Dear Dr. Yael,
Thank you so much for being a compassionate space for people in pain and conflict to share their hearts and minds as Broken Heart (7/5/24) did.
I’m reaching out to share something I picked up on and maybe it will be helpful to readers. Though I feel sad that Broken Heart has children who do not come to her for the holidays, her attitude was quite appalling. Her energy and words jumped off the paper and made me cringe. As a somatic healer, I take my body’s messages very seriously and my body wanted to run from this woman’s harsh judgments of the writer who had complained about not having help from her grandchildren over Passover.
Broken Heart’s insensitivity even expressed itself by name calling (“spoiled ingrate”). As I read, I thought to myself, “Wow! If this is the way you show up in life, no wonder some of your kids don’t want to come to you.”
In relationships, and especially as parents, our energy makes a difference. As humans, we are all walking nervous systems and if we show up with big, harsh, judging energy, people will walk away – their bodies will take flight (sympathetic state of the nervous system). My advice to Broken Heart is to humble herself and take an honest look at how she is showing up for people energetically. Is she making her loved ones want to run? If she is, then she can get help and make changes.
She can choose to apologize to her older children if there is anything that she has done to make them stay away from her. This opens up dialogue and perhaps in the future, with kindness and grace being expressed, the older children will want to come visit.
A Reader
Dear A Reader,
Thank you for this amazing letter. You are making some excellent points. I clearly got many responses on this letter. I think we do not know the dynamics of the situation, but I see that you are astute in reading between the lines and sensing issues that may be there.
I think it is difficult to actually know all the dynamics of a situation by reading a letter. However, you are raising valid points.
Relationships are complicated. Children react differently to their parents. Unfortunately in many situations that I work with, the in-law children sometimes influence their spouses to have less derech eretz for their parents. There are also instances where parents did not treat their children well, and when these children married, they did want to stay away. As children get married, some parents do not have enough respect for their children and some children do not accord their parents respect.
Kibbud av v’em is one of the aseres hadibros (ten commandments). This means that even if your parents have issues you must accord them respect.
A famous story is told of a rabbi who had a mentally ill mother who would publicly embarrass him and throw his scarf down on the floor. He would pick it up and give it to her to throw down again even though she was embarrassing him.
Another story told about Dama the son of Medina, who lost a lot of money since he did not want to wake his father to make a sale. This person was mentioned in the Talmud even though he wasn’t Jewish to demonstrate the importance of respecting your parents.
I think your ideas and suggestions are helpful. Children must accord their parents respect and parents should respect their married children’s boundaries. Nevertheless, if we all are mevater in life (give in and be flexible), we would have more peace in this world.
Thank you again for your letter! Hatzlacha!
