Mom Slips, Slightly

I must commend my parents for the overwhelming and warm emotional support they have given in the last few weeks. After a year of struggling with their unspoken and spoken fears and judgement, they have figured out what to say to me, how to say it and how often.

Most of the time.

In speaking to my mother this week, she took on a sudden and serious tone, and said, "I need your help." Her concerns of "what will the neighbors say" have returned, and she feels that requires an automated response, when people in her community of Boston start asking her how it is that I got pregnant. (Well, the Daddy sperm meets the Mommy egg, they get it on and nine months later a baby comes out...)

My reaction as always was to remind my mother that it is nobody's business in terms of the private deliberations and considerations that have consumed the last two and a half years of my life. The most appropriate - though rude - response is just that.

But I understand that my parents live in an insular Jewish community, one which feels that your business is everyone's business, and that there is no line that cannot be crossed in the pursuit of gossip. This is also a conservative Jewish community which frowns upon extra-curricular sexual activities, and it is most unacceptable to them that a woman of any age should enter into motherhood without a proper husband, the candidate for said marriage vetted by both the family and the community.

I gave my mother the one-liner she needed: "I have not yet found my husband and hope to some day, and until such time, did not want to miss out on the miraculous and amazing experience of becoming a parent." The bonus line, in case my mother feels the extra shame, is to mention that all this was done under halachic supervision.

After getting this nasty topic out of the way, my mother then spent the next ten straight minutes overcompensating, screaming down the phone how much she loves and supports and me, and how much she knows she will love her new grandchild.

Ironically, I later met with my friend Michal, who comes from an equally intolerant Sephardi religious family. Michal (who is a lesbian and has a lovely long-term partner named Yael) has been asked by her mother to lie and say that she got pregnant with a boyfriend who is no longer in the picture. The other option Michal's mother gave her was to enter into a sham gunshot wedding with a man and divorce quickly, and miraculously emerge pregnant.

I am told by many that despite hideous parental behaviour across the board, as soon as the child enters in the world, all issues melt away, and all that is left is Love. Here's hoping.