The Walking Dead

I am useless.

A No Value Add.

Redundant.

Such is life as the laowai spouse to a Tiger Mom.

My wife begins her day arising at 7am.  I am already up preparing breakfast for the kids, feeding the cats, putting away the dishes from the previous night.  This however, is the only time throughout the day I will feel of any USE to the family.

My wife comes downstairs, combs our daughters’ hair, and makes coffee that she will not drink.  When I ask her why she is doing this, she simply replies the “Weather is growing cold, and we shouldn’t let the pkg of coffee go to waste”(ie I should drink it.  I do.)

My wife after several years now has a job.   She works for a sourcing company.  Her boss is a lazy Mexican who cannot speak Chinese, who only now is beginning to appreciate her.  I got her the job.

She comes home at 5 or 5:30 and immediately begins to cook. 

“Why can I not cook”, you ask?

That would be because my wife prefers Chinese cooking, alas that is not something I’m ready to learn.  So we have an understanding:  I make the “meat”, she does the veggies.

Then I wash dishes.  (We are perhaps one of only seven Households Within America that refuses to use the dishwasher.)

My day is basically over.

The second half of her day is only beginning.   While I listen to a podcast while cleaning, she now begins to take care of the children.

They have either piano or violin lessons.  Piano is basically for one hour.  Violin for 30 minutes.

The children have no choice in this matter, and it shows.  The youngest one is now crying during and after violin.  It is a bit hard for her to learn, and she has so many books to go through.

There is no TV in the Fontenot Household. 

The mom sits with each child during piano but during violin(separate nights), she keeps her distance.   To her credit, she has learned how to read music. 

In sum, my wife is full of energy.  And focus. Very focused. 

I meekly walk over to where my daughters are doing their homework, and ask,

“Can I help”?

My wife says no, hesitates a bit than says,

“Go to the basement”.

So I do, where I read the news online. About every 20 minutes or so I will hear sobbing…crying…screaming.  From long, weathered experience, I know the latter is from the wife and the former from the kids. 

The mother now sits down with the eldest to review Math.  This will take from one to two hours.  The mother proudly boasts “Math is my strongest subject”.  In the interim, there is hardly any time for Social Studies, and only a little for Language, or Science. 

I hear the eldest asking,

“Can I take a break?”

I meanwhile decide to call my dad and talk about the upcoming slate of weekend games. (I can’t wait!)

When I’m done, I mosey on up and find to my bemusement that my wife is reviewing the next day’s vocabulary test with my daughter.  (The Horror!)  I decide to gingerly put my foot down and tell her that “this is dad’s job”.

The daughter screeches “NO”! and shrilly protests that “Mom can do it”!

(In the interim I sneak my daughter an apple. My wife is slowly becoming more Americanized. She no longer puts up a fight when I simply wash an apple, instead of cutting it into slices, and hand it as is to my child.) 

But my wife is getting wiser.  In an earlier time, she would have even insisted that she handle this as well, but not anymore.  I am wise to be insistent.

When I take over the vocabulary study with my daughter I find as usual that she cannot correctly pronounce half the words.  (Thx Mom)

Meanwhile I find that even after I have cleaned the kitchen after dinner, my wife has decided to take out whatever cleaner she uses(she has 72 varieties),  to clean the kitchen herself, AFTER I’ve already done this myself. 

She may do other things as well:

Clean the bathrooms while wearing her rubber gloves.  (We have 5 bathrooms.)

Mop the wooden floor.

Clean the stove. (I’ve already done this, to no avail)

Sort the shoes. (huh?)

Do the laundry. (I’ve been told I do not know how to properly do laundry.  I remind my wife that I was indeed a bachelor before marriage.   I have been overruled.  I lack the skillset to do laundry.)

Fold the laundry. (Pls see above.)   My wife gets very irritated when I try and fold a) my boxers and b) the towels.    Again, it is here where I “put my foot down”, and insist “boxers are boxers”, and I will be wearing them tomorrow anyway.  She still does not let me fold towels.

When my wife begins to slow down she will look at me with a condescending look in her eye and with that pained look on her face say:

“You are so lazy.  You are so lucky to have a wife like me.”

The wife throughout the night ping pongs back and forth between the two kids…helping one study for a Chinese exam that Harvard will never care about, but needs to be reviewed all the same as it’s only 5 days away and well, Mom can’t look like a lazy mother within the Chinese Community.

(it’s bad enough all the other Chinese mom’s think I’m lazy and useless…this is the real damage my recently departed mother in law has wrecked upon my flimsy reputation)

Mom than gets the youngest up to shower while I…well I’m not sure what I’m doing.  Maybe sneaking an oreo from the pantry.  Maybe reviewing my daughters short story.   Whatever it is, I’m tired, and I begin to yawn.

It’s approaching 9:30, but my eldest still isn’t finished with homework.   The youngest meanwhile, having come home at 2:30 has had a bit of a headstart, and is thus ready for bed.

I’ve decided after much contemplation that I really shouldn’t go to bed until the oldest daughter does…so I bite the bullet and we both go to bed by 10.   I fall asleep before 10:30, and awake the next morning to several text messages from my wife waiting for me.  She usually sends them to me before midnight, when she herself goes to bed.

Sex?  (let me explain…)

Well…it’s hard “to get any” when you sleep at 10pm and your wife sleeps at midnight.

I got fixed a couple of years ago, and that has pretty much made me even more useless to the Goal Oriented China Girl.  (No 3^rd child.  No son….I guess this means no sex) 

Maybe this weekend if I stay up late enough I’ll have a shot.  (She tries to outlast me….but I’m game.)

I wonder sometimes how it would be like if I wasn’t married to a Chinese. 

(Movie night?  Pizza night?  Drinks out?  Handjob Night?)

Alas, I have learned how to cook rice.  (It’s not something I’m proud of. )  I’ve learned that Chinese boil their meat.  I’ve learned before I stirfry shrimp I need to remove their tiny, thin gray stomachs.   I understand now the Chinese do not use Garlic Salt.  

(Nor do they listen to medical advice, ie MSG is still in widespread use, but to steal a phrase, “how can a billion Chinese be wrong”?)

I finally leave the basement and go upstairs to the kids’ room.  The youngest one is brushing her teeth.  I ask her if she will make her bed up tomorrow and she shakes her head “no”.

She asks for water.  Daddy obliges.   I used to sneak them an ordinary glass of tap water every night, but their wise to me now.   They only take Cold, Filtered Tap Water.

I bring it to my youngest child.

When I ask her if we’re done, she says “yes”.

Then she tells me to go down to the basement.