The Favorite

A friend asked me if my son's siblings were jealous of the financial help we were giving him for grad school. Honestly, the thought had not crossed my mind. My answer was sudden and definitive: no. But, then the thought was introduced and, of course, made me wonder if I was dreaming. Somehow missing this dynamic in our family. The one that involves jealousy and the longing to be the special child, the favorite.

It's not like I am oblivious to that green monster that lurks in many, perhaps most, families. It's safe to say that anger and jealousy were the predominant emotions of my own family of origin. There was always this sense of a finite amount of love, nurturing and resources. If one child happened to receive attention, say for an illness or accident, the others were bereft. What little love and attention that was available was being doled out in lavish servings to only one. It inspired some pretty amazing battles. If you were the favorite in my family you paid a high price. The sibs attacked on many fronts through physical violence and even more painful, through the battering of the ego. By the time they were finished with you, if they ever finished since the battering goes on even today, you were left whimpering in defeat and confusion.

I don't remember being the favorite, ever, in any realm. Family, work, community or otherwise. The status of not-the-favorite has held me in good stead.

So, I asked my daughter if she was jealous of the help being given to her brother. She replied, "of course not. I would be disappointed if you didn't help him. In fact, I would help him myself if it was possible." I didn't bother to ask the other son who was finishing up a year in Germany and had traveled to several European countries. The daughter's answer gave me true parenting joy. I realized that she got it that in our family each person is cherished and supported in ways that cannot be measured. That is not to say that we, as parents, do not make mistakes. But the mistakes are forgiven because in the end everyone is the favorite. I like to ask my kids the following question: if you had ten mothers would I be your favorite? They answer correctly every time.

Verliebtheit or How to write a love song

I was thinking about writing love songs as opposed to break-up songs or dating songs.
That led to researching love. First I looked up speed dating because of the notion that we realize we are attracted to another person in a few minutes. Not sure if it is two minutes or eight minutes. Either way, it's pretty scary how we decide to pursue someone within in a flicker of time. Chris' girlfriend Elyse saw him across a gas station and knew at once she wanted him. It just goes to show you that the place does not have to have any romantic cachet. Speed dating led to the concept of Limerance which means the involuntary cognitive and emotional state of intense romantic desire for another person. It is characterized by intrusive thinking about the object of one's desire and can elicit extreme joy or extreme despair. Verliebtheit means fallen-in-loveness. I refer to the german word in honor of Tommy who speaks the language fluently and is quite fond of the german culture.

What is alarming about limerance is that it is similar to obsessive-compulsive disorder. OCD is the name of Christopher's film company. The feelings of limerance are intensified through adversity, obstacles or distance. The constant thoughts about the limerant object define all other experiences. Thus the similarity to obsessive-compulsive disorder. The other thing that I know about this intense form of love is that it can only last for 18 months. The brain is not capable of dealing with this level of emotional cliff-hanging for any longer than that. It's a blessing, because otherwise, nothing would get done. The poor limerant would be in a constant state of love fever.

Ain't it grand!

I KNOW EVERY ONE YOU'VE LOVED

I have been thinking more and more about the need for a partner. I am privy to the dating stories of three different generations. Erica, my 26 year old daughter; Rob, my 42 year old co-worker; and Laurie, my 82 year old mother-in-law. One thing for sure, the search for a mate is not for wimps. It takes great courage to expose oneself to the scrutiny of another. Because each searcher is doing in-depth analyses of physical attributes, family background, intelligence, interests, education and most important of all, baggage. It seems that after about the age of 22, baggage accumulates. In the twenties, it is the number of romantic relationships, intensity of those relationships and any vestige of feeling whether love, hate or regret. Erica has written an extraordinary song about this facet of relationships. She has a great line that goes: I know everyone one you've loved, I know every one, by the qualities of moonlight....you could know the sun....It's a song that evokes the messy perils of beginnings into the unknown. I think she should send it to Grey's Anatomy or House for their mood music.

In spite of my lack of dating experience, I have plenty of advice for the mate searchers. Thirty-five years in a relationship to one person has been far from settled. Sometimes I think it's been like being married to three different people. There have been estrangements, break-ups and courting that then pulled us into new relationships with each other. There were the ten years before children. Then another twenty years raising the children and now five years post children. Each "marriage" was influenced by our adult stage of development, preoccupation with careers, child-rearing and friendships. There is something amazing about sticking it out with one person that can make you a better and stronger person.

It's interesting that my sons maintain strict boundaries regarding their romantic relationships. What I mean is that they rarely and sparingly divulge information about the status of long term relationships or new relationships. I think that it may be a gender thing. Women love to talk about relationships in a way that is completely foreign to men. Men like to be in the relationship but don't seem to need to talk about it. Women get added value by talking about the relationship. My male co-worker seems to be an exception to this gender rule.

The other reason for this strict sense of privacy could be my own reckless forays into their love lives at tender ages. It was startling to me that my sons were interested in the opposite sex. Maybe a little threatening, perhaps a bit of jealousy on my part. So I asked intrusive questions trying to gain some sense of control which was futile. It took years to figure that one out. Once the shock that one's child was interested in another person romantically became more familiar, then I could enjoy their ability to love. All three children are loving, affectionate and respectful people.

:: notes from daughter erica :: OR :: dating as you go ::

My mom is right. I have been going out on dates. My joke has been, "Dating: what's better than feeling alone? It's feeling alone with other people. ... Oh wait, it's worse. It's worse." My parents are both very fond of giving out dating advice. This, from two people who met and fell in love with their life-partner more than 30 years ago, two people who, when they were the age that I am now, were already a few years married and making a beautiful home and life together. Their advice is mainly: don't worry about it, love will come. I appreciate that they don't also espouse that great myth of love, that "love comes when you're not looking for it." I have never, not once, ever, not wanted good partner-love. And my level of desperation has had zero correlation with whether or not I found it. This "stop looking for it and it will come" idea is another dangerous manifestation of the illusion of control, that you can have any control over what is, essentially, a cosmic lottery. But certainly, "not worrying about it" would help the time pass more easy. My parents are right. My mom is right. In the meantime: I've been going on dates. In the last few months there have been a slew of auditions for the role of partner, not limited to but including: The Bro, The Mispronouncer, The Physicist, The Bad News Lion, The Posey Pony, the Engineer, and now, The Young Calvinist. That last one is sweet and uncomplicated; being with him has the effect of making me feel less complicated. This is a good thing. We'll see how it works out!

Glowing parents with disinterested baby

The Subject is Romance

I have had the best time talking to my daughter about her romantic or more accurately her dating life. She finds it interesting or ironic that I have so much to say on the subject of dating. The fact is that I have very little dating experience. I met her father at the age of 18. His room-mate, who was my friend from high school, invited me over for dinner the first week at Michigan State College. One look at him and I was thinking about how to break up with the boyfriend I was with at the time. It took eight months. What occured during those months was more like hanging out, making out and then we were together. That was 35 years ago. Erica has been going out on dates. There have been introductions through friends, chance meetings at bus stops and connections through various websites. There is a lot of angst involved in the anticipation of each date or encounter. There is getting to know the person, who are you, what do you like, who do you like, where do you come from, what are the family stories and what are you looking for in a relationship. How do you know when you have met "the one"? I tell Erica that you should feel like your best self when you are with the person.

I listen to her stories about the dates and have found inspiration to write a song. So, we have been collaborating on a song about dating. I called it "Kissing Boys" because this process seems very much like kissing frogs until you meet a prince. Any reference to kissing seems to have been edited from the song. No matter. The experience of writing the song has been joyful. We have very different styles but it doesn't seem to matter. She finds the gold in my words and meaning and transforms the verses into something special.

I am looking forward to her comments about our conversations on dating.

FIFTEEN MINUTES

I have just 15 minutes to write this blog because I am at the library and this is the drive-by computer. We are on dial-up at home and writing a blog seems to make the computer crash. What do you write about in 15 minutes, now 13 minutes? I am spending a lot of time working with teen-agers lately in my counseling practice. I happen to love working with teens which is interesting because I did not particularly love parenting teen-agers. I loved my adolescent children very much but did not enjoy that stage of their development as much as most of the others.

I loved infants. The pure animal care and feeding of infants was bliss. I loved toddlers. I loved watching them become themselves, declaring their independence, announcing their needs and really enjoyed their adoration of me and their father. School-age was a tender time and their father especially was good at this because he is a natural teacher. He knew about their favorite tv and comic book characters and could discuss storylines in great detail.

The teen years were exhausting. My fifteen minutes are up. More next time on the paradox of being able to relate better to other people's teen children more than my own.