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A Year of Crisis With My Parents Later…

Sign on Somerset, Ottawa, 2018

I was on bad terms with my mom from fall 2016 to spring 2017.

It was one hell of a long argument.

I rarely argue with my parents. When I was a kid, short fights usually revolved around spilled chocolate milk at breakfast—I’m not a morning person…—being mean to my sister or the occasional bad grade. There was no major ongoing conflict. My parents never criticized my friends, boyfriends, questionable sense of fashion or quirks. Their first priority was education. Even as a moody teen with piercings and a rebellious mind, I agreed it made sense and I was a pretty good student.

After I came back alive from my solo trip to China at age 16, my parents assumed I was responsible enough to make decisions about my future. I like to think I lived up to their expectations and we almost stopped arguing. My parents weren’t my friends but they weren’t the enemy either.

We were all good.

Seriously, I highly recommend my parents as parents—although come to think of it, maybe now that they are in their early sixties and we’re all grown up, they’re done parenting.

And that was the issue. I needed my parents and they weren’t there.

It started with phone calls—or rather, the lack of phone calls.

Ever since I left home at 18, I’ve been the one calling. It makes sense when I’m travelling since my parents can’t reach me. It somewhat made sense in my first few years in Canada as well. Before Skype, you needed a phone card and a landline to call abroad. Basically, I had a better chance to reach my parents than the other way around.

International phone calls are easier and cheaper now. A few years ago, I gave my mom a smartphone and she learned to master Skype. Sending a text message is easy, and so is sharing photos and videos.

Yet, my parents never called me. Not once. I called to say I was getting married, I called to say I was pregnant, I called to say Mark was born and I called for no reason a million times.

And then, at one point, I got a bit tired of being the one who reaches out. When we were in France in 2016, I told my mom she should call once in a while.

I was hoping she would.

She didn’t.

I didn’t call from September to December, waiting for a phone call.

I declared a truce on New Year’s Eve and called.

Then I waited again.

By spring, I was fuming.

The straw that broke the camel’s back was an innocent email my mom sent in May, in which she mentioned she was looking forward to us coming to France in the summer. I immediately called her on Skype. I can’t remember my exact words but it was something along the lines of “fuck you, why do I have to come when you don’t seem to give a shit about what we do the rest of the time.”

It did feel extremely good to say it but since I also hung up at the end of my monologue, my confusing message didn’t quite get through.

I was hoping my mom would immediately call back.

She didn’t, of course.

At this point, you may think I’m overreacting. I hear you.

But hear me out. It wasn’t that much about who calls—ultimately, who cares?

It was about feeling wanted and feeling loved.

I chose to live several thousands of kilometres from where I was born but I never meant to hurt anyone. I paid the price for my decisions. It’s not that easy to raise a child in a foreign country without family support. It’s not that easy to live a life no one in my family can relate to. It’s not that easy to be in a multicultural relationship, to travel around the world, to make decisions alone. When I make mistakes, I have to fix them alone.

There are days when I wish I could rely on my relatives to help out with Mark. If I argue with Feng, I’m truly alone—it’s not like I’m going to turn to my in-laws for comfort. Intellectually, I understand Canadian culture but this doesn’t mean I adopted every single Canadian custom and perspective. And I spare you the tricky four or five first years in Canada when speaking English all the time was mentally exhausting and I was craving a conversation in French.

So yes, sometimes I simply need my parents—you know, the people who (are supposed to) love you unconditionally, saw you growing up and understand your strengths, weaknesses and quirks, who speak the same language and have the same cultural background as you.

In my head, this primal need grew into resentment.

“I go to France to see you, I send pictures, packages and videos of Mark regularly, AND YOU DON’T EVEN FUCKING CALL!” I remember screaming. “In 15 years, you came ONCE!”

It’s not just my parents. I have a younger sister and brother who send me a grand total of one email every year (for my birthday). And I have many relatives who never get in touch unless we’re in France. It drives me nuts. My mom and my brother came to visit us in 2011 (I bought the tickets are organized everything), but the rest of my family never did.

I was here for them but they weren’t there for me.

But no one is used to me asking for help.

Every family has its own dynamics in which each member has a role. I’m the oldest child and the dependable fixer. It looks like I have life figured out—I’m the only one who is married, has a kid and has a saving account. I get along with all my relatives, admittedly probably because I don’t see them often enough to argue. I’m the one you call in case of emergency, I’m the one who finds solutions to problems.

Maybe it was easier for my mother, who already has a lot on her plate, to assume—or pretend to assume—that I had everything together. One less thing to worry about.

“I’m not calling because I don’t know your schedule!” my mom claimed over the phone. “I don’t want to bother you, I don’t want to interrupt!”

“But I want you to interrupt me! I’m dreaming of someone calling just to talk to me!” I cried.

Explaining what you need is harder than it seems. I often assume that people magically understand what I want without me expressing it.

We worked it out. It took a few phone calls, many of them leaving us in tears.

It’s better. The phone still doesn’t ring out of the blue but once in a while, my mom sends me an email asking if now is a good time to call.

I immediately call back every time.

So here is a lesson. Explain what you want and what you need. Waiting around for other people to figure it out makes you miserable and meanwhile, you get angrier.

And another one—you never stop being a parent and being needed.

And now go call or hug your parents, siblings, relatives or anyone who is always there for you.

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Zhu

French woman in English Canada.

Exploring the world with my camera since 1999, translating sentences for a living, writing stories that may or may not get attention.

Firm believer that nobody is normal... and it’s better this way.

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