PARENTS IN LIMBO

PARENTS IN LIMBO

PARENTS’ ACTION
Perhaps this family has found the modus vivendi but then not every MIL is placed in the happy situation as she is in. In a foreign land like America, this can be difficult of implementation even if the parents have their source of income. In particular, mobility would be a major problem.
If the parents have more than one son, they spend short periods with each and the DIL puts up with them as a short-term nuisance.
There are of course parents/widowed mothers who manage to live by themselves in spite of all handicaps and virtual loss of fawning attention from their sons and playful grandchildren. That is a price they are willing to pay for an independent existence. One can’t have everything in life.
But dignity and self-esteem, one can surely have at a sacrifice and a price.
The bottom line is that when in-laws get polarised, reconciliation would seem impossible to achieve, given the entrenched prejudices, likes, ambitions, dreams, aversions etc.
A lecturer at the Ramakrishna Mission touched the core of the problem when he said that one should go into life without expectations, especially from one’s kith and kin. There would then be less scope for disappointments and frustration. How true!