My Brother Borrowed Money and Nobody Mentions It
A listener in Alexandria lent her younger brother a year of savings. The family says family does not count debts. Karim talks about money, birth order and how to ask without shame.
My Mother Has a Key to My Flat
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Show notes
This week's door
Karim moved out at 31, which in Cairo counts as early, and his mother kept a key. For two years she rearranged his cupboards and left food. Tonight he tells how the conversation about the key finally happened, and what went wrong the first time.
- Why a key is never really about a key
- The first attempt: a text message, a disaster, four days of silence
- The second attempt: in person, over her food, with a reason she could repeat to her sisters
- Calls from Amman and Toronto: a mother-in-law with a spare key and a father who just arrives
- The sentence for Sunday lunch
Next week: when your brother borrows money and the family tells you to let it go.
Transcript
Ahlan, and welcome to A Door, Not a Wall. I am Karim Mansour, I am a family therapist in Cairo, and I am also the eldest son of a woman who, until quite recently, had a key to my apartment. This show is about boundaries in families that do not really believe in boundaries. Families where love means proximity, where no is a kind of insult, and where cutting people off is unthinkable, so you need another way. Tonight I start with my own story. For two years my mother let herself into my flat while I was at work. She rearranged my kitchen. She left koshari in the fridge. She was being kind. I was going quietly mad. I tried to talk to her about it twice. The first time was a catastrophe. You are listening on Witspeak Podcasts. Let me tell you what happened.
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