Friends come and go, but is FAMILY really forever?
The day my father called to tell me my mom had cancer, I hung up the phone, turned to my husband and said, “Well, that’s the end of my family.” I said it, but I didn’t believe it. I didn’t want to believe it, though I knew it was true my mom was the glue that bonded us to each other. I’d been an integral part of a family for 45 years. I was the baby, the last born of three, and my mom raised us all with the philosophy that friends come and go, but family is forever. And I believed her, in fact, adopted the ideal as real.
After I moved from my parents’ home I came back for every holiday, talked to my mom several times a week, called and sent gifts for special occasions. It never struck me as odd that when I called home and my father answered he’d simply hand the phone to my mother. It nicked my feelings when I gave gifts to my sisters three kids for every birthday, holiday and achievement, and they never even said “Thanks,” but my mom assured me, “kids are like that these days.” Behavior I’d never accept from a friend became acceptable because my sister’s kids were ‘family.’
During the last bit of my mother’s illness our family spent even more time together. We gathered at my parents’ home, the one we were all born and raised in, sat at the kitchen table and talked in hushed voices, my mom slowly dying in the bedroom down the hall. I spent hours, cross-legged on her bed talking with her, but when she died we were unable to resolve the lifetime of discord between us.
There was, and still is no doubt my mom loved me, deeply, profoundly, passionately. She showed it, consistently calling me to stay connected. And even though our talks frequently devolved to arguing about how she felt I should be living, she never abandoned me, exited my life despite how harsh it was between us so much of the time. ‘Friends come and go but family is forever.’
Two decades after my mom’s death, I have no relationship with my father. He does not call, doesn’t return my calls when I call him. He does not know his grandchildren anymore, has not seen them in ten years, doesn’t call them, acknowledge their birthdays, has no clue how old they are, or how proud he should be of my great kids. It didn’t resonate as strange that my mom always signed both their names with every card and gift she sent her ‘grandbabies.’ It was the woman’s role, after all, to take care of such things in the world I grew up in.
My sister stopped talking to my family sixteen years ago. Though my kids had established what we all felt was a loving relationship with their aunt since birth, about two years after my mom’s passing my sister informed us in an email that it was too much of a bother to maintain any relationship with her niece and nephew. She, too, has not sent them a card or called them since. She refuses to talk to any of us since my DH sent her a three sentence email asking her to please send our daughter her birthday card on her birthday instead of three months later with the card she sent for our son’s birthday. Oh, and he asked her to please spell her niece’s name correctly on the cards. My sister felt this was too much to ask of her, and exited our lives, an action she never would have taken when our mom was alive.
For the first couple years after my mom died, I called and emailed my father regularly. If I got him on the phone, which was rare, I made sure to have my kids talk with him. Per my mother’s teaching, I thought it important my children maintain a relationship with their grandfather. I called him. He never called me. A month or more before my kids birthdays I’d remind him in weekly voicemails and emails to make sure he’d acknowledge their special day’s. When I forgot to remind him (for the fifth time) a few days before his granddaughter’s 7th birthday, he sent nothing. And it’s been that way since.
Ever look at your life and think, “this can’t be mine”? I had a family once, for almost 50 years they were woven into my life’s story. My kids had family beyond their parents. Their grandmother, even their aunt (until my mom died) graced them with that profound measure of security the actions of love provide. They believed in their grandfather’s love as well, simply by association, since his actions were always rather lacking.
Both my kids claim it doesn’t bother them their aunt and their grandfather have checked out of their lives. They graciously remind me that they have their father’s mom, and his sister, their other aunt. But they live back east and we haven’t spent near the amount of time as a family as we did with mine when my mom was alive and just a few hours from the Bay. I find it impossible to believe being abandoned by my family as they have been doesn’t nick them internally a bit. My son, and now even my daughter will not give my sister the honored moniker ‘Aunt.’ The rare occasion she’s mentioned, they refer to her only by her given name, on par with some transient acquaintance they once knew.
I no longer have the foundation of my family I thought I once did. I see now that ‘family is forever’ was my mother’s wish, not reality. Her desire to retain the family connection she lacked in her own home growing up was so raw, and our love for her so powerful that while she was alive we all honored her need. This year, for the first time in my life I didn’t sent my dad a Father’s Day card, nor called him to acknowledge the day. I’m just so tired of pretending his abhorrent selfish behavior is acceptable.
Thing is, I can’t stop wondering what I did so wrong that my father and sister would abandon my family as they’ve done. Both fervent Republicans and religious zealots, they clearly feel we have nothing to say to each other anymore. Maybe we never did, and I just didn’t notice, languishing under the security blanket of perceived love, the spillover of actualized love my mother extended so freely.
Twenty years later I still mourn the loss of my mom, virtually daily. I’m also grieving the loss of my family. But unlike losing a loved one to death where the sting of loss lessens with time—every birthday, occasion and achievement that passes without my remaining families acknowledgment fuels my internal rage, and taints these events with a deep and abiding sadness. And I’m truly lost what to do about that. As long as they’re alive, I don’t know how to let them go.
Christians and Muslims (actual believers, not in name only because they celebrate Christmas or Eid al-Fitr) believe the purpose of living is to serve and reflect their God’s will to ensure their assent to heaven after death.
Jews focus on the present rather than an afterlife. They believe humans should partnerwith their God in completing, repairing, and perfecting His creation.
Buddhists have no God. They want to wipe out greed, hate, mental anguish caused by desire, attachment, and ignorance to reach Nirvana (not the band ;-})—where the mind achieves clarity and peace. Rebirth is extinguished for the enlightened (those who achieved Nirvana), like a flame going out.
Hindus have Brahman, their Supreme God that takes many godlike forms. Their purpose in life is much like Buddhists—to reach Moksha (spiritual liberation), the end of reincarnation. They are unique in that they give no rigid purpose to living, but provide a moral, ethical framework for living a meaningful life and achieving Moksha.
I am an atheist, so I, alone, must determine my purpose in being alive. While I’m not a Nihilist, I agree there is no inherent, or dictated [by a god] meaning or purpose to life. My mother and father created me, as did theirs before them and so on, back to the earliest humans. All life here emerged through entropy, not born of some cosmic energy carving morality in stone or assigning us purpose.
Since I believe no god ormysticalforce gives me purpose, I’m free to create my own. I was lucky to be raised by Jews in name only—celebrating Hanukkah and went to temple on Yom Kipper, though in discussions driving home learned neither my mom or dad believed in Bible ‘fables,’ or a god. With no Grand Plan, like most of us I still needed one, something to motivate me to get out of bed in the morning. I, too, require some sense of purpose in living, and a reason to stay alive through dark times.
My mother was a devout social advocate. We spent many holidays feeding homeless, or handing out relief supplies to wildfire victims my formative years. She raised me with the foundation that all of us can make time to help others with less, especially those who have what they need. My father was a dreamer, and a philosopher at heart. His dominant side was a narcissist though—theory was fun to ponder, but getting to the best of us required his exclusive wisdom and guidance.
My old life’s purpose is partly a product of my parentage. My father believed a woman’s purpose—all women, in fact—is to reproduce. My mother was certain that raising kids would be the richest, most rewarding part of my life (and indeed they have been!). Having children, with mom as their primary caretaker, was the only consistent messaging my folks agreed on, (and society at large in the 1970s), so finding a mate and creating a family became my primary focus.
Since childhood, the life’s purpose I conjured was to raise kids better then me—kinder, more creative, emotionally intelligent, more aware of and caring for the world beyond theirs. I was sure that if each generation invested their TIME and energy into raising their children, gen over gen would become smarter, more innovative, more collaborative, and humans could reach our creative, compassionate potential.
I was that stupid.
Parenting is an art, not a science. Being there for your kids means way different things for different people. Both my husband and I worked full-time throughout their childhood, though my consulting career in marketing took a back seat to parenting, which basically killed it. (Running your own gig is like nurturing children—requires focused time and effort.)
By my kid’s measure, I’ve been present, available, attentive to my kids since their births, my focus on them, their needs first. I was lucky our combined income and investments allowed me to do so. Many parents can not, or choose not to make their progeny their highest priority while pursuing their own greatness. They raise latch-key kids who must fend for themselves for the most part while both parents work. With no safe harbor, children grow up afraid, resentful, angry.
My sister basically abandoned her kids to her nanny and our mother while she played tennis and traveled with her husband. And both her kids are angry, lost adults. Other parents are poor role models, instilling racism, blind faith, hate into their kids.
My life’s purpose before kids was clear, and simple really: to raise kind and productive people, and instill in them a desire to do the same. And so I have. But they are not one of many in a kinder, wiser, more empathetic gen, they are an anomaly. Regardless the safe harbor I provided my kids, they grew up lonely in a neighborhood where children were indoctrinated with religion from birth, often racist and mean-spirited, and focused on themselves and what they could get instead of give.
So much for my Utopian dream.
My kids are now adults, in their mid-20s finding their own purpose, creating their own lives. I have the time to indulge in the writing career I pivoted to when they were young. I have the time, but lately I seem to have lost the inclination to write anything beyond blogs. And if you read my essays, you’ll notice the tenor of my posts lately—I am completely and utterly lost, without purpose.
It’s not classic empty-nest syndrome because I worked while raising kids, so they weren’t my entire life, just my first priority. And I have many interests to pursue, from writing to mentoring to traveling, even becoming more intimate with my husband of 30 yrs. So why every morning when I wake up do I lay in bed for half and hour wondering what the hell I’ll do today, and even if I come up with something I’m wondering the point in doing it at all.
I can’t make humans kinder with my writing. No one can motivate or legislate anyone to care beyond themselves. The best I can do is entertain, and we’re already flooded with entertainment choices a lot less heady than mine, which is why I’m read by mostly intellectuals, engineers, math heads, professors—people who think more than just believe. While I’m grateful for my readers, I don’t have many and have a hard time getting them in a world that prefers mindless entertainment. And it isn’t fun for me writing meaningless crap. So daily, when I sit down at my desk and the cursor is blinking at me, I wonder what the point is in continuing to write.
I could go back to teaching entrepreneurs how to create sustainable startups, but a decade of doing so at Stanford and Cal Berkeley was a lesson in futility. Students want to build their ideas more then walk the tedious process of how to sell them. And most of their offerings were iterations on middle-men SaaS money grabs—drop-shipping on Amazon, or sites like Realtor or Robinhood, or yet another ‘AI-curated’ media site.
By my mother’s example, I was raised that our purpose in living was to serve—our family, our community, our planet. Most were taught, often by example, to serve themselves, which is why we have Instagram, corrupt CEOs, oligarchs, politicians, and ‘good people’ on their cellphone while driving causing 14% of fatal crashes in 2024. I grew up with a life’s purpose—to contribute to reaching humanity’s amazing potential—but I no longer believe in it.
“I saw someone die today, Mom,” my daughter told me on the phone, her voice four octaves higher than normal, like she’d been sucking on helium.
“Where are you?” I heard street noise in the background.
“I’m on the 101. I’m driving home from the hospital.” Again, her voice was…off—too high, too cheery. “I saw her die, Mom. She was fine, then she flatlined and died.”
“You OK?”
“I am.” She was practically giggling. “Really. It was bizarre, for sure, but I’m fine.”
She didn’t sound fine. “Honey, I want you to get off the freeway at the next exit and pull over so we can talk about this.” I was in my office, a thousand miles away.
“I’m telling you, I’m fine. I can handle this, when I’m a doctor,” she insisted in that squeaky voice. “I was cleaning her room, and we were talking about her daughter at UCSD—” her voice cracked right then and she stopped talking.
“Jade, I want you to get off the freeway. Right now. How far to the next exit?”
“I’m taking it right now.”
“Pull over on a side street, and shut off your car, then talk to me.”
I raised our kids with an open forum, not the surface, pc-level shit most people spout. The ‘I’m fine! Biz is great! Everything’s dandy’ bullshit my parents and colleagues pushed down my throat daily wasn’t going to fly in the family I created (or my friendships that stick). “Talk to me,” is my personal mantra.
“OK. I pulled over,” my daughter said, her voice deeper now, though still not exactly normal.
“Good. Now turn off your car and tell me what happened.”
“She just had gallbladder surgery, just like you did last yea—year.” Her voice cracked, like a teen boy entering manhood. “She was fine…” Gasping breaths and I could hear, even feel her anxiety attack coming on. “Her daughter was in the hallway…When she flatlined a bunch of nurses came in and then doctors and they were shocking her and it didn’t work then they did it again and again and I just stood there, holding the trashcan I just emptied.” And I heard my beautiful daughter sobbing on the other end of the phone, and I was a thousand miles away from being able to hold her.
“Honey, I’m right here. You’re OK. Deep breaths. Breathe with me. Breathe in… Breathe out… It must have been really hard to witness that. I can’t imagine it. It’s why I never wanted to be a doctor,” I say deadpan to lighten the mood but could still hear her struggling to catch her breath. “OK. Let’s do some box breathing.” And we did, all four sides, in and out. In and out.
“Her daughter was my age,” she said, weeping as she spoke. “It could have been you, Mom. It could have been you and I can’t lose you yet.”
“I’m right here, baby. I’m healthy, and I’m active and I’m here for you.”
“Does this mean I’ll make a lousy doctor?”
Of course, I said it made her human—the best kind of doctor. Maybe too human, but I didn’t say that. I listened as she unraveled from giddy shock. She told me how one of the nurses asked her to get a sheet to cover the dead woman, then helped the nurse place it over the body. She saw the doctor talking to the daughter crying in the hallway.
“She kept asking the doctor, ‘What? What do you mean?’ like she didn’t believe him that her mom was dead. She wasn’t suppose to die, Mom. And now she’s dead. And I don’t want it to be you.”
“It isn’t me, Jade. I’m right here.”
“Now!” she almost yelled. “But what if you never get to know my kids, like that daughter today, or your mom?”
I listened, empathized, and helped quell her fears for another half hour before she was calm enough to get back on the road and go home to her shared apartment off-campus. She’d have roommates to talk to there, two young women also pursuing the medical pathway at UCSD. I told her to call or text me when she got home, just to check in she got home safely, and fifteen minutes later she texted she did.
Heavy sigh of relief, but in the distance, far beyond my grateful nod my daughter was safe to an almighty I don’t believe in, I felt…annoyed. I never wanted to be a doctor. Never played one as a kid. Didn’t like them because every time I had to see them either I, or someone I cared about was sick. And they’re so sure of themselves they don’t listen beyond test results, and half the time don’t know what they’re talking about even though they pretend they do. I don’t like doctors. And my daughter is on her way to becoming one.
I try to keep my personal disdain for her career choice to myself, but beyond my distaste for the medical community, I hate blood and gore. I can’t look at it on TV or in the movies. I have to look away because it literally makes me feel like I’m going to vomit. I won’t let her describe to me the process of guillotining rats for her spine research lab assistant position on campus, but on the phone I did remind her she got used to doing it after a few times.
My daughter’s wanted to become a doctor since she was child. At 10, when we allowed her an email account [under her choice of pseudonym], her first address was doctorscientistsoccer@. She got accolades when she told teachers to girl scout leaders she wanted to be a doctor, but that seemed to be the extent of her interest in medicine. She played soccer but I never saw her play doctor. People in wheelchairs or maimed or missing body parts scared her when she was young, and no matter what I said she would not engage with them. If a movie involved a child losing one or both parents, or parents losing their kid, she’d come undone—start crying that would sometimes escalate into a full-blown anxiety attack. She ran up to her room sobbing towards the end of Dances With Wolves when the wolf was killed.
Handling illness and loss didn’t exactly seem to be our daughter’s forte. Becoming a doctor requires compartmentalizing your feelings—locking yours away to deal with the patient or situation at hand. And maybe she could learn this skill over time, but I don’t want my daughter burying her emotions, denying her feelings, and becoming the automaton most doctors I’ve met seem to be. And let’s not forget, spending her career jumping through hoops of insurance companies to give patients the care they need without killing them financially. I wish for my daughter so much more than a lifetime of attending to others’ suffering.
I’ve never ever wanted to journey down the path of practicing medicine, yet I feel like I’ve been unwittingly roped into it. Along with her undergrad degree in Biology, volunteering at Palomar hospital was resume building for medical school. Before the death of this mom, she called me often to unload—overwhelmed by the coursework, or the illness she saw at the dermatology clinic she worked for, or torn over the moral quandary of ‘murdering rats’ in the lab.
Becoming a doctor requires more education than becoming a rocket scientist. I never considered endeavoring down such a very long, hard, expensive career path, self-doubt assuring me I’d fail if I attempted it. Since she’s ventured down the medical road, I’ve been our daughter’s emotional and financial support system through her undergrad degree; four, nail-biting waiting for scores, MCATs; spent months helping her edit countless essays for various med school applications. And right when I think maybe I can get a break from all this, she’ll be on pins and needles for the next 6 to 8 months waiting to hear where, if, she’s been accepted to study for four more years before another four to seven years of residency. And even when, if, she gets in, it’ll cost her $300k in student loans on top of the $100k we’ll give her. Becoming a doctor is very expensive!
When she was little, she used to build these incredible structures—towers 8 ft high out of Magnatiles. She has a great sense of physics and I used to imagine she’d get over saying she wanted to be a doctor when she realized what it takes to get there, and the hardship of constantly dealing with people in pain and corporate corruption. She’d become a civil engineer or architect, create structures of beauty and utility, and still live well.
I set up an open forum of communication for the family I created because I never had it in my own growing up. My ‘turn that frown upside down,’ or ‘make lemonade out of lemons’ mother denied every negative feeling of mine, of hers, until her deathbed when she spewed hate at her husband, my narcissist of a father, for two straight weeks before the cancer silenced her.
The next 2 to 3 months are going to be tense at home. We’re all waiting to hear from medical schools my daughter applied to that are interested enough to ask for ‘secondaries’—school‑specific applications requiring their own essays and fees. Assuming she gets requests for secondaries, I’ll have to work with her for another 2 months helping her edit more essays for each school. Then we have to wait another 3 to 5 months to hear if she’s been accepted anywhere.
My daughter is going to be a doctor. Oh joy!
Not so much…
Assuming she gets into a med school, I’m going to have to hear about gruesome details of human anatomy, disease, diagnosis, pain, death, and many of her experiences through residency. Except I never wanted to be a doctor, or walk the path of becoming one. And I still don’t. Just the thought of blood, cutting someone open in surgery, makes me ill. But a part of me, the adult part with a broader view than my personal gratification, understands my daughter is honoring my vision by choosing to devote her life to the welfare of others, and I’ll do whatever I can to support her achieving this goal.
I can hear the chorus of non-breeders and parents more devoted to their work than the kids they create dissing me for helicopter parenting. But the road to becoming a doctor, or even a rocket scientist isn’t like becoming a soldier or real estate broker where the barrier to entry is extremely low. “Emotional support from family is one of the strongest predictors of admissions and persistence in medical school,” AAMC, AMA, and tons of medical education studies have found.
We play God giving life, having kids. My sister had three. The first two she pursued her own bliss, playing tennis for hours daily, taking two week vacations 3 to 5 times a year leaving her kids with our mother, or a nanny. Her husband, their father, found his value devoting his life to his career. Both their kids struggled academically regardless that they had the financial means for expensive tutors. Both dropped out of college and have no discernible careers. At 46 and 44, they both are always hustling to make ends meet, pay the bills—get by.
My sister had her third child seven years after her daughter. This boy loved the violin from the first time he heard the instrument. My sister gave him one at 5 yrs old and signed him up for lessons. The instructor told her son the proper posture for holding and playing the violin, and for the next decade my sister worked with her son most every day, for an hour or more, coaching him to: “Lift your elbow. Drop your shoulder. Center your chin.” She took him to his lessons, attended his recitals and proudly invited friends and family. A guitarist herself, they played music together often—a bizarrely bonding experience (if you’ve not done it and don’t know). My sister formed a connection with her last child she’d neglected to establish with her first two. She gave her baby her most precious gift—her TIME.
Her son, at 37, is a successful ARTIST—likely the hardest career to attain. He got into the prestigious Berklee School of Music with my sister’s emotional and financial support from applying through attending. He now co-owns a gallery in the posh Wilshire district of L.A. where he showcases famous and up-and-coming artists. He shows and sells his work globally. Financially stable. Happily married with kids. A resounding success by every measure.
Tell me parental support doesn’t really matter and you’re lying to you.
I always wanted kids, not only to raise them better than my parents did, but to create human beings that were better than me—kinder, more receptive, perceptive, smarter choices and actions for themselves and the lives they touch. I had this notion that if each gen raised their children better than the last, people could rise above our petty prejudices and squabbles and learn from each other, work together and reach our true creative, compassionate potential. Our children’s children’s children wouldn’t know poverty, inequity, blind faith or hate. Imagine what we could create…
Thing is, most don’t share my vision, so absorbed in their day-to-day they can’t see the forests [we’re killing] through the trees [on their block]. And that’s a shame, really. Contrary to popular perception, our individual lives don’t really matter in the long run. Regardless of how famous you become, or the amount of money you make, or even your memories from life experiences, it all goes when you die. You may be remembered by family, friends or fans for a while, but even your memory will fade for most everyone in short order. The greatest contribution we can make in our lifetime is in service to others. Raising kids, supporting parents, friends, colleagues, strangers, we create a better world when we invest our time, energy, and heart into each other.
Typically, on Sunday mornings my husband and I share articles from the New York Times. He’ll often read me pieces while I prepare breakfast or vice versa, and we’ll discuss the ones that pique our interest. The year-end edition of the Sunday Magazine runs detailed obituaries on a handful of famous and infamous people who died that year. Though many are well-known — actors, x-presidents, and the like, some are more obscure, but they all share one thing in common. They all had [at least] 15 minutes of fame.
I began to feel increasingly irritated as my husband read the list of obits this morning. My mom, who also died this year will never be in the NYT. Where was the balance with the everyday hero — the dad who worked his life to support his family, or the career woman who slated her ambitions to be a mom? The nurse who stayed through the worst of Covid? The teacher that ignited their students’ passions laying the foundation for careers? The rideshare driver that played therapist to his passengers? Their stories are equally important as some one-hit wonder or marginal actor.
Even the most common among us had lives that mattered, that touched many, and their stories deserve to be told.
On my mother’s death bed she asked me, “Did I make a difference?” She stared at me with sunken eyes, her skeletal face practically begging me for an affirmative answer. And I gave her one. And, of course, it was true. She was my mom. She made a difference to me.
She turned me on to love, color, beauty, nature, music, art. She would often point out a vibrant flower, stop everything to view a sunset, and be truly awestruck by its magnificence. My mom was childlike in many ways, always curious, and loved learning. She genuinely liked most people. She was open to ideas, as long as they weren’t filled with hate or born of ignorance.
In the late 1940s, from 16 to 18 yrs old, my mother sat on the back of the bus with Blacks to protest segregation on her daily ride to the University of Florida. Christmas Day for 20 yrs she booked us, and anyone else who’d join us, to serve the homeless at Hollywood Methodist. She was a humanitarian before it was trending, and without prejudice, and, by her example, she taught me to respect all things equally.
She was a wife for nearly 50 years. My dad used to call her his ‘sunshine.’ Laughter and joy came easily to her. They danced beautifully together. He’d glide her across any dance floor in perfect sync, though he was 6’3” and 230 pds, and she a mere 5’ and slight. She sang all the time and had a beautiful voice, carrying the harmony that blended perfectly with my father’s melody.
My mom was a passionate and devoted teacher. She created an ocean science program through the Cabrillo Marine Museum she taught to underprivileged kids that is still active today. I’ve had the privilege of meeting several of her students while with my mom in the market or mall. They’d stop her in the aisle and tout her praises, often claimed they became oceanographers and biologists because of her influence. She loved kids. They were uncomplicated — what she pretended to be, even wanted to be, but wasn’t.
I sat cross-legged next to her lying on her death bed trying to exude the love I felt for this woman, my mother. But as I ran through her list of accomplishments, her expression became darker and sadder, and my “turn that frown upside down” mom started to cry. She wanted to give so much more. And she had so much more to give, but she realized, lying helpless in bed and gasping for every breath, her time had run out.
Two weeks later I stood over her grave and refused the dirt-filled shovel the clergy handed to me. I knelt and scooped a handful of moist, sweet earth from the freshly dug ground, smelled its musty richness, and then let it fall off my hand and run through my fingers as I released it onto her casket. And then I silently thanked her for teaching me to recognize natural beauty and engage with it at every opportunity.
My mom died of cancer at 73. Over 100 people attended her funeral. Another hundred or more have contacted our family since her death to give their condolences — lives she touched, who will touch the lives of others, and so on.
Andy Warhol was wrong. Most of us live and die in obscurity.
Pick any famous author, artist, or musician, and they’ll all have obsession in common. And while we, the public, enjoy the fruits of their creative labors, those closest to these individuals were/are generally left wanting more of them, more from them.
Charles Schulz, creator of the Peanuts comic strip, “was an indifferent and often inattentive father and husband.”
Rod Serling, of Twilight Zone fame, “worked 12 hours a day seven days a week, [and] his wife, Carol, tended to their daughters, Jodi and Anne.”
Adrienne Armstrong, wife of Billy Joe Armstrong of Greenday, said of her husband after the release of the album American Idiot, “I think it challenged us to a new level, pushed us pretty far, the farthest I ever want to go.”
The creatives above are all men. All married and all had/have children.
Now let’s explore a few famous women.
The romance novelist Jane Austen never married. She was, in fact, ‘relieved in later life to have avoided the pitfalls of married life, not least the huge risks of childbirth, “all the business of Mothering.’”
Georgia O’Keeffe, the surrealist painter, “wanted to have children but agreed with him [her husband, Alfred Steiglitz] that motherhood was incompatible with her art. She needed to focus all of her attention on her painting.”
Oprah Winfrey, the media mogul has never married. “The very idea of what it means to be a wife and the responsibility and sacrifice that carries — I wouldn’t have held that very well.” And she never had children. “If I had kids, my kids would hate me. They would have ended up on the equivalent of the “Oprah” show talking about me; because something [in my life] would have had to suffer and it would’ve probably been them.”
Ms. Winfrey had the guts to address the unvarnished, unspoken truth when she referred to the “responsibility and sacrifice,” in being a partner and mother. She understood the investment of time, physical and mental energy it takes to be a conscientious parent would have interfered, even waylaid immersion with her siren to grow a multi-billion-dollar empire.
Men have historically been the breadwinners of the family. And while this trend is slowly changing, the fact is women who seek personal excellence, especially in the arts, often have to choose between pursuing greatness and being, at least, an available partner and parent. Even today, men rarely have to make this choice.
Regardless of this sexist disparity, anyone, man or woman, obsessed with becoming great [at anything] should recognize the sacrifice and cost of pursuing brilliance.
As a wife, mother, and writer, my creative muse is constantly vying for prominence in my hierarchy of desires. When my kids were babies, my creative process encountered fewer distractions. I could stay rapt in storytelling, run dialog in my head while watching them play at the park or practice Lil’ Kicker’s soccer. Small kids, small problems. Now the parent of two young adults, my muse is often drowned out by the very real traumas and trials of adulting my children face every day. To help them navigate these tumultuous times, I question, probe, and even invade their space to stay connected, be there for them as a sounding board, a trusted confidant, be their ground when they’re falling, or envelop them in a hug.
I chose to marry and have kids. And while I am present, available for my family, forfeiting the hours I couldhave been making it with my muse writing was a battle I engaged in daily. Much of my fiction focuses on this internal war. My novel,Reverb, illustrates the cost of a guitarist’s obsession with creating music. Disconnected confronts the reality that women can’t ‘have it all’ — be everything we want to be, and still be there for our kids and family.
We glorify the brilliant author, the renowned artist, the genius scientist, and successes in business, often secretly wish to be one of them. Entrepreneurs that have built global companies made their startups their newborns, investing their time and energy in growing the business. To become great at anything means obsessively working at that job or craft, honing a skill set with relentless practice, which is the fundamental reason why genius is so rarely achieved.
Google “Genius,” and “Einstein” is in the first several pages of search returns. Einstein had intellectually incoherent views on politics, economics, and psychology, and by most accounts from colleagues and family, he sucked at relationships. Focusing solely on math and physics, he neglected most everything else, but he was one hell of a physicist.
Obsessive practice, to the exclusion of most everything else, is a reliable indicator of achieving brilliance. And now that my kids are grown and on their own, I have more time to make it with my muse, and I do. But truth be told, while it used to matter to me to be someone, achieve ‘famous writer’ status, or at least a Wiki page, not so much anymore. I’d never have been a creative director, a founder and entrepreneurship educator. So absorbed in my own greatness, I’d never have cultivated the truly intimate relationships I now have, or earned the status of Partner and Mom if I’d chosen the road of pursuing the title of ‘brilliant.’ I’d miss too much living such a hyper-focused life. Besides, it’s so much more fun to hang at home with loved ones, watch Netflix and be entertained by those who’ve ‘made it.’ ;-}
My husband and I raised our children without religion. We gave them no religious identity (as in claiming to be Christian or Jewish because of our parentage). We are both devout atheists, and I use the term devout with purpose. We don’t believe in a higher power, or any gods, or even the possibility of one. We are not agnostic. We believe awareness begins by the sixth month of gestation and ends at death. Upon birth, our combination of chemistry defines individual uniqueness, so often mislabeled as a ‘soul.’
No heaven, or hell. No rebirth awaits us after death. Reincarnation is a myth. There are no second chances to get living ‘right,’ and we never ‘ascend to a higher plane of existence.’
You, me, Hitler, all end up the same. We cease to exist upon death. Only our contributions throughout our lifetime remain when we die.
Frightening and harsh though this may seem to believers, the fantastical bible stories and the ‘jealous’ malicious god, (Exodus 20:4–5), described in them never resonated with us. Much to our parent’s chagrin, we grew further from all religious ideologies with their spiritual indoctrination. Ancient dogma conjured by men to control the masses by creating an outside deity that could not, and by its own commandments, must not be questioned, religious leaders were telling us not to think. They required blind faith, and neither my husband nor I were willing to buy into thoughtless beliefs.
We agreed before having kids that we’d raise them without religion. We could not teach them what we do not believe, and what we both feel is fundamentally destructive at this point in human development. The value system we hoped to impart is based on a keen awareness of self, and others, our planet, and the immense responsibility each of us has to preserve all life here.
Picture a bull’s-eye, we told our kids, like the Target logo. You are the center dot, obviously, as you can only perceive and participate in life while living. The first ring out from you is your immediate family; the second is your extended family and friends. The next ring is your community, then your country, and then the world. And all rings must be considered when making choices and/or taking an action.
The Target philosophy is a model for a thriving society. Consciously considering the radiating effects of our actions forces us to think before we act. Our ability to think conceptually, project into the future, then alter our behavior to achieve that projected outcome is what separates the human race from all other life forms here.
There was no need to sell our kids on religious dogma such as promises of heaven, or threats of hell. We taught our kids not only to be considerate and responsible to family and friends, but to humanity as a whole, and all things on this Earth. We expect them to honor their debt to those before them by striving to deliver a better world to those here, and those yet to be.
As atheists, we are considered by many to be heathens– uncultured, uncivilized people. Our parents are constantly trying to convert us, under the delusion that we are what they were raised to believe, whether we admit it or not. They vehemently express their disgust in our ‘denial,’ and barrage us with threats that our children will be lost without a religious upbringing.
My brother, a born-again Christian, assures us that Christ died for our sins. He promises my children will be ‘saved’ after death from all wrongdoing if they just accept Him as their savior. He never stops to consider the catastrophic lack of responsibility this ideology instills in his, and every other blind believer’s behavior. My brother and his brethren real estate brokers lie, cheat, and rob unsuspecting clients of their life savings without ever considering the destructive effects of his actions, believing in his own righteousness, and having ‘faith’ in the forgiveness promised him.
By everyone’s reckoning who’ve met, or known our children, from family and friends, to teachers, to restaurant servers, my kids are liked and well respected. They are courteous and conscientious, more considerate than most adults, and 90% of their so-called ‘god-fearing’ peers. They are team players in sports, strive for excellence in their studies, and are both straight-A students from grade school forward. They share what they have, and compromise to ensure fair play. And they do all this, not by threats of eternal damnation, but because they understand their role in, and responsibility to humanity, and this planet we inhabit.
My children are not lost. They experience no spiritual void. They find beauty and wonder in many things, like nature, and sometimes even in the nature of man.
With the advent of technology and advanced weaponry, our world has become so very small and fragile. We must stop pretending we are powerless, under the will of various deities, or follow the divisive rhetoric of religious leaders who preach if Christ exists then Judaism is wrong. If Allah rules, then Christianity is a lie. Religion has been and still is the problem, giving excuses, or worse, forgiveness for whatever crimes we commit. Christ will not save us from global annihilation. We are all responsible for saving us from ourselves.
At the dinner table recently, my husband asked our young adult kids a simple question: “What are you?” Both answered: “Human.” Touché! Religion, skin color, and/or economic status, my children see no division between themselves and other people. This position is mandatory for the survival of humanity. We teach our children to recognize their radiating effects on all they touch, and not only acknowledge their mighty power, but embrace the responsibility that comes with it. Humanity’s future depends on each of us taking individual responsibility for the actions we take in life. Not for rewards in an afterlife, but to enrich the lives we touch here and now, and to make it possible for those yet to be — the generations to come — to experience the unfathomable wonder in being alive.
Spent my life looking in at the world I live, but never ‘fitting in’…
Ever been with a group of people, and everyone is talking amicably, (or on their cellphones), and you’re sitting there watching and listening, and you feel like an alien? Not a foreign national among a group of natives. More like you’re from another planet. Or they are.
I’ve known I was different for most of my life, always on the outside looking in at the world I live in. I’ve never been popular, never had a large group of friends to hang with like in sitcoms. Beyond theology like my atheism, there are actual, real differences that separate me from most.
I don’t drink alcohol. Can’t stand the taste of the stuff. Wine. Beer. Hard liquor. BLA! Even rum wrecks some would-be-great desserts, like tiramisu. Virtually the first thing that happens at any gathering is the ritual serving of the drinks. I always refuse, which immediately raises suspicions that I’m either a friend of Bill W, or on some fad diet, or a hippy-vegan. The first brick in the wall between me and the group.
I have no internet connection on my cellphone. I don’t carry my phone with me most of the time, don’t look at it except to make a call or send a text, which I do rarely, especially when I’m with other people. Use a scheduler for posts, so I’m not on any social media platforms. I follow no one intentionally (as X automatically follows back anyone who follows you). I don’t know what is trending online which puts me outside most lite banter about the latest cat video or influencer’s recent divorce. Another brick in the wall.
I don’t watch TV much. I average three movies in the theater a year, and rarely go to plays. I don’t watch or follow sports. Any. Ever. I don’t know the latest shows, any of the actors, or what rock star is hot on YouTube. I must have some mental disorder because people who play no active role in my life just don’t register with me. Not remembering names or faces is yet another brick because I cannot engage in dialog about celebrities or their latest movies.
As a woman, with other women, I feel particularly off-planet. I have no interest in discussing my kids for the most part. I’m with my kids a LOT. I don’t want it all about them when I’m not. I don’t care about sales or shoes. I dress for comfort, prefer my old, soft, often ripped clothes to new. I never wear makeup, much to my mother’s chagrin. Don’t even carry a purse. The diamond studs in my ears have been there for 30 yrs. I wear no other jewelry. Had no grandparents to babysit (or cash) to travel beyond summer vacations once we had kids, so I feel awkward when everyone’s talking about their romantic getaways with their DH to the Big Island, or Caribbean while grandma watched the kids.
I want to talk intimately about issues that matter to all of us, without being politically correct, or woke, and with virtually nothing held sacred — an open forum of communication and healthy debate. But it seems every time I bring up feelings of frustration globally, nationally, locally, or even personally, I create a void in the group’s dialog, this vortex of weighted silence. Either no one wants to share their real feelings, or they don’t know what I’m talking about, or they have no opinion, or they’re too afraid to state it.
The bitch is, I want to fit in, be a part of, integrate as I see others do.
Sort of. I just don’t want to DO what most seem to.
I don’t wish to remain ignorant about global and local issues so not to disrupt my personal bliss. My husband is the son of a holocaust survivor. I grew up on horror stories of the camps told by family, some who lost everyone they loved. We all need to be vigilant it never happens again.
I couldn’t care less about celebs and influencers. Studio City born and raised — where the film studios originally set up, hense the name — at the north base of the Hollywood Hills. Most of the kids’ parents I went to school with were actors or musicians or writers. By high school, half of my contemporaries were artists themselves. The ones who ‘made it,’ were regular people to me, who worked, and networked (partied) obscene hours. Intoxicated crowds overwhelm me. Not my jam.
While I enjoy playing racquetball and pickleball, I’ve little interest in watching someone else play sports. Pro athletes work towards excellence 24/7, yet somehow fans take on team victories as their own while they sit on the couch downing beer. I just don’t get it.
The ‘little bit of color’ my mother insisted was mandatory to put on my lips and cheeks to attract a mate, makes most women who wear makeup look like clowns, or mannequins to me. And it’s a rather ironic twist that the media convinces women they need cosmetics to be attractive, especially since it’s a proven cause of cancer, and cancer isn’t pretty.
Clearly, I am damning myself to the outside looking in. As an atheist, in faith-based (mostly Christian) America, I don’t belong to the neighborhood church, or celebrate any religious holidays, or get how seemingly reasonable people can believe in myths and fairytales at this stage in human development. And since it’s unlikely I’ll develop a taste for alcohol anytime soon, or become addicted to my cellphone, I’m unclear how to move forward, to integrate, fit in with the group at the table now on their second or third drink. They’re getting sloppy, and rather loud, and all I want to do is leave.
So I do. I get in my spaceship (my Prius among the SUVs) and venture home to my sleeping kids and working husband. He’ll ask me how the Mompreneurs’ Meetup went and I’ll say fine, and later I’ll be standing in the shower feeling invisible, valueless.
The road is empty and dark. Houses are lit inside and look warm and welcoming. Mine will be too, a safe harbor where people ‘get me,’ but I know I isolate there too much. I want friends, to be a part of the world beyond my fam, I just don’t know how to step inside where most seem to live. But truth be told, it’s rather lonely out here.
I’m no longer, and will never again be my kids’ demigod…
I wanted kids for as long as I can remember. Have 2. Adopt 1. I was absolutely sure I could raise them better than my mom [and dad].
I’d give them ground instead of ripping it away with critical judgments. I’d show my love unconditionally, not doled out with achievements or ‘acceptable’ behavior. I’d be the best friend they ever had, there for them when they needed me, even when they didn’t know they did but just needed to be heard. And I’ve been all this for my kids for the most part. By their measure, I am their closest confidant, even now.
Now 26 and 24, though both are back home for the moment, we almost never eat meals together and seldom interact beyond quick exchanges. My kids are moving beyond family with boyfriends, girlfriends, media becoming their greater influence. While they both still share with me intimate details of their lives, it’s different now. We truly are friends. Not mom to kid, but adult to adult. And while this is good, and right, it hurts, in almost the abstract, like I shouldn’t be feeling sad they are launching.
I am no longer and will never again be their demigod. As adults, their trust in what I say wavers, knowing my propensity to infuse parables into storytelling. They see me now, know my history, watched much of it unfold. They understand my frailties, and love me anyway, but they [rightfully] no longer believe that mine is the final word.
I was into the arts from the beginning too — drawing, sculpting, building, writing. I was obsessed with creating as far back as I can recall, so my desire to produce children wasn’t lack of other interests or just to do better than my mother. I wanted to put people into this world who would be kind, compassionate, lead with their head and their heart. I figured if each gen raised their kids to embody these traits, in some number of generations forward humans could reach our amazing potential for boundless creation, innovation, intimacy, love. My kids are kind, empathetic people and I am proud to know them, but I get I made it hard on them, pushing them to care beyond themselves in a world that generally does not.
I had kids late, in my early 40s after 6 pregnancy losses before our son, and another before having our daughter. I married late too, at 37, pursuing my career while searching for Mr. Right to father the family I wanted so badly. Together we chose to have children. And together we agreed not to raise latchkey kids as our parents had done. One of us would be home for them, at least through most of puberty.
My husband became the main income provider as a male software developer in Silicon Valley, making much more than me as a female marketing consultant and full-time parent. I focused on being there for my kids — taking them to school and picking them up daily, planning activities, groups to join, sports to play, shopping, preparing meals…etc. And talking, endless talking, being available to help them define and navigate their world. I also helped launch and market startups, taught entrepreneurship at top unis, authored 3 novels, 2 short story collections, 2 business marketing books, and an edtech course.
I’ve been busy, for sure, but now I’m tired. I don’t have a ‘second life’ like most women who had kids in their late 20s or early 30s. I’m old, or feel old.
I hate having more memories than time to make them.
When I was little, I would fantasize about my life forward. I’d marry my BFF by mid to late 20s. We’d have kids in our early 30s. I’d be home for my kids, and a successful author too. (I was clearly naive about the time and head space required to really ‘be there’ for your kids.)
Imagining this stage of my life as a kid, I assumed my children would have launched by now (and likely would have if I’d had them earlier). I’d be well into my second act, engaged in writing fiction, and traveling to beautiful and bizarre places with my beloved husband. We wouldn’t be worried about making money anymore. We could spend freely, like never before. I wouldn’t be grieving the loss of my revered position as a mother because I’d be a selling author, and hanging with my BFF.
The kids are moving on, aging out as a mompreneur, and I still have no cachet as a writer, still relatively unknown. I’m back to being what feels like… nothing. And now there’s an additional twist. Younger, there was always time to make the future what I wanted it to be. But I’ve learned that hope, like time, is fleeting.
The life I pictured is so far from the reality I live it’s verging on surreal. I don’t feel like I’m in my body so much of the time lately, just sort of watching from the outside. I am truly lost, consumed in mourning the loss of my past, and the end of my future. No longer atop any hierarchy, like I was in my kids’ eyes when they were growing up, or my entrepreneurial students. I’m back to being nobody with hardly any time or energy left to create the future I wanted to be living by now.
I am grateful for the life I have, for my spectacular kids, my marriage, and the home we’ve built and share. But I still want more. Don’t you, (whatever your age!)? I want everyone who reads me to share my work with their fam and friends. I wanta be at my kids’ weddings, and play with my grandkids, teach them, listen to them, learn from them. I want to stay close to my kids, as integral a part of their lives as always, but now see that I won’t be as they move on.
Common advice is ‘live in the moment,’ but lately I don’t know how to shake off the suffocating weight of aging. My body reminds me often with injuries taking so much longer to heal. Society tells me I’ve become valueless. I can’t fall back asleep at 4:00am when I get up to pee for the 5th time. Back in bed I start looping on the reality I’m losing the family life I lived. And loved. Sleeping now seems… wasteful since the bulk of my life is over. I can’t get off the bullet of time, out of the tunnel I’m in railing towards the light that I know is the freight train comin’ at me.
While it’s true no one knows when they’re gonna die, let me tell ya, death begins looming — the proverbial ax over your head the older you get. Every illness I wonder if this one will take me out. Past a certain age, you don’t keep getting over it.
In 20 to 30 yrs I will likely cease to exist. My body will return to organic matter. No heaven. No hell. No afterlife awaits any of us. Like my biological clock to bear children, my life clock is running out. I can feel it coming, the light at the end of the tunnel brighter than ever now. Aging is a bitch, but I suppose it’s better than not. Love to end this blog on a cheerful note, since we all love happy endings. Thing about being alive is our ending is always the same.
My husband caught his married CEO kissing an employee, setting the Butterfly Effect in motion…
“I’m screwed,” my husband said, calling me from his job at a well-known Silicon Valley startup.
He’d entered the stairwell and saw the married CEO of his company sucking face with an employee. He had a right to be upset. The CEO is putting the company, its pre-IPO stock value, and its almost 300 employees at risk by displaying his extra-marital affair publicly. His sloppy behavior can not only get him fired, but eventually, lead to the demise of the company with scandalous press chasing away customers and business associates alike. And, of course, there are his two kids and a wife at home who will suffer, possibly lifetime scars from his sexual indiscretions.
When a butterfly flaps its wings in Central Park, it does NOT cause a typhoon in India. But the Butterfly Effect is very real, and very personal, for all of us.
The CEO sucking face with his employee saw my husband in the stairwell. He called my DH into his office later that day and made excuses that he was “just comforting” his graphic designer who [ostensibly] was grieving the death of her dog. Sure. Originally hired by the CEO, my husband had never had any issues working with the man until that day in the stairwell. After that day, the CEO was his new micro-manager, and my husband, tired of the bullshit, left the company a month later.
We all engage in the Butterfly Effect in one way or another. When my DH and I fight, I’m more apt to yell at our kids, causing them to snipe at each other. Continual fighting over time may result in fierce sibling rivalry. Instead of becoming balanced, socially aware adults, they grow up defensive and afraid, and become CEOs and Presidents who seek physical contact over emotional intimacy to combat their gnawing loneliness.
The Butterfly Effect is an unalterable phenomenon of the human condition, but that doesn’t mean we must be doomed by it. Our ability to perceive the future, and then adapt our behavior in response is also uniquely human, and dramatically separates us from every other life form on this planet, and one of our greatest strengths.
Monica Lewinsky sucked Pres. Clinton’s cock, getting George W. Bush elected, which led to the 2008 financial meltdown with the Republican’s anti-regulation policies. The real estate recession of 2009 left not only millions of people without any retirement, but my father without enough money to care for himself, compelling us to use our savings to help him. This investment into my father’s care comes out of our kids’ college funds and will most likely affect them down the line.
Had President Clinton been thinking with his brain instead of his little head, or Ms. Lewinsky had stopped to consider the possible ramifications of Bill Clinton’s solicitation, perhaps either would have made a better choice. (Why do I sight Monica? Those who cheat are culpable for their actions, but those who are party to cheating are equally culpable.)
Like a gun sitting on a table, the Butterfly Effect is neutral. Awareness that no man, or woman, is an island is the key to directing the Butterfly Effect to consistently positive outcomes. Every day we touch the lives of others, whether we’re at home, on the internet, at work, or shopping at Target. Holding a door open, giving a compliment, or showing appreciation for service rendered can make someone’s day a bit better. Taking our face out of our cellphone and acknowledging those around us, even a quick nod helps make others feel seen (momentarily valued).
Every one of us touches the lives of others— our environment locally, even globally. Social media that destroys teen users’ self-image, to the consumption of our planet’s resources, the Butterfly Effect is often felt around the world. Choosing a Prius over an SUV or RV means cleaner air for everyone, and less demand for fossil fuel. Picking the appropriate sexual partners (avoiding affairs); helping a neighbor in need, standing up against hate and for equal rights improves all our lives collectively.
“With every action there is a reaction,” Newton’s Third Law of Motion. Be acutely aware of others, and the cascading Butterfly Effect with any actions you take.* And it may just be the lives you touch in your hometown today will indeed lead to the cure for cancer from someone on the other side of the world tomorrow.
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*No action is a passive/aggressive ‘action.’ You create ill will when ghosting or ignoring others.
With everything given something, not the same thing, is owed.
With everything given—a kindness, one’s time, efforts on your behalf—you owe that person.
I write it three times because most people DON’T GET IT, or worse, refuse to believe it. It’s easier to receive than reciprocate. Denying or ignoring reciprocity doesn’t make the debt disappear; it undermines the relationship.
Just got off the phone with a friend. After describing my husband’s failure in planning our recent trip, I added he ‘owed me’ for 23 years planning unique family vacations every year.
My friend retorted, “I hate that. You don’t ‘owe’ your partner.”
Yes. You do!
With everything given something is owed.If not equitably, the perceived partnership is really a dictatorship.
Gray divorce is trending because the wife spent the last 20+ yrs of her life raising the kids, cleaning the house, shopping and cooking the meals for the family while working full-time, and she’s done being the unpaid labor force for a man who never learned to reciprocate.
Like it or not, mutuallybeneficial, fulfilling relationships are reciprocal.
Reciprocity goes beyond just marriage.
If your adult child has spent 20+ years being volatile, demanding, emotionally abusive, you may ‘love’ them, but it’s also likely you’re tolerating them.
Relationships without reciprocity become endurance.
With everything given, something is owed. If this paradigm is not understood, and PRACTICED in relationships, resentment festers, and corrodes over time. The union becomes fragile with the [often unspoken, or consciously recognized] weight of hostility, leading to divorce, estrangement from family, ending friendships, even work relationships.
I told my friend I spent three months every year planning our vacations on a shoestring budget. Countless times over the last 29 yrs I’d asked him to plan a romantic getaway for us, but he did only once—this recent trip, which I instigated, and reminded him to plan for over a year.
With everything given, something is owed. Something is owed, but not [necessarily] the same thing. Reciprocity need not be identical, but must be proportional to achieve equity in relationships. And true intimacy—sharing open communication, connection, trust—requires equity. Had my husband invested the same amount of time and focused energy as I do planning our trips, we likely wouldn’t have ended up on Hawaii in a cramped, shoddy, bug-infested Airbnb above a bar. (No resentment there…)
My parents’ marriage of 49 yrs was not reciprocal. It was a hierarchy.
I never heard my mom say a bad word about my dad until two weeks before she passed. Dying of cancer, she lay on her side of their California King spewing her bottled rage towards her misogynistic narcissist of a husband.
My dad was ‘king of his castle,’ but my mother paid the bills, did the taxes, and worked full-time while raising three kids. She planned the vacations, threw the parties, purchased the presents, hosted holidays, shopped and cooked most meals, even did much of the clean-up. She attended his business functions and soirées—‘his arm piece wearing the requisite sunshiny face,’ she’d said during her hate-filled rant.
My dad went to work and was home for dinner most nights. After he ate the meal we served him, he went into his office and watched TV, or read. Oh, and in a grand display, he carved the turkey my mom bought, cooked and served at Thanksgivings.
He left her lonely ‘doing his own thing’ in his free time during his working years, and in retirement. She gravitated to her network of friends (as so many married women do!) who extended their Time to her, as she did to them. They spoke often, met up for meals weekly, traveled together on vacations to far away places— leaving my father lonely too.
Ultimately, neglecting to invest the time and energy my mom had into him served neither of them.
Reciprocity isn’t complicated. It’s recognizing the amount of Time others invest in you—directly, through their time and attention; and indirectly by making your life easier.
It may be as simple as your timely response to a text or email from a friend or family member (since no one likes to wait for a reply).
A child’s reciprocity for a parent’s investment in them may be demonstrating respect, gratitude, cooperation, affection over time.
Husband/wife, parent/child, siblings, friends, associates, practicing Time for Time builds trust, connections, can even repair broken relationships. When we give our time—our most valued possession—we show we care.
Invest your Time in preserving, even strengthening any partnership by taking the following steps (in order!):
Compromise. *Steps 2 – 4 can be more easily achieved by remembering #1.
With everything given, something is owed. Not the same thing, but something, in equal measure. This is the price of obtaining, and maintaining connections, friendships, love.
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