Nutmeg and her boyfriend broke up today, and suddenly the whole mood in our own apartment turned somber. Nutmeg is a big girl, more than capable of taking care of her own needs or finding friends who can offer support, but the thought that she’s in pain and we can’t do anything about it has really colored our day. What had started out as an afternoon in which iDaddy and I were just lazing around, doing the Sunday Times crossword puzzle and thinking about when we should brave the cold to head downtown for Opera Night at Caffe Taci — an event we used to go to all the time when it was in our neighborhood, but which we’ve only been to a few times now that it’s relocated to Midtown — suddenly turned sad-by-proxy. And I’m having flashes of other weekend afternoons, when the girls were teenagers, feeling on call for them, poised to be available at a moment’s notice to retrieve them from a shopping mall or drive them to a friend’s house or just TALK to them, never really feeling like we could settle into doing whatever it was the two of us we wanted to do.
Worse than that, really — because now we’re poised for something that’s so much more vague. We’re on pins and needles, but it’s over something emotional rather than logistical, and it feels a bit unearned and inappropriate. When the girls were little, they objectively needed us to get them places or buy them things. Now, Nutmeg is 25 years old, with friends of her own, a life of her own, problems of her own. How much of a role should iDaddy or I even play in this? Should we hop in the car and drive the half-hour to Brooklyn to keep her company, which was my first thought when I rushed to the phone to call her this afternoon? (She didn’t pick up.) Should we rescue her from the real estate headache the breakup will inevitably produce, offering to pay her boyfriend’s half of the rent on their one-bedroom apartment until the lease is up and she can move somewhere cheaper? Should we help her buy out his half of the couch?
Nutmeg is already protecting herself from this kind of reaction, I think, by keeping us at arm’s length as she tries to work out her heartache on her own. She first told me this past Monday that she and her boyfriend were having a rocky time, after I hadn’t heard from her all weekend and had assumed she and he were busy doing fun stuff together. But in truth Nutmeg wasn’t with him at all, but was with her best friend, visiting from Boston, trying to find consolation over what she was sure was an impending break-up, talking and drinking and talking and going to a movie (which turned out to be the wrong one to have chosen at such a moment) and talking some more. I was hurt that she hadn’t turned to me at all over that weekend, but I shouldn’t have been; I’m not her friend, I’m her mother. What really hurt me was the suspicion that she hadn’t called me because she was pretty sure I would say the wrong thing, and she needed to brace herself for it. I pride myself on always saying the right thing to friends who are in pain, but I know that when I try to console my daughters, I often blow it. No matter how many times I’ve learned that offering, however obliquely, to rescue them is absolutely the wrong response, that’s almost always the response I offer.
But is it possible that a tiny piece of them, no matter how grown-up and independent they are, wants rescue? When Nutmeg and I finally spoke last Monday, she told me that the only fun part of the weekend had been when she and her best friend decided that if Nutmeg really did break up with her boyfriend, the only rebound guy worth getting excited about would be Zach Braff, an actor she’s admired ever since she saw his movie “Garden State” years ago; I happen to know his parents. Today, the way that she told me the break-up was a done deal was with a plaintive one-line text message: “Set me up with Zach Braff please.”
“I’m not her friend, I’m her mother.” Wise words!
I try not to rescue my kids either, even though they’re much younger than yours. But it is a very difficult impulse to resist, isn’t it. All my sympathy to you both!
the suspicion that she hadn’t called me because she was pretty sure I would say the wrong thing
Or because she knew you would try to rescue her. Or, perhaps, because she was first busy calling the people she needed to talk to and doing the things she needed to do in order to do her rescuing on her own.
You rescue kids in advance by giving them the resources to, say, end relationships that aren’t working for them, and not have it ruin their lives to the point where they need you to step in, and still be able to make jokes about Zach Braff. And hopefully to choose good partners in the first place, but obviously that doesn’t always work out (that’s a dig at my ex-partners, not Nutmeg’s).
Thanks, Meta. I’m hoping that iDaddy and I have done the kind of pre-rescuing you’re talking about — it’s an interesting way to think about it. One of iDaddy’s favorite expressions, you might recall, is “That which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” which might be a good philosophy for oneself but which drove me crazy when he tried to apply it to you or Nutmeg. It might be true, but that’s not the point — when your kids are in pain, all you want is for them not to be in pain.
Nutmeg did end up calling in the end, by the way, and we drove over to Brooklyn after all, bought her dinner, drove her back here to sleep in her old twin bed. I don’t know how much it helped her, but it helped me a little to be able to see her, and I think we offered a respite of sorts. She left before lunch to go back to her real life, which is of course hers to fix.
Am loving your blog. Usually catch up with it once a week. Forwarded the Pins & Needles blog to ZB
Best,
David
Nice to have you checking in on the blog, David — especially since you have so much more professional expertise in this subject than I do. Feel free to jump in and tell me whenever my psychological references can use some beefing up. As for Zach — I sure hope he takes this in the spirit in which it was meant!