Oft there is conflict when the family meets for Christmas. Corona makes the situation even more complicated, there is a threat of political dispute over vaccinations and lockdowns. Sometimes only mediators can help.
In late summer, a couple from southern Germany realized that the situation on the holidays this year could be particularly difficult, when the obligatory question arose as to who would visit whom this year, when and how. As in previous years, father and mother were supposed to go to their younger son and his family in the Rhineland. Only, she informed him, the older brother from the north would not be there this time because he had not yet been vaccinated against Corona. “It was a shock for the parents,” reports Christa Kober, who works as a family mediator in the Stuttgart region. “They didn’t want to just shut out the other son and were now desperate about what to do.”