#cottoncandyface

Thank you, friend! Sorry it took me a few days to get to this!

13) What kind of parent they would be. 

This one is super interesting because I have very mixed feelings on whether or not Chrissy, especially, would actually want kids. I think Eddie is more indifferent to it, like... if it happens, cool, if it doesn't, also cool.

For the thought experiment, though, we can assume they do.

I think that Chrissy is extremely--possibly to the point of overcompensating--careful not to force anything on her child. Like, she always wants to explain the reasoning behind every decision she makes, and give the kid a lot of autonomy. Not just "you have to hold my hand in the parking lot" but "here's why holding my hand is important and why I got scared when you wandered away from me when I was putting the groceries in the trunk."

I also think she would try so hard not to push her food issues onto a child, but that it would inevitably happen in some weird ways because there's so many different angles that a kid can get fucked up around food! So many!

So, yeah, all of this coalesces into... I think she would love so, so fiercely, but also be so afraid of messing her kid up that it takes her time to feel confident as a parent, and especially as a mother, because her relationship with her own mother was so cold and withholding. She feels like she doesn't have the programming to love a child properly, and it simply takes lived experience for her to realize that she can be maternal and caring in a specifically Chrissy way, and it doesn't have to look like how anyone else parents, because it works for her and for Eddie.

As for Eddie, I weirdly think he'd be the stricter of the two. He grew up without a lot of rules or boundaries, and I feel like he thrived more with Wayne and a bit of structure. Which isn't to say Wayne was strict--Eddie was selling drugs and on his third senior year--but Wayne had expectations, and he was the first person in Eddie's life who gave him some structure.

So, yeah. Eddie wants family dinner, and he wants to hear how everyone's day was, and he wants homework done before bed. But he also wants to understand why the homework is hard, or what happened at school that made a kid sad, and to treat them like little people, rather than little projects or little accomplices.

Ultimately, I think that's what makes both Eddie and Chrissy good parents, in the end. They both had childhoods where they were used as accessories to parental ambition, and they're bound and determined that their kids will not be pawns to their own agenda.

On the less psychological side, though, I think there'd be crazy creativity in the house, and awesome games, and a lot of "yes, and"-ing the wilder suggestions that the kid(s) come up with. Like, do I see Chrissy and Eddie in Chilli and Bandit Heeler? Yes, I 100% do, and yes, I am 100% the dork who watches Bluey.

rascals that are up to no good. ever.