The Incredible Disappearing Family
Everyone was thrilled when our son was born. And then... they were gone.
by C.W. Thompson
November 6, 2009
When my son was born, it was a packed house. No less than ten people were on hand when, after almost fifty hours of labor in the hospital, he was vacuum-suctioned out of his mother. Nurses, the midwife, the on-call vacuum-specialist (a woman who seemed to swoop in out of nowhere, making the last-minute birthing hail Mary) and a few doctors were all on hand. Outside in the waiting room were all the members of my wife's side of the family (mine live far away, but were sitting by the phone, waiting to hear the outcome).
My son had to stay in the hospital, Bellevue, a few extra days, suffering from a difficult delivery and high bilirubin scores. My wife was laid up for three more days. All the family was around us, and one of the uncles, in a moment of enlightened selflessness, brought us a full meal on the second day. Something the both of us, my wife especially, desperately needed. A few days later, after time under the tanning lights, our son's jaundice had receded and we took him home. The experience was heart-warming: it felt as if all hands were on deck, and help would be close by.
After a hastily organized bris on the traditional eighth day the family went their own ways. My wife's father went back to Los Angeles. The uncles went back to their homes in the same borough as us, close enough that a phone call could have them at our apartment in minutes. But little did I know that once the baby was home, the concept of help would become more hypothesis than reality, a contentious notion that created a serious family schism.
Being first-time parents, we weren't quite sure what to expect from our relatives. But it was just an assumption that aunts and uncles would pitch in, and that in fact, they would want to pitch in: perhaps bring a meal over every once in a while, or offer to do a little house cleaning, or even babysit a few hours here and there. About this, we were dead wrong.
We would hear about these two couples having brunches together and wonder, why couldn't we be invited?
My mother-in-law stayed for the first three months. Her help was enormous, not only lending a hand and waking up through the night, but also sharing her experiences raising three children with us. But she couldn't stay forever and left for the West Coast after the third month.
My wife and I took the reins and things went as well as they could have as we developed our own patterns of parenting. After about six months, we realized that there was a scarcity of calls from the uncles and aunts: even the grandfather back in Los Angeles seemed over it all. Neither a "How is everythin?" call was received, nor were even the simplest of text messages sent. We began to feel hurt from what we perceived as a void of caring from my wife's immediate relatives. We would hear about these two couples having brunches together and wonder, why couldn't we be invited? We're totally morning people now! We would be invited for dinner, but because of the challenging schedules of a young baby, attending these was next-to-impossible. Turning down these invitations was perceived from their perspective as a slight, but they couldn't possibly understand the physical and psychological exhaustion we were going through.
This was the beginning of our estrangement from the uncles and aunts — four people who lived ridiculously close to us.
We cycled through a myriad of feelings. We were afraid to call to ask for help for fear of rejectio or that we would come across as too demanding. We also thought — though this was unspoken — that perhaps asking for too much help would be seen as a sign of weakness. As if we were saying, no, we can't raise this child on our own: we need help.
©2009 C.W. Thompson and Babble
About the Author
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C.W. Thompson is a writer based in Brooklyn who's had work published in a variety of media outlets. His baby is now a toddler, which he finds hard to believe. |
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