“WHERE COULD YOU BE????”

by Vivien Orbach-Smith on February 7, 2010

candy heartsTrauma or no trauma – can a parent ever let go of the fear of letting go?

 “Viv?”

 The voice on my answering machine was plaintive, panicky.

For as long as my mother lived, I could read the full gamut of her emotions in the way she said my name.

“Daddy and I are watching the news on Channel 5…

Of course: “It’s 10 p.m.; do you know where your children are?” Well, my mother knew where I was, and it frightened her to her core. Done with yeshiva high school (and with New Jersey) by age 16, graduated from NYU by age 20, I was taking my walk on the wild side – through the unrestrained, pre-AIDS Greenwich Village of the mid-1970s.

“They said a girl’s body was found under a bridge, and that she looks… Hispanic! So please, call home!”

“Viv?” she bleated mournfully. “WHERE COULD YOU BE????”

Twenty-five years later, comedian Amy Borkowsky compiled a bestselling book and a CD, “Amy’s Answering Machine,”  from  her mom’s outrageous messages, featuring advice no adult offspring can do without: reminders to use the bathroom before getting on the line in the DMV, tutorials on how not to get gum disease from kissing and on the best shoes to wear on a plane in case of an emergency landing.

My own cassette contained similarly over-the-top gems, but I wasn’t laughing. This wasn’t stereotypical Jewish mother shtick. My parents were refugees from Nazi Germany who were convinced that mortal danger lurked everywhere. As a young child, I was safeguarded from menacing dogs and rabid squirrels, epidemics and undertows, kidnappers and anti-Semites. Later, after I fled the nest, I was warned about Mickey Finns and Peeping Toms, even about – yes – snipers who might put me in their sights if I didn’t shut my window-blinds over University Place. And then there was the cavalcade of dread diseases. Unwashed fruit harbored countless parasites. Ice cream was referred to as “frozen germs.” You could get God-knows-what from a water fountain, or from the toilet-seats in Port Authority Bus Terminal (my gateway to freedom after tense visits home). And Toxic Shock Syndrome, from the lethal, left-in-too-long tampon.

Ironically, my father, a survivor of Auschwitz and of a death march to Buchenwald, was much less angst-ridden than my mother, who escaped Berlin as a teenager with her family in 1939 – after Kristallnacht but before full darkness descended. He fit the profile of the Holocaust survivor who was tough-minded and adaptable, embracing the future despite occasional bouts of rage and despair. She was an intelligent, pious, fragile beauty, with luminous blue-grey eyes that were veiled with sorrow. Of the 400 girls in her Jewish high school, fewer than one out of ten survived.

I hated upsetting my mother, but in those years, there was something about her anxious gaze and frantic tone that infuriated me. Coming of age, as it happened, with legions of young women whose mothers struggled with shifting roles in the early days of feminism, I was openly relieved that I favored my male parent and had inherited his irreverence, and lusty, tenacious spirit.

I recognized that Holocaust trauma was woven into the fabric of our family – “secondhand smoke,” author Thane Rosenbaum would later term it – but was convinced I had dodged its toxic effects.  Unlike some other survivors’ kids I knew, I wasn’t phobic or depressive, anxious or anhedonic. To my parents’ credit, they’d given my younger brother and me plenty of the right stuff too. Their “smoke” was deflected by abundant humor, candor  and love.

And so I partook exuberantly of unwashed (and occasionally forbidden) fruits, sat on every toilet, and flung open the blinds. I dove into churning waters and walked the dark streets of many cities, choosing to trust most of the folks I encountered along the way – good people of every stripe – and rarely finding cause for regret.

More than three decades have passed since the Era of the Over-The-Top Messages – years that began with me embracing my wonderful parents and ended with me burying them; years in which I held my own babies close, and then, opened my hands to let them fly. But during the course of those years, an uncomfortable truth has wafted and billowed, clouding my joy and irritating the hell out of everyone around me.

As a daughter, I was fearless. But as a mother – much as I try to conceal it – I am always, always afraid. [click to continue…]

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Weekly Reader 2.8.10

by Mary Quigley on February 7, 2010

The Club Sandwich Generation

 You’ve heard of  the sandwich generation but what about the club sandwich generation?  Those are  50- and 60-something moms “sandwiched” with aging parents, adult children and grandchildren. Sound familiar? Each group has its own needs, wants and demands and often leaves the mom in the middle, conflicted and guilty.

The emotional strife is only one issue; there’s the “financial trifecta” as well, according to HealthCentral.com,   

 “You’re either saving for college or paying it off, helping your parents with medical or nursing home expenses and saving for your own retirement which may be fast approaching.”

Although blogger Kelcey Kinter’s situation is more a standard sandwich than a club, the feelings she shares in “Caring for Both Your Parents and Kids,” applies to both generations.  She writes in the New York Times about the demands imposed by her aging mother’s hospitalization.

“I will admit that I don’t want to be doing this. I want to be focusing on my children and my husband, the life I have built. I want it to all go away. I want her to hurry up and just be better. I am now and then resentful. I am sometimes angry. And I am completely committed to taking care of my mother.”

For more information see sandwichgeneration.com.  

The Battles of Adult Siblings

Sometime the care-giving for elderly parents falls most heavily on one adult child.  Anyone who has been in that situation knows the spoken and unspoken angst that situation creates  among siblings.

A US News article considers advice from a new book, “They’re Your Parents, Too! How Siblings Can Survive Their Parents’ Aging Without Driving Each Other Crazy.”

Author Francine Russo list nine ways that siblings don’t consider each others feelings.  On the list:

  • Thinking that “if my sibling is doing the parent care, I’m off the hook”
  • Not giving appreciation and emotional support to the main caregiver
  • Falling prey to the “killer” misconception that “I shouldn’t have to ask”
  • Not planning for tough realities ahead
  • Thinking everyone mourns in the same way
  • Automatically reverting to childhood roles.

On that last point, the article notes:

The big sister who always took care of everything may take on the bulk of the responsibility, while her little brother, out of habit, may let her do so unquestioningly. Beware of that magnet pulling you back to childhood. “Those roles can be very counterproductive,” says Russo

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The Second Time Around: Buying a Car Seat

January 31, 2010

You need an engineering degree to select among the dizzying array of car seat models,  not to mention proper installation to follow the latest safety guidelines! 
Toy R Us:  It’s been more than a decade since I shopped this treasure trove.  Yet it was déjà vu as I stepped into a store last week: Barbie dolls, Legos, dinosaurs.  Much of [...]

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Weekly Reader 2.1.10

January 31, 2010

The Dating Dilemma
Single parents face a sticky issue when it comes to dating: the negative reaction of their adult children.  In “Senior Dating—Dealing With Adult Children,” the folks at eHarmony offer some advice.  One suggestion: have a heart-to heart conversation with the “kids”:
 Tell them that the love of children and/or grandchildren can’t satisfy a person [...]

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They Really Do Need Us, Study Proves!

January 24, 2010

Telephoning, texting, emailing, Skyping, visiting, shopping, sharing a meal,  vacationing together, running a 5K,  doing home repairs:  The ways that parents interact with their adult children range from the mundane to the magical.  A family studies professor examined those everyday interactions between parents and adult children and published a survey with some surprising results.
Purdue University Professor [...]

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Weekly Reader 1.25.10

January 24, 2010

 You’re under arrest for not leaving home
 In the U.S. we call them “boomerang kids.”  In Italy, the term is bamboccioni or “big babies”  for the 59 percent of adult children aged 18-34 who live at home.
Now an Italian official wants to push the bamboccioni out of the nest and proposed a new law to require [...]

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Why Is It My Fault?

January 17, 2010

If something goes wrong on vacation does the mom usually feel responsible?
It sounded like a great idea — a week in the sun with our college-age daughter.  We’d get a break from the routine in the city and the biting cold; she’d get a chance to recover from exams and catch up on her sleep.  [...]

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Weekly Reader 1.18.10

January 17, 2010

Tug of war
What happens when competing grandparents start to keep a tally of visits?
 In “Parents’ demands for visit just result in guilt trip” Washington Post columnist Carolyn Hax suggests that when grandparents act like children they should be treated like children. Adult children should use simple rules: set up a schedule of visits, reward good [...]

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The Happiness Factor

January 11, 2010

News flash:  An 87-year-old, white-haired grandma enjoys old age!   
Betty Schneider, featured on the PBS “Rethinking Happiness” series last week, finds that a full social schedule, taking classes and spending time with her children and grandchildren adds up to a “wonderful” life.
 The series reported on research debunking the myth that we become unhappier as we grow [...]

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Weekly Reader 1.11.10

January 11, 2010

Don’t Call Me Grandma
 We’ve seen this story before but here’s another spin about grandparents who use foreign-language terms for grandma and grandpa.  Why do “Grandparents Put Aside Yesterday’s Labels”?
For many, it means connecting with their ethnic roots; for others, such words are just easy to pronounce or sound good. Some say the words are often [...]

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