Ask Aviva: When parents control

Dear Aviva,
I am a married woman with kids. We live near my parents who are extremely helpful, yet sometimes it crosses into overbearing territory. I have grown up with their overbearing ways my whole life, and it never bothered me until now. Now I feel like they are meddling too much in our business, giving us their own (right!) opinions on matters. It’s starting to grate on us. How can I work on being an independent wife and mother yet a respectful daughter as well?
-DaughterWifeMother

Dear DaughterWifeMother,
Cool alias. Insightful too. All of your roles are squished. And the primary one is Daughter. So the answer is in the problem. First of all, put space between your roles. These are called “boundaries.” Next slide “Daughter” to the end of the line. This is called, “Very Painful for Your Parents.” It is also called, “Differentiating yourself from your family of origin.”
This is something that some people never ever do. You know when you see the woman in her mid-40’s who is shopping in the supermarket, about to give her order to the appetizing section guy and her phone starts to ring. She says to the guy, “Oh, hold on a sec,” while the shoppers on line behind her start to get shifty. She picks up. “Hi Ma. I’m in Kosher Super Maven. Yeah…I’m just ordering a quart of pasta salad [As the savvy worker grabs a quart and starts filling it up with noodles.] Why? Because I was on the way to the buy shoes and this was closer….What? No, I don’t know how much it is in Glatt Delight Kingdom [As the appetizing dude freezes.]…It’s how much? Ok, let me check.” And she looks up, maybe slightly apologetically to the guy and asks the price. Back to Mommy: “Yeah, it’s cheaper at the other place. [And the quart of pasta salad is returned to its maker.] But I don’t care, I don’t have time to go across town. It’s worth it to me for my time…What? Oh, ok, Daddy is going there anyway? Ok, yeah, he can pick some up for me. Thanks.” [Click]. The patrons behind her start placing their orders, and our protagonist says, “Excuse me, I’m still ordering.” The poor appetizing guy musters out his best How-Can-I-Help-You smile and she places her order, with both of her ears unencumbered by any maternal influence. “I’d like a quart of pasta salad please.” Resigned and bewildered, her server fills up the quart with an amalgam of tri-colored spirals, peppers, mushrooms and olives. She thanks him, twirls on her heel and bumps right into her mother’s BFF. “Oh, hi Sandy! I didn’t realize you were right behind me! Wow! Heh, heh! What a small world!” Then she digs her fingers into Sandy’s arm, brings her face real close and gruffs, “What goes on in Kosher Super Maven stays in Kosher Super Maven. Capisce?”
So what could our heroine have done differently? She could either lie to her mother and say she was getting a pedicure, she could have said to her mom, “Well, I’m not a big cheapskate like you are and I don’t care about the 15 cent differential, freako!”, or she could have not picked up the phone in the first place, or pick up and tell her that she’ll “call her back in a few” and quickly hang up, or she could have stood her ground and said that she appreciates the input but is going to have to make her purchase in the fine establishment that she is currently standing in.
Any of the above choices would have been fine. Well, ok, not just any of them…I threw in a couple of decoys just to test your judgment.
The basic rule of thumb here is that you can say anything as long as your words and tone and timing are appropriate. This will be a painful process for your folks, but that doesn’t mean that you are doing wrong. Tell hubby that you are embarking on the mission of disengagement and tell him that you will need him to repeat “You can do it.” Go for it, you independent woman you!
-Aviva

Aviva Rizel is a Marriage and Family Therapist in private practice who can be reached at AvivaRizel.MFT@gmail.com.

Ask Aviva and Meir Rizel to speak in Queens
Aviva and her husband Meir Rizel will be speaking on June 20 and 27 at Yeshiva Ohel Simchah. The topics are “Finding the Right One Without Losing Yourself” at the first lecture; and “Marriage: The Act of Compromise” at their second event. Meir Rizel is the Director of Men’s Education at Shalom Task Force and Deputy Director of SHALOM Workshop. The women-only lecture begins at 9 p.m. The yeshiva is located at 141-41 72 Avenue in Kew Gardens Hills. For more information, contact litehouseinfo@gmail.com.