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18WT 016: Raise Your Hand If You Are.....!
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Janet discusses Blended families. So, Julius Caesar, (Caligula) had sex with his half-sister and had children by her. She explains to Patrick that they did share the same father. Patrick is pretty grossed out by that, which leads to talk of Harem’s. And then do these still exist? Yes, but in America they do not refer to them as a Harem, but in certain society’s here in the states, there are one-man multiple wives allowed.
Then back “in the day” in royalty, they in-bred cousins to keep the line pure. If a freak happened, well as Patrick says, they put Quasimodo in the dungeon and hid him from society.
Janet is talking about how blended families have evolved, from Rome to the Old west or during the wars. There were widows or widowers and they got remarried so there was help either financially or physically to help raise the children. That still exists, also in the form of divorce now. As Janet says even tho she and Patrick are not married, she is essentially a Step-Monster.
If you are laughing like us, review us wherever you are. Patrick gives Janet crap about her hair, as usual. Now, back to blended families.
So in some divorces, there are evil exes’, and they hate each other to the point that they never want to see each other again. In other divorces people get along and are civil to each other for the sake of the children.
Then there are Bi-nuclear families. This is where a couple has kids and gets divorced. Both parents remarry and both of those couples have children. Then all four parents are involved in raising all the children from all the marriages. Think about that for a minute Janet tells Patrick. They get along so well that each couple takes turns with all the children so the other has a break. They even take vacations together for the sake of the kids.
Janet knows a family that is like this and when they go camping, they get their campsites next to each other and have the big campsite between their campers. It is great for the kids.
Patrick was invited to his ex’s house for dinner last time he was in N.Y., he was nervous about it. Even though it has been decades since they were together. Janet talks about how it can be when you get along with an ex compared to not getting along.
Then there is dual parenting and that is just equal responsibility for your children. Here Janet and Patrick get personal and discuss their grandson’s father not being involved in raising Julian. They both feel this is just being a responsible adult and co-parenting. This is what Patrick’s daughter Tabbie is not getting from her ex.
Then Janet brings up Foster parents and that there are two types of them. There are those that are in it for the money. Like one family Janet knows that has 8 or 9 kids at once. She does not allow the children to keep anything that parents give the kids. Janet even tried turning her in and had no luck.
There are those that are in it for the right reason, they genuinely want to help or are looking to adopt. Patrick brings up that foster parents are truly needed because there are roughly 450,000 children in the foster care system at any given point. Most of them are in the larger cities, for obvious reasons.
Also there are the single parents that “did it on their own”. Patrick points out that he had help from his parents. A lot of single parents get help, from friends that entertain your kids while you relax or do housework; they get help from the system that pays for childcare so you can go to work or school. Hopefully, there are parents or siblings who can help or good friends.
Janet says she did not com from a blended family at first. But then she thinks about it and remembers that her parents took in her niece when Janet was a pre-teen, and her niece was an infant. They also adopted their great-grandson, “Little” David. So yes, she comes from a blended family also. He was adopted when Janet (the youngest) was long out of the house.
Patrick brings up that she has been reminiscing and deflating also. He questions what is in her glass, bourbon, or iced tea. Then they both bring up that they are in a blended family currently. Patrick has two children by two women as well as an “ex” (?) stepdaughter by one of them. That means Janet has two stepchildren and an ex-stepdaughter by his marriage. She says she has two daughters, a son, two grandchildren and two pugs.
Patrick asks what the pugs has to do with it and Janet says everything, they are part of the family. Somehow Patrick begins saying they are imports and Janet reminds him they are pure bred and born in America, of Chinese descent. He throws in a fake German accent and she decides he is Crae-crae.
So anywhoooo, Janet reads a note from her Blog “Let’s be honest, my hand is raised up in the air. But for the most part, it is I that am waving, saying, screaming even, Stop! Oh My God People stop talking so much.
Additionally, we may as well bring out the dirty laundry. Who hasn’t heard that term? Raise your hand please, oh yes, you over there, hiding behind your Facebook persona. Obviously, you have not heard that term, because everything about your life, your blended life.
Your divorced, remarried, back again with the same ol’ ex, tell it all on social media ass. It would appear that your Momma never taught you about not airing out your family’s dirty laundry in public.
Not to mention, the way you gossip about your own family! You might as well be sitting at the salon telling it all to the women down there and getting “yo’self did” whilst you gossiped, and trash talked your own people with your hand raised in the air waving back and forth.”
And that was written and read from the heart Janet says and you can hear it in her voice as she laughs at herself after reading it. Patrick talks about her head bobbing and weaving and her hair waving. They talk about people putting everything on social media.
The laughter continues as they remind you about shirts supporting the show and breast cancer. Then they go on talking about their blended family and how it is going.
Previously she says, should I mention that I knew my guy Patrick for about 10 years before we became a couple. When Hurricane Katrina blew thru, Patrick’s brother that has a Blue’s Band and his sister that worked in a relief program, got together, and did a relief concert. Janet worked for the company that hauled the donations down to Louisiana. His son was about 4 when she came into their lives.
When it is just a month or so in the summer and a few holidays a year, man that shit is damn easy. Patrick was so wrapped up in spending every waking moment with Kyle and making up for lost time.
But then, they lived 2700 miles away from him. He lived with his mom in NY, they live in AZ. He would come out and they would find things to do. Lots of planning there believe it or not. Patrick and Janet would browse through everything they knew about the desert southwest. Then come up with three or four trips and when he would get to town, Patrick would see which one he was most interested in.
They did a lot of staycations and you can find things to do in nearly every city. Just google it, there are tons of things to do, lots of walking!
And then life changed, the boy was growing into his late teens. Damn near an adult, Patrick went back to NY to see him graduate high school. There wasn’t much to do in that little town in N.Y. they were all set to begin helping him out by sending him tools, clothes, food packages monthly.
Patrick had told him to pick a school he really wants to go to since you are not going to school in your hometown. They began asking questions about his dorm and storage and somehow things blew up. He was all set to go to college in NY, until he wasn’t. Then he changed his mind and was there in Phoenix. The pugs loved it, they love him and went crazy.
So he got out there after the semester had already began here in Arizona and Janet and Kyle had different expectations. Since he couldn’t begin college until January, she thought he would be responsible adult and go get a job, get his license, and pay the insurance difference on the car he would drive to work, as well as help with the gas on it.
It appeared to her, that his expectations were to sit home, play video games and do nothing at all. Janet inspired him to get a job and he got a good one at the local Amazon warehouse. She even took him across town for the interview and then began taking him to and from work, and hour each way every day 5 and sometimes 6 days a week. It was an hour to and an hour back home, so four hours of driving every day for her. Patrick began helping when he realized she was getting stressed. As a third shift truck driver, it was difficult for him.
Janet did not feel appreciated by Kyle at all, she still did all the housework, laundry, cooking, and took Kyle to and from work. He did not help with gas, chores, anything at all, and it got to her. It was a normal thing as in any family.
And then one day it all blew up, Janet doesn’t even remember what it was over. But words were said that cannot be unsaid. Janet left the room and went out onto the patio with the pugs to cool down. Kyle did apologize but Janet did not forgive him, she accepted his apology but there is a difference. She felt that it was words that he needed to hear at that time.
Things got worse before they got better and sometimes that is what it takes. He began helping and doing chores and was helping with gas. He now works at the local grocery store and saved up and bought a bicycle. He rides his bike to work and that is good for everyone.
There as been one blow up since then and Patrick got involved but not since then. Now he stays out of it and lets Janet and Kyle work it out, which is what needs o be done. Janet feels that this is a problem in most blended families.
She understands Patrick wanting to be defensive, because she gets defensive when it comes to the pugs. Those are her babies after all, and it puts things in perspective for her. They laugh about the pugs being on hunger strike since they were at the dentist earlier this week. They know Mommy will spoil them if Daddy won’t. Somehow this turns to Janet talking about her Dad serving dinner for breakfast when she was a kid. If you didn’t eat it for dinner, it was breakfast.
Of course they got off track, go figure talking about food. And back to blended families and their situation being a good one. They discuss a lot of people raise grandchildren, nieces, nephews, etc. This turns to Patrick talking bout his sister letting his adult daughters’ move in with her and how it didn’t work out.
Janet brings him back by discussing having her niece when she was 12 and then again when she was 15 briefly and teaching her to drive a three-speed stick shift on snow and ice. And how the car ended up in a ditch a few times. Luckily, Janet knew every farmer for ten miles and always got towed out. They had fun doing it. Janet’s great nephew Nick learned to drive in Janet’s Jaguar when he was a kid also. He was the only guy besides Patrick that drove it.
In Germany, Janet mentions some friends who had a blended family, “yours, mine & ours”. She ended up having their two kids with her for a while things were being mended. She never really thinks about this as being a blended family. Most of these situations she thinks of as just helping family and friends. You just do what you must do, what you are supposed to do.
They finish up talking about who they know that are blended families, most of Janet’s family is, Patrick’s also.
