So this is really a topic for my ex-Jew blog, but I haven't been writing
about my PCOS/infertility stuff there so far, so it's going to have to
go here instead for now. As an aside, I also haven't written a single blog entry
on my jew blog since getting diagnosed, and I think it's because if I
can't talk about this, I have nothing to say, but I'm not ready to be
public with this stuff. But maybe I really should be. I just don't want judgmental douches being like "god is punishing you for being an
atheist."
Anyway I told my parents about this stuff a month or
two ago and earlier this week when I talked to my dad (for the annual
rosh hashana phone call I get) he asked how stuff was going and I told
him that the clomid isn't working (which so far it hasn't - now been 49
days since I last got my period and I haven't ovulated yet) but I lost 20 pounds, etc. Anyway
today I get this pile of bullshit from him:
"Hi Abandoning Eden,,
How are you doing?
I
was thinking of you at Rosh Hashanah. They gave me an aliyah to the
Torah at shul and I had them make a "Mishebayrach" prayer for you.
[EDITOR NOTE: THIS MEANS HE HAD THEM SAY A PRAYER IN MY HONOR]
The
assistant rabbi pointed out that the Torah and Haftorah focused on
women who had trouble conceiving. The Torah portion related the story of
Sarah while the Haftorah from the first chapter in Samuel discussed the
story of Hannah and how she had her fertility problems as well. The
rabbi pointed out that the lesson we were supposed to glean is that
prayer was able to change the outcome for these two women, (they were
able to conceive/give birth to famous, healthy children) and that we
should take prayer more seriously.
Since these are the days when
we Jews take prayer more seriously I thought it wouldn't hurt to pray.
It could only help. Maybe you can still find a prayer group on or near
campus that has services for Yom Kippur and sneak in there for a few
minutes of prayer and reflection. You never know...
Wishing you guys all the best...
Love, Abba"
ERRMAHGERD!
Like, I know he is just trying to be helpful, but dear lord does my
father NOT KNOW ME AT ALL. This advice is laughable. I'm not sure if
this is him trying to sneakily get me to pray on yom kippur instead of
the plans I already have- to teach 5 hours of classes and go to 3 hours
of meetings. Or what. But...like...srsly...OMG. I'm not even writing back, cause there's nothing I can say that won't be snarky, and I know he is just trying to help in his completely backwards non-helpful way. That or he is taking advantage of my issues to try to kiruv me. Yeah, I think not responding would be best.
I agree, that's infuriating. But, while I understand how you came to discuss your fertility situation with your parents, perhaps your initial instincts not to discuss this with your parents in the first place was the right one. Between their misguided hopes for you to become "religious" again and their normal longing for grandchildren, it's probably inevitable that your father would react this way.
ReplyDeleteI'm 46 years old and while things have gotten better in the last few years, I learned the hard way years ago not to tell my parents anything really private, if I valued my privacy.
In some warped way your parents care about you, but as you say, they don't know you at all.
But yes, 100% completely infuriating.
Even if you weren't OTD, that's a completely insensitive thing to say to someone dealing with fertility issues.
ReplyDeleteThis seems to be part of a pattern with him - professional qualifications notwithstanding, he really doesn't have a clue when it comes to sensitivity. I think that part of him may actually mean well and want good things for you, but he's out to lunch.
I know this happened a few months ago so I don't know where things stand now, but if you are up to it, I would proactively send him some "what not to say to someone going through IF" articles. They even have them on frum websites.
He should have stopped at "I was thinking about you and made a mishabayrach". That would have shown concern. It is never, ever, EVER appropriate, however, to lecture someone going through crap that is clearly not within their control about how they should be doing this or that. Possibly, if someone approaches a rabbi seeking ideas a small suggestion can be made, but absolutely nothing should ever be said that makes it sound like you are blaming crap like IF on the person.
He should also be told that things will be "triggers". I vividly remember my SIL literally running out of services in tears one year, because she had just had a stillbirth and couldn't make it through the reading on Hannah. I also had to have a talk with both my mom and MIL when they made what they thought were innocent or well-meaning comments after my miscarriages, without realizing just how upsetting they were. [No, I didn't want to hear the details of the bris for her friend's grandson, who was born on what would have been my due date, nor did I need to have my MIL announce that I was just fine after my "procedure" when I clearly was not, nor did I need a friend to pat me on the stomach and ask "how's the project going" to cap off an evening where we stared at our plates throughout dinner while they spoke about baby stuff to the pregnant couple that they invited over as well...]
Some people need to be told explicitly, "this is a hard time for me. I appreciate your support, but just let me vent and say that you are thinking about me. I don't want advice, I don't want armchair philosophy, and I'd rather not feel that I have to avoid contact with you out of fear that you will say something triggering to me."
People tell me that they have me in their prayers all the time with regards to my adoption. Fortunately, my family does not, at least they have a clue in that way. On the other hand when I was diagnosed with PCOS I don't think that my parents even looked into what it was. When I got pregnant with my first son at the age of 24 my dad's response was to think we were crazy to have a kid at that time (we were both in school and had no money). When I explained that we started early because we knew of the potential fertility problems we could be facing and we felt so lucky and happy he realized that it made sense. People are so weird, even the ones that love us.
ReplyDeleteFrom what you write, its not out of character for him.
ReplyDeleteAnd remember, you know his first thought when he found out you were TTC his first thought was "At least the baby will be Jewish. Maybe we can teach him/her the right way to live."
That's what I worry about... I'm starting to see my dad the way I used to see my extremely religious kinda loony uncle who can never write a single email or say anything without inserting a dvar torah, who emails out long 200 page files of poetry he's written about judaism... kinda like a crackpot who can only talk about religion. I worry either my kids will see him as a total lunatic (which he's not, but I feel like since I've become not religious, everything is about religion with him in a way it didn't used to be) or that at some point maybe they'll be influenced by him in a way that turns them against me and especially my husband.
ReplyDeleteIf you teach your kids that they can respect their grandfather even if they disagree with him, you should be fine.
ReplyDeleteTrust me, I worry about my kids being sucked in by Charedieism. I understand the fear. I saw it happen with many of my sisters friends and their families.
Don't forget, though - for any kids you may have, he'll just be a grandfather in another state that they occasionally visit or Facetime/Skype/whatever the latest tool will be. They won't have the same baggage or the same relationship with him.
ReplyDeleteSo, for example, Shabbat dinner will just be a nice family meal with grandparents. It may be a novelty for them. It won't be, for them, a constant source of arguments and threats and adolescent power struggles.
They've tried the hardcore approach with you, and they know that it just resulted in alienating you to the point that you had no contact for years. Saying anything bad about their father would just mean that they would cease to have contact with your children. Even if they did say something - a hands-on father, if he's decent, will have a far stronger relationship with the kids than an out-of-town grandfather.
Given your father's tendency to heavyhandedness, it seems likely he would want to influence your kids toward Judaism. With someone like your dad, there's no such thing as the subtle approach. When you have kids, you should make it clear to him up front that you do not want him peddling religion to your kids in any way. He may try to do it sneakily anyway, like the grandmother in "Are you there, God, it's me Margaret"; but if you've set the ground rules, he won't get far. As the parent you have a lot of control, believe it or not. Kids don't gravitate to every crazy thing they hear. When they are little they listen to their mom & dad, and by the time they are teenagers, they're more influenced by their peers than anyone else.
ReplyDeleteGiven your father's tendency to heavyhandedness, it seems likely he would want to influence your kids toward Judaism. With someone like your dad, there's no such thing as the subtle approach. When you have kids, you should make it clear to him up front that you do not want him peddling religion to your kids in any way. He may try to do it sneakily anyway, like the grandmother in "Are you there, God, it's me Margaret"; but if you've set the ground rules, he won't get far. As the parent you have a lot of control, believe it or not. Kids don't gravitate to every crazy thing they hear. When they are little they listen to their mom & dad, and by the time they are teenagers, they're more influenced by their peers than anyone else.
ReplyDeleteHe doesn't know you at all. He thought he had normal teenage rebellion, and you basically ran away from home and barely spoke to him over the intervening years. You mention two phone calls/year where you are pained for days.
ReplyDeleteHe is a spiritual believer, that believes in the power of prayer especially at that time. When given a significant honor (and Aliyah at that time), he had them specifically pray for you, his estranged daughter, that has publicly rejected him and their religion.
Like others have said, your kids will not have any of this baggage. They will have a grandfather that is a religious Jew that they see a few times a year, and maybe learn about their family and heritage through it. A few gentile extended relatives get a kick out of joining us for Shabbat meals from time to time. There is zero baggage, washing and eating a family meal is just something they do from time to time if they join us, not something oppressing them.
He is a devoutly religious man. He may not have been until he started to lose his children, but he has doubled down on his religion, not revisited it. So he approaches difficulties in life as a religious man. If you were secular, you'd find it kind of silly and thoughtful, it's only through your eyes as a teenager that that email was heavy handed.
I thought it was a kind of sweet email. He's thinking of you, praying for you, and maybe had some ideas for you to pray as well, something he thinks (and you don't) MIGHT HELP your fertility problems.
Miami Al:
ReplyDeleteYes, I do think it's nice that he did something which in his mind would bring health and fertility to AE.
At the same time, though, I agree with tesyaa that he needs to be told certain things up front, because he's clueless about where AE's head is at. In addition to the whole religious issue, fertility issues are one of those things that mess with your head in ways that you can't really appreciate unless you are going through it. Helpful advice doesn't feel helpful, innocent questions don't feel innocent, and it's easy to interpret everything as a sign that you are being blamed for some inadequacy. [Incidentally, while you meant well with your comment on the next post, telling a woman going through an infertility struggle that she should relax and focus on her husband can also come across as "you're doing it wrong, and here's one more thing on your to do list that you might be messing up".]
Thankfully, no personal fertility problems, and my friends that struggled with them all thankfully have been blessed with many children (after consulting a fertility doctor and treatment, I presume that there was some prayer involved, but who really knows).
ReplyDeleteFertility problems seem absolutely awful. However, I have also seen them become all consuming on marriages which then suffered as a result because they ended up weakening their marriage when they most needed to strengthen it.
If I recall from other posts, AE is relatively young (30ish, +/- 2 years). She has a medical condition that requires fertility treatment, but she's NOT 40 and battling a fertility window closing. She has time to work with her doctor and deal with her medical issues.
If she suffers from obesity, she should eat better until she doesn't anymore. It's not like having small children makes it easier to fix nutritional problems.
I get the feeling of needing to make up for lost time, since she felt she wasted decades of her life in a religious setting that stifled her. That said, she's approaching EVERYTHING as a sprint, some things take a marathon.
A year ago, she hadn't seen her parents in years. Now she's seen her dad twice and mom once? She's then upset that her father doesn't know her? Of course he doesn't, he's barely seen her since she was a teenager.
I don't pretend to understand women or their mindsets. I struggle enough with my wife and daughters, I don't pretend to understand someone whose posts I've merely read on the Internet.
Put another way, I think that AE is well within her rights to be hurt by her father's supposed insensitivity. She has a right to feel however she feels, feelings are not right or wrong, they just are. OTOH, bashing her father for what appears to be a well meaning comment is simply a father of an adult child being a father.
ReplyDeleteHe is expressing concern for his daughter and giving her fatherly advice for what she might be able to do.
She doesn't have to take it, she's an adult. However, a father's role is to advice their children, whether they take that advice is up to them.
I'm with JRK mommy about this one. I think you CAN tell him what your reaction is to his unsolicited advice is, without being snarky.
ReplyDeleteBut it might take a few drafts for the Abraham Lincoln drawer.