“You want something to love that’s all your own. Something that’s all yours. Well, you have never had children. They don’t belong to you, and they will break your heart.”
“We’ll just be here when they need us.”
These quotes are said by Bill (David Straithairn) and Venida (Celia Weston), a married
couple in their autumn years still trying to wrap their heads around their boundaries as
parents.
They have managed to raise two adults whose marriages and lives are trainwrecks. David (Will Pullen) works for Bill and is having an affair with co-worker Narcedalia (Dascha Polanco). Meanwhile Patti (Anna Camp) is always leaving or going back to her problematic husband and doesn’t mind leeching off her parents. Bill feels a stronger affinity for his daughter-in-law, Tammy (Jane Levy) than either one of his biological children.
Bill and Venida struggle, as many parents do, with finding a sweet spot between enablement and passivity. Exhortations in scripture commend those who manage their households well (1 Timothy 3:4-5). The unfortunate flipside of this aspiration is that many parents feel guilty or judged if the paths of their children take an unfortunate turn. Bill and Venida have to learn the hard way that sometimes a better form of love means allowing your kids to clean up their own messes and remaining on standby until the moment they fall into your arms. There’s strength in not interfering and remaining in watchful prayer.
Connections to faith also come from simple conversations in the kitchen, often about the loud neighbor who sings gospel tunes loudly out the window, with no shame or thought of who might be bothered. We keep thinking maybe the neighbor in question will appear and offer some words of wisdom. This was not to be. There is no Boo Radley-esque figure who shows up to save the day at the last minute. Just a family trying to make it through the next year, month, day, or hour. — Lindsey Dunn (2025)
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