As you may recall from my previous post, my uncle is the person who took a special interest in my career and guided me toward the law. I will not say he pushed me into it or forced me into it- it was completely my choice. However, he did sell me on the idea. And I bought in.

My uncle loves me very much. He didn't have children of his own, and he has been a part of raising me and my brother our entire lives. He is very much like a second father. In many ways he is more of a traditional father- he is the one with expectations and who I feel more likely to disappoint by going my own way. For my uncle it was very much his success that I followed his advice and chose the law.

For the past eight years I don't think the two of us have talked about much else. Whether he was lecturing me or joking with me, the law has been the common ground between my uncle and I for nearly a decade.

When I learned that I was laid off, I decided to wait to tell my father and my uncle until I knew what my plan of action was.

I waited to tell my father because I knew that he would worry. My father is ill and has enough to worry about. I waited to tell my uncle because I was downright afraid of his reaction. He wasn't going to yell at me or hit me or anything, but he was going to be overbearing and full of lectures and opinions and ideas for how I could get my career back on track. And deep down inside I knew I didn't want to get my career back on track, at least, not in the way he had in mind.

By the end of my 30 days' notice with my firm I knew that I was leaving the law and that I wanted to focus on writing. I had some semblance of a plan. At the very least I knew what I did not want to do, and so it was time to "come out" to my dad and my uncle.

It really did feel to me like a coming out. It carried with it all the same fears and anxieties. Fear of rejection, fear of disappointment, fear of being told that I was a let down to my family. And in many ways those fears were realized.


My coming out meeting went better than I expected it would. In hindsight I realize that that was because my uncle heard only what he wanted to hear, and refused to accept the rest. Perhaps I didn't notice the subtle truth of my uncle's reaction because during our meeting he offered to give me $500 a month to supplement my unemployment income. This was huge for me. It meant the difference between paying my rent, my car expenses, and my groceries only, vs. being able to keep a few small luxuries that keep me sane such as my therapist and my writing classes.

My father's reaction was as expected. First he was worried. How would I support myself? How would I ever do as well financially as I could practicing law? But as we continued to discuss it over the following weeks he slowly came around. He understands now that I was unhappy practicing law, and he wants more than anything for me to be happy. He has also come around to believe what I believe: that I have been successful at everything I've worked at in this life, and that I will succeed in making a living doing something I love.

I cannot say the same for my uncle.

In the weeks that followed my coming out meeting my uncle called me at least three-to-five times a week. The subject matter ranged from "how is the job search going?" with an implication that I was spending my days looking for my next law job to lectures about why I am making a huge mistake. Sometimes the calls more gently manipulated my emotions with Jewish Guilt.

It wasn't enough for me to listen politely and then do my own thing. The point of these calls was to change my mind. And the only way for me to actually "listen" to my uncle, by his definition of the word, was for me to take his advice and live my life the way he wanted me to live it.

These phone calls culminated in a second meeting. The first of the month had come along, and I needed to come pick up my first $500 supplement check. No, he could not mail the check. If he did that, how would he ever get me into his office in person so that he could barrage me with his tactics for changing my mind?

So I sat down with my uncle face-to-face a second time. And this time he laid it on thick. Our meeting lasted half an hour, in which time he threw every argument under the sun at me. He tried every tactic he had tried on the phone, and when he saw that those tactics were not working, he fought dirtier. First he tried to make me feel guilty about not being home to care for my father. And of course the solution to this problem was my going back to practice law. Naturally.

Then my uncle threw the lowest blow yet. As I was about to walk out his door he stopped me and said, "When you were practicing law your father would call me up out of the blue sometimes, for no reason, just to say to me 'I am so happy that she is doing what she's doing for a living. She has made my life by doing this.'" I turned to him and told him how unfair that was, how it was not right to try to manipulate me into the law by making me feel as if I am breaking my ill father's heart with my decision. His reply was, "On my life, he would call me and say this."

With that, I walked out the door and knew immediately that I could not take his $500 a month. I need to be able to protect myself. I need the option of not taking his calls so that I can choose to not listen to his lectures. I need to avoid being emotionally manipulated. Because at the end of the day I am a Jewish daughter, and Jewish Guilt works on me.

And so I stopped answering my uncle's calls. He left me an array of messages. All of them urged me to call him so that he could discuss with me his thoughts on my career choice. The worst of them said things such as "you're clueless about how to get [to where you want to be]," "you believe things about yourself and the world that aren't true," "sometimes other people know what is better for you than you do," and, "in my experience people want to get upset if I'm right and they're wrong."

Finally, after over two weeks of my not taking his calls, and after several intervention attempts by my father, things have calmed down. My father reiterated to my uncle over and over that all my uncle was doing with these tactics was pushing me further away from the law and further away from the family. After hearing this enough perhaps my uncle has started to believe it. He certainly noticed that I was not taking or returning his calls. Despite the unique nature of our relationship, my uncle and I have always been as close as we can be within the communication structure we have available to us, and we love each other like father and daughter. So I do believe that not being able to speak with me at all finally had some impact on him.

Finally my father intervened with me as well. He told me my uncle would not lecture me anymore, and urged me to call him just to say I love you. And so I did. I called my uncle and we had a brief, neutral conversation in which we exchanged hellos, how are yous, and in which I told him I love him. And then we said goodbye. He did not try to lecture me, and I did not try to voice my grievances.

Neither of us are going to change. After giving eight years of my life to something I did not love, I have made up my mind about my career. My uncle is 63 years old, and he is not going to change his mind, his opinions, or the way he goes about getting what he wants. He's a lawyer after all. With thirty years of being a lawyer under his belt.

And so for now I hope to let bygones be bygones. I have made an agreement with myself not to force my opinions onto my uncle, and I hope that he has come to the same conclusion in his own mind. As long as we can both live and let live and accept each other for who the other is, differences and all, we can live in our own brand of harmony. Of course, I can't take his money. It comes, for me, at too high a price. And so I will suffer a little more financially for the chance to live my dreams. Which, after all, is the path I chose for myself in the first place.