I go on vacation with my parents at least every two years; my brother hasn’t vacationed with us in over 12 years. He spends Christmas at his in-laws, Thanksgiving in San Diego, and comes home maybe five days a year. He buys us expensive gifts, sends flowers for all the funerals, etc., but does not attend. My mother talks to him every Sunday. That’s about his level of involvement with the family. My mom lies to her friends because she doesn’t want them to think badly of my brother.
After all this one-sided business, here is the problem. My brother and his wife are going to have a baby soon. My mother, being a person who struggles with keeping her opinions, has already expressed her dismay that they had natural birth with a midwife/doula, using cloth diapers, etc. I eased his worries and expressed it to my brother, BUT he won’t let my mom come see the new baby for a month. It kills my mother (she was in the hospital for my two children). Should there be a time when my brother only once allows the level of “family friendliness” the rest of us have come to expect?
V.: Should there be a time when his family accepts and respects who he is once?
Your “one-sided story” reads like his side. He felt like an outsider in high school, stood out in college, and blazed a new path from there — for which he grieved. Then, he found love and settled down in a place that seemed to fit – for which he grieved.
Today, this intelligent, generous and independent man is about to have a child. For which he grieves.
At least his mother is so ashamed of him that she created a fictional son!
I am no stranger to cultural expectations. They are also emotional. However, for some reason your brother struggled at home and thrived when he left.
Has he ever heard “It’s good for you”? Even “I miss you, but I’m proud that you made a happy life for yourself”? This couple’s birth choices may differ from yours, but they’re rooted in consciousness – did someone applaud this, or was it just because of Grandma’s dismay (and your control damages) ?
If his family chose to support the man he is, instead of mourning the man he is not, do you think he would visit more?
Negativity is not cultural and is not necessary.
There is love between him and his family, clearly. Just as clearly, he needs miles between himself and his family — and while there’s room to bring him closer emotionally, you won’t accomplish that by acting as a spokesperson for mom. Know your own mind and express it accordingly. Or, better yet, be the one to stop judging the guy.
