You just found out Friday that you’ve got to work a late shift Wednesday, then be back on the job Friday. Your mom, who is a widow, lives 400 miles away in Wisconsin and is guilt-tripping you about coming to spend Thanksgiving with her. You love her but really would like to spend the day in Chicago with your husband.
“If your mom were in real trouble, say in the hospital, this would be different,” said David Ozar, director of Loyola University’s Center for Ethics and Social Justice. “But for a social visit, even a holiday, the easy question is whether you spend all that time driving, possibly recklessly, for a few hours of exhausting visiting.
“The real issue here is the ethics of guilt and guilt-making. Mom’s mastery of guilt-making is not to her credit because it is a strategy that kills communication and honesty rather than building it. The truth is that the children of mothers experiencing losses, especially of their husband or health, experience plenty of sadness and feelings of helplessness without it being magnified by Mom’s manipulations.”
It would be better, Ozar contends, to either figure a way for her to come to your place or simply find an easier weekend when you can visit soon.
“But the real goal of mothers and their children ought to be how to communicate and develop realistic ways of helping one another, not piling on more guilt. You ought to ultimately be letting her know you care about her, but she should be helping you help her, not dumping on you.”
