Moving forward: The joys and stress of summer guests

When I was a kid visiting my aunt and uncle in Southold, they had a sign in the guest room that said, “Guests and Fish stink after three days.”  I didn’t realize at the time that it was an iconic quote from Benjamin Franklin.  Obviously, ambivalence about guests has a long and storied tradition.

Many years before Franklin, the ancient Greeks coined the concept of Xenia. Xenia is the Greek word for hospitality and since hotels didn’t exist back in the day, staying in someone’s home was common practice. In Homer’s “The Odyssey,” it took Odysseus 10 years to journey home from the Trojan war.  Those years were spent staying with many hosts—some who were hospitable and some who tried to kill him. 

But without these encounters, he never would have made it back to the lovely and faithful Penelope.  On the home front, however, Penelope was encroached upon by creepy suitors who would never leave until Odysseus returned home and eliminated them.  In other words, some really bad guests.

Now let’s bring it to the modern era.  It’s summer.  We live on beautiful Shelter Island and what can be better than sharing our home with our friends and family? Guests mean summer cookouts, visits to our beaches, endless bottles of wine and lots of laughter with friends who are grateful for time away from the city.  For young families it’s such fun to watch the kids run around with their pals, play at the beach, and then take the whole gang for ice cream. These are some of the joys. After all, when you have the luxury of owning a house here, why not share it with your besties?

And now for the stress which is really the focus of this column.

Scheduling: It is important to remember that it is your home and you are in charge of who comes when.  It is often easy to fall into accommodating people when the timing doesn’t work well for you.  Having guests is work and you don’t want to end up resenting them because they have come at a time that works for them and not for you.  Sometimes to accommodate the groups, you have back-to-back guests with barely enough time to change the linens. And you wonder why you are so exhausted! Try to stagger these weekends so there is some breathing room in between.

Then there are the guests who assume that they have an annual invitation just because they were here last year. Letting them know that your schedule does not permit them to come this year is permissible. If they cannot understand that, it speaks to their sense of entitlement, not to your lack of grace.

Friction within your own family:  Let’s face it, there may be guests that you are compelled to invite that might not sit well with your family—work associates, unlikeable family members, or the obnoxious parents of your daughter’s friend. 

There is a recently coined term called “Guest Stress Syndrome,” that refers to anxiety felt prior to, during, and after the guests’ visit. While this can occur with any guests, it is most likely with the less desired ones. 

The best way to deal with this anxiety is to prepare for them before they arrive. Plan in advance what needs to be established.  Is the guest of another political persuasion?  Let the entire family know that politics is verboten and don’t take the bait.  Do you know for a fact that the guest will never (as my mother used to say) “lift a finger to help?”  Be clear and specific, “Aunt Sarah, can you help me set the table?”  

If you know that the guest has a habit of overstaying, set the parameters of the visit beforehand.  The longer they stay, the longer routines are disrupted.  Yes, Ben Franklin was right.  Three days is about the limit.

Territorial Invasion: When the guests arrive, particularly if it is a family, there can be a sense of territorial invasion.  Shawn Burn, PhD, says in “Psychology Today” that houseguests generally “set up shop” in another’s primary territory.  Even when there is a guest room (as opposed to a fold-out sofa), their presence restricts our normal use of our home space.

As a friend says about her children and young adult grandchildren: “I live alone so when they arrive, we all have to do the dance. They come in with all their crap. I have to remind myself that this is a home and not a museum because I love them all. In September when they leave, I do that happy dance and then I immediately miss them.”

Says another friend, “I just value my time alone in the morning. I hate when the guests get up before me and I come down and find them in the kitchen or in my living room on their laptops.”

Unfortunately, there is no remedy for territorial invasion. We can’t expect them not to roam freely in shared spaces.  After all, they are our guests!

The shopping: From a third friend, “My daughter’s friends came and they all drank different milk in their coffee.  So, in my fridge I now have oat milk, almond milk, lactose free milk, two-percent milk, and my sister prefers half-and half.  There is not enough room in the fridge for real food.  Oh, and one of them is a vegetarian so I had to buy vegetarian burgers.  Of course, I bought the wrong brand.  The right brand was gray-looking frozen blocks of vegan non-meat.  I have no idea what was in them and don’t want to know.”

The remedy: throw everything out as soon as they leave.

Having guests in the house is particularly difficult for introverts.  Introverts can go to other people’s houses and leave when they are ready.  Or if people are coming to dinner, when the evening ends, they go home.  There is a certain rhythm that is comfortable for them.

Introverts can be social up to a point but then they want their private time and their space.  With guests staying up and chatting at night and then being forced to make conversation in the morning, it can feel like a psychological invasion.  One introverted friend has a solution. He goes to the IGA in the morning and buys everyone a New York Times. This frees him up to read the paper and not engage in all the breakfast chatting.

The balancing act is to be a kind and gracious host while at the same time making expectations clear. Being a gracious host means having a welcoming spirit, offering clean and inviting accommodations, knowing food preferences, and being prepared with fun and age-appropriate activities.

At the same time, it is a two-way street.  The expectations for the guest are to be neat, helpful, and appreciative. Common sense and normal emotional intelligence should prevail. And if it does not, gentle but firm communication is necessary.

We have come a long way from Homer’s concept of Xenia. Fortunately, the drama of death and destruction that Odysseus and Penelope endured are not found on Shelter Island. 

Instead, our power as hosts is to offer our best guests a recurring invitation.  Undoubtedly, this is an offer that will be accepted.

Nancy Green is a social worker and Co-chair of the Shelter Island Health and Wellness Committee.

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