Playing both ends against the middle - from the middle's perspective
I got a call yesterday from my daughter. I was sort of surprised only because a week ago we had a blow out on the phone – thanks for the most part to her little brother.
He is always pitting us against each other. In all honesty I don’t think he does this on purpose – or perhaps he does…
It all began when my son decided he wanted to go spend spring break with his sister. Since she had just had her second child, I felt a bit leery of sending him up there. Also her in-laws (with whom she lives) had decided to put the house on the market. In talking with my daughter about this she told me she was not sure if it was a good idea either. Needless to say I passed this along to my son.
So when my daughter called him last week and told him it was OK after all – he called me into the living room where he had her on the phone – shoved the phone at me and said “Here talk to your daughter” – I took the phone said hello and all of a sudden my daughter was yelling at me asking me why I had told my son he could not come visit her.
For a brief moment I wanted to ask her if having that second child had completely robbed her of all of her brain cells. I began engaging myself asking if she ‘remembered’ our conversation about how it might not be a ‘good idea’ for her brother to come up. She paused for a moment and then retorted “Well it’s fine now…” – I gave the phone back to my son, furious with the both of them and went upstairs. After he got off the phone I let him have it verbally telling him I no longer wanted to be put in the middle of such things and that from now on they had to work things out amongst themselves. He argued back for a bit but that seemed to be the end of it. I was angry with my daughter too but decided not to push the matter any further.
Well yesterday she called me to apologise. She said she got off of the phone and realised what I *was* talking about – and felt awful. She said she tried calling me at work a couple of days in a row to apologise but this was the first chance she had to actually get me on the phone. We both began laughing and I told her that part of this was her brother playing both ends against the middle (just the way they used to when they were kids only using Mom and Dad as the ‘middle’). I warned her to watch out for this from her own children.
It was so nice having that phone call. If you had any idea of what our relationship was ‘back in the day’ you’d be amazed by this conversation. As I was and I am so thankful that she and I can talk, and mend and bond with each other like this. Sometimes having children is a catalyst for everything that is meant to be in your life…you just never knew it – and while I never thought it would bring us this close – I thank God everyday for not only the gift of my grandchildren – but the restoration of my relationship with my daughter.
He is always pitting us against each other. In all honesty I don’t think he does this on purpose – or perhaps he does…
It all began when my son decided he wanted to go spend spring break with his sister. Since she had just had her second child, I felt a bit leery of sending him up there. Also her in-laws (with whom she lives) had decided to put the house on the market. In talking with my daughter about this she told me she was not sure if it was a good idea either. Needless to say I passed this along to my son.
So when my daughter called him last week and told him it was OK after all – he called me into the living room where he had her on the phone – shoved the phone at me and said “Here talk to your daughter” – I took the phone said hello and all of a sudden my daughter was yelling at me asking me why I had told my son he could not come visit her.
For a brief moment I wanted to ask her if having that second child had completely robbed her of all of her brain cells. I began engaging myself asking if she ‘remembered’ our conversation about how it might not be a ‘good idea’ for her brother to come up. She paused for a moment and then retorted “Well it’s fine now…” – I gave the phone back to my son, furious with the both of them and went upstairs. After he got off the phone I let him have it verbally telling him I no longer wanted to be put in the middle of such things and that from now on they had to work things out amongst themselves. He argued back for a bit but that seemed to be the end of it. I was angry with my daughter too but decided not to push the matter any further.
Well yesterday she called me to apologise. She said she got off of the phone and realised what I *was* talking about – and felt awful. She said she tried calling me at work a couple of days in a row to apologise but this was the first chance she had to actually get me on the phone. We both began laughing and I told her that part of this was her brother playing both ends against the middle (just the way they used to when they were kids only using Mom and Dad as the ‘middle’). I warned her to watch out for this from her own children.
It was so nice having that phone call. If you had any idea of what our relationship was ‘back in the day’ you’d be amazed by this conversation. As I was and I am so thankful that she and I can talk, and mend and bond with each other like this. Sometimes having children is a catalyst for everything that is meant to be in your life…you just never knew it – and while I never thought it would bring us this close – I thank God everyday for not only the gift of my grandchildren – but the restoration of my relationship with my daughter.
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