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January 15, 2005
When Your Mom's Biological Clock Starts Ticking
Awhile ago, before I met mi chavo, my cousin asked me whether or not I plan to raise my children Jewish. I told her I honestly hadn't thought about it. In my mind, finding a man whom I could love as much as my parents love each other seemed so improbable that the simple idea of marriage seemed remote, so no need to think about kids. Plus, I always thought I'd have my career securely in place before starting a family and I'm nowhere near having any certainty on that front.
Juice (my cousin) was surprised at my answer. After all, I was the "Super Jew" of our generation. I was a Bar Mitzvah tutor from the moment my Bat Mitzvah ended (two months before my 13th bday) until the day I went off to college. I was on the e-board of my temple's Jewish youth group and even had a couple of regional positions. And I was in the youth choir and then the adult choir until the summer before I left for college. So how could I, Super Jew that I am, possibly raise my kids anything else?
Quite honestly, there's two reasons: first, I'm bothered by organized religion. I'm bothered by the fact that unless you pay a certain amount of money, you aren't considered a member of a Jewish congregation. I'm bothered that my parents didn't attend my students' Bar Mitzvahs because they felt unwanted at a temple whose dues they couldn't afford. (Part of the reason I reached out for religion was that my fam was going through a difficult financial time when I was a teenager, as my father was unemployed for five years.) And second, recognizing that I gave up on the "Jews only" dating game when I was in high school, the possibility of me marrying a Jew went waay down. So how could I expect my husband to simply give over the moral/religious upbringing of his offspring simply because my tribe has an incredibly huge chip on its shoulder?
Jump forward a few years to the present day. Enter me and mi chavo - the most amazing man I have ever met. He treats me so well, he is such an amazing human being, we have so much in common, and oh yeah, he happens to be a Catholic Latino. (Hence using the Guatemalan term for boyfriend when referring to him.) Honestly, his religion and ethnicity never factored into my decision to date him or fall in love with him. Okay, so maybe being a hot latino in a football jersey in his online profile did make me want to meet him, but that's not why I fell in love.
Right. So enter stage left The Overbearing Jewish Mother. My mom has been on my case nonstop about my nonexistant children's religion ever since I told her about mi chavo. Let me be clear: it's the first thing she talked to me about when I mentioned that we started dating. Randomly, I have let my mother's biological clock tick its way into my convos with mi chavo. It got to the point where he thought I was the one bursting at the seems to pop out a baby. These convos with mi chavo escalated recently when we were discussing going out West to meet my folks. My mother was highly offended that I told her she could not ask mi chavo about his religion or his preferences in child raising. I told her we simply are nowhere near that point in our relationship and she said "if he's in my house, I'll ask him whatever I want. And it doesn't matter that you're not starting a family now, it's a possibility down the road and therefore you should be discussing it now."
This is no longer about me, my preferences, or my boyfriend. This is about my mother's irrational fear of baptised grandchildren. This is about the fact that my mother *never* questioned my sister-in-law about her religion (she's Christian) and it is about the fact that my mother never bothered to have her second grandson converted nor has she bothered to get my nephews into Hebrew School. (My brother and sister-in-law agreed to raise their two sons Jewish.) Why should I bear the brunt of her fears of the end of the tribe? Why doesn't she worry more about her grandkids that exist rather than bothering me about decisions that are years away?
For me, the issue is resolved (for now). Mi chavo wont be meeting my rents anytime soon (flights are too expensive) and we wont be discussing this topic again for many years to come. Unless of course, he complains about me posting about it. The thing is, this isn't about mi chavo or even our relationship. This is about my mother accepting that I can make my own decisions when it comes to my religion. This is about my mother letting go of control over her child's future. And this post is about me looking for clarity and compassion on how to deal with my mom's biological clock.
Posted by cj at January 15, 2005 10:41 AM