Tim vs. Mom

Last Friday, my favorite journalist and political analyst, Tim Russert, passed away. Two days later, my mother and I had a falling out and she told me "goodbye" - that she didn't want to speak with me anymore.

Guess which event has had me teary all week?

If you guessed the latter, you are wrong. Tim's passing has had me more upset than my mother disowning me - which probably speaks volumes about my troubled relationship with my mother - but it also presents an interesting topic for this blog.

People have children. They put their entire lives into their children. They struggle, they sacrifice, they give up their identities, they compromise their marriages and their careers. They drift away from their friends. They forego vacations and the many other things they used to enjoy. They scrimp and save to make ends meet. They put every fiber of their being into their children, and for what?

They do all this only to be left behind by a child who grows up to become more emotionally impacted by a stranger on t.v. than by her own mother.