6 – Bad Guys

I’m visiting my parents with my husband, Benson, and my two children, Hannah and Caleb. Hannah is seven and Caleb is four and a half. Caleb is at the age where many children become very focused on good guys and bad guys. My parents are Christian, at least by background, if no longer by belief, and raised me in a Protestant church. Benson is Jewish, and when we decided to get married, I also decided to convert. So he and I have a Jewish family.  Caleb has decided, with the black and white thinking typical of children his age, that Jews are the good guys and Christians are the bad guys. Benson and I have explained to him many times that this is not the case, that most Christians and most Jews are good guys and that bad guys come in all flavors, including Jewish. But with the stubbornness which is also typical of children his age, Caleb clings to his own theory. Early in our visit, he announces his conclusions at the dinner table.

“Jews are good guys and Christians are bad guys, right Mom?”

“No honey, that’s not right at all!  Grammy and Grampa are Christians, and they’re not bad guys, are they?”

“No!” he shouts, “I love Grammy and Grampa!” He gets down from his chair and runs to give each of my parents a hug. We all laugh and the incident appears to be over.

But the next morning, my father tells me that my mother is out in the garden and would like to talk to me. Something in his face and voice stabs my heart with fear. I go outside to find my mother. I can see that she’s very upset. Her face is drawn and tight, and her hands are shaking.

“Dad says you want to talk to me.”  

“I’m frightened, Karen.” 

My mind races. “Frightened of what, Mom?”

  “I’m frightened for you and the children because you’re teaching them hatred. You’re teaching them bigotry, the worst kind of hatred, the kind I despise.”

I’m stunned by her words, dumbfounded. At first I can’t even imagine what she’s talking about. Then slowly I realize she’s referring to Caleb’s comment at the dinner table. Her reaction is so ludicrous that I want to laugh, but it’s obvious that she’s deadly serious. So I try to get her to see that she’s mistaken.  

“Mom, Caleb is just a little boy, you know what children are like, you raised six kids of your own. He’s at that age where everything is black and white – he thinks there are good guys and bad guys and it’s easy to tell the difference. We’re Jewish, so it’s natural for him to assume that the people who aren’t Jewish are the bad guys. I corrected him right away, don’t you remember?”

I can’t seem to budge her. She clings to her belief that I’m teaching my children to hate Christians. I begin to feel impatient and angry.

“Mom! This is me you’re talking to, Karen, your own daughter. I learned to despise bigotry from you, I feel just the same as you do, I would never, never teach my children hatred.”

And still, my mother is immovable. Now I begin to panic. It’s as if my mother can no longer see the real me. She’s looking right at me, but she doesn’t see me. She sees someone else, some monster daughter. And when I look at her, I see a stranger, someone I cannot recognize, someone who doesn’t seem to recognize me. Finally, I tell her that I don’t understand what’s going on and I don’t want to talk to her anymore. I go back inside.

The visit continues like this. My mother accuses Benson of thinking that she’s a terrible cook and not wanting to eat her food because he offers to make dinner one night. She cannot hear his protests that he loves to cook and thought she would enjoy a night off. She accuses us both of being snobs who disapprove of the books she and my father like to read and the television shows they like to watch, all because we turn off the news when a grisly story comes on and our young children are in the room. Again, our protests fall on deaf ears.

I become more and more confused and upset. Now and then I wonder if my mother is ill.  

A couple of mornings I’ve found her crying at the kitchen table, her breakfast untouched. My parents believe that my mother has MCS, multiple chemical sensitivity — that she’s so allergic to various chemicals, especially fragrances, that when she’s exposed to one of them, her brain chemistry goes haywire and her emotions are pushed to extremes, making her hostile and belligerent one minute, withdrawn and fragile the next. My father insists that the things my mother says when she’s under the influence of an allergen are “the illness speaking,” not my mother’s true feelings. The problem is that it’s hard for everyone in the family, even him, to tell the difference between feelings that are “the illness speaking” and feelings that are “real.”

I try to figure out whether my mother has had an exposure. There hasn’t been anything obvious. We haven’t gone many places, and we’ve followed my parents’ rules about not bringing anything scented with us and taking showers whenever we do go somewhere and then return to the house. Usually, my father will warn us if he thinks my mother’s been exposed to something. But he hasn’t said anything. In fact, he’s been supporting my mother’s feelings. While he admits that she’s being dramatic, he agrees with her perceptions. I cannot believe this. My father is turning into a stranger too, another person who looks at me but doesn’t see me. I feel invisible and completely misunderstood. I’m afraid to ask him if she could be sick. I don’t want him to accuse me of dismissing her feelings as allergy-induced, as a way of not dealing with them. But I don’t know how to deal with them. They don’t make any sense.

Benson and I begin to talk about leaving early. But we don’t want to add to the drama and the kids would be really disappointed. Instead, we spend more and more time away from the house, taking the kids on several day-long outings. By the end of the visit, I’m coming unglued. I’m besieged by memories of other visits with my parents, other times when my mother’s feelings did not make sense and the things she said hurt me deeply. I’m tense and weepy and desperate to go home. I’ve begun to question my own sanity, despite Benson’s assurances that I’m not the one who’s out of touch with reality.

Finally, as we’re packing up the rental car to head to the airport, my father approaches us and says he thinks my mother is sick, has in fact been sick all week. She’s in bed with a headache and won’t be able to come out and say goodbye. The feelings she’s been expressing all week are the result of her allergies. They’re not “real.” I’m relieved, but the damage is done. Like so many other times, I can’t wait to get away.