Close Family

Katherine Eltsina (not her real name) is a woman with extensive worldly experience. She is one of the few people I have talked to about job opportunities to casually consider flying to Spain or Canada if it meant finding a job or internship that would be a good stepping stone into the field of behavioral psychology. She drew the line at Austria though, apparently spiders the size of dinner plates are not her thing. “My father said to me, he’ll never visit me if I moved to Australia!”

In the end, it wouldn’t matter much because Katherine does most of the visiting as far as family is concerned. If someone asked her about her family she would say that she is “Russian, a Russian German, which means that my family is pretty big.” While Katharine has a small nuclear family comprised of only her father, her mother, and herself, her mother alone has forty cousins. They “don’t live close” but they are “warm” and when they all get together it is quite an event.

Even though her nuclear family is very small, Katherine feels that it is “perfect” the way it is. Katherine’s mother and father are only twenty years old than she is. They grew up with her and she can she her own influence in their development. Older parents are somewhat set in their ways, they cannot be changed or influenced as much. The experience of growing and changing together has lead Katherine’s family to become “very very close.” For example, Katherine often shops with her mom, suggesting clothes which gives her mother a youthful look.

Katherine has an unusual mother daughter. “You know how kids will say “I want that” and the mother will do it, that doesn’t happen in my family.” To clarify, one day after Katherine’s mother did something for her like maybe cook for her or do her laundry, Katherine told her “I didn’t ask you to do it.” Afterward, Katherine’s mother didn’t automatically do the traditional motherly tasks because she no longer was obligated to do them. So whenever she or Katherine do something for each other, and whenever they say thank you “it really shows appreciation” and that they really “value” each other’s actions more so than other mothers and daughters.

As a little girl, Katherine would sometimes come home and cook for her mother who would be tired in the mid day. It is only now when Katherine goes home to visit does her mother cook three times a day. Every day there is a “splendus meal.” Katherine doesn’t know if her mother and father are happier “because (she’s) come back or because of the food.”

As she has left her home in Germany, traveled, and led her busy life style, when she goes home, she finds that she is content to spend most of her time resting at home with her family. Her friends may come over, her boyfriend Victor may beg to go out and do something but Katherine just enjoys spending her two week vacations at home with her parents and rest.