In dealing with parents, specifically mothers, you often have to either laugh or be upset, and frankly, being upset is bad for the digestion. And that, my friends, is the kind of thing you say when you are a Neurotic Jewish Mother. You don’t have to be Jewish to be an NJM. It’s a primordial force, number thirteen on the Jungian scale of archetypes. Jung may have left it off his Big List, but I’m certain he would have added it if his mother had walked in at the right time and said, “Don’t talk to me. You didn’t eat the brisket.” Anyone can be an NJM with sufficient training. Why you would want to is another question, unless you’re angling for a job as a sitcom writer. However, it’s not my place to judge your motives. I’m only here to give you some guidelines. We will begin with Part One: Cultivating Guilt. “You remember the wedding breakfast I hosted for you, the one you never went to?” That is a classic NJM guilt statement. To cultivate this quality, you should start by assuming everything wrong in the world is your fault and then project that onto your children. By the time I was five, I was pretty certain I was responsible for everyone else’s misery. I once went to psychic who told me the reason I felt this way was that in a previous life I had been a fighter pilot who killed thousands with the bombs I dropped. In this lifetime, I was suffering remorse. I can guarantee she was not Jewish. If she had been, she wouldn’t have had to make up such a cockamamy story. You don’t have to kill thousands to feel guilty. All you have to do is accidentally let it be known you like your Aunt’s chicken soup better than your mother’s. You’d think I would have been better at passing my guilt onto my children, but they would have none of it. So instead, I made them feel that nothing they ever did was good enough. This was because I was a perfectionist, as was my sister, and our father, and no doubt everyone who proceeded them in the paternal line. However, I didn’t recognize this until two, maybe three years ago, when my children explained it to me. Perfectionism and guilt are different. To overcome perfectionism, you have to strive hard to convince yourself you’re worthy. With guilt, you have to atone for sins you never committed. Take, for example, this bit of unworthiness training from Junior High School days: “Daddy,” said I, building up the courage to broach a touchy subject, “I got an A on my report card. Will you give me a dollar?” Father replies, “No, I won’t. You are intelligent and have the capacity to get good grades. You don’t deserve a reward for that. Now, if you were struggling and had to work hard to get a C, then I would give you a dollar as a reward for your hard work.” Lesson learned: I’ll never be as good as my sister. I’m a failure. What?!? My sister was the scholarly apple of my father’s eye. She got A’s like I got flea bites. I, on the other hand, rarely got an A, and when I did I was told it was not worthy of praise, but if I failed then I’d get some attention. Maybe. I learned perfectionist paralysis at my father’s knee. If you want to hear about how I passed this onto my children, you’ll have to ask them. I don’t remember much except maybe a few times when I made them practice over and over until they got it right the way I thought right should be. Maybe that was it. I just know they’ve told me gently, kindly, and clearly if I don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all. Since I like talking to them more than twice a year, I’ve practiced positive responses to the point where they now say they are proud of me for my efforts and will listen to my suggestions, which I try to phrase gently, kindly, and clearly. Mothers in every culture known to mankind have ways to make their kin feel badly about themselves. Some are downright mean. This is different from perfectionism or guilt. For example, after reading many novels about pre-Mao family life in China, I concluded it was the duty of every respectable Chinese mother-in-law to be cruel to her daughter-in-law, who in turn was supposed to suffer in silence until she, too, had a daughter-in-law. Then she could get her revenge by torturing the newcomer. This meanness was called Tradition. (My apologies to all Chinese mother-in-laws if I read the novels wrong.) Apparently things are different now. During a business luncheon, I enjoyed a cozy chat with a woman who was a very highly placed Chinese government official. By the time we got to dessert, she had vented her frustrations about her fourteen-year old son who refused to do his homework after school while she was busy running the country, not to mention her useless husband who was having a good time in Dallas, leaving her with all the hard work. My guess is both son and husband were made to feel worthless for years to come. Neither making family members feel badly about themselves, nor being mean to them is the primary goal of the NJM. Our End Game is to make them feel guilty enough that they stay in touch. This is a finely honed art. Maybe it’s inbred. It’s certainly multi-cultural. I’ve noticed it among Indian families. (“You know my mother is going to live with us, don’t you? If we leave her, she won’t eat.”) I’ve seen it among Italian families. (“That’s OK, you don’t have to stop by. I’ll give the Cannolis I made special for you to the cat. She’s going to die of diabetes anyway.”) I could name some Greek mothers. (“If you want to marry that nice Japanese boy I won’t stop you. Your father’s heart is bound to give out sooner or later anyway.”) The French have a version. (“That’s what you’re going to wear? No, no, I don’t mind if the neighbors think I neglect you.”) Even our local Dragon Mothers chime in. (“You’re moving to Nepal to study art? You can’t live here and keep me company while you study art…or medicine?”) By the way, you don’t need to have children to be a guilt-inducing NJM. Anyone in your social circle will do. (“We’re having pizza? Oh, dear. I spent two days making this zucchini bread for tonight, but you can put it in the freezer for later. That’s fine.”) Warning! Cultivating guilt can be a two-edged sword. You have to err on the safe side. If you slide into fully annoying territory, you defeat your purpose, which is to tie your family and friends to you with invisible straps of steel. Once you’ve learned to walk the fine line between endearing nuisance and irritating nag, you can safely…and occasionally…bat your eyes and sweetly intone, “Would it hurt you to once in a while call your mother?”