The Nine Rooms of Happiness: Loving Yourself, Finding Your Purpose, and Getting Over Life's Little Imperfections (30 page)

Heather has to stop blaming geography for her problems and see that her emotional baggage travels with her everywhere. Some pearls are about time, as in “now is it.” This one is about place, and being happy in your current surroundings. The pearl: Here is it.

For the last twelve years Molly, a spunky, creative co-owner of a women’s clothing store, has lived with her husband, Richard, a VP of business for an Internet company. They are happy, they have three healthy kids, no debt, and they own their modest three-bedroom house with a small but well-groomed backyard big enough for a swing set and a trampoline. They lack for little (“We could always use more money, but who couldn’t, right?”) and don’t spend a lot of time worrying about their financial security. The kids are in the local public school down the street and have lots of friends in the neighborhood. Molly and Richard are pleased with their setup and feel like they have a great little community, mostly from friendships through their kids’ school.

Both Molly and Richard grew up in the Midwest, in small towns where their parents were raised and their extended families lived. Molly’s grand
mother, who moved into the house after her grandfather died, did a lot of the cooking and babysitting and was “such an important, meaningful relationship for me. My parents were busy, and Gramma would always have time to talk or listen or play cards.” Molly’s cousins lived around the corner, and they would meet up to ride their bikes to school. “I remember it as such an idyllic time. We had fun, freedom, and family everywhere. Life seemed so easy.

“It feels kind of lonely out here in California. My brother lives back in St. Louis, where we grew up, and now that he has kids, he and his wife don’t get out here much.” Molly’s parents are retired and spend about eight weeks throughout the year living in her den.

Molly laments the lack of geographic closeness but realizes she is lucky to have parents healthy and mobile enough to spend chunks of time with her in San Diego. “Not that it’s all bliss, but I’ll take their messy suitcases and the loss of our den for those eight weeks. It’s still not enough. My kids know them pretty well, but it’s not like they can participate in their everyday lives. That’s what I’d like, but Richard thinks what we have going is just fine.”

Molly fears her kids will never know the closeness she enjoyed growing up. “Sure we have great friends, but family is family, you can’t replace that. I don’t like to burden my friends, so calling them up to take my kids on the spur of the moment, or come over and celebrate a great performance in the school play, isn’t that easy.”

Catherine suggests that while Molly’s good old days (she’s screening) may have been great, there is plenty of fun and connection to be had in the amazing life she has now. Get out of the basement, Molly, with the old Christmas decorations and make some new traditions of your own. Richard and the kids love living on the West Coast and are quite happy with their beach vacations. If it’s the traditional white Christmas you’re missing, plan a ski trip or head back home for the holidays. There is no such thing as the perfect size for an extended family. Yet she wants to prescribe what it looks like in some imaginary holiday scene. We’d warn Molly that if she keeps carrying the heavy VHS movies around, she’ll
never enjoy the new HD digital gadgets her kids can operate better than she can!

Her nostalgia is telling her that she could be happier in the here and now. But to achieve that, she has to recognize what is keeping her back and decide to jump into the present. The pearl: Your kids will think
this
is a memorable childhood.

Laura, who is single and a bond trader, says she is “not meant to be alone. Why I’m alone, I can’t tell you. I hope I will meet someone, and I’m trying to think positively about that.” But Laura is not only concerned about meeting the right guy; she also wants to do it soon, before her biological clock is done ticking. “I’ll be forty in eight months, and I have always wanted children. Of course I thought they’d be my own biologically, with my husband (whoever he is), but time is running out.”

Laura comes from an intact nuclear family: mother, father, and one younger brother. They are all close and live in the same community, sharing Sunday dinners at the Chinese restaurant they’ve been enjoying since they were kids. Her brother is married and has two young children, whom Laura adores. Being “the fun aunt” only reinforces how much she wants kids of her own.

She asked her gynecologist what her options were. The doctor mentioned many ways to have a child (with or without a partner), including adoption, assisted reproduction technologies (like IVF, even using a do
nor egg if her own eggs are no longer viable), or considering oocyte-freezing.

“Oocyte-freezing?” After the initial shock of learning what oocyte (egg) freezing was, Laura began intensively researching this path. “In a million years, I would’ve never considered this. But when I checked it out and then met with a doctor who does it, I felt like it could really provide me with an option previously unavailable.”

The only stumbling block was the cost, up to $15,000, none of it covered by her insurance. When she brought it up at dinner one night, her mother jumped at the chance to help her. “She said it would be her and Dad’s pleasure to give it to me for my fortieth. At first I thought that was weird, controlling, and too obviously self-interested, since I know how much they want my brother and me to deliver more grandkids. But then I realized this is what families are for, and they can afford it, so I said, ‘Why not?’ It made it more ‘all in the family,’ which I liked.”

Laura is aware that egg freezing is not an infallible process, but she feels like it’s worth it if there is even a small chance that if and when she meets the right person, she can have a child that will be hers genetically. “I’m single and pretty frugal. If my parents are offering up the money and happy to do so, why not go for it?”

Catherine notes that Laura was trying valiantly to solve her problem but now has to veer off the path she’d always imagined for herself: the white dress, the groom, and the house with the picket fence and three kids. Now she is forced to give up that vision of herself and rethink her future as a possible single mother with a lab-conceived child. The dissonance here is between childhood dreams and adult realities, and women often have to grapple with reworking their view of themselves.

The key process for Laura may be to rewrite the narrative of her life, but to do so in a healthy way she has to first mourn the loss of her earlier dream and move on. The reality may still have a “happy ending” (she could meet a mate), but she is struggling as she lets go of that dream.

When asked what happens if Mr. Right doesn’t come along in the next
several years, Laura looks pensive and a bit defeated, but she is planning for either contingency, because she doesn’t want to miss out on being a mother.

Now Laura is dating again and trying to keep an open mind about her future. She feels less desperate and more confident and calm about her future, now that she has her eggs “on ice.” Maybe she’ll find the guy and maybe not, but she’s doing everything she can to steer her life in the direction she wants to go. Laura has learned she can be both a traditionalist and a modernist, and she’s moving ahead. The pearl: Embrace your reality, whatever it is.

Joan cares about grades and performance reviews and has always been such an overachiever that she is devastated when her daughter gets anything less than As. So when a teacher tells her Olivia is struggling in school she wonders, What did I do wrong? She listens in dumbfounded shock as the teacher reports that Olivia is chatting in class, may need a tutor, and may need to be bumped down to what Joan dubs in her unkindest moments the dummy section. Her stomach flip-flops, and she has to rush off the phone to not say anything inappropriate, as there are colleagues in the room. She has to use her best poker face to get back to the meeting and not say out loud: “I’m a failure. My daughter needs me, and this whole working thing has been a big mistake.” Instead she turns back
to her meeting, appearing calm and focused, and tries to stop her mind from reeling.

“Nothing can upset me as much as bad news about my child. I wouldn’t be upset by learning our numbers were down or we had lost a client,” Joan says. But this kind of phone call can torpedo a workday every time.

Catherine says Joan is trying to keep her rooms separate, but she’s failing to do so, since a bad grade isn’t like a bad prognosis from your doctor. It’s just one grade. But to Joan it relates to her self-image as a person who had to work for every grade and even now struggles to be thought of as smart in a room full of sharp-witted people. She knows her daughter is intelligent but not a great test taker. Still, the kid’s room and the office are connected for Joan, because she also feels if she were home in the afternoons she could help Olivia study for each test.

“Other moms review and help their kids study, but I never get home in time, and then I think,
She should do this on her own
. I did. No one helped me with my homework. Why is it I blame myself? But then I think:
She won’t get into a decent college, she won’t get a good job, she’ll marry an asshole, and her life will be ruined.”

Often when parents are disappointed in a child, they need to ask themselves why and take a step back to figure out what part of the situation is so emotionally charged for them. Joan is projecting, Catherine points out, and it may be due to the fact that she thought that would have happened to her if she hadn’t worked so hard to achieve all that she did in school and in her career. But this isn’t about Joan (get out of the bathroom, where you’re looking at your own reflection). Joan is having a screen memory of her own report card review sessions, and she realizes that her loving parents were not always so supportive.

Her parents made her feel as if grades were the number one thing they judged her on, and when she brought home anything less than a stellar report card, they sat her down and gave her a “talking to.” The reckoning wasn’t pleasant, but it never got violent—just serious and to Joan, at least, lacking in love. It was like being interrogated by the secret police: They would point to a grade that wasn’t an A and say, What happened here?
And here? Can you do better? You must! You are smart, you have to show it! And she vowed she would.

So when Joan was reeling in that meeting, she was thinking about herself, and how she is perceived by others, and what it takes to succeed in the corporate domain.

Catherine says Joan may or may not choose to share these memories with Olivia. But she has to let Olivia be her true self and not feel that her mother will judge her or define her by her grades. Joan needs to allow Olivia to own her failures and her successes. When she gets it right, she will be proud of herself and her grade, and when she gets it wrong, she gets to feel bad about it but not worry that her mother will love her any less.

Catherine adds that Joan has two jobs here: one is to be a better parent by leaving her insecurities and performance anxiety out of Olivia’s equation, and the other is to focus on her job and not let a personal call at work derail her day. The most important thing is for Joan to help her daughter find her strengths and shore up her weaknesses.

Of course you want your children to do well and live up to their potential. But keep yourself out of the equation as much as possible. Even saying something as benign as “I am so proud of you” can set up a dynamic that has them trying to please
you.
A more potentially helpful and supportive way to phrase something might be: “Aren’t you proud of
yourself?
” or better yet, tell your child who comes home with an improved grade—it doesn’t have to be all As—“You should be so proud of yourself!”

Or if you want a stronger statement: “I hope you are really proud of yourself! I know I’m proud of you!” The point is they should be working for their own self-esteem, not for the purpose of pleasing others, not even you. The parent’s job is to create an independent and healthy and confident child who moves appropriately through all the stages of development. (In Mahler’s model of separation/individuation, the baby learns not only to separate from the mother but that the mother is a loving presence even when she’s not around. Both the separation and the loving presence have to work properly in order for the healthy development of the child to be complete. Without separating and feeling the empathic parental presence
there can be problems of individualization and self-esteem.) So Joan’s job is to allow Olivia to be her own person and make sure she feels loved all the time, no matter if there are good grades, bad grades, or anything in between.

The key process here is to show empathy without being smothering or overly critical. This is pinging again, but it’s empathetic, not critical pinging. The goal is simply “Honey, I support you in all your endeavors.”