The Times, Christmas 2006

FAMILY CONFLICT AT CHRISTMAS

The images are so familiar – an iconography the Victorians handed down to us, led by the high-priest Charles Dickens. The Christmas supplements of popular magazines like the Illustrated London News invariably showed families decking the house with boughs of holly, playing Hide and Seek, clapping as Mama carries in the flaming pudding, while the candles flicker on the tree and Grandpa raises his glass to a chorus of ‘Happy Christmas! Happy New Year!’ That is what we all bought into, at some stage of our lives, because all but the desperate cherish a hope of perfection – the Santa Claus factor - at some time or other, even if it does not survive the transition into adult life.

That little Peter stabbed his sister with a bough of holly, making her cry, and Hide and Seek ended in tears too (‘You cheated!), and Mama is not only exhausted but at war with Papa, whilst Grandpa is a miserable, selfish old drunk…..oh yes, such realities would be embraced within the pages of Dickens, if not by the illustrators who peddled the dream. Then, as now – and indeed for all time – the time of family celebration is as potentially combustible as those lit candles, the painful truth behind the images of unity being that many of the participants want it to be over.

Of course many families enjoy peace and harmony during Christmas and New Year, and I should make it clear that I love this time. Yet, cosily wrapped in your own pleasure, you shouldn’t sentimentalise; in any case, those of us who write advice columns have no chance of that. Dysfunction is no respecter of seasons. As you might expect, the largest number of letters to me deal with matters of the heart: marriage and relationships. Yet what forms the heart – giving it lessons which last forever - but family life? No wonder letters on the subject form the second largest category in my postbag: the sad litanies of fraught parents, upset daughters-in-law, hopeless sons.

I had one letter in particular which seemed to encapsulate many of the issues people have to deal with in the run-up to Christmas. There can’t be a single reader who won’t sympathise, and even identify - especially with the g-word. For guilt plays a part in many a family Christmas, when difficult choices have to be made.

Dear Bel,

I’m 18 and my parents have been divorced for 7-8 years now. It wasn'ta bad divorce, they still speak, but both hate each other’ current partners and there is still resentment on both sides. The problem however at the moment is the ever- impending doom of Christmas. Ever since my parents have divorced we have spent Christmas with my mum. I'm not quite sure why it has ended up this way but that's the way it worked and this year we're planning to spend it with my dad.

Despite spending every Christmas with her so far my mum seems very upset by this and often will do guilt trips. If we don't see her on Christmas day, she says she wants to just escape and spend the whole of Christmas elsewhere. This is understandable, but that would mean we would not be able to spend any of Christmas with her which would be upsetting for everyone.

My dad’s partner, unlike my mum’s, has children and grandchildren who they can see instead at Christmas, and so if we don't go and see them they have other people to see, where as my mum and her partner would be on their own, thus making me feel guilty.

But then there’s another huge issue. Despite the fact that we often choose our mum over our dad at family occasions, she often ruins it by drinking a lot of red wine and getting us all in abad mood. As a result of drinking, she changes considerably. Last Christmas her and my sister drinking wine resulted in a huge argument on Christmas Day, with my mum storming out, saying things like 'Oh, because you've had such a hard life' and 'I've been such a bad mother' - lots of swearing and crying and not much of a Christmas at all. And she never apologised, despite ruining our whole family’s Christmas (although it was my sisters fault too she apologised).

Equally, the day before my sister’s wedding, both of them had too much wineand started arguing again, resulting in them storming off, and tears and everything. My mum believes that it is a fundamental difference between herself and my sister, however I believe it’s the fact that my sister doesn't hold back, whereas my brother and I do.

I'm not saying she drinks every day, she has definitely cut down. But I have been away at university and homesick, and when she came up to see me, despite knowing I hate it when she drinks wine, she still had a couple of glasses with a meal and it really upsets me. I just don't like it or her when she's had some.

We've had many talks about it and it seems like despite me and my siblings’ unhappiness she is unwilling to completely give up wine to make us happier. I don't really know what to do about it as although our family get on really well it's driving us apart. Her partner knows about all this, yet he doesn’t stop her. I don't know how to drum it into her head that she shouldn't drink the wine with us and I'm worried that if we distance ourselves more and head to our dad’s to prove the point, she will end up drinking more.

I don’t know what is the best thing to do.

Rowan

You might be wondering why I didn’t give some advice on this matter in the run-up to Christmas, but here is my confession: I didn’t know what to say. There is so much within Rowan’s letter which we can see as fairly typical: the broken family, the conflict within the new ‘tiers’, the fact that the sensitive daughter has clearly tried hard to manage the situation in a way which has put a burden on her when she ought to be concentrating on university, the way alcohol fuels conflict in this ghastly way – and above it all (from my perspective) the colossal, overwheening selfishness of this mother, who makes her children feel guilty for not always putting her centre stage, and goes on boozing even though she knows they hate the personality change wine causes. All those who deal with problems caused by drinking know how common this is; that the mother should seek help for incipient alcoholism goes without saying, but of course, she will not. She has plenty of demons of her own (to do with the break up of the marriage for a start) and wine provides a pleasant distraction – as it does (let’s be honest) for many of us.

It seems that four in ten Britons (24 million) will shun a family Christmas this year, choosing to spend the day with friends instead. Why not? ‘Family’ should be the people you care most about, and if that means your close circle of friends, so be it. Reading that letter I wanted to be iconoclastic and suggest it to poor Rowan, but the advice would have been fatuous, for she is locked into the idea of family celebration, for better for worse. She has talked to her mother: what else can she do? She shouldn’t be bearing the burden of her family, but she is. Each year she will struggle to make sense of what has happened, when what she really wants is both parents at home together, and the harmonious jollity that allows a glass or two of wine, enhancing the festivities not spoiling them. She wants it to be as it ‘should’ have been, and nothing will remove the ideal from her imaginings; no amount of reality checks will stop her wanting more than she has. The ghost at the table is that of lost happiness.

Surely one of the chief reasons for family conflict at this time of year is the gulf between the expectation of the season, and what actually happens? Those who dislike the nuclear family on principle will maintain it’s no wonder people quarrel when they choose such an unnatural and claustrophobic proximity once a year – needy souls linked only by ties of blood crammed together in hot rooms like so many Royles, with as much ability to communicate in any meaningful way. Family festivals can be a painful reminder of how little in common the participants have, and when there is no physical distance between them the most minor misunderstandings and irritations quickly erupt.

It’s partly because families revert to their old roles, and find it hard to move on and change. Traditions (‘We always do it that way!’) form a prison, within which the freshness and joy of new discoveries wilt. The twenty-something children who ruled the roost as over-indulged children have turned into young adults who blame their parents for everything that’s gone wrong, just as they used to sulk when the ‘must-have’ toy was not under the tree. When the parents have split up, and are with new partners, confusion, guilt and resentment tangle up their offspring like so much discarded Christmas ribbon. Underneath it all can be the resentment that those parents are no longer behaving like ‘proper’ parents who put their children first. What Rowan wanted her mother to say was, ’Of course you must visit Dad for a change. That’s fine. Dave and I will be happy here, we’ll get some special food in and watch TV, and then let’s all cook a goose for a change on Boxing Day! Do you like red cabbage….?’ If only.

One of the pitfalls of family life is role playing: the dreadful scripts which caused squabbles during the teenage years go on being trotted out each year, all dog-eared and stained and as hackneyed as the worst pantomime. With the irritation of close proximity, made worse by the moodiness caused by over-indulgence in food and drink, comes the old pain of not actually being (ital) known (ital) by the people who share your genes. The lines you learnt as children are engraved on your hearts – with stylos of sharpened steel. So the impractical one isn’t allowed to change and become an expert in the kitchen, the lazy one gets laughed at when she suggests a bracing walk, the habitual joker is ignored when he asks the others seriously if they have ever wondered about whether angels can possible exist, Mum isn’t listened to when she mentions her intention to do English A level, the once-ditzy sister provokes groans when she tries to start a discussion about our presence in Iraq – and so on.

Too often parents and siblings try to put a cap on maturity – and collude in keeping every family member frozen in ancient roles. Just as we’re imprisoned by ‘always’ having the turkey at 3pm (when half the family would love a candle-lit evening meal), so we fail to allow each other to blossom as rounded human beings with the capacity for change. I’m as guilty of this as the next person. At the most trivial level it’s a case of being so used to groaning at Grandad’s awful jokes that you fail to notice when he cracks a really great one.

For the purposes of this article I pulled out a whole batch of letters in my ‘family’ category, and read them as a whole, unmitigated by the usual variety of subject and tone. Two sisters are in a state of warfare over the timing of their weddings. A woman is miserable because her son’s partner appears to hate her, refusing access to the first grandchild. A 45 year old man is heartbroken because he thought he’d fallen in love again, only to have his relationship with the new lady destroyed by her controlling teenage daughters. The 31 year old woman married to a blue collar worker who wants to emigrate to Canada for a better life, but whose parents are being so obstructive they are now refusing to speak to her. Louise is sad and angry because her in-laws are indifferent to their two grandchildren. 60 year old Linda thoroughly dislikes her parents, described as versions of the Catherine Tate character ‘Nasty Nan.’ And so on – more and more. It was a very sad enterprise, and if asked to isolate one characteristic they all shared I would pick that old predictable bugbear, selfishness. If it astounds me what treatment men and women will suffer in the name of ‘love’, it appals me anew each time what damage is done in the name of the family. No wonder the famous Philip Larkin poem is quoted so often.

Now Christmas is done, we’re in the time for New Year resolutions, and how we conduct ourselves at family get-togethers is a good place to start. New Year’s Eve is the first challenge, Easter will give more practise; vow that next Christmas can be created anew as a great family feast. It isn’t hard to come up with a few rules:

· Don’t drink all day. It will make you feel dreadful and cause rows.

· Step boldly outside the box of your family role. Surprise them.

· Take turns at meals in ‘teams’. The stepfather who never cooks should regard it as a means of integrating to be in charge of Christmas Eve supper with one of the step-children. If the son never cooks, he and Dad can pop a Waitrose Indian in the freezer, ready for their turn.

· Invent a new ritual each year. E.g. everybody reads out a favourite inspirational quote at 6.30pm on Christmas Eve. Or a joke.

· Try to share at least one activity – as simple as a walk in the park.

· If your family is split always turn negatives into positives by saying

’We’ll have two of everything!’

· Ask questions of each other. It’s easy for meals to be frittered away with no proper talk. Try to think of members of your family as people you’ve just met and need to get to know.

· If something is niggling you – LET IT GO. Does it really matter that much? One of my favourite catch-phrases/clichés is ‘Life is too short’.

Because - if you imagine the permanent loss of these people who share your life - you’ll see that it is. So when the bells ring out at midnight on December 31^st, let them herald a new year in which you can forgive your parents, siblings and children for not being perfect, just as you want them to make allowances for you.