Arranged Marriage

I’m fairly certain I’m going to be one of those psycho mother-in-laws. The type you sometimes hear referred to as monster, dragon … or vampire bat.

I have visions of my sons’ girlfriends talking to their friends saying “I’ve met this really great guy but his Mum is such a freak. She made me fill out a questionnaire when I first met her before she grilled me like a criminal”.

When I was at school and learning about other cultures, the topic of arranged marriage would come up from time to time and I remember being completely outraged. My inner feminist thought it sexist, barbaric and degrading to women.

Now that I’m a mum to three boys I’ve done a complete 180 on this and I think it’s perfectly reasonable to want to arrange all of their marriages. How on earth could they possibly know who is good for them? They need me. Of course they do!

Women can be evil, manipulative little vixens so what better way to ward off devil women than to have a tyrant of a mother on the judging panel. A panel of one. That would be moi.

Rob thinks I’m joking when I talk about it but I’m so not.

I often ask Luca the question “Luca, when you’re older can I choose your wife?” and he always says “yes”, usually at around the same time Rob rolls his eyes and shoots me one of those what the hell is wrong with you looks.

Sometimes I get even better responses and he’ll say “I don’t want a wife I’m going to marry Alex or Milo”, which pleases me greatly, or on rare occasions I get the answer I’m looking for “I’m not getting married”.

On the way home from school the other day (when Rob was far far away at work), I asked him again. “Luca, can I choose your wife some day”.

“I’m going to marry you, Mummy. And I’m going to buy you lots of diet coke all the time. And shoes. But you can only have the coke if you let me have one sometimes”.

…. My therapist tells me I’m nearly better, truly.