Dear bel
One of my grandchildren has decided that he wants to be a woman. The only information I had was an email a couple of years ago. I’m afraid my reaction was quite abrupt and that caused this problem.
For the first 30 years of his life, I never had any indication that he was anything other than a man. After college, he took a break and met a girl during his travels. They finally got married in the United States. Before that, however, they had my hospitality for two years, until they were able to buy a house, when I helped them financially.
About three years ago I had to move to a nursing home near my son. This meant, of course, selling the house after 40 years.
It was very traumatic, but I accepted and let the young couple keep most of my possessions. They had a child two years ago and became regular visitors. Then the email arrived, telling me his new “female” name.
On the eve of her 91st birthday, my wife died and I was glad I hadn’t told her. My grandson, his wife and son attended the funeral, but I have been a ghost ever since. I did not have a single contact with them even though I had sent money for my great-grandson’s birthday and Christmas.
I also sent birthday cards and letters that have yet to be answered. Not even a brief “Thank you.”
After everything I have done for this couple I feel humiliated and very, very disappointed by their attitude. Unless I accept his decision unconditionally, I am to blame. What is your opinion of all this?
Adam
Bel Mooney responds: My instinctive response is extremely forceful, but I have to be quite careful and not express my true feelings publicly as frankly as I would face to face with you in private.
I like to think that this column is a tolerant and loving space, but here we have an older gentleman who has been treated with unforgivable rudeness by a couple in their thirties to whom he was very kind. I don’t care if your grandson now calls himself a man or a woman or a furry bunny, he has absolutely no right to be so damn ungrateful, so rude (to be generous) or cruel (to be more honest).
When he sent you the email telling you that he should now be called Rose (I made that name up), you were supposed to respond by congratulating him on finding his true identity and telling him how wonderful it is that your great-grandson now has two moms. . or similar nonsense.
Yes, you were expected to fulfill his fantasy, but you couldn’t do it because you know perfectly well that a Roger can’t become a Rose just because he says so. I’m very much with you on that. You probably told him to get his head together, or words to that effect. Now, I often advise parents and grandparents to keep their opinions to themselves to maintain family harmony, and sometimes readers come back with a version of ‘But why the hell should we?’ And I always pity him.
Peace at any price usually means allowing lies to triumph. Being honest usually means causing family problems. That’s what it means to find yourself between a rock and a hard place.
So I admit that I wish you had ignored the man’s email, while at the same time I know that his announcement that he is now a “woman” would have irritated me as well. I think our society has gone completely crazy demanding that we accept every “identity” dogma out there.
When your email arrived you were taking care of your wife and I too am glad you allowed her to die without knowing about the email. It won’t help much, but right now I ask you to remember that your grandson’s wife and son are having to deal with the consequences of his decision to transition. That can cause big problems within a family, which is why there are online support groups for them.
I think the family’s rudeness towards you is appalling, but I just want to point out that this can’t be an easy time for them either. What can you do? I imagine you have told your son how humiliated, sad and angry you feel. I might well agree. All I can do is offer my deepest condolences.
Dear bel
I am middle-aged, married and retired, with grown children. Every day I suffer from a bad mood and a huge lack of confidence that I think has increased over the years, although I don’t know why.
For example, I no longer feel comfortable and happy driving, although I used to consider myself a good driver. I also suffer from anxiety, which is horrible and stops me doing things I wouldn’t have thought twice about when I was younger.
I hope to be young at heart: I love music, theater, painting, keeping fit, etc. But I don’t have as many friends as I used to. I recently let a couple go because friendships weren’t what they used to be.
My marriage has been difficult at times, we are very different people with different friends. I think it would be great to have a shared social circle, but it doesn’t work that way.
Sometimes I think about my youth when I had so many friends, but I know that I have to move on, although I admit that I enjoy looking back.
In many ways, I know I’m lucky. I get along well with my children and my family in general and there are things I look forward to. I guess I’m just not satisfied with my current life, so how do I get my ‘joie de vivre’ back?
sarah
Bel Mooney responds: The subject of his email is one word: “Languishing.” It conjured up an image of a stuck ship, simply wallowing and turning in a calm sea with no wind to propel it forward.
A situation like this can make you seasick, as anyone with experience in small boats will know. Similarly, it’s not always just the storms of life that make you want to vomit.
What I didn’t know is that “languishing” is now an accepted term in modern psychology, a concept seen as the opposite of “flourishing” and first used in relation to mental health by an American sociologist in 2002. Some readers might be thinking this. It’s irritatingly typical: an American academic putting a label on a normal human feeling that could be summed up as “meh” or “blah.”
One might ask, as I often do, whether it is useful for society to put a label on each mood, thus turning it into something akin to a disease. (‘School Avoidance Disorder’, anyone?)
Yes, Sarah, you are right to imagine that many people feel the same way. I once considered myself an outstanding driver, but now I don’t like driving my 12-year-old Mini. I worry about parking the damn thing and I also get anxious about (say) going on a perfectly normal vacation.
Why do we experience such changes? I’m afraid they are a common symptom of aging, like having a stiff neck (just one thing that makes reversing and parking harder), hating the increase in traffic on our roads, resenting parking apps, getting exhausted just thinking about an airport. , realizing that your home is safer than anywhere else and (generally) having experienced most of life’s inconveniences and knowing that they tend to get worse, you fear them even more.
Raise your hand everyone who recognizes these symptoms! They are perfectly natural responses to modern life. No medications or counseling are needed here.
But two other problems lurk in your email: marriage and friendship. Without a doubt, these factors contribute to your bad mood. Like many people, you feel melancholy because you are not sharing your life with the ‘soulmate’ (an irritating but useful shorthand) that many people dream of.
You almost certainly feel alone within your marriage and wish it were otherwise. However, it’s not too late to make a concerted effort to find something new that you and your husband can share, whether it’s learning about University of the Third Age activities, planning changes to the garden, or deciding to share your life. with a pet.
I just ask that you try to think creatively in that sense and talk about it with him. Still, couples can be very different and still show interest in each other’s tastes.
It’s quite normal to let certain friendships pass as we change. You can’t keep everyone who was once important. Don’t worry about it, just focus on the friends you have and promise to give them even more input. You can start to combat your own discomfort by being proactive.
Have lunch with three friends and laugh over a bottle of wine (or two). Make a plan with your closest friend to go for a walk every week and notice something new in nature.
This is a (NHS approved!) way to “move forward”, which is (as you say) essential. The natural world changes just as we do, and learning to identify with its grand cycles can be both humbling and exhilarating.
What exactly is the “joy of life”? Is it possible to feel the joy of living all the time? Hmm, I personally take as my mantra (written in each year’s diary) wise words from the great Norwegian playwright Ibsen: ‘Live, work, act; Do not sit down to meditate and grope among insoluble enigmas.
And finally… Suffering shows our humanity.
Two weeks ago I told them that I was going to ‘learn something new’. Neither my husband nor I had ever visited the extraordinary sites of Pompeii and Herculaneum, overwhelmed by a catastrophic volcanic eruption almost 2,000 years ago.
In the summer of 79 AD, nearby Mount Vesuvius erupted, spewing smoke, stones, lava and toxic gases 20 miles into the air, which spread to cities and towns, completely burying people and places for centuries.
We traveled with a company called Andante, which specializes in history and archaeology. Experienced archaeologist John Shepherd explained everything with tireless skill.
Yes, it may sound a little geeky, but by the way, I would encourage single readers to investigate what the company offers because at least eight of our group were alone and found the nice late-night group dinners a real plus.
Still, it moves me to imagine the horror of what those poor, long-dead people endured. Seeing casts of bodies in attitudes of agony and fear is indescribable. A couple huddled together, a dog in agony, a child… How can things like that seem so remote when you realize that these people were like us in many ways?
Read the testimony of young Pliny: ‘You could hear the screams of the women, the screams of the children and the screams of the men; some calling for their children, others for their parents, others for their husbands… one lamenting his own fate, another that of his family; some wishing to die, out of fear of dying; some raise their hands towards the gods; but the majority were convinced that there were no gods at all…’
The women of Herculaneum dressed in their best jewelry in the hope of escape. Our vacation left me thinking about universality: real people calling their loved ones, like we do.