"What is wrong with our family?!?!"

My mom likes to talk about the family gossip. I like to listen to her hypocrisies as she says what others have done wrong. The thing about my mom is that she always has to be right. When she says something that is incorrect and we correct it, she will instantly deny it seconds later and insists she said it the correct way, even when there are two other people who would verify that what she originally said was incorrect. Although it is something to which one should grow accustomed, it still invokes in me a cringe of annoyance.

So my cousin who, unprovoked, unfriended me on friendster a day after adding me as her friend, is getting divorced. I add the first part because I thought it was extremely rude of her. Anyway, she worked at a bank and started an intimate (and unprotected) relationship with her coworker. I can still remember as clear as day that conversation between my parents.

"...so now she's pregnant," my mother says with the same excitement in her voice whenever she delivers some bit of salaciousness. "And they'll have to get married now."

"Why do they have to get married?" asks my more Westernized father.

"Hon, because!" my mother replies in exasperation. For my mom, no explanation was necessary because it was so clear that the next necessary step for her niece was marriage to the father of her unborn child. And, my mother's trademark would be to tie together two completely nonrelevant items and present them as a cause-effect relationship.

"Because she couldn't pass her board exams those two times, she got depressed, and that's why she had to go to bed with that man, and that's how she got pregnant."

Ahh, it's all so clear... and I refer not to her representation of my cousin's mindset, but the stark contrast between Americans and Filipinos. My American cousin has 4 children and has not been married yet while my Filipino cousin plans a shotgun wedding while expecting. My cousin had a small wedding, and now, only a handful of months later, she's considering divorce. So much for preservation of family, but for the sake of appearances, the baby was born in wedlock.

Now, my mom hums a different tune. "I don't know why she got married! What a mistake. However, I do sympathize with her. After all, her mom put all hopes on her to get them out of financial disaster. She did not have the choice to do what she wanted in the first place, and when she did not pass the exams, her mom criticized her."

Story of my life, minus the baby and impending divorce. Then again, who knows what the future has in store?