Dear Carolyn: I have done some damage, and I am not sure how to fix it. My wife and I have a 41-year-old, very obese daughter. There have been health issues. Wife says we cannot talk about it, so we don’t. We are financially secure, our daughter is not, and we occasionally help her with extraordinary expenses.
So, despite Wife’s position, I emailed Daughter that I read that Costco was discounting weight-loss drugs to $499 per month and offered to pay for it. I included this: “Please know that I do not wish to be critical of you in any way. I am concerned about the morbidity effects of your weight, and I want you to be around to enjoy your inheritance!”
There was no response. Three weeks later, Daughter tells Wife that her doctor recommended weight-loss drugs and asks Wife to pay for them. Daughter says she would rather I not know, but under no circumstances does she want to discuss this with me. I spend the rest of that day wondering what I have done. Wife asks what’s wrong. Not knowing what else to do, I tell her. It does not go well. Wife is very frustrated with me that I “just cannot understand a woman’s relationship with her body.”
Thanksgiving comes, and Daughter tells Wife she is too busy to make her usual 120-mile trip home. On Thursday, she texts her mother, “Happy Thanksgiving! Thankful you are my mom.” For me, nothing. No communication at all for the last two months. I have never been disappeared before.
Right now, my objective is to repair my relationship with my daughter. I know you and your readers must chronicle my failures as a father and husband, but please leave some space for some practical advice. I could just be quiet and wait for the chance to apologize if I thought that would work. However, this feels like a deeper wound, one that could fester and grow worse if not treated. What to do? (This is not to dig my hole deeper — I have my wife’s permission to post this.)
— Dad
Dad: Yes, I see the dread in your eyes at the coming pile-on.
But I’d rather have you diagnose what you did yourself. It’s in here: “despite Wife’s position, I emailed Daughter.” Why? What little voice whispered to you that you knew better?
Talking to your wife before you sent the email, at least, was one path open to you. Another was to send your daughter the $500 per month, no comment on her body, no strings. Right? If the obstacle to her health care is money, and you have it and she doesn’t, why futz around with strings?
There’s a reason you skipped these two paths to choose the path you did.
The most effective apology is the one that comes when you figure that reason out for yourself — both what overcame you, and why it landed so badly with your daughter.
Just get the gears turning quickly, because your apology for overstepping is already weeks overdue. You owed it the moment you clocked that your daughter’s silence was about your email. That’s when you knew it hurt. (Think: “I’m sorry,” not, “I’m sorry, and glad you saw reason in spite of me.”)
I won’t make you diagnose yourself without hints. “A woman’s relationship with her body” is understanding you can only work toward, obviously. But another angle gets you much closer than you are now:
Your thinking here is all (well-meaning!!) parent. My daughter, my money, my worries, my solutions. Flip that and think like the child instead, where you’re 41 and an adult by any measure … oh, but Daddy has instructions? Seriously. It’s not about being “right.” A hundred other sources could also be. It’s about [ab]use of your position. When you were middle-freaking-aged, is that what you wanted from your parents? Unsolicited life and medical advice with a side of body shame?
Now you might have a glimmer of the sense of public ownership that comes with life in a female body. “Here, little girl, let me help you with that.” My goodness, an overweight female body, the living penny for everyone’s thoughts.
That’s who received your email. A grown person who didn’t ask you what to do about her health.
I’m afraid this isn’t the mostly practical advice you wanted. Unfortunately, everything hinges on your apology, which is only as good as your insight, which means an answer that’s failings-forward.
