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Why was Paulina’s mother-in-law that way?

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Episode 4: “The Train Station.” Now married, Paulina moves in with Bobby’s family in Orange County and is met with a host of expectations: cooking, cleaning, serving, working at the psychic shop and having children. This kind of family dynamic has helped keep the Romani culture alive across the centuries. But it still catches Paulina by surprise.

Read the episode transcript.
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No one pictures their “happily ever after” by thinking of all the household chores they’re going to do. And yet, so much of married life is made up of just that: scheduling, paying bills, shopping, cooking, cleaning — the tasks and duties that make a household work. But who wants to fantasize about that?

Paulina Stevens was ushered into marriage at age 17 with several days’ worth of festivities, three showstopping dresses and an heirloom crown. But after she moved into her husband’s family’s home, reality hit her like a big splash of cold water.

If she’d only had to become a wife, that would have been one thing. But the biggest adjustment Paulina had to make was becoming a daughter-in-law. Suddenly the family friends she’d known all her life were the heads of her household. That distinction changed their entire dynamic.

It felt like my relationship started to shift from Day 1.… Every day, it just kept getting weirder and weirder.

— Paulina Stevens in “Foretold”

Paulina thought she knew what would be expected of her.

Just wake up and make sure everything’s cleaned. Serve your father-in-law coffee, and whoever else is at the house. Stand up if someone walks in the room. You’re cooking breakfast, lunch and dinner. Go to the market. And that’s how you make them proud.

— Paulina Stevens in “Foretold”

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But it wasn’t just a series of tasks. It was a whole mentality. Paulina describes having to adopt a mindset centered on pleasing the men — and, as she tells it, the person enforcing those expectations was her mother-in-law, Ruby.

My mother-in-law would come in and say, “I know you’re tired. I know you’re exhausted, but your father-in-law really wants you to sing…. Please just perform and serve a little bit. He wants to see your face. He wants to make sure that you’re doing what you gotta do.”

— Paulina Stevens in “Foretold”

At first glance, it could be easy to see Ruby as a villain. Paulina recalls being corrected and scolded over the simplest things, like which direction cups should face when put away in a cabinet. She recalls needing to dress well even while doing chores — exhaustedly scrubbing piles of dishes while wearing dresses and heels. Paulina recalls crying in the only place she could find privacy: the shower.

Why didn’t Ruby show compassion?

Well — maybe that was compassion.

There’s a lot we can’t know about Ruby because she wouldn’t speak with us, but by Paulina’s account, Ruby’s daily grind and, before that, her experiences as a daughter-in-law were very difficult. Ruby, too, must have gone through the culture shock of integrating into a new family and living up to their expectations. But she emerged triumphant, as her family’s matriarch.

Ruby figured out how to make the best of her time as a daughter-in-law. Maybe she was trying to show Paulina how to do the same.

Ruby considered us — she would say, “We’re on the same team.” And I believed that at the time. We both just wanted to make the men happy, I guess.

— Paulina Stevens in “Foretold”

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It’s a very human response. Maybe it’s a coping mechanism. Regardless of the psychology behind it, the pattern repeats itself. People who succeed within a system often reinforce the system rather than try to change it. It’s internalized. And eventually they become the system.

As square as that sounds, it’s surprisingly easy to do, especially for women who are conditioned to “go along” pretty much from birth. If you’ve ever noticed women congregating in the kitchen and cleaning up while men hang around somewhere else, especially during the holidays, you’ve seen this dynamic play out, too.

When a system is that deeply entrenched, it might feel like the best way to help younger women cope is to help them conform.

A part of me was like, “How do you even do it all? How are you happy like this?” I feel like she wanted me to be her. And to a certain degree, I felt like I was turning into her.

— Paulina Stevens in “Foretold”

So Paulina went along. She tried to follow the path. But she couldn’t stick to it forever, and that positioned her and Ruby to clash.

— Jazmín Aguilera and Lauren Raab

About 'Foretold'

“Foretold” is hosted and created by Faith E. Pinho, with senior producer Asal Ehsanipour and producer Alex Higgins, assistant editor Lauren Raab, editors Avery Trufelman and Sue Horton, executive producers Jazmín Aguilera and Heba Elorbany, Romani cultural consultant Dr. Ethel Brooks and audio engineer Mike Heflin.

Theme music by seven-string guitarist and composer Vadim Kolpakov and composer Alex PGSV. Additional original music by Vadim Kolpakov and Alex PGSV, as well as Alex Higgins. Fact checking by Helen Li, Lauren Raab, Asal Ehsanipour and Faith E. Pinho. Additional research by Scott Wilson.

Thanks to Shani Hilton, Kevin Merida, Brandon Sides, Dylan Harris, Carrie Shemanski, Kayla Bell and Nicolas Perez.
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