You’re fired!
By Michelle Martin
There’s a reason we didn’t name our son “The Donald.” But maybe we should start calling him “The Frank.”
After all, it was my adorable pre-schooler (who has much better hair than that guy with the real estate empire) who looked at me and said, “Mommy, if you don’t listen in 30 seconds, I’m going to fire you!”
Never mind that Frankie isn’t quite clear on how long 30 seconds is, or that I was trying to finish something. His statement worked: he got my attention.
Mostly, I wanted to find out what he meant by being fired.
“So does that mean you’re going to stop paying me?” I asked him.
No.
“Does that mean I can stop cooking your dinner and washing your clothes? Stop picking you up at school and reading stories at bedtime?” No, no, no and no.
Well, then. I don’t think you really want to fire me, I told him. Which is good, because I’m your mother and I always will be. You can’t fire your mother. Just like you’re my son and always will be. I can’t fire you, either.
That’s the way families are. You are conceived and born into a family, and no matter what you think of that family, no matter even whether you have any contact with any of them after your birth, they will always be a part of you. That’s what pushes adopted children to want to know something about their biological parents and that’s what’s behind the urge of children conceived through donor insemination to look for their donors as well as half-siblings from other mothers.
The ties that bind do not come undone. Even if we want them to. Even if they are stretched almost to—or even beyond—the breaking point. No matter how broken our relationships, a connection remains, even if it is only in the hole left in our hearts.
But that’s not the way a lot of people see it. We live in a society of disposable goods and often disposable relationships. People are to be used, like anything else, and then allowed to fall away, or be pushed.
In some contexts, there’s nothing really wrong with that. If I never see the cabdriver who dropped me off at an appointment again, so be it. And I’m really not in the market for a deep personal relationship with the woman behind the counter at the post office.
But they are people who need to be treated with dignity and respect, no matter how short our interactions. That’s relatively easy, of course. Often, it’s much harder treating our family members with the same level of consideration.
It’s said that familiarity breeds contempt. Something makes it easy to forget to treat those you love with the same consideration you show acquaintances.
But that’s not an excuse. Business relationships might be simpler and more easily managed than families, but they don’t have the same meaning. Your employer never has to take you in.
That’s why firing me was not an option for Frank.
After my explanation of why he couldn’t fire me, I gave Frank a hug and got the second attention-grabbing line of the day: “Mommy, stop. You’re squishing me.”
Michelle Martin is a Catholic New World staff writer.
