Sometimes life may not be what it appears to be

Continue from the previous three posts
She loves her daughters more than her son because ...
Do unto others as you would have others do unto you
A talk among girls about the criteria of an ideal husband

Why did bad things happen to good people?  Why did loving parents have unloving children?  How could a very intelligent man fall for a woman who was extremely jealous?  Why did some people let others rule over them?  How should we look at the heartless son who abandoned his mother in a place where she knew no one?

Indeed, it was hard for us to accept why this or that happened.
                                       
Here is a story from my post Have you ever asked yourself "What is life?"

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In a book written by a known psychic/medium, she wrote about a true story of a woman who went to see her with the intention of making the final decision about her marriage.  The woman had married a man who loved her truthfully and was very responsible.  However, her mother-in-law was the problem in their marriage.  They lived in separate houses, but her mother-in-law came by all the time.  Worse yet she could not stop criticizing the woman such as the house was not clean enough, this was done wrong, and that was wrong.  When the woman complained to her husband, he said he could not talk to his mother about her nagging.  His mother raised him, and he was her only child.  He begged his wife to be patient with his mother.  When the wife went to the psychic, she was ready to file for a divorce because she could not take the mother-in-law's nagging anymore.

In order to find out if what happened presently had anything to do with their past conflicts; the medium guided the woman into a past-life regression.  Instead of getting into a previous lifetime, the woman found herself joyfully talking to a woman, her mother-in-law!  There was so much love between them that they were the best of friends.  They were planning for their present lifetime.  She asked her friend to be her mother-in-law.  She told her to be the most nagging or hard to deal with mother-in-law because she wanted to learn the lesson of patience.  At first, her friend did not want to play that role.  Out of love, her friend finally agreed to be her nagging mother-in-law.

In the regression, the woman saw herself excitedly planning for this lifetime with her friend.  She also learned it was in divine order that her husband would not interfere or stand up for her so that she could learn her lesson of patience.

After the regression, the woman found peace.  When her mother-in-law criticized her, she looked at 'her friend' with a smile.  Occasionally, she walked to her and gave her a heartfelt hug.  She no longer saw the nagging as an annoyance, but an act of love. The story could have ended differently with everybody involved getting hurt.  There was love between the woman and her husband.  By the Grace of Love, she sought help, and she got help.

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The story showed us that sometimes life might not be what it appeared to be.

In the physical world, the woman and her mother-in-law did not get along at all. However, they were the best of friends planning for the present lifetime before they were born.  It was hard for us (humans) to believe that someone wanted a mother-in-law who would not stop criticizing her in order to learn the lesson of patience.

The woman's story was unique, and so were other people's life stories.  Each situation in one's life was unique too.  Sometimes the situation in life might seem to be similar, but there could be different underlying reasons / causes.

There was a story in another book about a woman who recalled living in abusive relationships lifetime after lifetime during her hypnosis sessions.  In this lifetime, she fell in love with abusive men too.  After many sessions, she had enough of how she had been.  She stepped into her own truth and power.  She looked radiant, and was like a new person.

How should we handle the seemingly painful or challenging situations in our life?  My spirit guide once said, " You feel pain because you let pain be, but you can choose to be happy no matter what."  The older I was, the more I found what he said to be true (or could be done).  We could dwell in our pain and focus on the faults of others.  Or, we could choose to forgive and focus on the joyful / lighter side of life.  As we forgave, we would eventually learn To forgive is first and most of all for the good of ourselves.

When the waitress talked to me about sons and daughters, I never expected that I would end up writing four posts.

Today is the last day of April.  I am glad the writing is finished.  Thank you for your patience.

Many blessings,
Q of D

       

A talk among girls about the Criteria of an Ideal Husband

Continue from my previous posts
She loves her daughters more than her son because ...  published on 4/10/2015
Do unto others as you would have others do unto you     published on 4/22/2015


Most of us loved others with conditions or expectations.   With expectations, we were bound to have some disappointments, pain, and hurt.  (Click to view my post If he loves me enough, he would have ...)  The waitress loved her daughters more than her son because she thought her daughters would take care of her when she was old.  However, who knew how life would unfold?  The woman who raised her son by herself after her husband died probably never foresaw her son would abandon her in a place where she knew no one.  The parents of the woman who married the TV news anchor most likely did not expect their daughter to cut ties with them after the marriage.

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We all wanted to be happy.  We loved others, and hoped others would love us the way we wanted.  We wish for harmonious relationships without any conflict, while relationship was one of the most challenging lessons in life.

A talk among girls in my teens had quite an impact on my view of relationships.

One day, we, the girls, sat and talked.  A girl talked about her criteria of an ideal husband.  Others joined in enthusiastically.  One girl said it would be good to meet a man whose parents had died.  Then she would not have to deal with the father-in-law and mother-in-law.  Another girl said it would even be better if the man had no sibling, or his side of the family had all died.  Some girls clapped in delight.  They agreed it would be perfect to have such a man as a husband.

What they said troubled me deeply.  How could we (the girls) think that way?  We were the granddaughters, daughters, sisters, and nieces in our families.   We had brothers and uncles.  For instance, I was the youngest of three.  I had a brother and a sister.  I could not imagine my brother marrying a woman who wished that his side of the family had all died!  The girls must have forgotten that our grandparents were the in-laws to our parents, i.e. Maternal grandparents were our father's parents-in-law, and paternal grandparents were our mother's parents-in-law.  Most of all, it must have not crossed their mind at the time of the talk that someday they would be some one's mother-in-law!

That day I saw how people could become selfish and blind when they thought only of their own happiness in a relationship.  I realized a relationship between a man and a woman was not just a relationship between two people for it involved a whole lot of people.  A man / a woman automatically became a member of the wife / husband's family; meanwhile, each family was already an extension of many families.  People might feel excited when they got married.  At the same time, they might have fears too, e.g. fear of change, judgment, and rejection by the new family.  If they held preset prejudiced view of the in-laws, they would probably find the relationship as difficult as they had expected.

Furthermore, in this interconnected web of relationships, how each one of us lived one's life had an impact on many more people.  For example, a woman had a mean mother-in-law (a matter of speech).  She often expressed her frustration, anger, and hatred toward the mother-in-law in front of her children.  Another woman was in a similar situation.  She knew her children already felt the stress in the family.  She did not want to add to their dismay.  She treated her mother-in-law with tolerance and patience.  She taught her children love.  She helped them to pick a birthday cake and gifts for their grandmother.  Each woman had a lasting impact on her children more than one could imagine.      

Looking back on the talk among girls, I realized the importance of setting a legal age to differentiate adults and those that were underage.  The girls might not mean what they said.  In their immaturity, they thought the in-laws were the obstacles in their relationship.  In a group setting, some people tended to follow along with what others said.  That was why one girl said it would be good to meet a man whose parents had died, another girl added her ideas in that direction, and some cheered to conform to the group mentality.  The girls might not mean what they said, but the negative view of the in-laws could begin to take hold in their mind.  Therefore, it was important for us to pay attention to our thoughts.

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I knew some men had negative view toward the in-laws too.  It was not just a woman issue.

On the newspapers and TV, men made jokes about the in-laws.  Some men never felt the connection** (or wanted to) with the wife's family.  In the TV news anchor's case, he even demanded his wife to cut ties with her family.  His story was not common, but not that rare.  On the other hand, some men bent over backwards** to please the wife and her family as in the jealous wife case.  In time, they had less and less contacts with their side of the family.  That was why some mothers felt their sons did not care about them anymore.  (**They applied to some women too.)

In my post A Conversation Between Two Grandmothers, my friend made similar comments about her sons while we took walks.  My friend thought her sons should call her.  Since they rarely did, it meant they did not care about her.  The balance of our relationship with others was very delicate.  To maintain a relationship, we had to give our share of effort.  Sometimes we had to let go of what caused us pain.  (Click to view To Let Go Is ...)  As I wrote earlier, when we loved with expectations, we were bound to have some pain, hurt, and disappointments.  When we loved for the sake of love (i.e. unconditionally), we were in fact setting ourselves free from suffering.  However, as humans, it might not be easy for us to understand or to love unconditionally.

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The waitress and some mothers felt sons did not love the parents as daughters did.

In the stories that I had related, we might put all the blame on the sons.  However, let us be fair and honest.  We, the women (the daughters), were just as responsible for what happened, e.g. the jealous wife and the wife that demanded her husband to get rid of the mother-in-law.  In the case of the two sons who were financially well-off, the wives could have eased the situation by taking a stand of kindness, or visiting the father-in-law more often.

Why did bad things happen to good people?  Why did loving parents have unloving sons or daughters?  How could a very intelligent man fall for a woman who was extremely jealous?  Why did some people let others rule over them?  How should we look at the heartless son who abandoned his mother in a place where she knew no one?

                                            ~         to be continued         ~        

Link to my next post Sometimes life may not be what it appears to be  

                         

Do unto others as you would have others do unto you

Continue from my last post She loves her daughters more than her son because ...

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Personally, a few that were dear to my heart had also gone through some heartbroken situations involving their sons.  To a greater or lesser degree, their pain in those situations was very much part of my emotional journey too.  Therefore, I understood very well why some women had a negative opinion about sons.

A man had been a good son to his own parents.  He was generous and kind towards his relatives too.  He had two sons.  He loved them with all his heart.  Both of his sons were very intelligent.  They grew up to be quite successful.  One became a millionaire who owned many businesses.  The other son had a good career and was financially secure.  The man was very proud of his sons.  In his later years, he helped in one of his son's businesses.  His son did not pay him any money, and he thought it was alright since he was helping his son.  He grew old and got sick.  His sons (and their families) did not want the responsibility of taking care of him, and each said it should be the other son's responsibility.  One day, they got into a big fight (argument) in front of other relatives over a small bill for the care of their father.  Most relatives watched in disbelief and sadness.  Fortunately, a loving relative took him in and took care of him until he moved on.

A loving, kind, and gentle woman saw her son falling in love with a young woman who had shown signs of extreme jealousy.  When the son was voted the vice-president of a social organization, his girlfriend asked him to resign because she did not want any other woman around him.  To please her, he resigned.  She was even jealous of the female secretary that his company had hired to work with him.  During their courtship, the girlfriend threw a fit all the time.  The son's family often heard him talking on the phone for hours to smooth her anger.  They saw the problem in their relationship, but the son could neither see nor accept what others saw in his girlfriend for he was madly in love.  The mother loved her son.  She knew there was nothing she could do except to pray for him.

The son got married.  Soon his wife told him that she could not stand him loving anybody else including his mother and his side of the family.  He began disconnecting from his mother and family.  When asked, he told them what his wife said.  In the last year of the woman's life, the son visited her briefly (behind his wife's back) once every four to five weeks.  The visits only added to the mother's sadness.  She was sad to see that her son did not look well.  He seemed to have a lot on his mind, and his unkempt appearance was a big difference from how he used to look.

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As human beings, most of us were happy when we heard or saw good things happening to good people; we felt sad when things turned out the other way.  I was sad that these painful situations happened to two loving people that I loved.

However, as much as I was pained by what happened to the father and the mother in the above cases, I did not come out of these experiences with a negative view towards sons.  It might be I had an uncle (a son) who had shown much love and respect for his parents.  My maternal grandfather lived to almost a hundred years old. He lost his eyesight to cataract in his late 60 s or early 70 s.  Throughout the years, my uncle, his wife, and their children lovingly took care of him.  They set up their home in a way that was easy for Grandfather to get around.  A few years after Grandfather moved on, they opened their home again to my oldest uncle who was sick and confined to a wheelchair.  My uncle, the youngest of his siblings, was a wonderful, loving brother to my mother too.

There were many men (sons) loved and took care of their parents liked my uncle. Every situation in life was unique.  We should not form a discriminating view based on gender or discriminate any group / culture simply because of what we saw, heard, and experienced.

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Some years before I met my husband, there was a news story that made me think about the relationship between a husband and a wife.

A popular TV news anchor asked his wife for a divorce because he had fallen in love with another woman.  His wife broke down in front of the reporters.  She told them she had cut all ties with her own family because her husband had demanded her to. She said she was very much alone during the years they were married for he did not want her to have friends.  Meanwhile, her husband hung out with his friends as he pleased.  She cried that she now had nobody to turn to since she had allowed him to rule her life.

With fame and money, the TV news anchor saw himself much more superior than his wife.  He said he had provided her a good life (from the materialistic point of view!), but she had not met his expectation.  I thought a man and a woman in a marriage should regard each other as equal.  In fact, I had always regarded everybody as equal.  I wondered how the wife could cut the ties with her family simply because her husband demanded her to.  If ever I got married, I would never blindly obey my husband or manipulate his relationship with his family, I thought to myself.

The story of the jealous wife happened years later.  The controlling nature of the news anchor was in a way similar to that of the jealous wife.  His wife (a daughter of a family) that cut all ties with her family must have brought much pain to her family just as the son did to his side of the family.

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Were daughters better than sons as the waitress concluded?  Should we love our sons more or our daughters more?

As parents, we should love our children fairly and equally with no regard to the gender.  Favoritism caused conflicts, separation, pain, hate, anger, suffering, and disharmony in a family.  (Please view my post Favoritism and the repeat of a cycle that caused pain and hurt )  "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you" is a golden rule in life.  Sometimes it helped to put ourselves in other people's shoes to get a better understanding of a problem or what the other was going through.  For example, while treating her son unfairly, the waitress suddenly thought, "What if I am him!  How would I feel?"  There might have been a change in the mother and son relationship.

The waitress said her son often complained that she loved his sisters more than him. I hope the waitress realized the pain and confusion she had inflicted upon the boy before it was too late.

                                            ~       to be continued       ~

Link to my next post A talk among girls about the criteria of an Ideal husband

She loves her daughters more than her son because .......

Greetings!

One Saturday, our older son invited us to eat dim sum.  It was a slow day at the restaurant.  Some servers took the time to chat with the customers.

While taking care of our orders, the server heard my son called me 'mom'.  She started a conversation with me about daughters and sons.  The server was a Chinese woman in her 30 s.

She said, "Oh!  You are his mother!  How many children do you have?"

I said, "I have two sons."

She said, "You must be very happy to have sons since most Chinese want to have sons."

I said, "I see no difference in having sons or daughters.  If I have a daughter, I would love her just as I love my sons."

She said, "I have two daughters and a son.  I love my daughters more.  Daughters are better than sons are.  You and I are women.  You must know our parents always have their place in our hearts.  As long as we live, we, the daughters, care about our parents.  On the other hand, sons are different.  Once a son gets married, he only cares about his wife and his children.  I love my daughters more because I know they will take care of me when I am old."

I said, "I am very close to my mother too.   However, as a mother, we should love our children no matter they are sons or daughters."

She said, "My son often complains that I love his sisters more than him.  My son is young.  Once he grows up, I know he will only take care of his own family.  I have heard many sad stories affirming that.  It is especially so when a son marries a woman who is not a Chinese.  In that case, it is like you don't have a son anymore. That is why I love my daughters more."

She began walking away.  I reached out and lightly patted her arm.

I said, "Please love your son as you love you daughters.  No matter they are male or female, they are our children.  Besides, it is not necessary true that sons do not care about the parents."

She said, "No.  I will continue to love my daughters more."

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Our sons looked very cute and adorable when they were little.  Many women and older couples (mostly Americans) liked to stop us in the streets, stores, and malls so that they could have more time to look at our sons.  They asked if our sons were twins, and commented on how adorable they were.  They were joyful in seeing us. However, a few woman, after adoring our sons, sighed and said, "Your sons are very handsome, but, it is luckier to have a daughter.  Daughters are better than sons."  I was happy and content to be a mother.  Their words had no effect on me.  I responded to what they said with a smile.

Therefore, what the waitress said was not new to me.  While many cultures favored male offspring, the view that 'daughters were better than sons' was not that uncommon among women.  In life, we often formed a view or drew a conclusion because of what we heard, saw, and experienced.  Like the waitress, I had heard some sad stories too.

This story happened many, many years ago in the place I came from.  A woman lost her husband when their son was small.  She had to work very hard to support herself and her son.  (At that time, life was not easy.  Nowadays, this place had a good welfare system.)   Her son grew up and got married.  As with many Chinese families, the wife moved into the place where the man and his mother lived.  One day, the son asked his mother to go on a trip.  The mother was surprised, but she thought it might be a good idea to leave her home for a while.  There had been some disharmony between her and her daughter-in-law.

The mother and son checked into a hotel.  After a day or two, the son told his mother he had to go home to take care of something.  He said he would be back in a few days to bring her home.

Her son did not return.  When she called him, she found out the phone line had been disconnected.  Furthermore, she found that her passport and identity card were missing.  She remembered seeing her son getting something from her luggage.  She realized her son might have intentionally left her there or abandoned her.  Soon she did not have the money to pay for the room.  The hotel evicted her, and she had to live on the street.  At first, the woman did not want others to know what happened because she still loved her son.  Eventually, some people learned about her story.

A reporter got a hold of her son.  He admitted to abandon his mother because his wife had given him an ultimatum: if he wanted her to stay, he had to get rid of his mother. When asked about the conflict between the two women, he said it was not his mother's fault.  However, he could neither afford to have another wife nor rent a separate place for his mother.  He said he was sorry for what he did to his mother.  It was one of the biggest news stories at that time, and most of the people were disgusted with the heartless son.

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Personally, a few that were dear to my heart had also gone through some heartbroken situations involving their sons.  To a greater or lesser degree, their pain in those situations was very much part of my emotional journey too.  Therefore, I understood very well why some women felt that way towards sons.


                                            ~         to be continued         ~

Link to the next 3 posts

 

             Do unto others as you would have others do unto you

             A talk among girls about the criteria of an ideal husband

             Sometimes life may not be what it appears to be