I grew up in a simple average family. I have two college degrees. I am fluent in two foreign languages and work as a translator. I live in one of the European countries. I have my own family, which consists of my loving husband and three children. My husband and I were friends for several years before marriage and we know each other very well. We love each other, though, as in every marriage of twenty years, there are disagreements. Which he and I take turns trying to work out soon. We have our own house, which we bought with a mortgage.
My parents live in the CIS and I don’t visit them very often. At the age of seventeen I left to study and have been living an independent life ever since. I spent eight years studying at universities and then got married. All that I have is an education, a job, a comfortable life in a strange country, all of which I have achieved without any help from anyone. At the same time I worked to be able to support myself. I spoiled my parents and younger sister, who stayed in my home country, with parcels and gifts. I always tried to show them my love and respect for them. It seemed to me, until recently, that these feelings were mutual.
My sister is a special case. She is six years younger than me. She is married, she has a son. My sister lives far away from her parents, in her husband’s one-room apartment. My sister graduated from high school and after that she did not study anywhere and did not get a job. She says that simple jobs do not pay her, and she does not have the brains for more promising professions (after school she should not have gotten married, but should have gone to school somewhere). Her sister and her child are in the care of her husband. There is not much love between the spouses. But they are not getting divorced, so as not to traumatize the baby, they live more out of habit. Despite the fact that they have the opportunity to vacation each year at the sea, they do not have a lot of money. That is why they cannot buy a bigger apartment. My sister is not a pushy and lazy lady. But she is very lucky to have a mother-in-law, a woman who is always ready to help her with her child. And they often go to my parents’ house and leave the baby there for the summer.
Recently, for many years in a row, my parents came to visit us. A long flight, a touching meeting, a lavish feast, and suddenly, my mother’s statement:
-You should marry our Lisa, you’d be a more harmonious couple than Jessica. A wife should be calm, easy-going, like our Lisa. Jessica’s got a feisty temper. She’s got to be in control. You have to admit, for a woman, that’s a huge disadvantage.
I almost choked on my juice at this conclusion of the mother. My husband could not find anything to say, and my father coughed eloquently.
I mean, I’m the one with the huge house in order. The children are brought up, clothed, fed, not spoiled, with my knowledge of two languages, with a prestigious profession, which has achieved everything on their own, – not suited to my own husband! I wanted to ask my mother in response: And how, tell me, dear parent, would I, having a different character – more malleable, achieved all this? Isn’t the fact that my husband loves me and we have a fairly good family an indication that we are completely compatible? My children, thanks to the efforts of my husband and mine, vacation twice a year at prestigious resorts. Could I or my sister have dreamed of something like that as a child? She came here once in twenty years, didn’t help me in any way and is telling me who’s right for who! My dad and husband really didn’t like what my mom said about me. And they upset me in general. This is not childish jealousy of my little sister, do not think. It’s just resentment because of the unfair words of my dearest person, my mother.
