`Good riddance!' said Grandma:
Houghton, William
'GOOD RIDDANCE!' WILLIAM HOUGHTON SAID GRANDMA LOVE: THE FRUIT OF MARRIAGE, NOT THE CAUSE it t times I think that...
...Later, and I began to picture the previously agreeable suitor as a plothe said he was "cruel to be kind," putting himself in a better ter and deceiver...
...facts and the virtue of bearing up...
...She began to invest in other relabornness in her, that sets my teeth on edge, works in my tions...
...Because she was ated his handiness with household repairs...
...Throughout their dating, he told my daughter she was welcome after our raucous son...
...My sonable-at least, that was the way they looked at it then...
...I wanted to some dowry, work through a broker, and urge my daughter to toughen up, but admired her openness, arrange marriages for my children, if too...
...These stoical sayings are hard words when my daughogy and culture, a young woman in her relations tends to ter is wishing for love, but they sum up an experience not to be adhesive, sticky...
...If a woman tries to tie from the Beatles is softer, but hard enough: "What do you him down, he rides off into the sunset...
...King's blues song: "Nobody loves these reflections...
...Several years ago his and came with us on vacation...
...I can't tell you but I know edly craves security, derives her self-esteem from a man's it's mine...
...We all die alone...
...I such fools for love, doting parents who smiled on any match, She wanted to know "Why...
...You make your own decisions, which is but finite quotient of compassion for my daughter dwindled, lonesome...
...Her mother and I criticized the boy vigorously, hoping only I could circumvent the process of to restore her energy, but she did not want to see faults in meeting a suitor, meeting the in-laws, him...
...The stub- my daughter moved on...
...I left them lightly, but carried along a WILLIAM HOUGHTON, M.D., lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin...
...and the romance to triumph...
...GOOD RIDDANCE!' WILLIAM HOUGHTON SAID GRANDMA LOVE: THE FRUIT OF MARRIAGE, NOT THE CAUSE it t times I think that I would put up a hand- (Experience has taught her to judge quickly...
...He was quiet but he spoke selfish, wanted too much, and was unreasonable, which she thoughtfully about politics, and said funny things about oth- fully accepted...
...The picture of the ideal couple was tarnished, light...
...I saw my daughter and the young man-per- It was natural then, and she had only begun to wonder about haps through rose-colored glasses-as the ideal couple...
...From us...
...I notice I am reluctant to write a conclutoward me, too-but my sense of commitment has always sion to this essay...
...the young man did this or that- that we encouraged our daughter to wear rose-colored glassas if that knowledge would provide a solution...
...I have Nothing is ever mutual...
...After all, what can you do...
...as it was bound to be at some time...
...We were a seasoned-or calA back-room deal for cash-just business, nothing per- lous-couple...
...I want- I recalled that back in my dating days, I too thought I knew ed to send the young man a dead fish wrapped in a newspa- how to finish a relationship by cutting off cleanly...
...Still, everything has an endI gradually renounced a few of my wishes, a bit of my free- ing...
...Then, periodically, by mutual agreement with someare far from perfect, and sometimes cannot be readily fixed...
...Her younger sister the matter differently, through the hopes of the woman...
...of action to recommend...
...The wish for merging is briefly satisfied and or that I can fully protect my children with troubles with roalways frustrated in the end...
...They die, or go away, or more often My wife and I miss the young man's quiet humor, his simply don't understand us...
...I must admit that I on your own, accept your essential aloneness, or do you al- am tempted to resolve that all future suitors will receive a total ways seek the tantalizing dream of someone to protect you body CAT scan and trial by combat...
...shrink from or be ashamed of...
...your share" (Thomas Fuller...
...way...
...There was no simple course freedom, and he took it...
...She glowed when she was with him, and she wrote do so little...
...One of my favorite again, and learn about themselves, for better or worse, from lines is the title of B.B...
...Elvin Semrad, told a class other...
...and women have a limit on their capacity to love, some less My daughter's face is quick and open, and transparent...
...Commonweal 18 June 1993: 21 Our social roles shape us in powerful ways...
...it recently...
...A young man is gritty, unattached, free...
...It was cried with her...
...Sadder but wiser, she saw the ex-boyfriend as still favor, too...
...He never expressed a strong emotion...
...The only fuel for learning is the sadness you for freedom and the wish for closeness is always there, but feel from your mistakes...
...His wife liked his eagerness to help with dishes, and I appreci- sanctimonious tone began to cloy, for me...
...of students: "In everyday life, each of you to the extent of your As my anger toward the young man cooled, and my large maturity lives alone...
...I only wished that each could borrow a bit from the As the seasoned psychiatrist, Dr...
...I doubt that there are any relations in which least a clear one, unless we want the union to continue, this bedrock of self-interest is not reached, sooner or later...
...than others...
...He wanted his standing both him and herself...
...It would cheat my daughter of ing was the test we all face: Can you make it risking her neck and learning who she is...
...Love is the fruit of marriage, not the cause...
...She and I recognized surprising, sticky commitment is as much a mystery to me that part of the responsibility for the mistake in the affair as the faithlessness of others...
...E 22: 18 June 1993 Commonweal...
...I doubt that I will do that, from loneliness...
...Why do we want a happy ending, or at reined me in...
...leave us alone at times...
...Then he told her that he did not think "it would work," she I could hardly believe that my daughter-she who was so was too jealous and demanding, and he broke off the rela- confident and accomplished-had been duped by such a line, tionship, giving her a hug and putting her in a taxicab...
...My attractive and good, but diminished...
...One time we met morally "inferior," he often got his way in their plans, and she with his parents, and liked them too, though they seemed a did not question or express anger about this definition of roles...
...If you have one true friend, you have more than That's risky, but a style I like...
...These are not romantic thoughts, not optimistic approval, and will sacrifice her interests to get it...
...back to us about every step in his career, which came to seem Then as the days and weeks wore on, she told us more about more important than her own...
...And the more I have been married to the same woman for over twenty-five mature you are the less you insist that the other person changes years nearly blows my mind...
...The phrase supposedly strong and independent...
...she was locked into a narrow one-on-one relationship, cramping herself, but outside that she was free to have 0 Older than our modern interest in the feelings a variety of friends, not as mystical, but probably more comof each person is the classical tradition of hard fortable...
...Her grandmother said, "Good riddance...
...I wondered: Were my wife and sight of her bawling, unusual for her, nearly broke my heart...
...Even marriage is no remedy...
...children in their setting out, and coming back, and going out (Monday mornings are the worst for me...
...The best of men of silence...
...no perfect match...
...Not deliberately...
...What my A system of arranged marriages would be unacceptable, would daughter and the young man were encounter- not arrive at the result we want...
...Now I saw per, but knew I couldn't keep that promise...
...Friends, relatives, mates-all mance...
...Would I be so angry at him, if I did not need him to take what to do-my wife and I became again the pillars of the care of her...
...The tension between the wish was hers...
...dom, and was amazed at the benefits I received in return...
...A woman suppos- see when you turn off the lights...
...we almost forgot our experience of such raw sonal, no questions asked-seems preferable to the rit- need and grief...
...If helping out, his politeness...
...I'd like to warn must have come from peers, or crummy TV, or unwitting- her off too much Romance, but not scare her off completely from us...
...The daughter and her boyfriend...
...She asked us es...
...I'd like to Where did they get them...
...to return to the good old days...
...My daughter looked as though she could gobual of romance to me, though there are problems with ble up the young man whole...
...little formal...
...easier after a breath of this invigorating fresh air...
...I After a while, the image of the young man faded, and came to love her quirks, her differences from me...
...He spent a summer at our house, the relationship, a side we had not seen...
...We all live alone...
...It becomes a relatively minimal matter...
...Life is a warfare and a stranger's After all, what can parents do but wait and watch with their sojourn" (Marcus Aurelius...
...My wife and I are no angels, to fit your mold...
...You feed yourself and look after your own physiI realized that most of the relations between men and women ology...
...community-and we counseled figuring out and under- My twenty-year-old son said: "It's simple...
...one in your life, you have some human contact...
...He, on the other hand, was generous and reaers and himself...
...With him room for play...
...My daughter came home sobbing and inconsolable, she The crackup showed us how little we knew about my said her life was wrecked and she would rather be dead...
...when I saw at times that she had no sympathy for some- How was the story of my daughter's love completed, or thing I cherished-I'm sure that she has felt the same way at least finished...
...But politeness goes only so far in the long run...
...It is important not to waste that for me the marriage knot is easy and snug, with just enough fuel...
...You can only be close when you are yearned to be disloyal to her, to break loose, particularly separate...
...back, it's just a phase," or "It's better to have it out now, My twenty-three-old daughter went with a young man for rather than later...
...Like most people, I breathe My daughter and son pretty much follow these stereotypes...
...Maturity is a From the far side of the generation gap, the realization that matter of people learning to be alone together...
...It is easy to say, "He'll come both...
...mostly a case of my not knowing how to care for the girl, being too scared for myself...
...Both my daughter and my son were right, in a ly...
...Our love and hate are interwoven...
...Such wisdom is no comfort at all to a perfour years, almost a marriage, and we thought he was a fine son who has lost a part of herself...
...secret sense of grief and failure...
...They spare my daughter, but I doubt that life will...
...I recall his immobile mask you fear loneliness, don't marry" (Chekhov...
...He sat in a chair in the liv- mother was depressed and demanded that he stay home from ing room quietly reading, wearing a cloak of silence (rather college...
...By biol- for love...
...All she yearned for was for him to call, for everything bracing for a proposal, and having negotiations fall through...
...A man is me but my mama, and she could be jiving me too...
...Sorrow is the vitamin of growth" (Semrad...
...I was sorry that I could person...
Vol. 120 • June 1993 • No. 12
