The Jewish Daughter Diaries (2 page)

Lauren Greenberg

My mother wants nothing more than for me to be happy—and it's ruining my life. She equates my happiness with me marrying a Jewish man who can support me financially. I, of course, know better. I know the only thing that will make me happy is a low dose of Prozac. That said, I'm not a monster. Just as much as my mother wants me to be happy, I want
her
to be happy. I just wish we could find a compromise that doesn't involve JDate.

Like every major battle in history, it started with a poorly executed plan, which entailed me moving back in with my parents (rent-free) for the year after I graduated from NYU. That way I could save enough money working at some stupid office job to move back to New York.

When I returned home, my mother sat me down. While she and I are close, our conversations are often lighthearted and are usually related to Oprah in one way or another. This conversation was clearly different—she needed to tell me something and it was serious.

I braced myself, expecting some kind of cancer-related news. My mother looked me dead in the eyes, took a deep breath, and solemnly explained, “There's a whole new crop of twenty-five-year-olds coming in. You need to act fast.” No one was dying; I was just entering my mid-twenties. Phew! What she meant was that my expiration date as desirable marriage material was fast approaching. She then sang me the mantra she somehow works into every conversation:
Looks
don't matter. Your sex life doesn't matter. That all goes away. Marry rich or you'll never be happy.

With more and more time spent at home, I found that my mother's mantra was starting to ring true. It was increasingly easy to twist her irrational threats into logic. I thought to myself,
If I married rich, I wouldn't have to ever work a shitty office job again
. I could spend my days working on the collection of brilliant short stories that were currently occupying my evenings and weekends. I could write and have a life! Before I knew it, I was fueled with enough motivation to join JDate.

The first guy I met on JDate was a ventriloquist. Unless you're my therapist (who thinks I'm projecting), it may seem weird that, out of all the eligible lawyers, bankers, and engineers, I was attracted to a subpar comedian. He asked me on a coffee date but took me on a helping-a-ventriloquist-shop-for-shoes-before-getting-coffee date. We only went out that one time because how can you top that? Romance!

The second guy I met on JDate—let's call him David—worked in sales and came from a good (wealthy) family. We didn't really have a romantic spark, but I also didn't hate him. Thus, he was the one. I locked him down, deleted my JDate profile, and about three years later, David and I were engaged.
I
did
it, Ma!

But eight months later, our engagement was over. David and I broke it off while at a friend's wedding. Seeing two people who are actually in love commit to spending the rest of their lives together was enough for us to realize
that
was not for us. The breakup was totally mutual and easy—at least for us. According to my mother, I'd thrown away my only shot at happiness. How could I be so dumb? If time wasn't on my side when I was twenty-four going on twenty-five, I had now entered stage 4 single-girl cancer.

In the year following that breakup, my mother suggested I try getting back together with David a lot, roughly 365 times. She acted like I was a used car with one month left on my warranty. Pretty soon, no one would want me. Whenever I told her it wasn't going to happen—that David and I were just friends—she'd beg me to reconsider.

Once in a while, she'd suggest I get back on JDate. She'd plead, “It worked once before. You never know,” as if I was trying and failing to meet potential husbands. To clarify, I wasn't. I was the happiest I had been since college—before I took her gold-digging advice. I had been dating guys casually since my engagement ended and was very sexually and emotionally fulfilled.

“There's not one guy you want to settle down with?” my mother would ask, perplexed. I'd tell her I wasn't even thinking about that. I was just having fun. Then she'd say something like, “Fun doesn't take care of you when you're old.” Then I'd change the subject to an item on Oprah's Favorite Things list, and we'd talk about body butter for another forty-five minutes.

You can only ignore a Jewish mother's advice for so long before she takes measures into her own hands. Eleven days before I turned thirty, I received an email welcoming me to my new JDate account. I assumed it was spam since I hadn't opened a JDate account in more than five years. Nevertheless, I opened the email and saw a message from my mother. I had never been more disappointed not to receive spam in my life.

I want you in a fabulous, happy relationship in 6 months or less.

I was furious. I should have reported her for identity theft when I had the chance because it only got worse.

The biggest problem with having your mother impersonate you online is, well, all of it. For example, the username she selected. While I'm relieved she didn't incorporate my actual name into the profile, I still feel a tinge of embarrassment about the username she chose.

Since some other witty Jewess had already snagged “FunnyGirl,” my username was FunnyGirl followed by seven random numbers. Turns out there are a lot of FunnyGirls on JDate, but there's only one who would never call herself that in a million years. Also, I'm pretty sure my mother selected the name less as a nod to my career as a comedy writer and more as a tribute to Barbra Streisand—because single, straight guys love Streisand references!

Then there was my profile picture. She uploaded the same picture of me three times—because she's a mom. So, basically, if a guy looked at my profile picture and thought I was cute, he'd click “more pictures” to make sure the first pic wasn't just a miracle of good lighting. But instead of seeing more pictures of me, he'd just see three identical thumbnails. If I were a guy looking at my profile, I'd think, this girl has only taken one good picture in her life—and here it is three more times. I looked more like FuglyGirl than FunnyGirl.

I sincerely don't mean to offend any guy who messaged me (or, rather my mom) on JDate, but that profile was crap. It goes without saying that the personal details she filled out were all generally wrong. In the JDate questionnaire, my mother made me seem like I was more religious than I actually am and less picky than I actually am. You know, because she wants me to be happy.

I assume any guy who messaged my account during this time was either sending mass emails without first looking at the profiles or had very low self-esteem. My mother, on the other hand, was more optimistic about these guys. After only one day of pimping me out to local Jewish singles, she sent me the following email:

The guys are going crazy for you. I am eliminating all the Russians, Israelis, out-of-towners, Orthodox, idiots. I told one guy I am your mother, tell me about yourself, and click! It was a booty call. Don't go out on those! One guy that might call you is French American. Stuck-up, but he's in your business and could help you but be careful if he calls. Not husband material.

The only thing more mind-boggling than my mother giving my phone number to a complete stranger on the Internet is the fact that she knows the term, “booty call.” More importantly, why would I want to date some guy who hung around to talk to a girl's mother? Like I'd be all, “Glad you and my mom hit it off. Let's make out!” Ew. No. Ew.

On a daily basis, my mother would forward me profiles of guys she thought I should marry or meet. In each email, she'd include a little personal message about why I should consider the guy. Here are some of the actual messages she sent me:

This is your guy. Please don't pass him up. I love him!

Yeah, but you also love shopping at Chico's and going to Zumba. Not convinced. Sorry, Mom.

This guy is looking for a short East Coast brunette with a sarcastic sense of humor. He also doesn't want children. How can you not meet him just for coffee on Sunday?

In her defense, I fit the bill. I genuinely feel bad I didn't meet this one. Luckily for him, there are plenty of other sarcastic East Coast brunettes who don't want children in the sea, specifically the Dead Sea.

Is 50 too old? He is in show business. That is Hollywood for you. He says he wants to live to 120. So that would make him not middle-aged yet!

Fifty is not too old, but wanting to live to 120 is too crazy. Next.

A DOCTOR WHO LOVES DOGS. CALL HIM!!! NOT SURE HE WANTS KIDS!!! CALL HIM!

Truth be told, I also got excited when I read this. I love dogs and I admire doctors. Okay, fine, I love pills—but still! This JDate dude seemed perfect…until I looked at his full profile. In addition to living in the middle of nowhere, USA, he was very overweight. His deal-breaker body had nothing to do with me being superficial; it was just a major red flag. A fat doctor is like a homeless realtor—the epitome of a bad investment.

After six long months, my JDate membership finally expired. During the entire time the account was active, I didn't go on one date, something I now regret. My mother put a lot of effort into screening potential sons-in-law and all I did was roll my eyes at her. Fortunately, there's always a second chance. I have another birthday right around the corner. Maybe this year, she'll send a video to ABC, explaining why I should be the next Bachelorette. Maybe she'll surprise me with a mail-order husband. Who knows? The only thing I know for sure is that it will only get worse with age.

Sari Botton

“Feelings.” Fucking “Feelings.”

It was the only song on the list that I knew all the words to.

My aunt and uncle had brought me to a family-friendly sing-along piano bar and restaurant in Los Angeles. I'd expected that night, one of the last of 1978, to be the highlight of my ten-day visit from the boring south shore of Long Island. The trip had been my aunt and uncle's bat mitzvah present to me, and aside from the opportunity to have beachy fun in the winter with them and my cousins, I was most thrilled about the prospect of getting “discovered” while I was out there.

At thirteen, I was determined to climb my way to stardom. I wanted to sing and dance and act everywhere I could—stage, screen, that Hi-C commercial advertised in the latest issue of Leo Shull's
Show
Business
, a weekly trade rag for which my gay boyfriend and I pooled our allowances.

I wasn't going to be allowed to audition for that commercial, though. Reluctant to find herself in the role of stage mother—and to her credit, concerned about the potential ill effects of child stardom or, worse, rejection in pursuit of child stardom—my mom rarely let my sister and me go on the auditions for the commercials and musicals a talent agent in town would call about. If I was going to be a star, I needed to take matters into my own hands. So when my aunt and uncle invited me out for a week and a half in sunny California, I brought along an agenda.

I was feeling confident. I'd just come off a two-year run as the star of the school musical, first as Guinevere in
Camelot
, then as Lola in
Damn
Yankees
. And during summer camp, I'd played the title role in
Annie
. (I'd also done a pretty bang-up chanting job at my bat mitzvah that fall. Everyone said so.)

All I needed was one lucky break. Just one big-deal agent who might randomly venture out to a cheesy sing-along bar and restaurant on a Monday night and be blown away by a kid belting, “But the World Goes 'Round,” a world-weary Kander and Ebb number sung by Liza Minnelli in the movie
New
York, New York
.

“What a set of pipes!” I was sure said agent would shout. “Somebody get me her number!” Yes, of course that was going to happen.

Then, I'd have no choice but to move the three thousand miles from New York to LA, leaving my messy, divorced family life behind. Getting through that, day to day, had been my most challenging acting job. My parents kept praising me for being so grown up about their split and everything that happened in its aftermath. How could I tell them it all ripped me up? That I was hurting? I had to keep that to myself.

At night, I'd sit in the bottom of my closet and whisper my—well, my
fucking
feelings
—into my blue Panasonic tape recorder. “It's not fair that my stepsisters get things when we go shopping, and my sister and I don't…I am so mad that my mother wouldn't let me audition for
Really
Rosie
…and I wish she and her boyfriend would break up…My little sister is
wrong
. I
am
not
going
through
a
stage
…” (To my horror, one night, I accidentally recorded those
feelings
over my bat mitzvah practice tape and had to ask my cantor father to make me another one.) That LA piano bar held my big chance to escape that misery.

But the pianist knew only Top 40 pop tunes. And the only one on the list I knew the words to—how did I know the words?—was “Feelings.” There are no bad songs, only bad singers, I chided myself, recalling something I'd heard in the children's theatrical workshop where I took classes.

When it was my turn, I put down my fork, stood up at my place at our table, and belted my thirteen-year-old heart out. “Feeeeeeeelings. Whoa, whoah, whoa, feeeeeeeelings…”

And then it was over. Somebody else's turn. A guy got up and sang “Escape (The Piña Colada Song).” Life went on. No agent came up to me. That was it—my big chance was over.

• • •

Weeks after that holiday break, back on Long Island, the spring semester of religious school began at our Reform synagogue. Tuesdays and Thursdays we had Hebrew school, and Sundays we had Sunday school, with different teachers for each.

In Sunday school, we mostly learned about Jewish history and traditions. After a full week of regular school, most of us found it tedious and boring. The only saving grace was when the guy with a guitar—and a bad 1970s long-hair comb-over like Michael Stivic, a.k.a. Meathead on
All
in
the
Family
—would come to our classroom and teach us Jewish folk songs.

Well,
until
that
January
it had been the only saving grace.

When that second semester began, and the sing-along guitar guy came to our class, suddenly, curiously, no one was willing to open their mouths anymore. No one. Not even nerdy, slightly cross-eyed Ronnie Slater. And she used to love to sing!

This was the same dude who'd been showing up for years with his beat up acoustic to play “Shabbat Shalom, hey! Shabbat Shalom, hey! Shabbat, Shabbat, Shabbat, Shabbat Shalom…” and other favorites. Same classroom. Same kids.

But we were in eighth grade now. Things were clearly different.

Guitar Guy showed up another day and started strumming and singing. But instead of joining in, everyone winced and stared at their feet. I wasn't sure what to do and so mumbled, barely moving my mouth. “Shbbt shlm…”

This went on for weeks. Guitar Guy would start playing again, and the whole class would shuffle awkwardly.

“Why won't anyone sing?” he finally asked.

By that time it dawned on me that we'd been issued a new commandment: thou shalt not sing, unless thou wants to be totally, tragically uncool. Heck if I was going to sing.

Except.
My
mother
was
now
my
Sunday
school
teacher
. Mr. Sapperstein, our teacher that fall, hadn't come back after the holiday break. Rumor was he'd had a nervous breakdown.

“What's up with you guys?” Guitar Guy asked. There was an awkward silence. Guitar Guy shrugged.

“Sari loves to sing!” my mother interjected, filling the excruciating void. “Sing, Sari! Sing! Come on!”

The wiseass kids in the back chortled. The semi-cool kids all shuffled. The geeky kids looked like they were waiting for me to sing so they could, too. I just stood there, mortified.

There was no way I was singing! It was bad enough bearing the stigma of being the teacher's daughter. I gave my mother
the
look
. The indignant “How could you?” look. It was a look I had only recently cultivated. I maintained that particular scowl the rest of the class and after class and during the ride home and all the livelong day.

She got the message and didn't dare to ask me to sing in class, ever again. But then, when company came over, she started making requests.

“Why don't you sing ‘Tomorrow,' Sari!” she'd say after dinner. But I was still mad at her for embarrassing me in class. And I'd learned it wasn't cool to sing
anywhere, ever
. And, wait a minute—
this
was
the
woman
holding
me
back
from
certain
stardom
.

“I don't feel like singing,” I'd say, once again employing
the
look
.

One night, she had a bunch of other singles over. “Come on, Sari,” she said. “Why don't you sing something for us? Maybe something from
Damn
Yankees
…” That struck me as pretty selective stage mothering.

“I. Don't. Feel. Like. Singing.” I said between clenched teeth.

“But you love to sing!” my mother argued. Again, I issued
the
look
. Embarrassed in front of her friends, my mother felt the need to explain.

“Really, Sari has always loved to sing!” she said. “When she was five, a neighbor called me early one Sunday morning to ask me if I knew where Sari was, and then told me she was standing in the driveway, serenading the neighborhood through the garden hose!” All the grown-ups laughed.
Ha-ha-ha.

“Back then, when I would push her around the supermarket in a shopping cart, she'd sing a medley of ‘Dayenu' and ‘We Shall Overcome!'”
Ha-ha-ha
, they all laughed some more. I died of embarrassment. Somewhere in the middle of the story about how, at around six or seven I staged and starred in an original roller-skating musical on the smoothest porch on the block that I could find—much to the surprise of the family that lived there—I left the living room and headed for the complaint department: my blue Panasonic at the bottom of my closet.

“My mom won't let me audition for musicals or go on callbacks, but she trots me out to sing for her Parents without Partners meeting?
I
don't think so.
”

• • •

Fast-forward to the present. I'm pretty sure we've all watched enough TV documentaries about child stars turned drug-addicted criminals to know I was lucky my mother didn't let me pursue that path. I cringe thinking of the person I might have become if she had, and if I had to suffer through not “making it”—or worse “making it” and then growing up to be one of those insufferable, dilettante, former child performers trying to shine, vying for attention in every possible arena, but never succeeding ever again. Never living down that childhood identity, or knowing how much past success was a function of erstwhile cuteness. Always unfulfilled.

Back then, I thought I'd never say this, but I'll say it now:
Thank
you
, Mom.

At forty-eight, I am a karaoke fiend. I have a few musical projects with my husband in which I sing. And I'm taking jazz vocal lessons. It's all just for fun, though—I've given up all notions of getting “discovered.”

Sometimes, I'll even sing for my mom. And I never, ever give her
the
look
.