March 9, 2006

Alison on Aliyah:  Portrait of a Moroccan Family

In the middle of all the turmoil going on with my boyfriend and his health, over the past two months I was treated to a crash course on “Moroccan Mothers/Families 101,” the registration for which was free but not quite so painless, requiring simply the presence of a Moroccan boyfriend in the close vicinity.  Less than ten hours after Mikhael himself received his diagnosis and the news that he would be undergoing surgery within three days, he and I were already on our way to pick up his mother from her red-eye flight from Paris.  I had met her once before, and we had been as friendly and cordial as is possible, given the fact that we have less than thirty mutually understood words between us.  But I knew that in a time of crisis such as this, all bets were off.

The entire focus of the weekend before the surgery was on the façade that she seemed to believe was critical to maintaining normalcy in the situation.  She cooked and cleaned incessantly, always with a smile plastered on her face, in an apparent, bizarre attempt to pretend that everything was fine.  The phone rang off the hook for three solid days, from aunts, uncles, distant cousins, friends of friends of uncles; from France, Morocco, Spain, America.  The entire extended family, whether in person, on the phone, or by email, demanded that we “put on a happy face” and act the part.  His mother shot a disapproving grimace at me every time my face fell at the thought of the surgery risks or I refused to eat a full (read: healthy and not at all unusual) helping of her cooking.  I was baffled by her reactions, having been brought up in a fairly liberal family culture, encouraged to express my feelings and “process” my experiences “in the moment” (did anyone guess that my mother is a counselor?).

I have heard stories about Moroccan mothers, and from what I have understood from my friends, let’s just say that the words “overbearing,” “intrusive,” and “controlling” fall into the “understatements of the year” category.  I knew that as the girlfriend (read: not yet the wife), I had no real status in this situation, and I figured that from the point of her disembarking from the plane, I would be relegated to the behind-the-scenes support (read: laundry and cooking).  I tried to prepare myself for what I expected to be an onslaught of boundary-breaching and role confusion.

Truthfully, it wasn’t so bad.  We limped along together for those six weeks, the three of us all taking care of each other in our own ways.  There was a lot of bickering and a great deal of stepping on each other’s toes, as Mikhael attempted to assert his independence and his mother attempted to continue to treat him as her baby.  When I complained to one of my Moroccan friends that Mikhael’s mother was constantly overstepping what I perceived as our bounds—rearranging furniture, reorganizing the kitchen cabinets, changing the sheets on our bed (sometimes while we were still in it!)—I was told unceremoniously that Mikhael (and his apartment) is simply her domain, and she is justified in doing whatever she likes.  I was also told that all this would change instantaneously on his wedding day.  Apparently Moroccan sons are their mothers’ babies up until the day that they become their wives’ property.

Predictably, all of this was an indignant insult to my American conceptions of independence, boundaries, and “healthy parent-child separation.”  I repeatedly urged Mikhael to have a “dialogue” with his mother, in order to “set some limits” and assert his (and my) role.  I tried to get him to understand the psychological ramifications of his mother’s actions.  But I have come to realize that I have absolutely no frame of reference for the family that I have stumbled into.  All of my best attempts at psychoanalysis and every “Psych 101” buzzword I can muster don’t come close and probably aren’t even relevant.  Viewing these dynamics through my American eyes just isn’t going to cut it here.  And honestly, I’m starting to wonder which way is really best.

Because the truth is that Mikhael’s mother, in many ways, represents the type of mother I hope to be, perhaps even more so than the typical parental figures I have been exposed to in America.  With all of what I labeled as intrusiveness, she loves her son fiercely and without conditions.  With no regard to money, time, her work schedule, or—let’s face it—certain degrees of logic, she dropped everything in her own life to race to her child’s bedside.  And as difficult as it was for me to negotiate my own relationship with her, I was happy that she came.  Indeed, it took a crisis like this for me to realize how alone a “lone immigrant” really can be here in Israel.  So I suppose I’ve just become the newest—and most bewildered—member of an extended, extensive, intrusive, complicated, exasperating, and intensely loving Moroccan family.  I’m not sure if I passed the course, but I have a feeling there will be a lifetime of make-up tests.