In Jewish families, there’s a lot of pointless yelling over nothing. But a side benefit to this is that all problems get talked about until everyone hates each other. And if the fight’s not over by 6:15, everyone puts down what they were about to throw across the room and breaks for dinner.
Say David comes home fifteen minutes late from school and Mom’s in the kitchen pouring some drinks. She’s had one herself already, but no one knows that. “David,” she says, “You’re late. What’d you do?”
“Nothing, Ma,” the boy answers.
“You have detention again? You skipping school?”
“No, Ma, nothing like that.”
“You did something. You look different. You break the car?”
“No, I didn’t break it.”
“What’d you do? Come on, I’m gonna get it out of you,” she’s like a CIA agent about to pull out her belt of torture tools.
David doesn’t see a way out. “I hit a car in the parking lot.”
“You did what?” There’s a look like death on her face.
“I was backing out and hit another guy. It’s not a big deal, but do you know where the insurance papers are?”
“David! Do you realize what this is gonna do to your insurance? Let me get your father.” And by “get” she means shriek. “Dear! Dear! David totaled the car!”
“What?” David’s dad yells over NBC Nightly News. “He did what?”
“He crashed the Volvo. Get in here, we need to talk to him!” she shouts.
The lecture’s painful, and David knows he should have come in through the back door and buttered them up a bit before telling them. His mom’s going on and on about how this is the beginning of his demise. First this, then he’ll never get into college, then he’ll get addicted to crack, then go to jail.
“How could you be so careless?” she’s so angry she’s about to cry.
“How much damage?” His dad finally asks.
See, I couldn’t picture how two parents could possibly be this intense over small problems. The mom, sure, but how could this argument conceivably continue without a calming counterpart? Wouldn’t nuclear war inevitably ensue? The endgame is unimaginable. But this pause in the argument also without a doubt gave away my parents’ heritage, if the mention of the Volvo didn’t do that already. For while my mom came from good strong and argumentative secular Jews, my dad came from cold Swedes who never told jokes. And who drove safe boxy cars
Here’s how the above situation would work in a Swedish household.
“Hi mom!” Lars walks inside the kitchen. His mom is making a cold ham-and-peas dinner.
“Hi sweetie! You’re home a little later than usual.”
“Yeah,” Lars says, looking down at his feet.
“Everything ok?”
“Well, I bumped into someone in the parking lot.”
“Who?”
“Oh no, I mean, my car bumped into someone. Another car.”
“Bumped? Is there a dent?” Lars’ mom is worried but keeps washing the peas.
“No, no, just an indentation. It wasn’t my fault, Mom, it was the other guy’s,” Lars says.
Lars’ mom bites her lip, then says, “You should be more careful, honey.” She turns off the faucet and gives the bowl a quick shake. “I’ll have your father look at it after dinner. Go wash your hands.”
If you thought that dialogue was really boring, then I’ve done my job. Swedish arguments are more boring than a lecture on supply-side economics. More boring than waiting in line at the DMV. Or cold ham and peas. Or Volvos.
