It happened in the summer of 2000 when my girls were about 15 months old.
All my life, whenever I was or am with my late grandparents, my parents, and my siblings, and we’d have a family conversation during a meal or during a gathering, one or more of my family members would make every effort to keep me involved in their family conversations. In this way, I’d never feel left out during any family gathering…
…except one time. Ever since I graduated from Harvard, I’d not get together often with my parents or siblings because I’d live far from NYC or Long Island, where the rest of my family continue to reside. Whenever I came to NYC or Long Island, I’d always take an opportunity to get together with my parents, brother Andrew and sister Jennifer. In the late 1990s, Andrew and I met our spouses. In 1999, Denise and I had our twin daughters Rachel and Hannah. In the summer of 2000, the abovementioned exception took place at Il Capuccino, a popular Italian restaurant in Sag Harbor. Andrew and his wife Deborah brought their baby son David, and we brought our toddlers. So, it was a good time for all of us and our parents to go out for dinner.
When we got our table on the second floor, the room with our table was already crowded. We sat down and started to relax, but Andrew and Deborah were not sure where they could put their booster seat carrying David – he was only a few months old. You know how it is with young parents who just had their first child. It’s always an exciting, awkward, happy, frustrating (and many more contradictory adjectives) time when you have your first baby in your hands, and it often has led to disagreements that have ended up with compromises. New parents are often not sure as to what or how they should take care of their first child.
The disagreement between Andrew and Deborah had quickly progressed from whispers to a heated argument. People around us could hear their argument. Mom and Dad could hear them. My daughters could hear them. They could hear anger and frustration in their uncle’s and aunt’s voices, but they couldn’t tell their parents – they were too young to process what they just heard from their uncle and aunt.
As for Denise and myself, we could see Andrew’s and Deborah’s body behavior, but we could not hear what they were talking about. We were sure that it had to do with where David should sit, but Andrew and Deborah were speaking too fast for our lipreading ability. My parents saw our confusion (and desire to understand because everyone else was listening to the argument), but they did nothing. They did not want to interfere with someone else’s business, even though someone else was their son.
Denise and I were upset because no one was willing or able to tell us what Andrew and Deborah were talking. It was not fair to us, and my parents knew it but still refused to tell us. It was as if they were suppressing our right to equal access, but they decided to choose the lesser of two evils. They chose Andrew’s and Deborah’s right to their privacy within the family over our right to understand what they yelled about.