By: Nina Roux

Most people reading this would agree that the definition of family has evolved, and we are willing to accept that families have two moms, two dads, one mom, one dad, no moms and dads, and families with adopted children, the list goes on. But what are the components of a family? Sure, love is one component, but there are plenty of families (like my mother’s) where that love is complicated and tainted by abuse.

I am the second-oldest of four kids, and my husband is an only child. Our respective childhoods were so dramatically different, that I think we bring a nice balance to each other’s lives. I poke him when he’s being self-centered and single-minded, and he prods me when I put everyone else’s needs before my own, and get resentful when there’s nothing left for me. We love the holidays – going from the chaos of visiting my family with kids running everywhere, and the dramas of accommodating thirteen schedules, to the quiet “us-centric” visits with his parents. Between these trips, we are always committed to giving ourselves a few days with just the two of us, so we can start our own traditions and just be.

I remember before we were married, we would sometimes spend the holidays apart. Then one day I decided that was crazy – just because we’re not married, doesn’t mean we should think separately when it comes to family visits. It was around this time that we also noticed that when one of us was invited to a wedding, the invitation would often say something like “unfortunately, we have to keep the numbers down, so no guests.” Beyond being tacky, I just thought this was the most disrespectful attitude towards non-married couples. I started to resent marriage, and saw it as some country club that only some were allowed to join (in many ways, it is), and it wasn’t until you joined that people would take you seriously as a couple. I was never a woman obsessed with marriage or weddings, I thought of it as something I might do someday, but hadn’t sorted out the whys or the whens.

We eventually did get married, more for our families than anything – and to us, it was important to exchange vows. Making a vow to each other, out loud, in front of 40 people we love and who love us enough to fly to the mountains in Colorado (the theme of our wedding, if there was one, was “meeting in the middle” since our friends and family are spread across the country) was meaningful and important to us.

But now, not having kids, it’s like there’s this other club we’ve yet to be indoctrinated into. This club is another one – as mentioned in previous posts – I’m dragging my feet a bit on joining. Not because I don’t want to, but because I need to sort myself out first.

But does that mean that the Mr. and I aren’t considered a family?

Is it kids that make a family?

That would mean that my friend who had her cancerous ovaries removed when she was 18, and who isn’t interested in adopting, will always be considered “childless.” As if there is something she is supposed to have but is lacking?

Is my best friend from childhood who has just never wanted kids, but who adores every kid she’s around, living a life that is “incomplete?”

Is the couple who wanted to have kids but couldn’t, and don’t adopt for other reasons, forced to be looked upon with pity like the single girl at the couple’s table?

Fortunately, we’ve moved on from calling single women “spinsters”, infertile women “barren,” and children conceived out of wedlock “bastards.” And happily, we’re moving into a time where more and more people accept that families are made of all different ethnicities, genders, faiths and views.

I do think it’s important to celebrate all the ways individuals define “family” – whether it’s 19 kids or none – because if we aren’t willing to say it’s an ever growing tent with wings, added-on rooms, fold-out beds, inflatable mattresses, sleeping bags on the floor, and a doormat out front that says “all welcome,” then that tent is bound to collapse.

By: Nina Roux

Do I want kids?

I wonder if this is something that all women ask themselves. Or, do most women reach a certain age where either their bodies or the public tells them “it’s time” and that is what triggers the want?

My body has remained mum on the matter – probably because of my hormone imbalance. Or, maybe that voice most women think they’re hearing from their bodies is actually coming from their environment. (Jenny got her period/got boobs/got a boyfriend/had sex/got drunk/got married/had kids/moved to the suburbs, so when is it my turn!?)

At some point in my life, as mentioned in previous posts, I began categorically refusing to do something simply because other people were doing it. So I have had no problem postponing having kids, despite the fact that most women my age, having had two or three, are done having them.

This weekend, as I pondered my procrastination on setting up appointments with fertility specialists, I asked the Mr. “do you have any fears about having kids?” His answer wasn’t surprising to me – mainly he worried about being able to give his kids everything he wanted to give them financially (read: college).

But for me, it’s a complete identity crisis. How can I continue to pursue my dreams if I’m constantly putting someone else’s needs before my own –albeit my child’s? How can I avoid becoming someone who doesn’t fulfill her heart’s desire and simply shrugs and says “I’m a mom!”

I’ve spent most of my life as an assistant to other people’s lives, always deferring my dreams and writing them off as impossible – until recently. Maybe I’m a late bloomer (in the breast department, I was an early, mortified bloomer. So even/stevens.) So now that I’m finally able to recognize what makes me happy, it seems impossible that I can make my dreams come true and be a mom at the same time. There. I said it.

I want to be more than a mom. I doubt that any woman defines herself as “just a mom”.  I simultaneously doubt any of them could deny using their mom status as an  excuse to not do something – whether it’s go to a movie, out for a drink, shopping for herself, a fabulous vacation, or a trip to the gym. “I’m a mom, I don’t have time” to me is the same as saying “I’m a mom, I don’t have to work on my own happiness. The only thing that makes me happy is my child’s happiness.” Which is the same as “my needs don’t matter anymore.” Which is the same as “why am I so miserable all the time!?”

As these fears become clearer to me, I hope I just do it anyway – and get out of my own way now, as I hope to do in the future, when I inevitably struggle to maintain my identity as my roles in life expand.

By: Nina Roux

On my Buddhist altar, I keep lists of my yearly determinations. These are like vital “to-do” lists that I create at the start of every year, and add to as the months go by and my worldly desires arise. Whether it is a new possession (a car! new furniture! investment property!) or a life achievement (a harmonious wedding! successful and worry-free surgery for dad!), I delight in making a little check mark next to each item as it is accomplished. It is very good for my confidence to know that I am making my dreams come true through hard work, determination and focused intent.

Each year, I up the ante a bit – I dig a little deeper for desires that seem impossible, so that I can prove to myself each time that what seems impossible is actually possible. This year, in addition to items for my home, I put in a pretty tall order for a baby and an agent.

Any rational person knows that nothing falls out of thin air. For every action there is a reaction, or as Buddhists say, for every cause there is an effect. Our achievements are the results of our efforts; so the bigger the result you desire, the grander the actions you have to take.

On the baby front – I’m still not pregnant. But I have taken bigger actions in my life to this end than I ever imagined, and they’ve forced me to dig deeper into the wells of my psyche and heart than I ever thought possible. I feel absolutely confident that I will have all the little ones I want when the time is absolutely right for me. And that’s progress in and of itself.

But the biggest victory of the year for me as a long-stunted performer came just this week. All year I have made dramatic changes in my life, asking myself over and over again “what more can I do to change my life? Which actions can I take which will create more and more happiness?” Action led to action, which led to effects, and after taking meetings with a few small-minded agents who didn’t seem to even watch TV or know anything about industry trends, I found myself staring into the depths of my own feelings of worth.

One morning this week, before I was to meet with another agent, I sat before my altar and as I chanted, I looked at that determination card, and thought to myself “2009 is not over yet. There is time yet to win.” And by the end of that day, I had representation. I know this is a small step in the life-span of a career, but it’s a huge hurdle for me.

I can’t wait for the new year, new challenges, new highs, new lows and new victories! And babies!

By: Nina Roux

My husband and I are house-hunting. When you are an interracial couple trying to start a family, you can’t live in just “any neighborhood”. Well, you can, but we personally want to live in a diverse neighborhood where our kids will always feel like they fit in. I think this is the same for our gay brothers and sisters, and any “other” family. Cities like New York, as diverse as they are, still have Chinese, Indian, Dominican, Russian, etc. districts and neighborhoods, where if you are not a member of that cultural group, you are seen as, or at least feel, out of place. Generally, I think people want to fit in.

When it comes to black and white neighborhoods, I would say that most New York city neighborhoods are gentrified or gentrifying. Words like this are loaded, and mean something very different depending on your race, culture, socio-economic classification and which side of the “issue” you’re on. I don’t want to fish in that can of worms, but just Google “gentrification in NYC” and you’ll get a sense of how overwhelming and emotional this topic is.

In a nutshell, we need to live in a gentrified neighborhood; not one on the verge of gentrifying (too sensitive!) and not one overly-gentrified (where’d all the brown people go!?) With the surge of available condos and new housing in Brooklyn, we’ve been having fun trying to find the perfect place. As many urbanites know, a neighborhood changes dramatically by block – while the neighborhood lines are blurred by the real estate agents, savvy people know that just across the street, while the condo prices are the same, the school districts and crime rates are not.
We were being showed a condo in one such neighborhood. The agent was a black woman, and as we went through the normal pleasantries and paperwork, she said to me “I see you have a wide band on that finger.” I laughed and looked at my hand, thinking she was talking about my wedding band, and said “I actually want a wider one, a different style.” Then she said “No, I meant his wedding band.”

I don’t really remember what I said, I probably just laughed it off, since I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt. I was mostly just confused by her comment. Then, it all hit me on the way home – the depth of bitterness in her comment. The Mr. didn’t hear her, but he felt horrible that someone would try to make me feel like that.
I don’t think many of my white girl friends would even know how loaded that statement was. To really explain it, I would have to go into a women studies/black history/racial dynamics diatribe that would bore most people, and these are subjects where I’m definitely not an expert.

I think the best way to explain what she meant would be to say she was uncomfortable with the fact that I was married to a black man. Sometimes, comments like this are directed towards my husband, and they’re usually with a tone of “you should be ashamed of yourself” – as though some ownership claim is being staked simply because they share racial herritage. I’m over-simplifying, I know, but I am not going to speak for someone else.
I have black girl friends who are still mad that Taye Diggs married a white woman, even though they in theory have no problem with interracial relationships.

When The Mr. and I started dating, I knew I was stepping into something that would be an issue for some people. We were even (needlessly) worried about his family. I know our country has evolved and is evolving, but not fast enough for me. And really, this woman was just a small-minded person. And there will always be small-minded people, no matter how far we evolve as a nation.
I am still wishing I had the presence of mind to say something to that woman – but what would I say? “What’s that supposed to mean?” would have sparked the very altercation she probably wanted. And like The Mr. says, the reason I didn’t notice her intent in the moment is because I’m above it – I don’t think in black and white. Thank goodness for that.

By: Nina Roux

I started researching acupuncture when I was diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS.) The short explanation of PCOS is my ovaries aren’t releasing eggs; they are instead remaining on my ovaries and turning into cysts. I had been told acupuncture was good for fertility, and I put it on my “to do list.” In the meantime, my doctor put me on metformin (it’s a generic version of glucophage.) Apparently, for some women, when they are treated for insulin resistance with metformin, their hormone levels become more balanced (in my case, I was over producing testosterone, and under-producing estrogen). Once you’re all balanced, your ovaries start releasing your eggs, and you’re ovulating and having regular periods.
Metformin was working! But I am a horrible pill taker, and to remember to take something three times a day, month after month for the foreseeable future created feelings of dread and defeat.
I finally followed up on finding an acupuncturist, and the short of it is that it has changed my life. I am of pretty hard-core German and English pioneer stock, so it doesn’t freak me out to have needles sticking out of my eyelids, the top of my head, or anywhere else –especially when the pay-off is so great.
First I noticed I became more regular. My digestion and elimination quickly became something of which Dr. Oz would be proud. Next I noticed that I was falling asleep easier, had more restful sleep, and woke up feeling more rested.
On a deeper level, I am gaining a profound understanding of my history with food and eating issues, and how those emotions and that emotional history is tied to my metabolism and to my hormonal imbalance – yes indeed, everything is connected.
But the most important result: ovulation! This last cycle was the first normal one in my history without the aid of drugs. And as I come to understand my body better, and it seems to work better, I feel my confidence growing, and I know I’m a little closer to achieving my goals in the most natural and organic way possible.

By: Nina Roux

I feel like I’m straddling four worlds; one my age, another – my “stage” of life, then my creative pursuits, and finally my paycheck career. I have multiple peer groups. My age-group peers nearly all have kids. Their days are filled with bliss and nursing, diapers, daycare, tantrums and insecurity about whether or not they’re “doing it right.” Then there’s my social group of peers – all in their mid 20’s and trying to decide which party to go to next, where their rent money is going to come from, still years away from responsibility, and insecure about whether or not that guy is really into them or not.
Maybe I’m just a late-bloomer, or maybe I just have different priorities than my age-group peers. When my 20-something friends ask if my husband and I are trying for kids, they get super excited. For them, the idea of having friends with kids is an exotic novelty. When my age-group peers ask, there’s usually an undertone of “what are you waiting for?” Our rote answer is usually “it’s on a middle burner” – meaning baby making is on our minds, but it’s not our top priority. This seems to satisfy both groups of friends, though I can’t help wondering what my age-group peers think of my procrastination.
Career-wise, I am one of the few people I know with job security in the business called music. But my evenings are spent in rehearsals, table-reads, writing meetings, production meetings, and performances in the business called comedy. I am simply trying to create as much joy in my life as I can. I think the reason the baby making is still on the middle burner is because I haven’t completely decided that I’m ready for the responsibility and stresses that accompany that particular bundle of joy.
So with one foot on “creative pursuits”, one foot on the day job, one hand grasping my disappearing youth, and the other hand reaching for the long-term/big-picture dreams of having a family, I find myself in a confusing game of Twister.
The only way I can win the game is if my center of gravity remains in the realm of what is right for me. Trying to fit-in or rest too comfortably in any one quadrant would be to compromise my values and my strongest desires, and to be living someone else’s life.

By: Nina Roux

I’m an opinionated snob. I own this. As a New Yorker, I can be quite pushy. I think we city folk hone this skill because we are jealously protecting the tiny amount of personal space we are allotted. So, when the opinionated, snobby pushy beast rears its head, it’s hard to hold back the hounds. I recently decided that this same trait, when possessed by someone who holds the opposite views from mine, makes them a bigot.
I got into a Facebook fight with some dude I went to college with, I don’t really know him, and he definitely doesn’t know me. But like most of my Facebook “friends”, we have casually (and probably pointlessly) become connected again.
It all started with the vapid comments made by former Miss. California, Carrie Prejean, when asked about her thoughts on the legality of same-sex marriage.
The status bar on my Facebook page was something like; “anyone who says they believe something just because they were raised to believe it, is basically saying they don’t have any thoughts of their own”. There may or may not have been the word “jaggoff” somewhere in there.
I guess I assumed I was preaching to the choir, safe in my smug liberal, coastal bubble. I wasn’t thinking about this dude and he didn’t find my snarky (okay, mean-spirited) commentary amusing. The problem was that in his response, he used condescending language like “now, now” and “I hate it when you lefties…” The Opinionated New York Foul-Mouthed Snob Hounds would not drop the bone, and along with my husband and 3 or 4 friends, we let this dude have it.
I should mention that I am Buddhist. One common misconception about Buddhists is that we are passive. There is in fact nothing more “Buddhist” than standing up with the courage of a lion in defense of what is right
Here’s why their “right” is wrong: my husband and I could not be legally married if people had continued to believe something simply because they were taught to. My African American husband’s grandparents would have been slaves, like their parents were. His parents wouldn’t have been able to vote or to drink from the same drinking fountains as mine. As a woman I would not be able to vote. I would not be sitting in a window office. Hell, I would be at home with 12 children, wearing an ankle-length skirt, with no electricity if our parents’ parents’ parents had held rigidly to their ideas of the “right” way to live. If previous generations were afraid of change and the evolution of ideas and human rights, white folks wouldn’t be on this continent.
Just as our generation was pivotal in electing the first African American president, we will also be responsible for ending bigotry and hatred, just as every generation before us and every generation after. It is OUR fight as human beings. The face of bigotry changes, just like the faces of the oppressed. But it is a fight, and it will require our whole heart, and the courage of a lion and the voices of the hounds of hellish functions like this opinionated, foul-mouthed, pushy snob. As a straight, married woman, to believe that I myself don’t have to worry about whether or not my gay friends should be allowed to marry, is just lazy. We can’t get anything done by thinking “that’s someone else’s fight”. Ending bigotry and fear of what we don’t understand is every compassionate individual’s fight. And the weapons and armor in this fight are intellect, education and maybe a little bit of snobbery. But for what it’s worth, for my part, I am working on the latter.

By: Nina Roux

One weekend last April, I took myself on a date to the bookstore. After a couple of overwhelmingly busy months, I was desperate for some new literature and I decided my overly-crowded shelves at home could handle one or two more books before a purging for library donations. On my way up the escalator, I scanned the floor below me where rows and rows of shelves held impulse shopping items – those little last minute on-the-way-to-the-register indulgences, the things we think we need. Among the cards, bookmarks, journals, book lights and moleskins, a refrigerator magnet bearing a quote from the famous Robert Frost poem, “The Road Not Taken” caught my eye.
We’ve all read the quote a million times, and like so many overly-referenced poems, it has become a mundane cliché; mass produced for refrigerators, dorm room walls and generic bargain department store already-framed “calligraphy art”. Remembering that April is national poetry month I mentally paused, and wandered back to the first time I had encountered this poem.
As a child I read with zeal, and I still do. I am bereft if my nose is not buried in a book. I recently went through what I would consider a reading drought, wherein instead of perusing a book store or library for my next literary distraction, I read, and then re-read, a certain mass produced, wildly popular, tween-craze fantasy fiction series about a beautiful and sensitive vampire and the special stubborn girl who loves him. Yes, you read that right, I read all four books twice; the first time because I was under stress, and more than anything I needed some brain candy, and the simple prose and engrossing plot line was the perfect remedy. Like Swedish Fish for my brain, these books were an indulgent treat that satisfied my craving momentarily, but left me feeling a little violated later. But not so violated that I didn’t dip my hook, line and sinker into that vapid pond a second time.
I’ve always read whatever I could get my hands on. My mom and dad often gave each other beautiful and meaningful books as gifts. I don’t remember either of them ever really having the time to read them, but there was one Christmas or Birthday when my dad tore colorful wrapping paper off a small Robert Frost reader of selected poems. I was fascinated by this book, because though it was for grown-ups, it was small and fit easily into my hands. The rhyming words within spun beautiful images through my minds eye with their dancing musical cadence. This book was a treasure chest with sophisticated jewels meant for someone older and more sophisticated, which was precisely why I loved it. My copy of Shel Silverstein poems for kids was suddenly infantile and worthless.
I distinctly remember my dad reading The Road Less Traveled to me, then taking the time to explain what the two roads in the woods symbolized; one, the things that most people do, the things that are common and easily achieved, without much thought or effort. The other, a more difficult and potentially perilous path representing the unknown and unfamiliar, leading no one knows where.
The otherwise insipid little magnet summoned my memory of that moment with my dad, and I had stunning bright clarity about my whole life; I sincerely think every decision I’ve made since becoming a conscious adult has been influenced by what I considered the challenge Mr. Frost posed to his readers. On that day so many years ago, I made an earnest resolute vow to always allow my curiosity to get the better of me, to always be original in my choices, even if – or especially if – it makes life more difficult. This way, my life would always be interesting.
After a few years fumbling around after college, I moved to New York City. Led by vague ambitions and little more than a desire for “something different, something challenging”, I left my family and friends in Seattle and moved to the exact opposite side of the country. I have lived here for going on eleven years, and like every other long-time New Yorker, I have trudged, wrangled, hacked, and continue to blaze daily trails through this concrete and steel wilderness. Like many other New York women, I postponed marriage and the other traditional gender role rites of passage in favor of maintaining my autonomy and independence for just a while longer. Now in my mid-thirties, at a time when most of my peers are on their second or third child, I am in only my third year of marriage and my husband and I are just now starting to think seriously about having kids. We want kids; we just aren’t prioritizing it yet.
We are an interracial couple – the Mr. is black, I am white. This is a fact we are only dimly aware of from day to day, but when we leave the comfort zone of our diverse city and neighborhood in Brooklyn, we can’t help but become more aware of how we are perceived by others. Being a mixed couple is a non-issue for us and our respective families, but from time to time we notice that it is an issue for others. In the last few years it seems that interracial couples have become more common in TV programming and in movies – race is not always a central relationship “issue” in the plot-line like it used to be. But I still feel that relationships like ours are an under-represented demographic, and when we encounter other mixed couples, there is usually a conspiratorial wink of appreciation exchanged.
The fact that I am in my mid thirties and have no kids makes me an “other” in our culture as well. Sure, almost everyone these days knows someone who waited until the last minute to become a mom. But trust me; I can barely watch just an hour of TV without feeling exhausted by all the “shoulds” for a woman my age. I should be married to some chubby guy who I passively tolerate and don’t have sex with. We should have two or three exhausting kids. We should have a couple of cars. We should be home owners with a lawn, living in a cul de sac in a suburb. I should be constantly cleaning my home, and should be obsessed with my diet and my lack of exercise. I should simultaneously deserve that rich chocolate dessert, be avoiding that rich chocolate dessert, and be regretting that rich chocolate dessert.
I may have started out my adult life by making conscious decisions to be different or to take risks as a sort of reactionary way to avoid being marginalized and “boring”. But as I’ve matured, I am only conscious of trying to be sincere in my decision making based upon what is right for me, and not allowing the societal or social “shoulds” influence my choices in any way. I never once passive-aggressively hinted to my then live-in boyfriend about my empty ring finger. I don’t now pressure him to make me pregnant. I don’t worry about our unfulfilled “American dream” of being home owners. If we decide these things are what we want, we’ll find a way to make them happen for us in our way, in our time. I don’t worry about these things, I just allow myself to be happy where I am, and constantly try to become even happier, with a very conscious leaning towards and a deliberate eye on the shady road off to the side that perhaps other people have missed along the way.
For me, for now, that road is a little more time without the “shoulds”, and the pressure to remain on the already paved and, from my current view, overly traveled and traffic-jammed road. In this column, I will share with you the rocks, roots and low reaching branches that I encounter as I blaze my own path. I promise I won’t be too surprised if I discover my path has very similar obstacles to the more trodden path. And I’m sure the two paths will merge as often as they diverge. I don’t begrudge the well-trodden path, but I cherish the challenges of the ones I’ve chosen, for the bigger the challenge, the greater the victory. For my own personal happiness, these choices have made all the difference.