XXVIII
WHY OUR FAMILIES RILE US
A woman wants to know why it is that we find it harder to get along with our families than we do with other people, and why our own blood-and-kin rile us more than anybody else on earth. Probably the main reason why we find it so difficult to live in peace and harmony with those who are really near and dear to us is because we are too much alike. We have inherited the same traits of character, and when these come in collision there is a resounding crash, and the noise of wrecked tempers and exploding wrath.
Father, an iron-willed, tyrannical gentleman, who has ruled his little world like a despot, cannot get along with John, who is of the same fiber, and equally determined to have his own way and do as he pleases. Father and John may have a very sincere affection for each other and admire each other’s good qualities, but they can never be together an hour without getting into a fight over something.
Mother is a born manager, one of the ladies who honestly believe, with the famous Frenchman, that she could have saved the Almighty from making some mortifying mistakes if she had been consulted at the creation. Mary is mother’s own daughter in her perfect belief that she knows exactly how to run the universe. What wonder, then, that they clash over every gown and hat that is bought; over every man that comes to see Mary; over everywhere that Mary goes?
Sometimes the reason that we can’t get along with our own people is because we are so entirely different from them. Often and often children are changelings, and those of our own flesh have no tie of spiritual kinship with us. The father who is a hard-headed, practical business man has nothing in common with the son who is a quivering bunch of nerves and sensibilities; who is a dreamer of dreams, and who counts wealth in terms of beauty, instead of dollars. Mother, who was a beauty and a belle in her day, with scores of lovers sighing at her feet, has looked forward to reliving her triumphs in her daughter. And when daughter grows up to be a big, sturdy young person who wants to go into business and who loathes society, what wonder that they get on each other’s nerves?
When you hear parents speak bitterly of what a disappointment children are, and how ungrateful, it merely means that their children are different from them. John insists on being a doctor or a lawyer instead of going into the hardware business father has been building up for him for twenty years. Mary wants to marry a poor young man, instead of the nice, settled, rich widower mother has picked out for her. Other people find John brilliant and talented. Father calls him a fool to his face because he won’t do father’s way. Other women are sympathetic with Mary’s romance, and her willingness to sacrifice riches for love. It infuriates mother to see her throwing an establishment and pearls and a limousine away, for a sentiment.
Often the reason we cannot get along with our own families is because they are like a mirror in which we see our own faults in all their hideousness. Father’s lack of ambition that has kept him from making anything of his life; mother’s shiftlessness and wastefulness that have kept the family poor; brother’s brutal temper; sister’s sharp tongue that cuts like a two-edge sword—these irritate us, and we find them harder to forgive than we would such defects in other people because we know that we are, ourselves, prone to just these weaknesses.
Besides these fundamental reasons why it is hard to get along with our relatives, there are a thousand minor causes of discord. One of the principal ones is the lack of politeness in the family circle, for most people feel that good manners are like good clothes, and should be worn only for the benefit of company. It is an amazing but true thing that practically the only people who ever say mean, insulting, wounding things to us are those of our own household.
Strangers listen to us with apparent interest, and laugh at our jokes. Our friends compliment our new frocks and cars. If our casual acquaintances do not like our taste or respect our judgment, they keep silent about it. It is our families who stab our vanity to the quick by yawning in our faces, and asking us if we are going to tell that old story over again; who bluntly inform us that our new hat is ten years too young for us, and that there is nothing so ridiculous as old women trying to be flappers; who criticize the way we are raising our children, and tell us the home truths we would rather die than hear.
Still another reason why it is hard to get along with our families is because it is generally held that the mere fact that you love people gives you a perfect right to nag them. We speak of family ties as binding. Binding is right, for in the average home no one can rise up or sit down, eat or fast, go or come, without having to give an account of why he or she did it or didn’t do it, and being advised to do it some other way.
It is for these, and a thousand other reasons, that we find it difficult to get along with our families, and fly to those who do not feel that they have a right to boss, correct, advise or otherwise interfere with us in the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness.