I'm in a new play and this time I have a major role, so I have a lot of lines to learn. It's just a short one-act play about a couple and their adult son. I play the mother. The father has some kind of dementia, possibly Alzheimer's, and the son wants his mother to put him (the father) in assisted living. She says no, she is not ready to do that.
At the end of the first rehearsal, the director asked if any of us had had experience with this sort of thing, and I said yes, with my grandparents. So there's a lot in this play that is familiar. Also, I am very much afraid that in a few years I may have to deal with it myself with my parents, as I have been seeing signs that all is not quite right there as well. But they absolutely refuse to discuss the matter with me, and so I have to let it drop.
Anyway I was thinking about the relationship between this couple. It's very obvious that they still have a lot of affection for each other, at least in the little snippet the playwright has chosen to show. Now, I've been told that it is not possible for outsiders to judge what goes on inside a marriage, but I disagree. You can tell a lot about a marriage by the way the two people treat each other. And when you are a family member you are privy to even so much more.
My parents have been married for over 50 years. I've heard people say, oh, that's so wonderful. What they do not realize is for the past 30 years (and maybe even before that), their marriage has steadily deteriorated into a mutual put-down fest. They don't argue, not directly. They have never fought. What they do is drag the nearest child into it and put them in the middle. "Your father." "Your mother". My sister says, "Well, they have to vent." Let me clue you. It is NEVER appropriate to vent to one's children in such a manner. NEVER. That is what marriage counselors are for, that is what pastors and other clergy are for. That is NOT what your children are for.
I do not know if they are so far gone in their mutual antagonism that they are unaware of how their actions and words are affecting their children (the ones that still stay in regular contact), or that they just don't care. After all, one of the things I heard repeatedly as I was growing up was that when you are an adult, when you have children of your own, you can do as you please. Parents are not required to set a good example for their children. Children must behave and turn out well regardless of what background they came from. I once showed a copy of the poem "Children learn what they live" to my mother who scoffed at it. If a child is shy because of criticism, it is because he or she chose to be shy, and so forth. Seems to me that's a good way of not taking responsibility for one's actions, one can always say to the other person, "well, that is what you chose." Well, I see what they are choosing. Is it no wonder I have remained single and childfree? The chain stops here. Let my siblings pass it on. Not me.
I know quite a bit about my mother's background but not so much about my father's. I know that my mother's father was a temperamental, domineering and verbally (possibly even physically) abusive man who had zero tolerance for any kind of deviance. My father does not talk about his childhood. I have heard that this type of silence can be indicative of abuse in the past. From bits and pieces I have picked up here and there, I am thinking that he too came from the same kind of situation.
So they got married and then I was born. I, the problem child. The Ever-Loving Father God sent me to a couple who were incapable of understanding an autistic spectrum child. My father kept a diary in which he logged all my meltdowns and fights with my siblings the same way he logged grades on his students. He doesn't know that I saw one of these old diaries one day. I thought, that is what you cared to record about me.
My mother often told me, "be careful what you pray for, I wanted children and prayed for them, and I got you." Yes, I was a "wanted" child. At least she said I was wanted. But I wonder, did I ruin her marriage? Did I ruin her life? Sometimes I think so. After all, if it hadn't been for my meltdowns at school where she had to come get me all the time, she could have gone out and gotten a job, and we could have had more money. Or would we?
There are times when I think that those advocating the termination of unwanted unborn children are right, and that maybe "choice" shouldn't stop at birth. Would it have been kinder if I had been euthanized as soon as they realized something was not quite right with me? Oh, I know my mother at least would be horrified for me to say these things. But I look at all the misery my existence has "caused", and I wonder.
And so, as I go off to play one half of a couple in their waning years, I just wonder what is in store down the road.
At the end of the first rehearsal, the director asked if any of us had had experience with this sort of thing, and I said yes, with my grandparents. So there's a lot in this play that is familiar. Also, I am very much afraid that in a few years I may have to deal with it myself with my parents, as I have been seeing signs that all is not quite right there as well. But they absolutely refuse to discuss the matter with me, and so I have to let it drop.
Anyway I was thinking about the relationship between this couple. It's very obvious that they still have a lot of affection for each other, at least in the little snippet the playwright has chosen to show. Now, I've been told that it is not possible for outsiders to judge what goes on inside a marriage, but I disagree. You can tell a lot about a marriage by the way the two people treat each other. And when you are a family member you are privy to even so much more.
My parents have been married for over 50 years. I've heard people say, oh, that's so wonderful. What they do not realize is for the past 30 years (and maybe even before that), their marriage has steadily deteriorated into a mutual put-down fest. They don't argue, not directly. They have never fought. What they do is drag the nearest child into it and put them in the middle. "Your father." "Your mother". My sister says, "Well, they have to vent." Let me clue you. It is NEVER appropriate to vent to one's children in such a manner. NEVER. That is what marriage counselors are for, that is what pastors and other clergy are for. That is NOT what your children are for.
I do not know if they are so far gone in their mutual antagonism that they are unaware of how their actions and words are affecting their children (the ones that still stay in regular contact), or that they just don't care. After all, one of the things I heard repeatedly as I was growing up was that when you are an adult, when you have children of your own, you can do as you please. Parents are not required to set a good example for their children. Children must behave and turn out well regardless of what background they came from. I once showed a copy of the poem "Children learn what they live" to my mother who scoffed at it. If a child is shy because of criticism, it is because he or she chose to be shy, and so forth. Seems to me that's a good way of not taking responsibility for one's actions, one can always say to the other person, "well, that is what you chose." Well, I see what they are choosing. Is it no wonder I have remained single and childfree? The chain stops here. Let my siblings pass it on. Not me.
I know quite a bit about my mother's background but not so much about my father's. I know that my mother's father was a temperamental, domineering and verbally (possibly even physically) abusive man who had zero tolerance for any kind of deviance. My father does not talk about his childhood. I have heard that this type of silence can be indicative of abuse in the past. From bits and pieces I have picked up here and there, I am thinking that he too came from the same kind of situation.
So they got married and then I was born. I, the problem child. The Ever-Loving Father God sent me to a couple who were incapable of understanding an autistic spectrum child. My father kept a diary in which he logged all my meltdowns and fights with my siblings the same way he logged grades on his students. He doesn't know that I saw one of these old diaries one day. I thought, that is what you cared to record about me.
My mother often told me, "be careful what you pray for, I wanted children and prayed for them, and I got you." Yes, I was a "wanted" child. At least she said I was wanted. But I wonder, did I ruin her marriage? Did I ruin her life? Sometimes I think so. After all, if it hadn't been for my meltdowns at school where she had to come get me all the time, she could have gone out and gotten a job, and we could have had more money. Or would we?
There are times when I think that those advocating the termination of unwanted unborn children are right, and that maybe "choice" shouldn't stop at birth. Would it have been kinder if I had been euthanized as soon as they realized something was not quite right with me? Oh, I know my mother at least would be horrified for me to say these things. But I look at all the misery my existence has "caused", and I wonder.
And so, as I go off to play one half of a couple in their waning years, I just wonder what is in store down the road.
