The Anti-Brady Bunch
Hashem produces more interesting and gripping scenarios than our Yetzer Hara does, but we have to be willing to play in His movie, where we’re the stars.
As a kid I spent an inordinate amount of time watching TV. Of course, the 70s were a fun time to do this. Like millions of other kids, I had major love feelings for “The Brady Bunch.” I checked out of my not perfect enough and messy family life – very yelly and chaotic and lacking in shalom bayit (marital peace) – and joined the Bradys in their super groovy and always tidy California existence. All of the fights in the Brady household were wrapped up in the end by cooperative parenting and that sassy, full-of-horse-sense housekeeper, whom they forced to wear that weird uniform, but that’s a different column. Even the messiest messes took no more than a week to resolve and when it was, there was a silly group hug and a family portrait snapped on the modern staircase in the living room.
How long did it take the world to figure out that filling one’s head with images of the Cleaver household, “Father Knows Best”, and Brady wholesomeness wasn’t a great idea? Who was the first mom to bend over, place her hand on her child’s shoulder and utter in a serious tone into his ear, “You know this isn’t real, right?” Of course the kid wasn’t listening because the show was on.
This past weekend we went to my nephew’s high school graduation, the first of the grandkids to graduate. Jamming a bunch of family members into one house to attend an auspicious occasion, especially when it’s a milestone, makes me a wee bit nervous. And of course it should. All of these family members are moving towards one spot, each full of different expectations and competing emotions about the event itself. It’s tough not to create a movie in your mind about how you’d like to see things play out, especially if there’s a long and boring car ride preceding your arrival.
In my movie, my two-year-old let me watch the graduation ceremony for example. In my movie he even sensed the gravitas of the occasion and took a little impromptu nap on my husband’s shoulder so as not to disturb the quiet. In my movie I cried my head off through the graduation ceremony. In my movie, my brother was mean to me a few times over the course of the weekend- that’s the bad part of the movie- and my nieces and nephews didn’t spend enough time playing with our son, which I resented. In my movie, my son took naps everyday like normal and the room we slept in wasn’t eighty degrees.
Of course these films we direct in our heads are all co-produced and scripted by the Yetzer Hara. He’s quite prolific, not known for his realism and accuracy, yet his work is hard to resist. And of course we should resist it because like the junk I couldn’t get enough of in the 70s, it’s garbage. And not just because it sets us up for a fall. It’s junk because reality is so much better so often, thank God. It’s junk because life doesn’t contain tidy resolutions, which is both a pain and a relief. It’s junk because no one really struggles in those silly little shows, and because of that, there are no real victories, no real surprises.
It is ironic that shalom bayit, in my experience, happens when we stop trying to be like the Bradys. It doesn’t happen when you actually become Ward and June Cleaver. And that’s a good thing because then you’d have a son whose nick-name was ‘The Beaver’ or ‘Beav’ for short. And that would be awful, clearly. Shalom bayit is much more bittersweet and imperfect. It happens when you can be happy in the midst of the sadness that never happens on those shows.
My brother wasn’t mean at all. The other brother was depressed instead of cantankerous. My father was healthier than I thought he’d be and received many hugs and kisses. My nieces and nephews played with our son non-stop which filled him with glee and were charming and adorable in new and totally endearing ways. Someone was way meaner than I expected, and got over it way faster than I expected, and the situation was handled with more directness and aplomb than I thought my sister capable, so shame on me. We learned of the death of an aunt, an unexpected and certainly tragic revelation. We learned that a loved-one’s toddler is healthy and is, thank God a million times, beating a cancer that we feared would take him. And we took a moment to let sink in the indescribably and epically beautiful fact that my sister, thank God again, beat cancer to sit and watch her son graduate from high school, after earning a perfect score on his AP Calculus exam.
This weekend ended up being really special and great and worse and much, much better than I thought it would. And the sad parts weren’t where I thought they’d be or even what I thought they’d be. And the good parts I wasn’t expecting are what are making me cry. Hashem produces much more interesting and gripping material than our Yetzer Hara does, but we have to be willing to wake up to the movie He has made starring us.
3/16/2009
Congratulations to all involved! I have no better words. May you be able to see your own son’s graduation and beyond – may it be as beautiful, or even more.
3/16/2009
I have no better words. May you be able to see your own son’s graduation and beyond – may it be as beautiful, or even more.