CALLING HOME with Whitney Goodman, LMFT - Analyzing Family Dysfunction in the Netflix Series "Nobody Wants This"

Episode Date: November 11, 2025

Whitney launches a new series exploring family dynamics in pop culture, starting with Netflix's "Nobody Wants This." Joined by Meg Josephson, author of the New York Times bestseller "Are You Mad at Me?", she breaks down the clash between Noah's enmeshed, guilt-driven Jewish family led by his controlling mother Bina, and Joanne's emotionally distant family that hides behind humor. They discuss what happens when parents fuse their identity with their children, the difference between closeness and enmeshment, how cultural expectations complicate boundaries, and whether you'd actually want to sit down at this family's dinner table. Connect with Meg:https://megjosephson.com/ Order Meg’s new book:https://amzn.to/47tyvIi Whitney Goodman is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) and the founder of Calling Home, a membership community that helps people navigate complex family dynamics and break harmful cycles. Have a question for Whitney? Call in and leave a voicemail for the show at 866-225-5466 Join the Family Cyclebreakers Club⁠⁠ Follow Whitney on Instagram | sitwithwhit Follow Whitney on YouTube | @whitneygoodmanlmft ⁠⁠Order Whitney’s book, Toxic Positivity Learn more about ad choices. Visit podcast.choices.com/adchoices This podcast is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional mental health advice. 00:00 Introducing Whitney’s new series 03:49 Character overview 09:07 When Bina’s identity gets fused with her son 14:39 Closeness and enmeshment 27:51 Bina confronts Joanne 34:15 Joanne at Shabbat scene 50:55 The dinner table scale Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's not just you. News is moving faster than ever, and I'm hoping that I can help you make sense of it all. My name is Jamie Pozzo, and I host Canada's most popular daily news podcast. It's called Frontburner. We break down one story each day and talk to the reporters, the politicians, and people at the heart of it. Our goal is to help you stay informed without feeling overwhelmed.

You can find and follow Frontburner on Spotify. Hello everyone and welcome back to calling home. I am Whitney Goodman and I am so excited because I have been putting together this series of episodes where I'm going to be hosting a bunch of really amazing guests that are all therapists. You probably know some of them. And we're going to be talking about family dynamics in pop culture, television, and movies. Every episode that comes out, I'm going to be releasing like one a month over the next couple of months, we'll be diving in to a different show, pop culture moment or movie, and the family dynamic that is coming up. My guests that are coming on will be reacting blind to the show.

So they don't know what show we're going to be talking about or what the dynamics are before they join. And you don't need to have seen the show to get the episode and really get something from it. Today is my first episode in the series, and I am so excited to dive into season two of Nobody Wants This from Netflix. And my guest is Meg Josephson. She's the author of The New York Times bestseller, Are You Mad at Me? This show is very special to me because my husband is Jewish.

I am not. And while this show in the family dynamics doesn't really totally reflect my life, I think there's so many moments of like combining different traditions and faiths and family cultures and being like a blonde non-Jew that is marrying a Jewish man that like are so true and accurate and funny and have happened in different variations in my life that I just have such a soft spot for this show and I'm really excited to share it with you. If you'd like to watch the show before we dive into it so you don't hear any spoilers or anything like that, you can watch it on Netflix. And then season one and season two are at now.

I chose this show because it does such a brilliant job of capturing the quiet, like, chaos and nuance of family life, especially when two very different families are being forced to merge together. And today we're going to be looking at Joanne and Noah. They are a new couple trying to build a life together in the middle of two completely opposite family systems. And I really want to talk about Bina, Noah's mother, who is controlling and intrusive. She's a master of guilt and intimidation. And she's the kind of mother that everyone tiptoes around. And then on the other side, we have Joanne's family that's pretty detached, avoidant, they're emotionally distant, and they hide behind humor and sarcasm. So even though they're very

nice and kind and funny. You can tell there's still some pain and deficits there underneath that sort of like veneer that they've created. Joanne and Noah are caught between these two very different types of family systems and they're trying to figure out what family even means to them, whose traditions they'll keep, how much access everyone gets, and what a normal family even looks like. Remember that Meg is coming into this episode, Blind, she doesn't know what show we're going to be talking about and she didn't do any prep. So I'm going to walk her through all of the scenes right alongside all of you listening and together we'll unpack what's really going on underneath like the sibling dynamics, the mother-in-law relationship, and what

closeness really is in a family. All right, Meg, welcome to the Calling Home podcast. Thank you for having me. Yeah. So I told the listeners before we jumped on that, this is the first time that we're doing a show like this. So thank you for being my guinea pig with this concept. Such a fun idea. So I'm honored. Thank you. All right. So we're going to be talking about the show. Nobody wants this on Netflix. Are you familiar with this show? I am, but I'm halfway through the new season. Okay. Oh, no. I'm not going to spoil anything for you. It's okay. It's okay. But the first, the scenes that I'm going to be talking about are mainly from the first couple of episodes. you might have some familiarity with it.

It's fresh in my mind, too. It's great. Amazing. So this show, as you know, since you've seen some of it, and for anyone who hasn't, is really about, it's a love story, but I think there's so many family dynamics like wrapped up into this show. It's really more of a show about uniting families, I think. Yeah.

And I shared this in the intro, but I'll tell you, I am married to someone who is Jewish. I'm not Jewish. So my husband and I've had such a as well. Exactly the same dynamic. I'm a Shiksa. Okay. Same. And so we're watching this and it's like, you know, my family, my in-laws are not like these people. My husband's obviously not a rabbi. But there are some funny like nuances to the show for sure. Well, what fate then that? Oh my. It's perfect. It's meant to be. Yeah. My husband's also not a rabbi. Another parallel. good to know exactly all right so let's start with some of the characters that we're going to be talking about today and i'll just kind of um catch everyone up to speed joan is the main female character we have

right and she's in a relationship with noah who is the rabbi and she hosts a podcast with her sister morgan which is another weird thing that i'm like oh i host a podcast and i'm blonde and there's just so many similarities in the show. But Joanne, I think, has a lot of abandonment wounds and can definitely be quite anxiously attached. Then we have Morgan, her sister, who is dating her therapist, which we'll get to that later. And she's much more reactive, I think, than Joanne. And then there's also their mother who's pretty forgetful, emotionally unavailable. And she is very a very avoidant, I think, through humor and sarcasm and things like that. She's nice, but not totally emotionally connected to her children. Totally. Yeah. And then we have their father, obviously,

who came out as gay later in life. He has a lot of relationships. Also very aloof. And like, they spend a lot of time together as a family, but it certainly is very different when we compare it to Noah's family, right? And so Noah is the rabbi. who is dating Joanne, and I think we're going to spend a lot of time today talking about Bina, his mother, who is the domineering matriarch in this family, and she uses a lot of guilt to assert control. And then we obviously have Noah's father, who I think is more connected, but he's a quiet enabler of Bina, right? And we see that throughout the show. And then Noah's older brother, Sasha, they have a good relationship, but they seem to spend a lot of time together.

But I think Noah is more like the favorite or the golden child in that relationship. All right. So we're going to dive into some scenes here. And then I'm going to ask you some questions and we'll have some discussions about like what is going on here. From a therapist perspective. I know, right? So you've seen season one obviously. Yes. that at the end, you know, they're going to try to make it work, despite Joanne not being Jewish. And we see this kind of putting Noah's career in jeopardy because he's up for a new job as the head rabbi at the temple. And we learned that he didn't get the job as head rabbi. And this is a big disappointment.

And it's likely because his girlfriend, Joanne, isn't Jewish. And we see Bina get very upset about this. and she starts to like begin a campaign against Joanne, right? And instead of comforting her son, she's really centering herself. And I don't know if you remember that scene, but the one I'm thinking about is like where the new rabbi that got hired is like gives the sermon. And after she is just like so upset about what's happening, she's talking poorly about the new rabbi. And Noah says, you'd think it was happening to her. And so I'm curious what you think about the way his mom's acting and like what happens

when the parents' identity gets so fused with the child. Yes. I think it's what I witness with Bina, that's her name, right? Yes. Is there's a constant threat. Like it's, I think because her identity is so enmeshed with her golden boy, anything that threatens him and his success, therefore, threatens her and her perception, whether it's Joanne getting in the way of being seen as this like, you know, perfect Jewish family or getting

in the way of his career. And I find that she, her way of navigating or protecting herself against that threat tends to be more a fight through. not an aggressive, I mean, can be aggressive, but I think more through criticism, through controlling the narrative, through trying to get other people to talk badly about the other rabbi or about Joanne as a way to feel in control once again so that she can feel safe and the perception and the narrative can go back to what she wants it to be. What do you think? No, I think that's so accurate about her. I feel like she is presents as so tough, but is actually quite fragile. Yeah. And very insecure. And like having her son, I mean, I think if you're not familiar with,

with Judaism, like being a rabbi in the community is a very respected, highly regarded position. You have a lot of visibility. And there is something to being like, oh, my son is the head rabbi. And it seems like she was really tying herself to that. And a lot of her identity hinges on him being that head rabbi. Like I'm curious if she's getting respect in the community or at Temple, everyone's coming up to her because that's her son's role. And now that's kind of in question. Totally.

And it makes me wonder what other identity, what other. identities does she hold? Does she hold any sort of other purpose or a sense of meaning in her life or is it fully in her son and the success, which is conditional. Success can change and morph and fluctuate. And so it's a risky thing to put all your eggs in how your son is doing in his life. It was also interesting is remember that scene where she's with Morgan in the bathroom. And they have kind of a, for Bina, a loving conversation. And Morgan was like, I actually like her. I think she was cool. Yeah. I thought that was really interesting because although Morgan is affiliated and associated with Joanne, I think Morgan felt less threatening because

she's not directly tied to her son. She's not the one affecting her son in that way. I feel like they were able to have a more emotionally connected moment. And we saw a softer side of Bina maybe when she saw Morgan crying. But there's softness there. It's just protected by this tough exterior. Totally. I felt like in that scene, too, that because Morgan is so externally, like, tough and she was being vulnerable there that Bina was like, oh, you can let your guard down and almost felt okay doing it with her. There was also maybe not as much of that feeling of like vulnerability that she gets with Joanne.

Yeah. And I'm just thinking about like how hard it is to be in a relationship with a man who has a relationship like this with his mother. Yeah. Like I don't know. Like I'm, I think for people listening, like if you're watching this and thinking, oh, that reminds me of my mother-in-law or of my partner's mother, like, what do you think are some of the challenges that come up there? Well, it's funny because I almost think Joanne's

relationship to Bina perhaps mirrors maybe what, it's Noah, right? Yeah. Why do I forget names so easily? It's a lot to keep track of. Maybe as a reflection of what Noah has felt in his life in that I need to work so hard to be loved. And he has maintained this status and this image. So he's safe under her wing, under her controlling wing. But Joanne hasn't yet proven that about herself. So she has to keep working really hard to be, quote, good enough for his son. But I do wonder who would be good enough. I think about his ex-rebecca. And I think she really liked her. because am I remembering that from the first season? She approved of Rebecca because she fit into maybe this expectation of what she thought

her son needed or deserved and Joanne isn't good enough and what is good enough? How is she defining that? Yeah. It's making me think about how like parents have myself included. Like I have children and I might think about, oh, this is what I always imagined for you. And that not coming true. And I think for some people, like, whether it's religion or how they look or where they live, like, parents go through an adjustment period sometimes of being like, this isn't what I expected. And I think some get stuck in that. We're like, this isn't what I

expected. And so then it's wrong. And Rebecca was very much exactly what you would expect the rabbi's wife to be right for those of you that haven't seen the show like she's jewish she presents herself in a way that is just like i don't know when you would think like that's the rabbi's wife it's probably what you would picture very put together very elegant very modest as a person like very polite all good girl energy yeah yeah yeah and joanne like have this podcast where she's talking about sex and cursing and right you know it's not just that she's not jewish i think think it's that she does not perform like modesty like you're saying in this way that a rabbi's wife or a good Jewish girl would. Yeah. I imagine it feels scary, Fabina. Like I have empathy for her

of, wow, it must feel so threatening when those are, those are your values and those are, that's the expectation and vision that you've held for you and your family and to have that be threatened. And it's now so out of your control and if she has felt in control of her family her whole life and now he gets to make a decision that she doesn't have a say in that must be so scary and she i remember noah said like i'm not coming to shabbat if joan isn't there yes um and that power switch where like noah gets to now make the decisions about him and his new family not new as in replacing but he has his own unit now. I imagine that, gosh, is, yeah, stirring up a lot of fear and anxiety and Bina.

Totally. So, yeah, that's, like, I'm so glad you mentioned that because that's a perfect segue kind of into this next scene, which is the Shabbat exclusion, right? And for those of you that are not familiar with Shabbat, some Jewish families, like, practice this where they will eat together every Friday. Some do not use any technology. Don't go on their phones. But it's kind of just this tradition of, like,

uniting as a family on Fridays with degrees of intensity. And this is something that Noah's family seems to do every Friday, which is a lot for Joanne. Like I think this is where they start to see the differences in how they view family. But back to what you just said about Bina, I do think this was such a big moment for Noah of being like, I am forming. my own family. Yeah. And I think she even says, like, Shabbat is for family. And he says, like, didn't you invite your facialist or something?

To Shabat one time, you know, kind of pointing out the hypocrisy in what she's saying. Mm-hmm. How important do you think those moments are for, like, the adult child to kind of stand up to the parent in that way? Oh, so important and so uncomfortable because this, you know, if a parent in whatever dynamic really the family has the parent has set the tone and created the guidelines and boundaries of the family and now as the adult child grows into their own it's it's vulnerable and scary for the adult child it's unsettling and unfamiliar to the

parent uh whether they're emotionally mature or not and but i think that was such a pivotal moment just for him to form his own identity outside of her. And not that it has to be, I think this narrative of like mother-in-law versus like daughter-in-law is so, you know, what's the word I'm looking for. It's so competitive in media. Like it's choose, which one are you going to choose? And so not that it has to, not that it's him choosing Joanne. But he's stating this person's important to me. And if you want time with me, you have to over. open your home and your arms to her. Yeah, that was important.

No, you're so right. I think that these moments, and if they don't happen, like, early on in the relationship, it's much harder to go back. Like, had he said, okay, I'm not going to bring her, and he went. Yeah. Without her, I think we would have seen this play out very differently because it is so hard, once you sort of surrender that power and be like, okay, mom, I'm going to listen to you and I'm not going to bring my partner. I think you're setting a precedent of like, this is how we're going to

navigate this movie forward. Yeah. And in that moment, I actually think Bina and I think a lot of parents of adult kids do this when they feel like they're backed into a corner was trying out old methods on her son to see if they worked. Yes. Definitely. Yeah. Of like, I'm going to see if I can control you. Like, if I disapprove of this, will you listen? And when she played that, I don't think it worked in the same way that it maybe would of when he was like 15. Absolutely.

And I think obviously because he's older, he's more mature now. And also he's receiving love from other sources too. Like his sense of, do I have love and safety in my life isn't fully riding on her anymore, which I think is what triggers that feeling. of threat for her and the need to control in the first place. And I think, you know, we gravitate towards what's familiar because familiar feels safe. And for her, she's seeing, wait, familiar isn't safe anymore. These tactics aren't working and the control isn't working. So I'm going to have to change. And I think for her, that feels very intolerable. Absolutely. And no one has ever

made her change. Like, I think that's when you look at this system, from the outside and that I think this is where the husband kind of comes into play is like they've all been circling around her, you know, she is, she is the most challenging person in the family. And I think that brings us like to the next scene that you may not have got to yet, but it's where they're playing basketball, like after he has said, you know, if she's not going to Shabbat, I'm not coming. And we see Joanne. talking to the sister-in-law, I'm blanking on her name. Esther.

Esther, yes, Esther, okay, which she's had like the best redemption arc this season. But Esther, you know, they've had this like Shabbat fallout and Joanne is talking to Esther at the basketball game and she's talking about how she wants to like reach out to Bina and make peace and she's going to write her an email. Oh, I did see this. Okay. And Esther is basically like, no, you need to treat her like a mob boss. And I thought this was such a testament to how the family has been operating around her, right?

Do you see that? Oh, for sure. It's, I mean, it's such an appeasement. You know, it's the fauna response hard at work of like, let me be a chameleon and match the needs and moods and emotions of the most. powerful, often dysfunctional person in the family system, because that's how we can survive it. Like if Esther were to, from the beginning, go against Bina or call out what she's seeing, she's probably not going to be approved of. And, you know, it's, what am I going to prioritize harmony or, you know, saying my opinion? And so Esther chose, I think, out of, you know,

craving for belonging and safety appeasing Bina. Totally. Yeah. And it seems like I might be getting this wrong, but I think that Esther and her husband, Bina's other son, had a child and got married very young. Yeah. It seems like she was entering the family system under very different circumstances. Like she probably have a choice.

If you're, I think in this show, Joanne's supposed to be probably like 35, something like that. Yeah. And much more established in life, like confident in herself versus a 22-year-old, you know, coming into this family that she comes like, this is how I do it. Totally. Yeah. And is, is Esther Jewish? I believe so. Yeah. Yeah. And so not, yeah, I think that helped that played a role, this default approval already. I also, can I talk about Noah a little bit here, too? Where I notice especially this season. I feel like there's been such a shift in him, at least where I am right now,

where you're seeing just his sort of attachment come out more, where he is such a conflict avoidant appeaser in that way, of course, because with his mom, like he probably had to be easy and go with the flow and put your anger and upsetness down, be good, be a good. And that's certainly also through the lens of, religion as well like you need to be be good don't be bad and do the right thing and but just seeing that come out in this scene with there at the tree when they were him this was right

outside of the basketball court he was so hesitant to show anger to to be upset because he just wanted to be easy and good and that to me was such a glimpse into how he has survived with Bina, how he has allowed there to be harmony in that relationship, just don't disrupt her. And I think we all have different ways of doing that in dysfunctional families or when there is someone quite powerful and controlling. And I think for him, that's what worked. Yeah. Hearing you say that makes me think like that moment where he told her, like, I'm not coming to Shabbat must have been so huge for him. Yeah. And so terrifying in a lot of ways. because it was probably like the first time in his whole life he ever really had to do something

like or could totally i imagine so and i feel like i'm trying to remember how he said that but i feel like he he didn't even seem too scared no you're right he seemed pretty confident and so i it feels to me like that shows his how much he cares about joanne and how he's just like it's a no brainer. Like, it's a non-negotiable. You have to let her in. And so I really appreciated his leadership in that moment. Totally. It's making me think of also, like, throughout the season, like, as you keep watching, you'll see that Noah is having such a conflict with, like, his relationship to Judaism and how, I guess, traditional or devout he wants to be and how much he's able to, like, be flexible. And so I feel like in that moment, he's, like,

like I love Joanne and I want to be with her and I feel connected to her. And I'm also being told maybe by the temple that I can't be with her because she's not truly Jewish or right for me. And like he's making all these decisions that are very contradictory at times. And that can be confusing for the family, especially when you have someone who has become a rabbi. You would probably think like, oh, that's the most secure. you're part of him. Yeah. It's such an identity shakeup. And I don't, I don't remember if that's been,

has that been his like dream, his whole life? I think so. I think so. I mean, at least for the last several years, it seems like that's all he's been focused on. Yeah. So to me, it almost feels like his dream of being head rabbi is similar to, and that's, that being a core piece of his identity. is similar to Beena having her identity be the success of her son. Like it's all very tied up together. So if he doesn't have in the same way that if he's not a rabbi, Bina might feel anxious or who am I if my son isn't succeeding mirrors the sort of uncertainty that he feels as well, the existential crisis of like, who am I when I'm not publicly seen

as this person? What's left if that's not there? Yeah, absolutely, which I think brings us to like this next part where it's very easy to blame Joanne, right, for this shakeup and this change. And we see this moment where Joanne is trying to read this email to Bina and like treat her as like, you know, a mob boss or tell her something. And Bina cuts her off and just says, because of you, my son's career is ruined. He won't come to Shabbat dinner. You have cocooned my son away from the family, which is a narrative I hear all the time, right? Yeah. You took my baby away. Yeah.

And I was so struck that Joanne looks at her and says, if something is getting between you and Noah, it's not me. It's you. Yeah. That was powerful. Really powerful. I mean, what do you think of that, like saying that to this mother-in-law? I mean, so courageous because it's. It's, it's, I doubt many people have stood up to Bina before.

Yeah. And I think in part why she's not immediately letting her in. This is new. No one's done this before. But this, this narrative that Bina holds of like, it's, there's some projection happening for sure of Bina saying like, you're controlling my son. You're taking him away from me. I think she's letting us into maybe what is going on for her, that she is surviving

through control and she finds a harmony through controlling the relationships. And so for someone else to be in control, that's too much. But I think that was such a, such a, I want to say pivotal moment for Joanne, but I feel like that's kind of been her style the whole time. She's like never, she hasn't been two people-pleasy with, uh, with Beena. No, I think you're right. And this, This moment also, to me, is like, I hear this a lot from in-laws, that it is too hard for them to conceive sometimes that their child is thinking differently than them or making different decisions. So it has to be this like nefarious outside force. Yeah. And what's interesting here is that Joanne doesn't even know at this moment until Beena says this, that Noah has told his mother,

he's not coming to Shabbat because Joanne wasn't invited. Yeah, yeah. Like that she wasn't even part of this conversation. Yeah. And she also had told him take the job and he decided not to or he decided to stay with her, you know, despite her not knowing if she could convert. So this narrative of like, this is all your fault is like not rooted in Joanne's reality at all. Right.

They're seeing such different pictures. I think in this type of family dynamic, because if there's such, someone has to be right, someone has to be wrong, someone has to be good, someone has to be bad. And if someone is encroaching on disrupting those roles, they're obviously bad because they're not, they're not fitting the mold that has been the way of being for all these years, as opposed to curiosity or openness or like, oh, you're feeling this way, tell me more about that. What's going on for you? There's just this immediate defensiveness because there has to be the most dysfunctional or dysregulated person has to be right. And everything else will form around that. Yep. Yep. And that's definitely how it's always functioned. And so then you have this outside person coming in who doesn't look or act anything like what you wanted to come into your house. And I think the first reaction when you don't have the capacity for this is to be like,

okay, I can fix this by getting rid of you instead of trying to understand what's going on here. Absolutely. And I get why people do that at first, right? And I think what's kind of, I think what triggers a lot of this tension and conflict in-in-law situations is I find that usually the person coming into the family, they're able to see the dynamic of the family pretty clearly because they're watching it. Not that they know everything and they understand all the baggage of the family, but they're able to witness it from the outside while also being in it and kind of a fly on the wall. I think that's really uncomfortable for someone like Bina because she wants to hold this narrative that everything's perfect and that she's perfect and she's always right.

And so for someone to see it as it is, not that Joanne holds this objective truth, what is objective at all. But I just think that's kind of the core of what can cause some of that in law tension. Absolutely. And then to say like, you know, it's this narrative of like everything was fine until you got here and putting out problems and meddling. And I think sometimes like this isn't exclusive to Judaism. It can be any community. But when you are really immersed in a community and let's say that most of your friends are the same religion as you and the same, all the families, they kind of look the same. And so you don't ever think maybe minds a little bit different until someone comes in and says, okay, well, my family's not like this. You know, like there are,

there's a lot more variety to family structure outside of this community that you might not be aware of. And that can be uncomfortable for Bina as well. Absolutely. And I think even within communities and even within families. I hear this so much as a therapist of people processing their childhood dynamics and them just saying, well, I thought this was normal. I thought everyone's parent did this. I didn't know that there was another way. Or maybe you went to people's houses as a kid and you're like, oh, they don't scream as a way to resolve conflict or they don't name call each other. And seeing that there are other family dynamics is quite a, you know, life altering realization.

That's annoying. What? You're a muffler. You don't hear it? Oh, I don't even notice it. I usually drown it out with the radio. How's this? Oh, yeah.

Way better. Save on insurance by switching to Bel Air Direct and use the money to fix your car. Bel Air Direct, insurance, simplified. Conditions apply. So I'm very sorry to spoil it for you, but it does surrender. And I think realizes that her tactics that we talked about that she's trying again are not working.

And we see Joanne at Shabbat, right? But when she comes, Bina is still like, she's sitting at the head of the table. Everyone is around her. Her husband isn't even like at the other head. I think it's just like she's at the head and everyone's around. And she's controlling where everyone sits. She's telling Joanne, like, that's not how we do it. And this scene happens where Joanne starts texting at the table.

Oh, is this about her mom? because your mom's birthday. Okay, I saw this scene. Okay, perfect. So I haven't spoiled. This is great. Yeah. So, Joanne's texting at the table and she's like, oh, it's my mom's birthday or her sister got her mom's birthday wrong.

And the family kind of freezes Noah's family and is like, do you, do you hate your mother? Like, you only text her at 6 p.m. on her birthday. Like she's waited the whole day by the phone or something. And you just see them all. panicking because I think they know they could never do that with Bina. Like they probably have to be at the door at 8 a.m. And I think it turned out she was saying, no, my mom's birthday's tomorrow, but my sister always gets it wrong and she thought it was today.

She always thinks it's the fifth, the fourth, but it's the fifth. But that reaction of them being like, you know, which I see both sides, but I thought it was an interesting. Exactly. Interesting. You don't even know your mom's birthday. Yeah. And then I think Noah also starts to get like uncomfortable and he's like, I missed your mom's birthday.

Yeah. Should I send her flowers? And I feel like this is such a sort of like duel between family cultures of like how are we going to do things? I loved this scene so much. And it brought, I think it just brought out so much. It brought out the emotional distance that Joanne's family. has that it's like, well, I don't know. We used to do stuff, but now we don't really. And we just do it because whatever. And then I think Noah feeling like, oh my gosh, I'm not being a good

boyfriend or a good son-in-law figure. And that brought up so much anxiety for him because he's always the good boyfriend. And he takes a lot of pride in doing that. There's just so much, there's so much there. Yeah. In the same way we talked about like Bina realizing, there's other types of families or like having this outsider come in. I think this was sort of that moment for Joanne of like, is it weird that we don't call my mom on her birthday or spend the day with her? And she sort of starts spiraling about that. It was really illuminating for me too. I felt like we got a peek into yes, should I be doing that? But also like I want to want to do that. And I think it speaks to sort of, I'm definitely inserting a lot of like thought that

isn't necessarily maybe not true for Joanne, but just to this dynamic, this sort of grief around, oh, I will, I want a parent to celebrate. I want a family that does these things on birthdays, but I don't have that. I don't have. And then they go, they celebrate the mom's birthday and the mom is very aloof and she's like that's not the energy I want for this birthday and there there's just so much distance in the room you can really feel it and I felt kind of sad for Joanne of like oh I'm sure that she would want this closeness who wouldn't but it's not there it's not an option no matter how hard she tries that won't exist and that is something that maybe Bina and Noah's family can't understand is like you can try really hard but if that parent

is emotionally distant, that closeness can only get so close. Yep. And that's hard. You're so right and I hadn't really thought about it like this from this perspective yet. And it's making me think of like there's a lot of adults who are estranged from parents or who don't have close relationships with their parents that you're right. They desperately want it. And I think, outside or sometimes look at that adult and say, you are not family oriented. You don't want to be close with your family. You don't prioritize them. When in reality, there's no one there to prioritize. And I think that's how Bina was looking at Joanne as almost like a bad daughter. But we see later that her mother is like confused. She's like, why am I spending my birthday with you guys? I think she says that

out loud. Yeah. And you realize this, you're so right. It's not about. Joanne not wanting to celebrate her family or be with them. It's just like they don't want that. Yeah, absolutely. And I usually, I am kind of the stance because I felt this so much as a child. And I actually have a line in my book that says, when describing this sort of grief of like, I wanting to be family oriented, if only you had a family to do that with. And when I think every, maybe this is too big of a statement, but I do think every child, most maybe yeah i think it's fair to say every child craves that and is naturally family oriented but we learn to shut that out because we learn it's disappointing when i try so hard i met with

rejection or criticism or conditional love that's taken away and i learn it's easier to keep a distance than to try to let myself in and be let down once again yep absolutely and we don't know this from the show, but I think we could make the fair assumption that maybe they did spend birthdays together at some point for a while. And it wasn't good and nobody liked it. And I think we see the marriage, you know, now they're divorced, Joanne and Morgan's parents. But it seems like that was very devoid of any intimacy or connection. And so if the parents aren't modeling that on holidays too, or the dad's not celebrating the mom and vice versa, I think it's hard for the kids to develop that skill set. Absolutely. Absolutely. And then you see their dad, you know, just it always goes

back to him and his dating and, oh, this person didn't text me back. He's very, he's very self-focused. I think he's excited. He's exploring this new identity and dating culture and he wants someone to talk about it with, but you can feel that sort of they're trying. They're trying to connect. and then both parents in their different ways will just push away that connection. Yeah, yeah. And the parents in Joanne's family feel very much like the children in a lot of ways. I think they, Joanne and Morgan parent them. And I'm thinking a lot about the scene.

I think it's at the end of the mom's birthday. I'm not sure if you got to this yet, but Joanne is really upset and she's laying in the bed. like she's crying or she's she's just she's very visibly upset i think to even like the most unattentive eye yeah and her mom has like headphones on and is laughing watching something on her laptop and it was such this clear depiction of like i do not see that you're suffering i don't notice and even if i do i think i'm just going to put headphones on and like yeah you out oh i think her mom is a really good example of someone can a parent can be emotionally distant and not mean yes You're like, she's not cruel.

She's actually quite sweet and innocent, but there's just, like you said, there's this aloofness to her where you just can't really reach her. Like she's there, but she seems far away. And that can be confusing, I think, for adult children to process. It's like, well, my, she doesn't call, my parent doesn't call me names. They're not, but there's a loneliness when you're in the same room as them. And that scene is a perfect example of that. Yeah. And this parent is almost impossible to confront, I think, with that reality. Because if you, if you look at this mother, it's like, what would you say to her other than like, I just don't feel connected to you? And she, she's not going to understand that. Because I think that's just how she operates. And you're right. It's not like she's name calling and yelling and being mean. And she's spending time with her daughters. Like, it would be so hard.

to express how you felt in a relationship like that. You almost wish they were more abusive. So they had like data. Wishing it was, quote, bad enough to have that reason to feel far from a parent. And it is so hard. You're right. You know, it's it's kind of a dynamic that you need to grieve on your own. In fact, she might, the mom might say, I think we're so close. What are you talking about? Because for her, that might be the closest. relationship she has. That's her highest capacity of being close to someone. So it is kind of an internal processing more than anything. Yeah. You know what's so interesting about that. I'm thinking about how I think she does notice the mom that her husband was not connected to her

when they were married. Like she has these glimpses of being like, I felt really lonely being married to you. She says that in her own way. But she can't tap into how it might feel like that to be in relationship with her yeah and seeing the parallels of that and it's interesting like her being unconsciously drawn to someone that feels far away um we don't know what their marriage looked like in the beginning uh before his coming out or you know realization of his sexuality but i i wonder how familiar i would imagine that that loneliness is really familiar to the mom in her relationships. Absolutely. So the last scene I want to talk about that we may be reaching the point now where you haven't seen. That's okay. I can't believe my luck with how I've seen

all these. You've seen pretty much everything that I've brought up. It's crazy. I think we're now at the point where I've left the building. But that's great. There's one last scene with Bina that I think is very interesting. And it's nighttime, I think. And she lets herself in to Sasha and Esther's house. Wait, I did see this. This is the last scene. Okay, perfect. This is the last scene that I'm doing. So we're good. And she has a copied key that he does not know that she has. And she just kind of bust in and is like, we need more babies in the family. Like, who knows how hadn't they just had sex too? Like Esther's in an oversized t-shirt. They're like not trying to be, they're not presentable. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And she says, I could be dead by then, by the time,

like, Noah has kids, which is such a really unique, like, emotionally immature parents. For sure. To use. And then in this moment, you know, Sasha says to her mom, give me the key back, and she just smiles and says, no. Yeah. And keeps the key. And I, I, I, I, I feel like this says so much about how she views her children's, like, autonomy as adults. Yeah. There's so much. I mean, that tactic of threatening or disempending death of, like, you don't, one day I'll be gone and you'll regret or it's this, it's such a threatening, existential way to exert control. And it's also, we all are going to die and we don't know when that will be.

like you just it's such an interesting it's it's such a baffling thing to say for me but it's just interesting to me to their sasha and esther's sort of attitude versus joanne and know it they feel much more like it's more ha ha you're so ridiculous but they're not mad they're just like there's nothing i can do so you're helpless powerless totally which makes it easier in some ways it's it's there's more acceptance of her it's oh this is who she is so we're just going to in order to have a relationship with her we just have to accept her like in some ways they they live a more useful life and that is how they've adapted to survive in in this relationship but there's nothing's going to change for sure yeah yeah i feel like bina is a very um you know funny extreme

caricature of like how people view sometimes the Jewish mother, right? How it's talked about culturally. And so I wonder if for Esther, it's just like, that's how they are. Like maybe her mother was the same in her grandmother. And like, it's just a funny cultural thing when you're growing up in it versus, you know, it's the same. Like my mom's Hispanic and there are things of like, oh, that's just how Hispanic mothers are. And it's easier when you've conditioned that. into you than if you're an outsider. I think totally. Yeah. Like there's you've you've had this acceptance. You understand it. And it's it is this tricky line of I think in some ways with culture. It's like, well, this is family. Like the family, everyone has their quirks and we're all

ridiculous and you just, you accept people, people annoy you and that's family. And then when was, when is that line crossed to this is not okay? And I think that is such a hard line to, toe when it comes to culture. Like someone, she barged into their house unannounced, has a key. It was such a scene. Right. A key that was not given to her. Correct. She made herself. That's to me like what really crosses the line. Like if I made you a key and you used it, okay, I'm going to take some responsibility. Of course. Of course. Doing that. Maybe we didn't discuss the parameters for use of the key. But like you making the key without my consent is to Yes. And demanding something, demanding another grandchild. And there's a lot there, too. You know, if Esther was struggling with fertility, if, and they hadn't talked about it, you know, there's, if they, whatever reason that could be the reason, there's just that that imposition of like, give me what I want, even if it's not in your control, you know, we can't, we can't always control when.

when a child will arrive to earth. So, yeah. Yeah, and I think we see, I think it's in season one, like the whole bat mitzvah thing, where you see that their daughter, I think her name's Mira, like there's a lot of intergenerational stuff going on there where Esther is sort of pushing back against some of the norms that Bina wants to impart on her. And so I think for Bina, she's like, let's have another baby because. we are having a baby.

It's not just you guys. I do think the timing of that is interesting. When she feels like she's kind of losing Noah and the pride of that, let me now have maybe something, of course, she wants a grandchild, but I wonder if there's also another element of this will be something I can tell people, of something exciting or something that is uniting the family once again because this other factor is breaking us. heart. And it will overshadow, you know, the fact that my son is not head rabbi because now we're having another baby. Let's have some good news to replace the bad news so that the

narrative once again is that we have it together as a family. Yes, absolutely. So there is a question that I'm asking every one of my guests at the end of these episodes. And we are going to, or you are going to tell me how you would rank this family on our dinner table scale, which is how likely you would be to want to sit down at this table. And it's on a scale of one to five. So one is like absolutely not. They're very toxic, harmful, unsafe. Three mixed bag, like healthy and unhealthy, but you wouldn't mind. And five is like I would pull up a chair, healthy, respectful, connected. And is this the family or each person? the family as a whole. So like, would you want to sit down at Shabbat? Oh, this is so good. I think I'm like, am I being a person? Am I being a therapist? And it's just, it's so interesting to watch it unfold. You're just a regular person sitting to eat dinner with them. I would say, well, dinner's temporary. It's a two-hour commitment. And I would say, I'll give it a four. I would, I think it'd be a fun time. I think it'd be really interesting to,

witness it. And if it doesn't go well, you know, the meal ends. Yeah. I feel that way too. Like four, I think is like pretty decent, like enjoyable overall. And like nothing so egregious that I'm going to like walk out of their feeling like I got hurt. And here's the thing with this family in this family dynamic, being a visitor, you have it easy probably because they want to, yeah, it's probably fun. They're going to ask questions. and take good care of you, I think it's the closer you get into the family unit, that's when it becomes more uncomfortable. But as a temporary visitor, I think, heck, maybe a five. Get me a chair. Maybe I'm down. There's probably good food. Beena's house looks nice.

It's a five for me. I'm in. I want to see it at that table. We'll see if they'll extend an invitation. Okay. Goodness. I really hope. Yes. Well, Meg, thank you. you so much for joining me today. This was such a wonderful conversation. I will make sure to link your book and all of that in the show notes. And thank you again for being here. Thank you for having me. It's so fun and such a fun concept. And oh my gosh, it's, it's, it's there's, I think shows are so brilliant and do it so brilliantly, like how they go about, I mean, they're obviously pulling inspiration from from their lives, I'm sure, but just how to exhibit

it, these dynamics. It's such a, imagine it's so challenging to do that. I think they do such a good job. So I love your series. I will share the episode far and wide. And thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate you. I think people will learn a lot from your commentary. So thank you again. Likewise. Thanks. I'll talk to you soon. The Calling Home podcast is not engaged in providing therapy services, mental health advice or other medical advice or services. It is not a substitute for advice from a qualified health care provider and does not create any therapist, patient, or other treatment relationship between you and Colin Holm or Whitney Goodman. For more information on this, please see Collingholm's terms of service linked in the show

notes below.