Everything's Coming Up Rosen
Emily’s been writing a column, essays, travel stories, profiles, features for over 20 years. Her work is available for syndication and reprint.
Realistic Expectations -- Get With the Program, Grandma!
By Emily Rosen
Every so often (rather, every so seldom!) I receive an email from my grown, married son, father-of-two teenagers, who lives in North Carolina. And it's not easy, either, to co-ordinate phone-talk times.
After campaigning for a convenient time for me to visit, he gives me the schedule of their very busy family, indicating the limited period when it would a good time for me to visit, although I am "welcome any time, of course." (Of course).
I do receive OTHER emails from him, giving me one word comments to my many paragraphs.
During the school year when I am granted "an audience," there are weekend parties, basketball, soccer, Jammin' at the J., Tai Kwondo , music lessons, mall walks and overnights with friends. And all the other activities I forgot.
When they have "no plans," they have visiting friends or go to friends' home, or it's computer time, or text messaging, or DVD, or Wei, or sometimes – and this is so rare -- the kids are heady into a good book. And major homework time of course.
The nature of the Friday to early Monday visit does not include a memorable activity,– when – if they don't have anything planned, (see activities above) they don't WANT anything planned. and it's a hang-out day. with a "what'll we do" theme.
Put yourself in their shoes, Grandma! And remember when YOUR grandma came to visit you ? You weren't exactly thrilled. What kind of "visit?" She lived down the block and was always in our house.
Or when you went to visit her ? Yeah, that was surely no fun! She lived in a walkup tenement with no pool and no car. And she couldn't drive, anyway. On the other hand, she did take me places on the subway or the train, actually, places I'd never been to before—Rye beach, the Metropolitan Museum , The cloisters—I remember, I remember.
Sometimes it just FEELS good to vent -- and to know that you're not alone in your disappointments.
I am the first one to tell the world to straighten up and adjust expectations to what is realistic. And I am the one who lectures on the distinction between reasonable expectations and realistic ones. And I always add—if you don't EXPECT – you won't be disappointed. Well how damn true that is!
So this may seem to be about the frustration of having grown children and their progeny who live far away. But actually, it is about expectations. It is REASONABLE to expect the kind of closeness many of us grew up with having Grandparents, and extended family in geographic proximity. But the reality of today is that it doesn't always happen. And it just so happens that it hasn't happened to me.
I accept it, as there is no real choice. It is disappointing nonetheless, despite my having adjusted my expectations. And I thank all the elements in the universe that my life doesn't revolve around my kids or grandkids as theirs surely doesn't revolve around mine. And reluctantly—that's as it should be.
The Mother In Law
By Emily Rosen
I spent this past weekend with my son and his family in North Carolina. I had occasion to be with my daughter in law when we met the Cantor of their synagogue who was training my grandson for his Bar Mitzvah next month. Before she had a chance to introduce us, he said, “This must be your mother. I can see the resemblance.”
I winced, looking for a response from her, as she calmly corrected him. I tried to read how she was processing this emotionally, despite her pretense at allowing the mistake to pass without a visceral reaction.
First of all, there is no physical resemblance between us. She has my beautiful all-gone body from fifty years ago. And nothing else matches, either. Secondly, and much more to the point, her mother, to whom she had been very close, had died a tragic and sudden death on the very day that she and my son were engaged. There is no way to describe how the clash of extreme emotions – unbridled euphoria and the wrenching hell of her sudden loss, had on her psyche. And although it happened 21 years ago, the scars are deep and that trauma has been the subtle and nagging theme of her life for all of these years. And for her to be so blatantly reminded of it in my presence had to make it even more painful to her, as she contemplates the reality that her mother has missed all of the joyous milestones in her life, the here and now but another example of one. And I, at my very advanced years, am still here to savor the moments. She wants to be happy for me, I know. But there is always that other – that other.
It’s been a tough relationship and we have both worked at it. I perceive that at every sight of me, her subconscious rings a little bell that sings, “NOT my mother.” She, on the other hand has tried valiantly to suppress that glaringly achy fact. We walk on eggs around each other, each of us on our best behavior making every attempt at closeness and friendship, every attempt to elevate it from mere tolerance. And it comes in spurts, times when we can really open up to each other and touch on the intimacy that I would like, but that she cannot comfortably unleash. And since we are both professionally steeped in a background of psychology there is an underlying track of the relationship that wants to analyze the real meaning of our words to each other.
And so, it will be another mother’s day for her – replete with all the ambivalences she has experienced since becoming a mother herself -- her very painful loss that never goes away, and the combined joys and challenges that the job entails. Life does go on, and surely hers has. And a small faux pas on the part of the Cantor, who knew not what he was saying, can go seemingly unnoticed , but lingers clumsily in the atmosphere.
And by the way. Don’t you think it’s time for a Mother-In-Law’s day?
Previous Articles by Emily
Another July 4th June 2010
Beggar Man on the Corner May 2010
Sidhartha And The Cell Phone- April 2010
Parking Space Snatcher - March 2010
Cleavage – 2010 - March 2010
The Other Table - February 2010
A Two-fer in February - February 2010
BYE BYE 2009 AND THE WHOLE DAMN DECADE - December 19, 2009
Crashes - December 1, 2009
I'm Glad I'm Not President - November 2009
The Culture of Corruption - October 2009
Bye Bye Newspapers!!! - October 2009
Naked In Alaska - September 2009
Tweet Tweet, My Sweet - August 2009
The Quote Of The Century - August 2009
The Ying and Yang of Kids Today - July 2009
Hugs Are In - June 2009
Gloom and Doom - May 2009
The "Shh" Disease - April 2009
