Mommy in the middle

We’ve been watching so many movies.

Some of them – those with crowded restaurant scenes or lavish family gatherings at least – are starting to feel a little foreign and exotic.

As we scroll past 80,000 titles, we can’t agree on a single one.

In fact, getting an agreement usually requires an executive decision.

Dad usually gets the final say.

Which reminded me of the scene in “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” when Toula Portokalos complains to her mother about her father’s stubbornness feels like an experience that can never be lost in translation or fade into the shadows of yesteryear.

“Ma, Dad is so stubborn. What he says goes. ‘Ah, the man is the head of the house!”

“Let me tell you something, Toula. The man is the head, but the woman is the neck. And she can turn his head any way she wants.”

That scene replayed in my mind (lightly edited for memory lapse and wishful less-patriarchal thinking) as my daughter approached me for advice on why her own father wouldn’t listen to reason. “Why does he always get his way?”

It turns out, I had walked in on a typical father/daughter argument, and they had seen me. I was trapped.

She had done something thoughtless, and he had given her all the pieces of his mind at a booming volume. She was in the process of tossing them back at him when I appeared and stood there listening.

“Why do you always have to yell?”

“Well, I have to yell because you never answer me the first time I ask.”

“I answered. You don’t hear me.”

“My hearing is not in question here.”

“Well, maybe it should be since my answers don’t seem to be getting me anywhere!”

That’s when I realize in this tennis match of an argument; both players are looking at me.

I really don’t want to get involved. Mainly because both sides typically play against the middle. And I hate feeling like the Mommy in the middle.

Sadly, I think we have all reached the stage of quarantine when even a moment of complete silence can cause an argument of epic proportions.

“Why are you just standing there?”

Each of them wanted me to take their side.

He wants me to present a united front, nip buds, and put people into their places.

She wants me to protect her ego and her id.

I carefully try to do both calmly addressing the validities of each of their feelings and responses. By teasing out underlying frustrations that may have exacerbated the debate, I delicately draw out how they might have reacted differently.

All the while, steeling myself for the blowback I most certainly deserve. I may think the argument can be managed with detachment and fairness … but I am neither fair nor detached.

Deflecting retaliatory accusations by way of a patented Don’t Take It Personally technology, I weather a subsiding storm.

As the credits roll, a happy little tune plays as each of us takes our welldeserved bows.

Of course, the movie playing in my head has me convinced that my character’s performance was Oscar-worthy.