Sometimes, Raphaela does something fun and magical, and I want to tell someone else about it. Sometimes I need to talk to another adult, as a sounding board. Today I wanted to talk about the parking ticket I received (grrr) and Raphaela's teething.
I'm not married and not in a relationship, and so, more often than not, I call my parents. Wow, that makes me feel so lame. 42 years old, living in another country, and I can't think of anyone besides my parents who would appreciate me or my daughter.
My father always forgets his cell phone, and so he is most often unreachable, or with patients at work. 90% of the time, my mother is off to do some good deed in her community: praying for a sick person, taking someone to chemotherapy, teaching a class, doing a night shift at the mikva, preparing and sitting with a dead body before the funeral, making my father breakfast...When I see the words in front of me, I think, "My goodness, my mother is a saint, always taking care of others and never asking for anything in return. Thank G-d she leads a fulfilling life, full of compassion for others."
Except that I resent it. For the past 42 years, service to the Jewish community has competed with time spent focusing on family, and the community usually wins. This is the paradign my grandmother established, and passed onto my mother. We always had to behave well because it reflected on my parents to the outside world, and not for the sake of learning responsibility and good behaviour, for its own merit. When we were young, almost every Shabbat meal, my mother invited friends and very often strangers who needed a place to eat; to this day, I have a hard time entertaining a large group of guests, I don't like how it makes me feel.
I am getting tired of hearing, "Can't talk, very busy" when I call Boston. The seven hour time difference doesn't cut it as an excuse anymore. I don't think my parents realize how hard it is sometimes to be a single mother, with no consistent support system. I don't think they realize how important it is for me to hear a friendly and supportive voice on the other end of the phone.
Maybe the situation will improve when they come to visit Israel in two weeks, and spend some time with their granddaughter. Or maybe I should not have any expectations.
6 comments:
From what I know of you and what I've seen in the blog, I'd be willing to bet that they don't realize that you don't HAVE a support system, or that you WANT one. You come across as staunchly independent and strong, and have made it clear to them in the past that you prefer to make your own decisions and go your own way. So maybe they don't realize that, in this particular way, you actually do need them.
I would agree to some extent, that I do present an independent front.
And it's not that I don't have a support system, but rather that realistically, at the end of the day, I am the only one responsible for Raphaela, and the rest of my life, and I go to sleep alone.
As far as them not realizing that I need them, I have gotten a lot better at making my needs known, but they are so used to ignoring me (and I say that in the kindest way possible) that my very specific requests go unheard.
Tonight I called, was immediately told that there wasn't time to talk to me, before I even opened my mouth. So I said, "Uh uh, I will let you go, bye." Because I felt like I wasn't given any other choice.
Why don't you explain the situation and make a phone date with your mom or dad or both at different times? Just say flat out "I need time to talk to you and you're always so busy, can we pencil something in?" I find that calling my mom first thing in the morning her time (between 7- 7:30 am is the easiest, she's not busy yet.) Don't know if you ever have time at 2 pm, but it works for us.
abbi's idea sounds good of setting up a set time that you call. it sounds like when you call they are in the middle of doing something and that you expect them to drop everything to talk. Let's say they are taking someone to chemo who has no one else to take them. You call out of the blue. If they talk on the phone with you for however long you need to talk (and they do not want you to feel they are rushing you off the phone), that person might miss their appointment and be really delayed. If you set up a set time, then they might be more likely to talk rather than get off the phone hurriedly and you feel shortshrifted.
I have an arrangement of sorts with my parents, that we speak officially every Friday. I am upset more about the fact that if I simply feel like talking to my mother or father, spontaneously as humans do, we can't connect.
I think it is wonderful that my mother does so much to help within her community, I wish that I didn't feel that it came at the expense of our relationship.
Every child, no matter how old, wants to feel like they matter more to their family than strangers.
Sarah, as a 42-yo single mother with observant family, I totally get what she's talking about. And Doc, you really have to let go of the expectations. They're of their generation, they're self-absorbed, they don't want to know, they don't think they should have to provide support. In their world, mothers have husbands, and if they don't, it's just too scary and awkward for them to handle, or it's a tragedy. Their accommodation for you is that they don't treat you like a tragedy. In ten years, when you don't need it, they might wise up and see how lousy they've been, though no doubt they'll make excuses for themselves.
Most comfortable people do not want to be disturbed. Please do not hold out tremendous hope of support, emotional or otherwise, from any well-off, comfortable community. If you find such a person who's really there for you, recognize that that person is like gold, and treasure her.
And I do get it, Doc. I had a few scary months of unemployment in early '09, when the economy fell apart here. No help was forthcoming from observant family, though I got the tsk-too-bad-maybe-something-will-work-out. Turned out later that same comfortably well-off family was giving thousands to Jewish causes at the same time. Same family had also pleaded low-income after promising to pay half of the costs for a trip to see them, and then writing a check for only a token amount. My expecations were adjusted, lemme tell you. It took me over a year to pay off that trip.
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