Group therapy in a blog.
JEWISH MOTHERS GONE WILD
This is an article from an issue of New York magazine from this summer. It’s the story of a mother who impersonated her daughter on JDate to try to get said daughter dates with nice Jewish boys.
The mother’s name is Joyce, and her daughter is 24 years old:
Joyce paid $28.50 for a one-month membership and started scoping out potential dates — “I was looking for a doctor.” The only time she felt weird was when someone asked about her interests, and she thought, How would a 24-year-old respond to that? Then she printed out and ranked some promising profiles, and gave them to her daughter, who’d been away on vacation.
The response: “She started crying that I ruined her life,” says Joyce. “It was over-the-top, scary.” Joyce’s daughter (who refuses to give any name at all) rolls her big brown eyes and says, “You’re lucky I didn’t sue you.”
Have I mentioned that I’m more grateful for my mother every day?
Great point. I find I have much better luck going out with people recommended to me by friends and people my age than by my parents’ friends. I think it’s because my friends see me as who I am while my parents’ friends see me as who my parents remember me (or like to think that I still am). My sibs (all married) tend to make the same mistakes when fixing me up. The best suggestions seem to come from women who I went out with who thought I’m not for them, but maybe for their friend.
My mom ran across my jdate profile and she and the family had all sorts of corections that they thought I should make….corrections that showed how totally out of touch they were.
My mother would say to all of this– “bad rap, bad rap!” Mothers are coming from a loving and helpful place, which is really all they know to do under these circumstances where they have absolutely no control over their adult children’s (dating) life. I don’t think that Joyce ruined her daughter’s life, as her daughter so unjustly accused her of. IMHO — Mom should have introduced the idea and tried to encourage her daughter to work the online dating together!From: a mother with adult children who talk to her!
To mother of adult children who talk to her, I fully agree with you! I don’t think Joyce ruined her daughter’s life. But said daughter’s still young, and is probably embarrassed about her mother’s involvement. I don’t think Joyce’s daughter thinks her mother has really ruined her life. But it might have felt that way at the time. Just because she thinks her mother doesn’t understand what she’s looking for, doesn’t means she doesn’t love/talk to her mother…
“But said daughter’s still young, and is probably embarrassed about her mother’s involvement.”
24 years old is not “young”. Certainly not in such a way that a 24-year old needs her mother to tell her what’s good for her.
Her mother has a lot of chutzpah, and has violated the implicit covenant of trust assumed by on-line dating users.
Her mother ought to be ashamed of herself, both for what she did to her daughter, and the poor men she’s been deceiving in her daughter’s name.
a lot of Jewish parents begin to panic if their kids are still single in their mid-late 20’s, but stepping in to their personal lives isn’t the answer…especially if they have zero clue as to what their kids are looking for aside from similar faith (and even that is optional with today’s young Jews).