitness (homoerotic much?)(which is just a bonus in my mind)(for many reasons), which he is wont to do. I picked up the Military Spouse Magazine. I'm not usually so wont. I have two subscriptions: VegNews and Oxygen. I used to have a subscription to Muscle & Fitness Hers. I also get RT Book Reviews for the industry gouge I can glean from there...and also reading suggestions. My reading doesn't usually fall in the "women's sphere" of magazines. If I buy fashion magazines or Good Housekeeping or the like, it's because I'm about to do a collage for a new story and need models that might fit the different characters or scenes that might fit the setting in my book.

While Military Spouse appeals to a demographic, for sure, I'm not in it. Which bums me out. I'd love to have a fun magazine that has really meaty articles about issues related to the military life, written with the spouse, parents, and sprogs in mind. Kimba and I once had a short exchange about starting our own magazine, but lord. The work involved with that. And the time. Egads. I can just imagine.

Anyway! We're in line. We're ogling magazines. And husband mentions I should query MilSpouse with some article ideas. I laugh it off (I've already done that and got no response, probably because I was aiming at something meatier than the short and upbeat articles they tend to publish) and then say, "Oh! I should send in a query to do an advice column for them. Dear Snarky."

YodaMan's response was something along the lines of OMG or WTF or similar. But it prompted me to consider the idea. Not for MSM. They're way too uptown to put up with me. Rather, I thought it would be fun to do here.

So if you want some advice (though ask at your own risk because, well, have you read this blog?), send your Dear Snarky letter to snarky navy wife at gmail dot com, only without spaces and with the requisite @ and period.

And if you ever hear of a magazine that's up for a 1000 to 3000-word article about difficult milspouse-related topics, hollah!

Feeling down? Well! You're a fucking loser.

Not really, but that's a sentiment I hear all too often.

"You can choose to be happy! You can choose to be independent and not have your mental state determined by whether your husband is around."

And if you strip away the naivety and dismissal of logic, that sentiment is actually kinda right on. You can choose to be happy. Except when you can't.

Some folks aren't so lucky. Everyone is an individual, and everyone has a different breaking point. Some folks thrive on their own. Hell, I met a room full of women who believe the only point of marriage is pumping out sprogs, and the only role husband plays is providing the genetic sample to make a baby happen. Those women aren't friends with their husbands, and though they might have their own kind of emotional bond with their husbands, their lives are no better or worse without him around. I believe there were a fair number among them who specifically married Navy officers in order to ensure their husbands would be gone. Frequently.

On the other hand, some of us actually dig our sig-o's. Some of us enjoy the company of the person we consider our BFF. Some of us get a little down when it's been two months since the last phone call or e-mail, and the a/c is broke dick, and the kids have cycled through two months of shared colds and fevers. We got married because we looked forward to a partnership but knowing full well the life of a milspouse means you're often partner-less. So when our sig-o's are gone, life is not ideal. Life is not easy. You have all the pressures of married life and all the suck of the single life. Add to that often being located away from your built-in support system, and voila! Recipe for feeling bummed.

The thing I agree with in the statement "you can choose to be happy" is that, yes, you can choose to be happy. You can choose to stick your head in the sand when the stress is overwhelming and crap is hitting rotating blades. Sure. Sometimes it even works. Worked great for me during YodaMan's second deployment.

Regardless of the personality that can choose to be this way and follow through during multiple deployments and underways over a decade or more -- whether that's incredible strength and compartmentalization or incredible shallowness and emotional frigidity -- the sentiment above has a humongous flaw: it does not take into account that everyone is different, and in so doing, it demonizes those whose thresholds don't quite meet the exceptional standards of the speaker.

It also accuses those who are not as "strong" of not being independent. So there's a dual insult implied here. If you can't choose to be happy, then you are a weak, sniveling, dependent fool who turns into a mushy pit of sob and doom every time the ship leaves port.

And that, quite frankly, is a steaming pile of maggot-infested bullshit.

I can maintain my own happy self. But I do it because I have this blog to bitch and whine and get shit off my chest. This life is challenging and often frustrating, and being able to snark about it takes away some of the pressure. Even when this blog was young and fresh and pimply-faced, with nary a reader and plenty of echo, I felt better posting my wank sessions here. The venting made this life a little more tolerable.

Makes. This blog is how I survive.

Each person is entitled to his or her own method of getting through it. If that's playing ostrich and pretending like things aren't more difficult, sometimes lonely, occasionally frustrating, and usually chaotic, so be it. Ostriches can thrive. If that's popping a happy pill every day, getting therapy, keeping a gratitude journal, popping out daily affirmations, etc., awesome. Go for it. More likely you're somewhere in between, relying on the infrequent glass of wine, night off care of a babysitter, and fuck-bomb-infused bitchfest.

To each her own. Because we're all different.

And the next time some naive or judgmental bizatch declares Thou Art Lesser Than, kick her in the girly junk. Figuratively. Literally tell her to kiss your pucker hole.

Srsly.