What I Like About You

“What year were you married? What year was the baby born?”

“We were married in 1987, Abuela. Jacob was born in 1991.”

MariaPaula’s grandmother had started to show signs of mild dementia something over a year before and had recently moved in with her only granddaughter. As grandmother’s cognitive abilities continued to slide, she asked “What year were you married? What year was the baby born?” more and more frequently. By the last year of her life, she would ask “What year were you married? What year was the baby born?” several times in the same hour. Robert and MariaPaula always offered the same patient, truthful answer. They had been married for three and a half years when Jacob joined them.

Robert and MariaPaula weren’t offended. They saw no need whatsoever to point out that, although Jake hadn’t been born out of wedlock, they had indeed moved in with one another several months before their marriage. It went without saying that grandma would not have benefited from that information. Nor did they point out that in modern day Scandinavia, the vast majority of marriages are to couples who already have a child. They understood that grandma was from a different generation and a different culture. “It was a great scandal back in Cuba for a woman to have a baby the same year you got married,” MariaPaula had explained to her North American husband. “People might say that you had sex with your husband before you got married.”

“Yeah, I get that,” Robert had responded.

No amount of reassurance could ease abuella’s obsession over the year of her granddaughter’s marriage and the year of her great-grandchild’s birth. Nothing else seemed to bother her. She clearly loved and accepted Robert. That he was from a different country, a different culture, and a different religion made no impact. And she adored Jake although, of course, at 22 he had been graduated from college and hadn’t lived at home for some years.

It wasn’t until grandma died that Robert and MariaPaula understood the reason for her obsession with the year of their marriage and the year of their baby’s birth.

An elderly relative explained: “Your grandmother had a child when she was 16. Of course, she wasn’t married. The baby was put up for adoption and she never saw him again.”

The issue was from grandmother’s past, not from MariaPaula’s. Abuella had had a child out of wedlock in a time and a country when such a circumstance was unspeakable though hardly unheard of.

The shame of that act and the sense of loss had followed her for over 70 years. When she could not remember the names of her children and grandchildren, when she could not remember the names of the days of the week, when she could not remember to get out of bed to go to the bathroom, she still remembered to ask, “What year did you get married? What year was the baby born?”

***

Ibsen communicated how the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children. Are you projecting “your stuff” on your kids? Are you concerned for your children or are you concerned that your children will be like you? When you say, “Do your homework” are you focused on your kids learning something or are you remembering how little you liked to study? When you give your kids advice about going forward in their own lives, are you in actuality thinking backward about your own?

The good news is that your kids are not you any more than MariaPaula’s grandmother is MariaPaula. If you’ll let them, your kids can grow up without the same anxieties that may have held you back.

If you let them.