My parents arrived last Thursday night, only two days after I had lost my voice. Both Raphaela and I had been exchanging viruses until yesterday, when Raphaela got better and my symptoms switched from my throat, to my stomach, plus that annoying echo in my left ear.
We were both too ill to eat with my parents on Friday night, but spent most of the day with them on Shabbat. My parents came over to my house in the afternoon on Sunday to play with Raphaela for a few hours, and yesterday were out of town, and arrived back in Jerusalem after Raphaela had already fallen asleep.
Several times, we have started variations of the discussion of "why did you visit" or "why would you make aliyah" (ie to retire or to be closer to family), and I point out that they need to set priorities, in terms of the way they think about their time here. Are they on vacation? Well, that would explain all these friends they are visiting all over the country. Are they here to spend time with Raphaela? I would hope so, and they say it is true, but it has yet to happen in a substantial way, and what is worse, my mother shows signs of impatience; Raphaela is not warming up to them as quickly as my mother would like. I keep explaining they are vitural strangers to Raphaela, and once she realizes that they are cool and willing to accept her pace, I think the transition will be much smoother.
Raphaela has also started throwing more tantrums in the last week, and I don't know if I can attribute this trend to my parents, my being ill, or her stranger anxiety issues. What I do notice is that when my father speaks to Raphaela, he gets all goofy and smiles and crawls on the floor to be at her level; my mother sits above her and tends to use negative tones and phrasing, like (outloud) "She's looking at me and thinking 'What does this strange woman want from me?'" I made a gentle suggestion, once, to my mother, that she try to be more playful and less severe around Raphaela, and I got a scowl and a mini-lecture about how she has raised five children, and has eleven grandchildren.
So the report card thus far is a B minus, with credit given toward effort to complement Raphaela at various occasions.
5 comments:
What I feel here is that you miss your parents very much, and perhaps you even have a feeling of being neglected by them.
On the other hand, one must be careful not to make too many demands, because it is a vicious circle, through which I have lived several times with friends and also with parents.
If they cannot give me as much attention as I want and I urge them to give me more attention, the result will be that they feel ill at ease with me and they give me less time and attention.
I know this might sound hurtful to you, but when you go to a country you do not see often and you have many friends there, the routine is to go and see them. That's what we always did when we came back to our hometime: first thing: visit all friends and family. As a result, I sometimes saw them more often than the locals who could see them all the time, theoretically. It might be that friends get offended when they hear your parents were in Israel and did not visit them.
All in all, I hear your plea, but I want to appeal to you: Go easy on your parents, don't make to many demands, it might poison the atmosphere and this is the last thing you want.
Furthermore, this is also a vicious circle for ourselves: we hate feeling dependent of our parents, especially at that age (around 40), but the fact that they don't give us attention makes us feel "needy" and dependent, and this is exactley what we hate.
So here too, just for ourselves, it is preferable to act as if you did not need anything, just in order to keep your "self-worth", if you see what I mean.
I write from experience, to myself, not at all in order to criticise you.
I'm with S5 about going easy on them, spoken from experience. I can especially relate to the discussion about their goals for the trip, and the exasperation you feel about the gap between why they SAY they are here, and what they are DOING. My parents do the same thing. But what I came to realize is that they are entitled to their own confusion about why they are here, and they are entitled to handle their competing responsibilities and desires (seeing friends vs. seeing you and Raphaela vs. getting aliyah information) in a less-than-optimal way.
If your mother has always related to babies a certain way, ain't NO WAY you will change her. I'm thinking perhaps it's especially grating for you because she relates to Raphaela the way she relates to you? But AIN'T NO WAY you can change your parents.
I'd say just enjoy the fact that your father is so good with the baby, and let your mother's comments slide as well as you can (as frustrating as it is, I know!). It is possible that indeed Raphaela will never be close with her grandma, but if she develops happy feelings about grandpa, that's very valuable on its own. (If it makes you feel any better, I never developed a close relationship with my father's parents, who lived far away and had their own "issues," but I'm still a productive member of society, and in fact it never bothered me very much. A little, but not much.)
Doc, do your parents read your blog?
I think that you are experiencing what you wrote about previously about feeling second to your parents responsibilities. Are you expecting your parents to spend their entire time in Israel with you 24/7 [realistically won't that drive you crazy?] When you have visited the US (single and with RR), did you spend your entire visit with your parents or did you visit friends, eat out at restaurants or go shopping? It is unrealistic to think that they should have no other plans than to spend their entire visit with you and it is unfair to both you and them. Why even grade their visit? Just enjoy the time they are with you. So what if RR is not performing up to your mother's standards? not every child has to have a close relationship with each grandparent. Perhaps, when RR is older she will have a different relationship. You could in the meantime SKYPE with your parents so RR can see your parents as well as record (either videotape or audio) your parents reading stories to her that you can play for her. Perhaps your parents can send her monthly recordings so RR has something new to look forward to.
First thing I want to say is this: I had not planned on spending the enitre time with my parents, I agree that it would have driven all of us a little mad. But in fact, when I go to the States (and not only because I have a child) I now pretty much only spend time with my family and in my parents' vacinity, I have lost the flexibility to visit my friends (who live all over the country at this point) or even take an afternoon off to go to a museum, and that makes me sad.
Plus the fact that I am still getting over the virus of the week, it limits the amount of physical energy I have to drive us all places, or take walking tours with my parents, or stay awake after nine pm.
In response to the very perceptive question, do my parent read this blog, the answer is no, though my mother claims that she doesn't read it because she "hates" my sharing life details with relative strangers.
Post a Comment