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agonyaunt2022-05-23 11:37 am
minoanmiss) wrote in agonyaunt2022-05-23 11:37 am
Entry tags:
Dear Prudence/Care & Feeding: One Question Two Answers
I wonder how this happened.
Dear Prudence,
I am a queer white woman who recently became engaged to my longtime girlfriend. My mother died when I was 3, and my dad remarried very swiftly. While he and my stepmother both earned very high salaries and made sure my childhood was more than comfortable, they were also distant, cold, and while not outwardly hateful, ignored me and iced me out of our extended family after I came out. Given that we currently talk once every two years at best, I’m certain that I don’t want them at the wedding.
However, from the ages of 4 to 13, I was primarily raised by a Black nanny named “Nora,” who was more of a parent to my than my dad or stepmother ever were. Nora attended my high school graduation, talks with me every year during the holidays, and her two sons still stay in touch with me as well. I want to invite Nora and her sons to my wedding, and ask her if she would walk me down the aisle. However, when I brought this up to my fiancée (who is a woman of color), she said that she was concerned that this could be more “emotional labor” on Nora’s part that would only benefit me, a privileged white woman. She also pointed out that she grew up under similar circumstances as Nora’s sons—her mother was a housekeeper for an affluent white family—and said that after spending years caring for her sisters while her mother took care of someone else’s children, she would feel upset that those children still wanted to have her mother caring for them and protecting them as adults. I’m not sure what is the right thing to do here: Should I invite Nora and her family to our wedding or not?
— No Longer Nannied
Dear Prudence responds:
Dear No Longer Nannied,
When I’m not doling out advice on Slate, I spend my time as a playwright, and my most successful play to date is about a Black woman writer who found professional success with a fictional story about a white girl and her Black nanny, and the white woman who claims the Black woman stole the story from her real-life experience being cared for by a Black woman. The question of Mrs. Harrison, the play, is who owns this story; what neither character, initially, recognizes in their disagreement is that they’re missing a voice—that of Betty Harrison, the former domestic worker in question. It’s her story, too. I tell you all this to let you know that I think about this exact situation a lot, and I know how easy it is to make assumptions about what people are thinking and feeling.
You ought to take two people at their word here: the first being your fiancée, who has already expressed reservations rooted in her own history. This is something that will continue to pop up in your relationship. You both probably see the world differently, and there’s almost certainly some blind spots that will complicate your marriage if you don’t voice them and work them out, ideally with a professional. The second person is, of course, Nora. Right now, it doesn’t seem like you’ve discussed this possibility with Nora and the infrequency of your conversations leads me to believe that you’re not in the best position to know off-hand whether this is something she’d be comfortable with. The relationship that you and Nora had is a complex one, and your understanding of it and residual feelings about it are going to be very different from hers. That’s not to say that she doesn’t care about you or remember you fondly—I have no way of knowing that. Simply that you have to have a more in-depth relationship to know the truth.
At this point, it just doesn’t sound like you and Nora are close enough for her to walk you down the aisle. It’s not quite emotional labor, at least as defined by the term’s originator Arlie Hochschild, who wrote of “a situation where the way a person manages his or her emotions is regulated by a work-related entity in order to shape the state of mind of another individual, such as a customer.” Nora, surely, has done a lot of emotional labor in your history, though, when she was in your parents’ employ. But labor or not, your current situation could put Nora in an awkward, uncomfortable position, and I don’t think that’s your intention.
Sending a wedding announcement or invitation, without requesting that she walk you down the aisle, feels less fraught by a smidge. Family friends often get invites, but it can’t be overstated how this situation is complicated by money and the power imbalance of an employer-employee relationship. I think the most graceful solution is to simply send a wedding announcement, perhaps with a note of gratitude for her influence in your life. Second best is to have a conversation with Nora during which you don’t ask her to give you permission or to make you feel better about this. In this conversation, you can engage as adults and you can let her know that you want to send her an invitation because she meant a lot to you but that, as much as possible, you hope to release her from any obligation to come or send a present. You two are in a relationship but, like all relationships, it continues to change. This could be an opportunity for you to get clarity around it and for you to show up for it in a new way.
Care & Feeding responds:
Dear NLNiNC,
I think your fiancée has helped you see something you would not have otherwise, and that being able to (begin to) see your relationship with Nora more clearly, or at least through a wider lens—and pausing to think, for the first time, about what it might have meant to her family—is important, wedding or no wedding. I also think your fiancée may be projecting to some extent (no shade meant here; we all do this, and it’s not all bad, either, since projecting our own feelings onto others can sometimes help us be more empathetic). But all of that aside: inviting Nora and her family to your wedding is a lovely thing to do. After all, an invitation does not create an obligation. If Nora and her sons would like to attend—if they would enjoy celebrating this milestone with you—and their circumstances permit them to, then they will come to the wedding. I don’t believe that being a wedding guest constitutes emotional labor.
However. Asking Nora to walk you down the aisle is another matter altogether. I know you feel that she was “more of a parent” to you than your parents were, but the reality is that she was not, and is not, your parent. You would be putting her in a very uncomfortable position if you asked her to do this, I think (there is really not a graceful way to say no to a request of this sort, and I suspect she would be very surprised—even taken aback—to be asked). I know you are greatly disappointed in your parents—and of course you have every reason to be hurt and angry—but asking your childhood nanny, with whom you talk once a year around the holidays, to assume this role is quite a stretch. Her attending your high school graduation five years after she left your family’s employ is one thing; asking her to sub in for your parents now, years later, is another.
If your fiancée plans to be walked down the aisle by her parents, and it makes you sad to contemplate walking alone, the two of you need to come up with a better plan for the wedding, one that matches your mismatched family circumstances. Neither one of you has to be walked down the aisle, of course: not every bride—or groom—is accompanied by a parent in a contemporary wedding. You may decide together that it makes more sense for both of you to walk alone. But whatever you decide, please be gentle with yourself. Weddings stir up a lot of feelings that the feeler of those feelings may have imagined were dead and buried. I know you say you’re certain you don’t want your parents at your wedding. I’m willing believe that you are certain. But that doesn’t mean you aren’t sad. It seems to me that the idea to ask your long-ago nanny to play the role of your missing parents (once again!) has less to do with your relationship with Nora than it does with your sadness.
Dear Prudence,
I am a queer white woman who recently became engaged to my longtime girlfriend. My mother died when I was 3, and my dad remarried very swiftly. While he and my stepmother both earned very high salaries and made sure my childhood was more than comfortable, they were also distant, cold, and while not outwardly hateful, ignored me and iced me out of our extended family after I came out. Given that we currently talk once every two years at best, I’m certain that I don’t want them at the wedding.
However, from the ages of 4 to 13, I was primarily raised by a Black nanny named “Nora,” who was more of a parent to my than my dad or stepmother ever were. Nora attended my high school graduation, talks with me every year during the holidays, and her two sons still stay in touch with me as well. I want to invite Nora and her sons to my wedding, and ask her if she would walk me down the aisle. However, when I brought this up to my fiancée (who is a woman of color), she said that she was concerned that this could be more “emotional labor” on Nora’s part that would only benefit me, a privileged white woman. She also pointed out that she grew up under similar circumstances as Nora’s sons—her mother was a housekeeper for an affluent white family—and said that after spending years caring for her sisters while her mother took care of someone else’s children, she would feel upset that those children still wanted to have her mother caring for them and protecting them as adults. I’m not sure what is the right thing to do here: Should I invite Nora and her family to our wedding or not?
— No Longer Nannied
Dear Prudence responds:
Dear No Longer Nannied,
When I’m not doling out advice on Slate, I spend my time as a playwright, and my most successful play to date is about a Black woman writer who found professional success with a fictional story about a white girl and her Black nanny, and the white woman who claims the Black woman stole the story from her real-life experience being cared for by a Black woman. The question of Mrs. Harrison, the play, is who owns this story; what neither character, initially, recognizes in their disagreement is that they’re missing a voice—that of Betty Harrison, the former domestic worker in question. It’s her story, too. I tell you all this to let you know that I think about this exact situation a lot, and I know how easy it is to make assumptions about what people are thinking and feeling.
You ought to take two people at their word here: the first being your fiancée, who has already expressed reservations rooted in her own history. This is something that will continue to pop up in your relationship. You both probably see the world differently, and there’s almost certainly some blind spots that will complicate your marriage if you don’t voice them and work them out, ideally with a professional. The second person is, of course, Nora. Right now, it doesn’t seem like you’ve discussed this possibility with Nora and the infrequency of your conversations leads me to believe that you’re not in the best position to know off-hand whether this is something she’d be comfortable with. The relationship that you and Nora had is a complex one, and your understanding of it and residual feelings about it are going to be very different from hers. That’s not to say that she doesn’t care about you or remember you fondly—I have no way of knowing that. Simply that you have to have a more in-depth relationship to know the truth.
At this point, it just doesn’t sound like you and Nora are close enough for her to walk you down the aisle. It’s not quite emotional labor, at least as defined by the term’s originator Arlie Hochschild, who wrote of “a situation where the way a person manages his or her emotions is regulated by a work-related entity in order to shape the state of mind of another individual, such as a customer.” Nora, surely, has done a lot of emotional labor in your history, though, when she was in your parents’ employ. But labor or not, your current situation could put Nora in an awkward, uncomfortable position, and I don’t think that’s your intention.
Sending a wedding announcement or invitation, without requesting that she walk you down the aisle, feels less fraught by a smidge. Family friends often get invites, but it can’t be overstated how this situation is complicated by money and the power imbalance of an employer-employee relationship. I think the most graceful solution is to simply send a wedding announcement, perhaps with a note of gratitude for her influence in your life. Second best is to have a conversation with Nora during which you don’t ask her to give you permission or to make you feel better about this. In this conversation, you can engage as adults and you can let her know that you want to send her an invitation because she meant a lot to you but that, as much as possible, you hope to release her from any obligation to come or send a present. You two are in a relationship but, like all relationships, it continues to change. This could be an opportunity for you to get clarity around it and for you to show up for it in a new way.
Care & Feeding responds:
Dear NLNiNC,
I think your fiancée has helped you see something you would not have otherwise, and that being able to (begin to) see your relationship with Nora more clearly, or at least through a wider lens—and pausing to think, for the first time, about what it might have meant to her family—is important, wedding or no wedding. I also think your fiancée may be projecting to some extent (no shade meant here; we all do this, and it’s not all bad, either, since projecting our own feelings onto others can sometimes help us be more empathetic). But all of that aside: inviting Nora and her family to your wedding is a lovely thing to do. After all, an invitation does not create an obligation. If Nora and her sons would like to attend—if they would enjoy celebrating this milestone with you—and their circumstances permit them to, then they will come to the wedding. I don’t believe that being a wedding guest constitutes emotional labor.
However. Asking Nora to walk you down the aisle is another matter altogether. I know you feel that she was “more of a parent” to you than your parents were, but the reality is that she was not, and is not, your parent. You would be putting her in a very uncomfortable position if you asked her to do this, I think (there is really not a graceful way to say no to a request of this sort, and I suspect she would be very surprised—even taken aback—to be asked). I know you are greatly disappointed in your parents—and of course you have every reason to be hurt and angry—but asking your childhood nanny, with whom you talk once a year around the holidays, to assume this role is quite a stretch. Her attending your high school graduation five years after she left your family’s employ is one thing; asking her to sub in for your parents now, years later, is another.
If your fiancée plans to be walked down the aisle by her parents, and it makes you sad to contemplate walking alone, the two of you need to come up with a better plan for the wedding, one that matches your mismatched family circumstances. Neither one of you has to be walked down the aisle, of course: not every bride—or groom—is accompanied by a parent in a contemporary wedding. You may decide together that it makes more sense for both of you to walk alone. But whatever you decide, please be gentle with yourself. Weddings stir up a lot of feelings that the feeler of those feelings may have imagined were dead and buried. I know you say you’re certain you don’t want your parents at your wedding. I’m willing believe that you are certain. But that doesn’t mean you aren’t sad. It seems to me that the idea to ask your long-ago nanny to play the role of your missing parents (once again!) has less to do with your relationship with Nora than it does with your sadness.
no subject
no subject
Given that LW resorted to writing to an advice column before having a conversation with Nora, I think that probably "walking down the aisle" should be ditched. I don't think it would be wrong to send a normal wedding invite, though. That's not a demand to perform a specific familial role, it's just "I like you and want you to come celebrate with me if you're able."
no subject
She could invite Nora and her sons as honored guests and seat them with people who they will enjoy meeting and talking to, if she has any such people at the wedding. Honestly, though, someone one talks to just once a year at the holidays is waaaay below my cutoff for wedding invitations. (Isn't she sending Nora a birthday card and flowers? Is it really just only once a year? Then they are not close.)
no subject
no subject
Send Nora (and her sons, if you’d like them there) a wedding invitation — and if the LW wants to send a warm note telling Nora how much she appreciated her care and support when she was growing up, and asking if she’d like to play a role, like a reading, in the wedding party, or if she’d prefer to attend as a guest, that’s not a super-high-pressure tactic.
Asking Nora to walk her down the aisle is too big an ask for their current degree of closeness, and would be a lot of pressure on Nora to accept.
no subject
I did too, yeah.
I don't think anyone has quite gotten across to LW that she wants to use Nora as a prop. Her betrothed came closest by trying to explain things in terms of emotional labor, but yeah. If LW can understand that I think she can understand the massive mistake she almost made and how to do better.
no subject
I think “as a prop” is a very good way to phrase it.
Nora can absolutely be an honored guest (if she’d like to attend), and might be happy to have some part in the wedding, but asking her to take a role in loco parentis is extremely emotionally-weighted, and does come off as LW using Nora to give the finger to her parent/stepparent, versus Nora *currently* occupying a “motherly” role and level of closeness in the LW’s life.
Nora’s feelings are just as important as the LW’s wishes, and the LW is likely to make her feel very pressured and uncomfortable with the aisle-walking request.