Seeing the Happiness in Life

My mother’s views and mine differ on many topics. She is a product of her generation; I am, in many ways, a product of mine. She, for example, still believes that the financial support of the family is primarily the father’s burden. This is not to say that she thinks women shouldn’t work. She works, and would have done so had she still been married to my father. She just doesn’t think that wives should be the family’s primary earners. I certainly don’t believe that; I will be entirely (too?) comfortable if I earn more than my future husband (Insha’Allah!), as long as he too is comfortable with it. [If not, well, one may blaspheme and hope for a new husband, no? ;)] With this in mind, I can see her resenting my hapless chosen one for an economic choice that he and I may have worked out with each other long before the marital vows were said.

One of the biggest differences, I think, between her outlook and mine hinges on how and when one should see the happinesses in life. My whole family — father, mother, brothers, grandparents, me — are highly critical people. We often see the negatives of a situation before the positives come to light. It gets me into trouble on a regular basis: I have to be mindful about what I say to people and how often what I say is even mildly negative. I read somewhere once that, since people remember criticism more easily than they remember praise, for every negative comment you make to a loved one, you should make five positive ones to balance it out (if you hope for a peaceful, supportive relationship). I don’t know how true that assessment is — it could just be part and parcel of the American cultural tendency to worry too much about the psyche and the supposed flimsiness of one’s self-esteem. I do agree with the premise, though — although it’s easier to see the negatives, one shouldn’t let the positives go unnoticed. Although I don’t always practice this philosophy in my life, the practice of valuing the positives higher than the negatives is something I aspire toward. (In the same vein, don’t believe that I mean to say that one should never see negatives; balance is good, even if it may necessitate a 5:1 ratio.)

Our differing philosophies forced the discussion Mum and I just finished to an impasse. We were talking about about family, how it should be defined (she argues for inclusivity and the preservation of the nuclear model; I argue for a certain exclusivity and the ability to pick and choose), and how one should regard the dark side of the joy that family provides — the family skeletons that determine how the happy photographs are constructed. She believes that one should see the hurts first — the people who were left out, who were trampled on in the pursuit of the golden ideal — I believe in seeing the positives in the golden ideal, but in being willing to acknowledge those trampled on. I told her that I would be a rather sorry individual if the first thing I noticed when looking at a photo of my paternal first cousins, or of my maternal grandfather, were the missing mothers — the women like the allegorical child, from whom everyone turns away, so they may act on their new-found knowledge. I argued that one should see the happiness first. “Happiness?” she asked, before turning to walk away, herself. “What happiness?”

Love,
Katherine