As a child I saw my grandparents on either side of my family on holidays and the occasional birthday. One set lived near, and the other a bit farther away, but that made no difference. My grandparents had their own interests and lives and homes and marriages and friends. And my parents went about their merry lives raising their girls in suburbia without the burden of guilt about time spent with their parents. And I grew up believing that this was the norm. That when you got your own family, your parents were secondary players- in the background- and not people you had to have intertwined in your daily life.

Fast forward to me. I am now married with children, and my parents are literarily sucking the life out of me. It started when I went away to college- my mother had been a great mom, but when I left apparently she had nothing else of value in her life. So she called me and my sister (we lived together) several times a day. Asking us, what we were doing, eating and even WEARING. She made us feel guilty when we missed her calls, and genuine excuses like we were at a study group-were met with disapproval and disbelief. We endured all this, since my parents were generously paying our tuition, and believed it would stop eventually.

After college, I began my career in banking which required long hours and hard work. My mother would call me daily. And she still does. We live very near each other still, and now it had moved beyond the phone calls to drop-in visits and her numerous requests for me to pick something up at the store for her. She is fully capable of going to the store- but for some reason, she asks me to do it for her. As if as a working mother of three I have MORE time than her. The thing that really gets me the most, is her negativity. She is always sad, depressed or generally ranting about someone. The store clerk who was rude, the lady at church who ignored her, how her gardener is trying to raise his prices. All things I don’t want to hear. But she calls me (or now emails me) to tell me these things every single day. She asks me to help her solve simple problems that she and my dad can solve (like a mix up at the dry cleaners) as if it IS MY JOB. She is offended if we go somewhere as a family and do not invite her and my dad to go along. Apparently we have to do EVERYTHING with them.

I fully understand there will come a time soon when I will have to be a caregiver for my aging parents. I have always accepted that responsibility (my sister lives overseas with her family) but, I never knew I would have to deal with all this NOW at age 37. I am so jealous of my sister, only having the obligation of returning for Christmas and calling on Dad’s birthday. She has no idea how our mother is ruining my life. My mother is indeed sucking my own life away. In my head, as she is complaining to me this or that I scream inside “You are selfish! Let me go!!! Stop living MY LIFE! Live what is left of your own! LEAVE ME ALONE!”. Words that would never come out of my mouth because I love my mom. Honestly, I am sorry she is sad. I am sorry she doesn’t have anything in her own life to interest her. I am sorry she is lonely. BUT WHY IS THAT MY PROBLEM? I fear the only solution to this, is for me to move my family far away. Which seems drastic, but I really don’t know what I can do…..

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