Good Relations
SISSY LITZ CARPEY
I
t is a simple dinner
party at my home, yet
I am agonizing over
the menu, critically
eyeing my best tablecloth,
and frantically going from
shop to shop looking for
the perfect dress to wear.
My closet is full of perfect
things to wear at my own
dining room table, and I
can't count the dinner par-
ties I have easily pulled off
through the years.
This one is different. I
am meeting my new
machetunim, my daughter's
future in-laws, for the first
time. Our children, by
choosing to marry, are
bringing us together. One
day, God willing, we will
Sissy Litz Carpey is a
writer who lives in
Pennsylvania.
share grandchildren, but to-
day we are strangers. I
want to make a good im-
pression. If I am suddenly
insecure, it is because I
know how awful it can be
when the parents hate each
other.
No one wanted her son to
marry as much as my
mother. She- welcomed my
brother's bride with the
warmth that was her
trademark. All went well
until she met the other
mother, , who was, like her,
strong-willed (a kind way to
put it). I don't remember
the first problem, but the
two mothers took simple
disagreements as personal
insults, and the wedding
pictures tell more than a
thousand words. There
stands my mother, magnifi-
cent in an ice-blue satin
beaded dress, trying,
without success, to force
grim lips into a smile.
It was years before the
two women could be in the
same room together. And
years before my brother
and his wife ended the your
mother/my mother fights.
The months between you r
child's engagement and
wedding are supposed to be
a happy time, but as any
parent of a bride or groom
will tell you, these can be
tough times for parents.
_
THE MYTH
Rabbi Susan Schnur said
it well in a New York
Times "Hers" column.
"There's a myth about wed-
dings," the rabbi wrote,
"that families are uniformly
happy about them, that
children and parents are in
harmony and that parents
want their children to grow
up and establish families of
their own."
She continues, "The pros-
pect of a family being
altered in unpredictable
ways is unsettling. Wed-
dings, it often seems, are
the ideal occasion for all
the submerged tensions and
dissatisfactions of a family
to surface, and some of us,
even in the most healthy
and supportive of families,
are at our worst."
• Item: A mother-of-the-
groom with a wedding in-
vitation in her hand was
screeching at no one in par-
ticular and everyone in
general at a local beauty
shop. "Our names aren't
even on the invitation! I
know Emily Post says
that's the way it's supposed
to be done, but Jewish
Emily Post says the groom's
family belongs on the in-
vitation! How dare they in-
sult us this way."
• Item: The bride's family
was Reform. The groom's
family, while not Orthodox,
was traditional. The
groom's family was ap-
palled to learn that a
shellfish buffet would be
served at the wedding. "We
kept our mouths shut,"
they said recently. "It was
their wedding. They were
paying for it. But they
could have been more con-
siderate of our value
system, our way of doing
things."
• Item: The bride and
groom were discussing
honeymoon plans. They
would return in time for
the first seder. The groom's
parents and the bride's
parents each insisted that
the new couple come to
them for the seder. It was a
tug-of-war for first place.
• Item: One bleak Sunday
morning, the bride's
parents agreed to announce
their separation right after
the children's wedding.
What had seemed a good
marriage was, in reality, a