I got married when I was under nineteen. I thought I was all grown up then, I didn’t listen to my mother’s advice about getting a footing, having my own place, not depending on anyone financially. I didn’t care about any of my mother’s advice. I fell in love, I thought that I was also madly in love with my chosen one, and it seemed quite enough.
After the wedding I was faced with a harsh family life. A room in the apartment with my husband’s parents. My mother-in-law and father-in-law are in the next room, my husband’s sister and her husband and child are a little further away. I had to queue for the bathroom and toilets, find out who had stolen the food in the fridge, who had to repair the washing machine, etc. To all this was added the moral cost of the fact that I could not get pregnant. I was monitored on a monthly basis, and when I was once again raising my hands, they turned away in disappointment. The last one to turn away was my husband, because he understood that a lot depended on him in this process as well.
I had no conflicts as such with my husband’s relatives. They were regular hard workers, but the stereotype of having a baby nine months after marriage was firmly planted in their heads.
I gave birth in two years. On the exact due date, with almost no help from a midwife. Then there was a long break again. I just don’t get pregnant, and that was it, I don’t care! My mother-in-law suspiciously looked at my husband and me, it seemed we had already proved in practice that we could, but the next child could not “make it”! The second daughter was born only seven years later, just like her older sister, without any problems.
And in my second marriage, I gave birth to three more yearling boys. Our eldest daughter, Anna, helps us all a lot. She went to work in Europe, got married there, and regularly sends us substantial remittances. Without her, it would probably be much more difficult to raise all the other children.
Looking at her reminds me of my mother, her advice about standing on your own two feet before arranging a family life. I also advise my children not to rush into marriage and marriage, but they have my personal example in front of them, so I’m not sure they will take my advice into consideration. I hope that they will be a little luckier than I was, and once they are independent in every respect, they will not have to listen to reproaches about the fact that there is no way a child will come into the family.
