Jeff @ home > Maura [I chickened out of sending this one even after composing it; my excuse was that I wanted to wait until the arrival of her imminent second hand-written offering in case anything might negate the content of this email. I will post it here for posterity]
Dear Maura,
I hope you appreciate that I have gone to great lengths to ensure that this email does not contain any reference to a specific “bizarre incident from the past”.
[If you had a son and he’d been taking care of your mother then you would have asked him how he was doing etcetera, etcetera.
Please forgive the inexact quotation, but I’m sure you know to what I refer.
And my question is this:
But would you?
Would you really?
The centre would have shifted, if you were me, and you would no longer be the son requiring the encouragement and thoughtful queries, but the parent, feeling – what?
That is what you must answer, and answer truthfully, if any gain is to be had from this exercise.]
My answer : If my son were caring for my mother and I was doing nothing to help, I would probably continue to do nothing until someone brought the neglect to my attention. I would then no doubt “shift the center” of the discussion from that of the care of the person in question to that of my own feelings. That is as honest an answer as I can give to your hypothetical question.
Now that I have responded to the “question that I must answer” in all good faith, I am hoping you will return the favour, once again to see if “any gain is to be had from this exercise”.This is a question that does not place you in a hypothetical dilemma, however; instead it is one for which you must draw on your own personal experience. Though you will no doubt prove me wrong, I cannot for the life of me see how your answer could amount to anything but “Yes” or “No”.
In all your 55 years on this planet, have you EVER even ONCE felt the need to challenge your parents on any issue you believed to be important?
If your answer is no, and this is a truthful answer, then I must humbly bow to your superior restraint, whilst retaining a modicum of scepticism toward your reply.If your answer is yes, then I put to you this;Did you ever feel frustrated when, after your challenge, all your parents had to say in reply was something akin to “Don’t you dare talk to us like that”? Would your frustration not turn to anger because the seemingly valid points you were making were being lost in a brand new debate over how poorly you were treating your elders??? Didn’t you EVER have a fight with Mom and/or Dad like this in ALL these years? Didn’t your tone ever become abusive? And before this gets construed as yet another personal attack, allow me to expand. Do you believe it is wrong for people to challenge their parents? Should they remain silent forever purely out of respect for their elders’ feelings and disregard the damage they fear their silence may do to their family? Please explain how what I am doing with these emails is in any way different to family conflicts, arguments, discussions or feuds that have taken place for generations all over the world.
Yes, Maura, your own son, all of twenty years younger, is challenging you.
Get over it.
Rise to the challenge.
He claims you exist in your own fictitious world where you deny responsibility for anything.
He claims you have no life outside your job, your books and your cats.
He claims you have absolutely no constructive ideas as to what you will do with your life once you are no longer able to work.
He claims this process is as emotionally draining for him as it is for you.
He claims you have a nerve to equate your life with that of “Hard Working Americans”, when there are millions who have the EXACT same commute, earn the EXACT same salary, work the EXACT same number of hours and have the EXACT same amount of free time, yet STILL somehow manage to at VERY LEAST make themselves available to their immediate families.
He claims you have a nerve to make a statement like “everything we did and thought and planned was hinged w/ you” when in reality you signed over responsibility for his upbringing AND freely admitted yourself (and I quote), “How might I offer "practical" help from a distance of 6000+ miles?”.
He claims you are quite possibly the most self-obsessed person on the planet.
He claims you refuse to see your life for the lonely one that it is.
He claims you refuse to accept there are people out there that care about you and are willing to help.
He claims he is actually trying to help you, and that he may be the first to genuinely do so.
FEEL FREE TO PROVE HIM WRONG POINT BY POINT!!!!
HE CLAIMS YOU CAN’T!!!!
That’s it, I’m spent. I’ve done all I can do, typed all I can type, phrased it in every way I can phrase it. If you want to come over here and discuss it further face to face, feel free. In the meantime, I will just get on with things as best as I can, and tick one more New Year’s Resolution off of my list, for it only required me to try, not to succeed.
Love, Jeff
Dear Maura,
I hope you appreciate that I have gone to great lengths to ensure that this email does not contain any reference to a specific “bizarre incident from the past”.
[If you had a son and he’d been taking care of your mother then you would have asked him how he was doing etcetera, etcetera.
Please forgive the inexact quotation, but I’m sure you know to what I refer.
And my question is this:
But would you?
Would you really?
The centre would have shifted, if you were me, and you would no longer be the son requiring the encouragement and thoughtful queries, but the parent, feeling – what?
That is what you must answer, and answer truthfully, if any gain is to be had from this exercise.]
My answer : If my son were caring for my mother and I was doing nothing to help, I would probably continue to do nothing until someone brought the neglect to my attention. I would then no doubt “shift the center” of the discussion from that of the care of the person in question to that of my own feelings. That is as honest an answer as I can give to your hypothetical question.
Now that I have responded to the “question that I must answer” in all good faith, I am hoping you will return the favour, once again to see if “any gain is to be had from this exercise”.This is a question that does not place you in a hypothetical dilemma, however; instead it is one for which you must draw on your own personal experience. Though you will no doubt prove me wrong, I cannot for the life of me see how your answer could amount to anything but “Yes” or “No”.
In all your 55 years on this planet, have you EVER even ONCE felt the need to challenge your parents on any issue you believed to be important?
If your answer is no, and this is a truthful answer, then I must humbly bow to your superior restraint, whilst retaining a modicum of scepticism toward your reply.If your answer is yes, then I put to you this;Did you ever feel frustrated when, after your challenge, all your parents had to say in reply was something akin to “Don’t you dare talk to us like that”? Would your frustration not turn to anger because the seemingly valid points you were making were being lost in a brand new debate over how poorly you were treating your elders??? Didn’t you EVER have a fight with Mom and/or Dad like this in ALL these years? Didn’t your tone ever become abusive? And before this gets construed as yet another personal attack, allow me to expand. Do you believe it is wrong for people to challenge their parents? Should they remain silent forever purely out of respect for their elders’ feelings and disregard the damage they fear their silence may do to their family? Please explain how what I am doing with these emails is in any way different to family conflicts, arguments, discussions or feuds that have taken place for generations all over the world.
Yes, Maura, your own son, all of twenty years younger, is challenging you.
Get over it.
Rise to the challenge.
He claims you exist in your own fictitious world where you deny responsibility for anything.
He claims you have no life outside your job, your books and your cats.
He claims you have absolutely no constructive ideas as to what you will do with your life once you are no longer able to work.
He claims this process is as emotionally draining for him as it is for you.
He claims you have a nerve to equate your life with that of “Hard Working Americans”, when there are millions who have the EXACT same commute, earn the EXACT same salary, work the EXACT same number of hours and have the EXACT same amount of free time, yet STILL somehow manage to at VERY LEAST make themselves available to their immediate families.
He claims you have a nerve to make a statement like “everything we did and thought and planned was hinged w/ you” when in reality you signed over responsibility for his upbringing AND freely admitted yourself (and I quote), “How might I offer "practical" help from a distance of 6000+ miles?”.
He claims you are quite possibly the most self-obsessed person on the planet.
He claims you refuse to see your life for the lonely one that it is.
He claims you refuse to accept there are people out there that care about you and are willing to help.
He claims he is actually trying to help you, and that he may be the first to genuinely do so.
FEEL FREE TO PROVE HIM WRONG POINT BY POINT!!!!
HE CLAIMS YOU CAN’T!!!!
That’s it, I’m spent. I’ve done all I can do, typed all I can type, phrased it in every way I can phrase it. If you want to come over here and discuss it further face to face, feel free. In the meantime, I will just get on with things as best as I can, and tick one more New Year’s Resolution off of my list, for it only required me to try, not to succeed.
Love, Jeff
