"Mum's expecting me"

Sometimes the standard has a voice, and the voice is hers. She says, on the phone, I suppose you're busy. She says, when you arrive, I thought you'd be here at two. She asks, when you leave, whether you'll be over on Wednesday, and Wednesday wasn't in the plan. Lyonette and Yardley listed the older person's expectation of care among the extrinsic reasons to care, alongside guilt and fear of disapproval, and the extrinsic reasons were what predicted carer stress.

I want to be careful here, because there are two different mothers who say these things. One is a mother who is frightened and lonely and has no other way to say it. When she says, I suppose you're busy, she means, I miss you, and a plain answer, I am busy this week, and I'll be there Sunday at two till four, meets it. Naming what you'll give, warmly, is not coldness. It's the first kind thing a frightened person can hold onto, because it's a fact.

The other mother is one who has always run the family on guilt, and is running it now, and for her the expectation is a lever she's pulled for fifty years. That mother exists, and if she's yours you'll know, and chapter 24 says more. The point here is the same for both. The expectation is hers. Meeting it is your choice, and when you meet it by penance, you give her a resentful visitor who watches the clock, and she can tell, and she pulls the lever harder, because the visit didn't feel like enough to her either. Two people, each trying to get something the other can't give under obligation.

There's a version of the visit where the expectation loses its power without anyone being hurt, and it's the version where the amount is decided in advance and said out loud. Sunday, two till four, and a call on Wednesday evening. Said and kept. An expectation can only bite when the amount is undecided, because then every visit is a negotiation. Once the amount is a fact, I suppose you're busy is just a sentence a lonely person says, and you can answer it kindly, and go on Sunday, and leave at four.