(Jay’s original letter is below my response).
Dear Jay,
You’ve got a good heart, and I know continuing to support your son and his girlfriend seems a noble thing to do despite how apparently abusive they are to you.
But I’ve got to tell you, my friend, I believe in "tough love." I believe in accountability. And I believe in making people earn whatever greater favors you bestow them – especially misbehaving children.
Now, I didn’t say they have to "earn your love." That love is unconditional.
But I believe "turning the other cheek" is more a form of self-indulgence than true unconditional love.
I don’t mean to be hard on you Jay, because up until now, you’ve come to believe that that is what good parents do, and it probably stems from having been abandoned yourself as you described in your childhood.
But I believe (for whatever it’s worth) that when we allow anyone for any reason take advantage of our kind gestures, it is a disservice to ourselves and to them not to put them in their place.
And it is self-indulgent because perhaps it makes us believe we are being noble.
True kindness and true love is long-term. Long-term for your son and his girlfriend means molding them into being responsible loving adult – Wealthy Souls – and not people who believe they have everything coming them.
That means setting boundaries with them, and making them pay the consequences when they cross those boundaries.
Big subject here, Jay. But the bottom line is, you can believe that Siegfried and Roy knew well how to train their tigers. Their unconditional love was demonstrated when they didn’t lose their love for the tiger as a result of it’s one bad and nearly fatal action.
Learn how to "train" your little Tiger, my friend. Learn when to give him rewards, and when to (metaphorically speaking) bare the whip. He will eventually love you much more for that form of love than the formless kind you now are giving.
Otherwise, you indeed will find that your home becomes a cage, your son a wild animal, and your love destroyed by very predatory behavior.
God bless,
Michael Norwood
I was never a fan of circus animal performances and even less so of Z&R’s Vegas show. Still, the bond between the two men and the bond between Roy and the animals is beautiful.
From outside someone’s life, you can never truly know how they come to believe what they believe, be, do, have and create their lives, process and respond to their experiences. Roy gave us a glimpse with that statement and what hits me about it is that it is in his first line of belief about the behavior that makes it possible for him to continue to love the tiger.
I have a rather troubled teenage son who has a medical condition that adds to his situation. Along with this, he has a girlfriend whose family is going through some challenges now, causing them to move thousands of miles away ~ each parent to a different place ~ without the kids. The older child is staying locally with an uncle, the teenage girl is staying with me.
I have the spare room; honestly I don’t have the finances. She comes with a puppy too, one she purchased with her own savings to have a friend who would never leave her. It is an expensive little misbehaving thing….
Since Jan 1, I have handled my son, this young woman, the dog and all the other issues ongoing around me that I won’t list here ~ we all have our paths. And just 20 minutes ago my son and I had a large, loud disagreement where he called me a F—ing B because by asking the parents of this child for food money for the child I am making her feel like an inconvenience…
by making both kids share in the care of the dog, I am making them feel in the way
In the middle of this last 15inch snowstorm, while driving one of their friends home so he would not have to walk 15 blocks in the blizzard, I got a flat tire. I got back in front of my house and parked and there the car sat all week under snow while I walked many blocks to take train to work, got rides from friends and borrowed cars to get the kids to and from school, juggled lunch hours, hand washed clothes since I couldn’t get to laundry..
I wound up sneezing and coughing along with my co workers, missing one day of work with fever.
And still smiled and joked, watched funny movies, cooked meals..
All this, to get called an F-ing B because my son thinks I make his friend feel uncomfortable.
There are times I fantasize about having my home alone, just for 3 or 4 months… have my son stay with his father (not possible, he is severely disabled and needs help himself)
I wouldn’t have the monthly hospital runs and meetings, the ongoing medical supplies, the teenage angst and drama, the who is smoking pot, sneaking drinks issues, the friend and dog here…
I would be able in just 3 – 4 months pay all my existing debt if I weren’t supporting kids and medical issues…
I would be able to get that tooth in the front of my mouth replaced, an $1100 root canal gone bad that now needs an $2500 implant I simply can’t afford, so I just don’t smile anymore…
I would be able to have lasik surgery so I wouldn’t have to worry about three pairs of glasses, and they are so old they don’t help much anyway…
and get the skin surgery I was supposed to get on my chin, a keloid scar that needs to be surgically corrected, so I could look in the mirror and see me instead of a big scarred chin…
but my son is my son
given to me by the hand of G-d
And I start with this belief about his actions: He is young, often confused, torn, scared. He is defenseless really, emotionally and otherwise. He is aware that with all that is his to handle in becoming an adult, there is more for him due to his threatened immune system. And he sees a possible future in his father and his deteoriating condition.
And I am an easy target.
I don’t like the situation, I don’t encourage it. I won’t tolerate it. It is not how we speak to each other, to people.
But I get it. Because I believe I know the basis of it, and it is in his own fear ~
And I believe that Roy feels similar for his tiger, somehow in a moment of fear, of feeling out of control or not able to defend or identify or cope, it did the best it could. In Roy’s mind the tiger did not ever attack him.
I wish I felt that strongly about my son ~ there are times I feel he goes out of his way to verbally attack me. But I know it is a strategy he is using to push me away from holding him accountable and from bursting the bubble he wants to have about things being okay… even if for just this very next moment.
and this other child, if I do not help her, then who does? While everyone waits for someone to help her, what happens to her?
I was 15 when I was abandoned by both my parents. The first 15 years of my life, along with my brother and sister, a lot of things went on in my home and around my life that were never addressed, by family, by authorities, by teachers, by priests, by nuns, by neighbors – everyone waited for the "right" person to fix the issues.
Finally, when left on my own it was strangers who took me in. Gave me a place to stay, food to eat, helped me get a part time job, learn accounting / bookkeeping.. they knew nothing of me except I was a good student, had alcoholic / drug dependent parents, one away in treatement, one not functional, and had some run ins with drugs and drinking myself already…
and they clothed me, fed me and showed me a path ~
nothing asked in return.
There is a karma to all of this
Perhaps Roy’s karma with this particular tiger started so many years ago when Roy made the choice the tiger could not make, to raise him in a home environment and make him something different than a tiger born and raised in nature… perhaps that karma is understood between them in a way no one else ever can grasp.. karma is something we live, not something we study or teach
just as the karma between a parent and a troubled child
and a woman looking into the eyes of a young girl and seeing herself so many years ago ~
I have not had one single person in the many many who know of my present situation say I made the right choice in helping this child ~ but I know it is a karma between us that may never be understood. It is my choice, I make it over and over every moment, and that alone makes it right.
My prayers and love are with Roy and Z and their animals ~ I do not agree with them in their choices but I fully agree with their right to make them as they have shown they stand behind them in ways most of us could not.