A cheerful woman in her fifties recently got a job in a beauty salon. She is always in a great mood, cheerful, proactive and works well. The owner is absolutely delighted with her, and so am I. She is a hairdresser and I do manicures, and we barter with each other when the time comes. We usually talk about stuff at work. We talk about our children, grandchildren, previous jobs, and so on. So sometimes it seems that there is nothing to tell, and then you start talking about your daughter and it turns out that she has a daughter, too. You talk about your son-in-law, and she talks about hers.
During the conversation, I complained that the children are not in a hurry to have grandchildren, although they live well off, expensive, can afford it, just saying that they have not had enough life for themselves and therefore they travel more and do not think about children at all.
A colleague of mine said that her situation is somewhat similar, but she is not used to pressuring her children. Her daughter kept her son-in-law’s identity from her for a long time. He was a simple guy without a penny to his name, he studied, worked part-time, but had to help the family with his younger brothers and sister, so he could not gather his own place, lived with a friend in a dormitory and could seem to anyone an unsuitable groom. But the main thing was that he was very much in love. For the sake of the girl, he tried with a special zeal, and was afraid to meet his parents, lest he be rejected.
His future mother-in-law met him three months before the wedding, when everything had been arranged and a very modest ceremony with a couple of friends had been arranged. The guy was worried for nothing, the woman liked him right away. They easily picked up on each other’s themes and found common ground, and it was very obvious from him that he was crazy about the bride.
– I did not even understand why she was afraid to introduce us, – said a colleague about her daughter – she knows me since childhood, I’m not the kind of person who chases rich suitors. My husband was a country bumpkin who got his way in the world after getting married with the help of my parents. The main thing is to be a good man, to love my daughter, and to know the limits of alcohol. And the rest will come in time.
I could not fully agree. I know a lot of people who live poor and in unhappy marriages, but if you constantly fear that your life will turn out as badly as someone else’s, it can really happen.
