Maze: His Family
Mario Rinvolucri and Marge Berer
Marge Berer taught English as a foreign language from 1973 to 1982, working most of that time at Marble Arch Intensive English when it was a cooperative, and co-authored two TEFL books. She is currently editor of the international journal Reproductive Health Matters, which she co-founded in 1993. She uses her TEFL background regularly in editing papers by native and non-native authors.
E-mail: RHMjournal@compuserve.com
Web (Elsevier): www.rhm-elsevier.com
Web (RHM): www.rhmjournal.org.uk
Mario Rinvolucri teacher, teacher trainer and author. Has worked for Pilgrims for 32 years and used to edit Humanising Language Teaching. Regularly contributes to The Teacher Trainer. His books include: Creative Writing, with Christine Frank, Helbling, Multiple Intelligences in EFL, with Herbert Puchta, Helbling, Unlocking Self-Expression through NLP, with Judy Baker, Delta Books, New edition of Vocabulary, with John Morgan, OUP, Humanising your Coursebook, Delta Books, Using the Mother Tongue, with Sheelagh Deller, Delta Books, Ways of Doing, with Paul Davis and Barbara Garside, CUP. Mario's first CDrom for students, Mindgame, was written with Isobel Fletcher de Tellez, and engineered and published by Clarity, Hongkong in 2000.
E-mail: mario@pilgrims.co.uk
It isn't easy living with your husband in his parents' house, especially when you have only just turned 14. Your mother-in-law treated you quite well at first. Things really went sour when your son was born. She wasn't satisfied, even with a son. She dearly wanted you to give birth under her roof with her friends, relations and neighbours there at the birth.
But your labour was very long and hard, so your husband insisted that you be taken to hospital. He was right you had to have a caesarean operation. His mother has never forgiven you for having her grandchild outside the family home. It is completely against tradition, and your mother-in-law has had no modern schooling.
The big problem at the moment is that she sleeps with you and the baby, while your husband sleeps in the living room so as not to be disturbed by the child.
This started when the baby had a fever last week but she appears to want to continue the arrangement, even though the baby is OK now. You want her to go back to her husband's room and let you have your baby and your husband to yourself. What do you do?
CONTINUED ON CARD 1a
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1a
6. Wait and hope that she will understand your feelings.
10. Talk to your husband about the situation.
17. Ask your mother-in-law if she would mind going back to her room so you can have your baby back in your own bed.
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2
You have decided not to follow the doctor's suggestion to go back to your parents' house. However you realise you can't go on living the way you have been going up to now. You decide you must have the courage to speak to your mother-in-law.
GO TO CARD 17
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3
Your husband gets really mad at you and hits you round the thighs with a clothes hanger. You feel he does not love you anymore and certainly that he is unable to support you against your mother-in-law. At table he talks to his parents, but never to you. His whole family seems to be ignoring you. You are very unhappy but what else can you do but wait and see what happens?
GO TO CARD 13
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4
When you tell your mother-in-law you want her out of your room, she gets very, very angry. She screams at you and slaps you in the face twice. But what is much worse, she tells you she never paid the bride price for you. Her son got you without his family paying your family anything.
It was your father who paid for all the sumptuous presents, not your husband's family. You have been married off in a very dishonourable way. You feel so ashamed you would like to disappear through the floor. She goes on to tell you that you never do anything right in the house. Your mother never taught you anything. You are lazy.
In which of these two ways do you react:
12. Weep and say nothing.
8. Open your heart to her and tell her you have never been happy in her house.
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5
Your husband disowns you and sends you back forever to your parent's house. You leave the house of your in-laws wailing to your mother-in-law that you will get your baby back. She stands there, holding him in her arms.
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6
You have been waiting two weeks in the hope that she will understand what you feel. She goes on sleeping on a mattress in your room with your son in her arms.
She wakes you roughly at night if the child needs to breastfeed, but apart from that she wom't let you look after your own son. Nothing seems likely to change. You feel worse and worse every day and your milk is beginning to dry up.
Do you:
13. Decide to go on waiting and hoping.
4. Pluck up the courage to tell this woman you want her out of your room.
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7
You have challenged your husband to call in the police.
He is wild with rage.
GO TO CARD 5
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8
You have opened your heart to your mother-in-law. She listens to you without interrupting you. Then she walks up to you and slaps you hard in the face. She calls you a prostitute and a slut:
"You went and had your son in hospital - why didn't you have him here under my roof, like all the women in this family have always done?"
She curses you, and spits in your face. You can take it no longer. You decide to go back to your own mother.
GO TO CARD 9
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9
You have come back to your parents' house. But things aren't easy there. You miss your son dreadfully and your family isn't pleased to have you back. You are not allowed out of the house at all. Your parents fear the neighbours will think your husband disowned you.
( In your country a man has the right to 'disown' his wife if he feels like it - this is the equivalent to divorce and is very dishonourable for a woman).
You feel very miserable, so what will you decide to do:
12. Go back to your son and your dreadful mother-in-law.
16. Sit it out at home, hoping things will get better.
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10
You have decided to talk to your husband about the situation. He is very understanding. He says he sees just how you feel. In a way, he says, you are right.
On the other hand he does need to get in some rest at night if he is to do his job properly during the day.
So it's better for him to sleep in another room. He also says that maybe his mother is wrong but that you must both respect her feelings. How do you react?
6. You accept what your husband says and decide to wait until she realises what you feel.
3. You tell him straight out that he is being weak.
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11
Your husband tells you to stop preparing his lunches and asks his mother to do it. Your mother-in-law gets more and more vicious after this triumph. She knows she has her son absolutely under her control. One day your husband finds a large sum of money missing from the drawer in the table next to your double bed. His mother accuses you of stealing the money. How do you respond:
7. You ask your husband to call in the police to investigate.
14. You don't deny the accusation. You simply ask him to be good to you. You are his wife.
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12
It's quiet for a few days but the atmosphere is quite heavy with tension. Some days later your husband begins to complain that there is too much salt in the food you prepare for him to take with him to the office.
Every day the complaint is the same. You know for sure that your mother-in-law is adding the salt to his food to make the two of you quarrel.
What are you going to do about it?
3. Tell your husband openly what his mother is doing.
11. Wait and hope she stops.
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13
You have decided to go on waiting and hoping. You get thinner and thinner. Finally your husband sends for the doctor. He examines you and talks to you. He then tells your husband you have severe depression and says that you should go back to your own family for a time. Your husband agrees to this. Your mother-in-law refuses to let you take the baby back with you.
Will you:
9. Leave the child with your in-laws and go back to your parents' house for a time.
2. Stay on in your husband's house because you refuse to leave your child.
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14
You have asked your husband to be good to you, as you are his wife. He is beside himself with fury.
GO TO CARD 5
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15
You have asked your husband to get her out of your room. He says he will do no such thing. If he did, she would think he was under your influence. He says it is shameful for a man to be under his wife's influence. He can't face his mother thinking that about him.
You can bear the situation no longer. You tell him he is being weak and cowardly.
GO TO CARD 3
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16
You stay in your parents' house but things don't get better. You lapse into deeper and deeper depression.
You lose ten kilos. Your father summons your husband to come and visit you. When your husband sees the state you are in he is horrified - he immediately takes you back to his house. Your mother-in-law goes on sleeping in your room. You've got to do something about this.
GO BACK TO CARD 1
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17
You have asked your mother-in-law as gently as you know how if she would mind letting you have your son back in your own bed with you. She refuses roughly.
She says you can't even be trusted to swaddle the baby properly. ( You disapprove of the baby being tightly bound all day long.) How do you react?
4. Tell your mother-in-law she has no business to be sleeping in you and your husband's room - will she please leave at once.
15. Ask your husband to tackle her on the subject.
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Editorial: This maze was previously published as MAZES 2 in the 80's.
Please check the Humanising Large Classes course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Secondary Teaching course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Creative Methodology for the Classroom course at Pilgrims website.
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