Thread: Difficult relatives Board: Hell / Ship of Fools.


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Posted by anoesis (# 14189) on :
 
I'm starting this thread because I want to have a bitch on the topic, and to give others the opportunity to do likewise, and (oddly) I find myself a bit squeamish about the idea of writing "Today I condemn to hell" before going on about a family member...

So, anyway, difficult relatives - in this case, my mother, who sent me an email a few days ago couched in a tone I would label 'sniping'. These arrive every few months, and alert me to the fact that, somehow, I have done something to offend her. On this occasion, I have failed to bring the children to visit her over the holiday period, whereas all her friends have had their grandchildren to visit. Any attempt to explain only makes things worse for myself, thus:

Her: Why haven't you brought the children to visit over the holiday period?

Me:...?...because you didn't invite us?

Her: You should know by now that you don't need an invitation to visit me! I am quite happy to clear my schedule and rearrange things to accommodate you!*

Me: Also, I remember you saying when we were down visiting last** that you were very busy in January.

Her: Oh come on! You can't expect me to remember conversations from that long ago, at my age!***

Me: Well, anyway, it's done now, I have other activities planned for the kids, but let's hope we can do a better job of communicating around the next holiday period, so we don't have any more misunderstandings.

Her: I sincerely hope you actually mean that.

Me(to self): Now what the fuck is that supposed to mean?

And the worst of all is that I can't just elect to ignore it and hope it will all wash under the bridge when I get one of these communiques, because if I don't respond I get another barrage asking me why I haven't answered.

In the absence of a 'throwing up hands in frustration and marching out of the room' smilie, I am going to have to make do with this one:


*not wholly true
**a whole six weeks ago
***my mother has NOT entered advanced old age and her memory is completely fine
 

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Posted by Francophile (# 17838) on :
 
Oh for goodness sake, love her, she's your mother, you only get one and you won't have her for ever.

Be grateful.
 

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Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :
 
I'd be tempted to include the response script you give above in my reply, anoesis.

[ 22. January 2014, 20:57: Message edited by: Gwai ]
 

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Posted by Spike (# 36) on :
 
Shit, is your relationship with your mum so bad you have to wait for an invitation before you visit? That's really sad.
 

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Posted by anoesis (# 14189) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Francophile:
Oh for goodness sake, love her, she's your mother, you only get one and you won't have her for ever.

Be grateful.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Spike:
Shit, is your relationship with your mum so bad you have to wait for an invitation before you visit? That's really sad.

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Well, I live several hours drive from her, so visiting necessarily involves staying a few nights - and I come bearing children, which her house is not really prepared for. So while I may not need an invitation, exactly, I certainly need to obtain an okay before turning up - I can't just arrive and expect to be fed and watered and housed without running it by her beforehand, can I?

I think the real answer, though, is that, no, most of the time, this relationship works just fine, and I sometimes propose visits to her, and sometimes they are proposed to me, and likewise with her visiting us, and its all okay. But when I get asked 'Why haven't you brought the grandchildren to visit me?' in a manner that implies some sort of dereliction of duty on my part, I wonder if bringing a little more formality into the relationship might actually be helpful, because at least then everyone would know how things stood - the easy, casual, approach has the potential to lead to assumptions, and cross-assumptions, and here we find ourselves, both kind of annoyed about something which is (I'm aware) nothing much, really. It's just that it happens a lot.
 

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Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :
 
Goodness, is someone holding a gun to Francophile's head and forcing him to read this?

anoesis, you may regret opening this thread in Hell rather than All Saints. But FWIW I too have an Irritating Mother. She pampers Other Half outrageously when we go to stay with her and heaps extravagant praise on him every time he makes a cup of tea or helps with the washing up. This sets impossibly high standards (which I have no interest in matching, anyway; he irons his own shirts at home).

He thinks she's wonderful and gets very indignant when people try to tell him mother-in-law jokes.

[ 22. January 2014, 21:25: Message edited by: Jane R ]
 

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Posted by Kitten (# 1179) on :
 
If it's any consolation anoesis, things can improve. I've never had what you might call an easy relationship with my mother (80 next month) but things have improved in the last few years and while things may never be perfect, I have a better relationship with her now than I've ever had before.
 

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Posted by anoesis (# 14189) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Francophile:
Not bad form, just dull and boring and depressing.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Francophile:
I also think it strange how you bright young things dote on your little darlings (also boring to the sad childless) and yet speak of the older generation so nastily.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Francophile:
I suppose you'll understand when you're old(er) and your kids have their own lives to lead and you're left out.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Kitten:
If it's any consolation anoesis, things can improve. I've never had what you might call an easy relationship with my mother (80 next month) but things have improved in the last few years and while things may never be perfect, I have a better relationship with her now than I've ever had before.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Taliesin:
I assumed franophile must really hate you, due to scrap on other threads.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Taliesin:
I assume you opened his thread for other people to rant about their families, rAther than comment on you and yours.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Taliesin:
Mothers are always a touchy subject. I love and not love mine, would struggle post on a forum about her. My daughters' crap half brother, however, is open season. Bring it on, the man is a jerk.

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quote:

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Originally posted by anoesis:

quote:

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Originally posted by Francophile:
Not bad form, just dull and boring and depressing.

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Alright, alright! You know, this is helping enormously, actually. I'm now a lot more angry with you than I am with my mother.

quote:

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Originally posted by Francophile:
I also think it strange how you bright young things dote on your little darlings (also boring to the sad childless) and yet speak of the older generation so nastily.

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I resent that. I am not a bright young thing. I am depressed and anxious and frazzled and worn out from trying to entertain and mediate between my 'little darlings' (and what have you seen in my posting so far to indicate that I dote on them, particularly, may I ask?) Or are you just making assumptions, along with the assumptions about how other childless people feel, and the assumptions of how I feel about other people of the older generation? I have known my parents-in-law for nearly twenty years now and I have tremendous respect for them a great relationship with them which is not fraught with all this emotional baggage. Similarly, I had an excellent relationship with my father, once I was out of adolescence.

quote:

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Originally posted by Francophile:
I suppose you'll understand when you're old(er) and your kids have their own lives to lead and you're left out.

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I suppose I will. When it eventually happens, you can look down from your heavenly abode and sneer at me some more, eh? And by the way, that is the sort of sniping comment that my mother specialises in. You cannot possibly understand what it is like to be me, because you haven't reached my age yet, but inevitably you WILL understand, when you do reach my age, because it's inconceivable that anyone my age doesn't feel as I do. And then you'll see. And then you'll be sorry. And then you'll wish you'd been nicer to me. Rah rah.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Francophile:
No wonder your mother despises you.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Francophile:
What has she done to deserve a self pitying, whining excuse of a daughter like you.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Francophile:
You really need to experience real hardship.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Francophile:
Oh, and did anyone force you to have children to frazzle and depress you? Grow up and take responsibility for your own pathetic choices un life.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Francophile:
Oh, you cannot possibly undrstand what ut is to be me.

Why post your self absorbed drivel on the Hell board if you're looking for sympathy? You ain't going to get it except from the pathetic, right on Christian idiots on here.

Hope I get banned.

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quote:

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Originally posted by comet:
How on earth could they possibly not be just wrestling and jostling each other for a chance to sit there with you telling them how fucked up and evil they are and how much better you are?

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Ok, first funny mom story.

Listening to my mom on the phone is excruciating, because she never leaves space for the other person on the line to talk. Also, what she has to say usually revolves around a string of complaints. (Hence my laughter at the above.) Whether it was her that called or the other person, from the first second she starts talking she just keeps up talking in one long stream. I can't imagine what the poor soul on the other end must be doing. "Yes, I.. Well of course.. Actually..."

So, one Sunday a letter appeared in Dear Abby, in which someone complained about a friend who called just to talk about their own stuff and never let them contribute, or get off the phone. Abby( or whoever) suggested that the writer cut the conversation off before it could germinate.

I swear to God, all my mom's friends must have read that article, because for about two weeks afterward, phone conversations were like this on her end.

"Hi, it's [Mom] I was ju-- oh, you're busy. OK, but really quick I just wanted to sa-- oh, can I call later? Tomorrow, maybe? Well, goodbye then."
If it was a coincidence, it was an amazing coincidence.

Another good life goal-- treat your people in such a way that they don't cringe when they see your name come up on Caller ID.

[ 23. January 2014, 01:11: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
 

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Posted by Ariston (# 10894) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by comet:
you really need to buy her a drink first.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ariston:
She's a strict teetotaler, of the variety who thought I'd turn into a ten-year-old alcoholic from taking communion at a Lutheran church. May I suggest you try the demon rum? It'd do us all even more good than our regular family toasts to her.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
Oh, she sounds WONDERFUL. Dish! Dish!

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ariston:
I do worry about my parents who have to bear the brunt of things, though. Nobody deserves the wrath and insults that come from someone who can just tell what will cut right to your heart and feels no qualms about using every weapon she has without a second thought.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Spike:
Shit, is your relationship with your mum so bad you have to wait for an invitation before you visit? That's really sad.

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It's not so rare. Mine moved to another country built a house without guest rooms 3 weeks after the birth of her first grandchild, my child, and saw us 6 times in 20 years. Once because I dragged tbe family along. And then I had to clean up her mess when she died. Now burdened with a father who I moved back and spent God knows how many thankless hours and some $50k organizing. I suppose the abandonment has made me less likely to respond to the pull of talk designed to blame others for feelings.

My general advice is to ensure others' feelings never belong to you. And say when you don't like what they try to put on to you.

Re OP, I would tend to say that I prefer talk to email, and
that I would prefer that she not use guilt towards me, that I don't enjoy having feelings that her email gave. Of course mine was a little different than your's. So my response may be a little strong.

Parents can be difficult. Its the guilt part
 

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Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
[crosspost]

Oh, let him roll. He's acting out the role of "difficult relative." Makes the whole thing so much more interactive. Anybody can just point him out.

"See, there? See the judgement and criticism? See the sneering dismissal of my comments and the hand-rubbing glee with which he calls me a failure? That's just what my dad was like!"

[ 23. January 2014, 02:41: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
 

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Posted by anoesis (# 14189) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
Ok, here's another Mom story for Annnawhosis--
...[snip]
Here is her version of an apology.

"Ok, I am SOOORRRRY. I guess I have to be SOOO CAREFUL with my words. Please ForGIIIVE me!"

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quote:

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Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
I mean,shit, most of us have these kind of stories, so who cares? It's called life. Make it ART.

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Wise words. It would probably take me more than five minutes to be able to laugh about such an episode as you recount, though. That's a good duck's back you have yourself there...
 

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Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
No, I can't take that praise. Usually these harangues left me devastated. I just had this strange moment of clarity in which I realized,"This woman is nuts. And this is comedy gold."

Wish that happened more.

(Having said that, i can't tell you how I giggled over the phrase "cobra-like swiftness.")

[ 23. January 2014, 02:46: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
 

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Posted by comet (# 10353) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Ariston:
Nobody deserves the wrath and insults that come from someone who can just tell what will cut right to your heart and feels no qualms about using every weapon she has without a second thought.

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see, there? now I feel all warm and cuddly.

'cause my crazyass sister is way too stupid to pull that off with any style whatsoever.

she's just like ocean waves. the constant battering of the "poor me!" routine wears you down until you blow.

and then (I shit you not) she calls Dad and tells on me.

it's so fucking awesome.

But she doesn't have my buttons. no doubt I've offered them up to her in my own stupidity and in weak moments; but she's a brick. the screaming tirades are less "et tu, Brute?"and much more "whattheeverlovingfuckwazat?"
 

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Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
I say pressure Mom to move closer and then get her to babysit the kids at every possible opportunity. Then act shocked at any suggestion that in fact THIS time around she's not in a position to have the kids today/this weekend.
 

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Posted by RuthW (# 13) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by anoesis:

quote:

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Originally posted by Taliesin:
I assume you opened his thread for other people to rant about their families, rAther than comment on you and yours.

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Bingo. Exactly.

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quote:

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Originally posted by anoesis:

Her: You should know by now that you don't need an invitation to visit me! I am quite happy to clear my schedule and rearrange things to accommodate you!

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quote:

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Originally posted by Boogie:

quote:

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Originally posted by anoesis:

Her: You should know by now that you don't need an invitation to visit me! I am quite happy to clear my schedule and rearrange things to accommodate you!

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She's your Mum. One day she may be like my Mum - unable to speak to you, remember you or acknowledge you at all.

Read this, then read it again. Remember it and take it to heart.

Now phone your Mum and ask if you could all visit tomorrow/next week/the week after. Repeat indefinitely

Simples, yes?

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quote:

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Originally posted by RuthW:

quote:

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Originally posted by anoesis:

quote:

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Originally posted by Taliesin:
I assume you opened his thread for other people to rant about their families, rAther than comment on you and yours.

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Bingo. Exactly.

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So the whole bit about how you paint a target on your ass when you post in Hell just slipped right by you?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Boogie:

quote:

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Originally posted by anoesis:

Her: You should know by now that you don't need an invitation to visit me! I am quite happy to clear my schedule and rearrange things to accommodate you!

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She's your Mum. One day she may be like my Mum - unable to speak to you, remember you or acknowledge you at all.

Read this, then read it again. Remember it and take it to heart.

Now phone your Mum and ask if you could all visit tomorrow/next week/the week after. Repeat indefinitely

Simples, yes?

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quote:

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Originally posted by comet:
... aenosist... aeomebist... anmbulist... analcyst....whatever.

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Comet, next hosts and admins day, go on - improve my name. Analcyst! - I love it - although I missed it on the first readthrough...
 

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Posted by Francophile (# 17838) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by anoesis:

quote:

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Originally posted by RuthW:

quote:

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Originally posted by anoesis:

quote:

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Originally posted by Taliesin:
I assume you opened his thread for other people to rant about their families, rAther than comment on you and yours.

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Bingo. Exactly.

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So the whole bit about how you paint a target on your ass when you post in Hell just slipped right by you?

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No, it didn't. While the thread didn't pan out quite as I had expected, I read Hell pretty regularly and am familiar with the ways things are down here, so I can't honestly say I was...shocked, shocked, I tell you! And I also acknowledge that just because I started the thread doesn't mean I own it. It's quite possible I should have done as Taliesin advised and started the thread in All Saints instead. That is a board I know less about, but I'm thinking I should educate myself in that area tout suite.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Twilight:
That's what really bothers me most, my inability to forgive and forget their failings as parents while simultaneously making mistakes with my own family that they will probably remember and resent long after I'm dead.

Go raise children.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Taliesin:

Speaking of toxic grandparents, how about the old lady who spent Christmas day weeping when I came for dinner with my young kids, invited by future husband? Apparently a divorced woman is a bad thing (TM) and 'it's the children I feel sorry for'.

When we later revealed I was pregnant, she suggested we abort him.

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As played by Dame Maggie Smith.
 

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Posted by Taliesin (# 14017) on :
 
I crossposted with yours, anoesis, and to that last post, I would say, get thee to an all saints thread and I'll join you there.
 

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Posted by anoesis (# 14189) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Francophile:

quote:

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Originally posted by anoesis:

quote:

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Originally posted by RuthW:

quote:

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Originally posted by anoesis:

quote:

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Originally posted by Taliesin:
I assume you opened his thread for other people to rant about their families, rAther than comment on you and yours.

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Bingo. Exactly.

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So the whole bit about how you paint a target on your ass when you post in Hell just slipped right by you?

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No, it didn't. While the thread didn't pan out quite as I had expected, I read Hell pretty regularly and am familiar with the ways things are down here, so I can't honestly say I was...shocked, shocked, I tell you! And I also acknowledge that just because I started the thread doesn't mean I own it. It's quite possible I should have done as Taliesin advised and started the thread in All Saints instead. That is a board I know less about, but I'm thinking I should educate myself in that area tout suite.

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Maybe educate yourself in how to use French at the same time.

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quote:

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Originally posted by jacobsen:
Froggy-person - you obviously have not A relatives and/or B a clue. Walk a mile in Anacrusis' (sic) shoes before you criticise. Now that our parents are dead, it falls to me to be the next of kin to my disabled sister in care (cue for sympathetic looks in HER direction) A connection living abroad was moved to comment that my thrice yearly visits were "not very often." True, but an aunt who had had more contact with the sister in question replied that under the prevailing circumstances of distance and interpersonal difficulty, it was in fact plenty! As much as I could manage without sororicide IMO. Most of us do what we can, with due regard for our own well being and the need to stay afloat psychologically. You, being an island, pace John Donne, wouldn't experience these issues.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Taliesin:
Not me! I got that you wanted to vent, and invited others to vent on a similar theme. All saints is a much different dynamic, and invites other comments you don't want, like boogie's.

Speaking of toxic grandparents, how about the old lady who spent Christmas day weeping when I came for dinner with my young kids, invited by future husband? Apparently a divorced woman is a bad thing (TM) and 'it's the children I feel sorry for'.

When we later revealed I was pregnant, she suggested we abort him.

Out of wedlock is a bad thing.

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quote:

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Mine goes in for "I'm sorry you feel that way", or "I'm sorry if that's how you heard it"or "I'm sorry if you were offended by something I said", that kind of flavour...

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quote:

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Originally posted by Barnabas62:
I'm going to have a rant,

Francophile, I'm going to take you at your word. My wife and I currently have 3 surviving parents, one in her mid nineties, the other two both 90 this year. We are heavily involved in their care and support. It is something we do out of love. It has its frustrations and its weariness and sometimes we both need to vent.

Sometimes we do look at other folks who don't have this persistent, ongoing, wearying pressure and figure they have little real understanding of how hard that can be.

But Hells Bells, Francophile, after reading this thread the person I am most pissed off with is you! And I mean, really, really, REALLY, pissed off!

I think you should take whatever resentment, weariness, self-pity, ignorance, malice and condescension is floating around in you and shove it where the sun don't shine. Rather than thinking that stuff gives you the ever-living right to piss all over someone else's pain and frustration.

Hell is a robust place, and there's some wisdom in the alternative AS forum.

But you have shown a level of pig-ignorance that is pretty unusual, even for this place.

Sure, that's judgmental of me. But it's pretty much what I feel right now. As one carer for the aged to another, I'm telling you that you let the side down, big time.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Welease Woderwick:
Francophile - if you are capable, which frankly I doubt, try reading B62's post for comprehension

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quote:

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Frankopile,

I must apologise to you. A twelve year old who has the wherewithal, patience and understanding to care for elderly parents is an amazing thing.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Niteowl:
I've got it - francophile is a bitter martyr, hence the arsehole routine. He hasn't yet figured out that other people have had it as bad or worse than he has...

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quote:

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Originally posted by Francophile:

quote:

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Frankopile,

I must apologise to you. A twelve year old who has the wherewithal, patience and understanding to care for elderly parents is an amazing thing.

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Can'tyou fuccking spell, you old bitch.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Francophile:

quote:

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Originally posted by Welease Woderwick:
Francophile - if you are capable, which frankly I doubt, try reading B62's post for comprehension

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No, im not a sanctimonious git like you. Go and say a fucking prayer on the pray thread. Or shut the fuck up.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Francophile:

quote:

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Originally posted by Niteowl:
I've got it - francophile is a bitter martyr, hence the arsehole routine. He hasn't yet figured out that other people have had it as bad or worse than he has...

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Well tellus your fucking sob story. Yawn.

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Since you asked so politely I'll just say I'm another boomer who is taking care of her 90 yr old mother 24/7 - and I'm also disabled with serious health issues myself. I don't whine though, about how everyone else is such an ungrateful baby like you do, though.
 

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Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :
 
See, this is why people don't want to let every asshole and fuckwit on the Ship know where they live.
 

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Posted by MrsBeaky (# 17663) on :
 
I find it interesting that there appear to be two types of posting (maybe more?) here in Hell:

Those where the personality of the person as evidenced on other boards generally stays the same but with some agitation and swearing....
then there are those who appear to become a completely different and often very unpleasant person

I find it quite disconcerting/ bewildering which is why I rush back out again quickly...
Bye!
 

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Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on :
 
I love the smell of a dogpile in the morning!
 

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Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by MrsBeaky:
I find it interesting that there appear to be two types of posting (maybe more?) here in Hell:

Those where the personality of the person as evidenced on other boards generally stays the same but with some agitation and swearing....
then there are those who appear to become a completely different and often very unpleasant person

I find it quite disconcerting/ bewildering which is why I rush back out again quickly...
Bye!

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quote:

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Originally posted by MrsBeaky:

I find it quite disconcerting/ bewildering which is why I rush back out again quickly...
Bye!

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quote:

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Originally posted by Boogie:
I don't think anyone is hiding their personality on other boards - just abiding by the 'no personal attacks' rules!

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quote:

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Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
I love the smell of a dogpile in the morning!

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quote:

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Originally posted by MrsBeaky:

I find it quite disconcerting/ bewildering which is why I rush back out again quickly...
Bye!

I'm not sure what you mean by this. You are either posting and reading the thread or not.

Do you mean that you post and then don't read the replies?

The fact that you are posting shows that it holds some sort of fascination for you ...

I pop down to Hell when I need cheering up!

Also - I don't think anyone is hiding their personality on other boards - just abiding by the 'no personal attacks' rules!

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quote:

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Originally posted by MrsBeaky:

As to the OP, I've lost count of how many times I've failed to love the people I've found difficult whether because of who they are or the things they've done. It's crap sometimes, it really is crap.

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I know, me too.

But I stand by what I said. It's worth making the effort. Excuses don't = effort imo.
 

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Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on :
 
This is turning into the fun thread I had hoped it would be! I firmly believe amusing anecdotes about our awful relatives help relieve the stress so next time we're sitting on our loved ones (and we do love them) sofa quietly weeping from boredom or worse, we can imagine the stories we can relate on the ship.

I also like the competitive aspect:
In the non-stop talking category, I submit this entry:

I was once visiting my father when we went out to eat and an old family friend stopped by our table to say hello. She was sorry to learn that I had laryngitis and couldn't speak a word. I enjoyed watching my father's face turn red as he realized I had been there almost a week and he hadn't noticed.
 

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Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :
 


My mother and my father in law are both very deaf now. Listening is not something either of them was very good at anyway. Mix in frailties and other deteriorations and you do get some hilarious misunderstandings. Particularly when punctuated by "No need to shout, you know". Mix in some memory and cognitive loss and it can become very Pythonesque.

I find it sad to see them reduced. That's a hard thing for me.
 

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Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Francophile:

quote:

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Frankopile,

I must apologise to you. A twelve year old who has the wherewithal, patience and understanding to care for elderly parents is an amazing thing.

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Can'tyou fuccking spell, you old bitch.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Or roast him again on your own special fires. I've had it with him.

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quote:

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Originally posted by comet:


and all of you who actually managed to get upset by francy's words, here's a hint - read it with the drunken slur that it actually comes with. ups the entertainment value and lowers the actual value.

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Funnily enough Francophile's posting on this thread made me think "Go home Francophile, you're drunk"

Probably influenced by seeing
this and this (Go home train..) this week.
 

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Posted by Pyx_e (# 57) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by comet:
what's an arsehile?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Organ Builder:
I'm only 55, but both my parents are dead. I'd love to have misunderstandings with them again. Cleaning out the house, I found an old scrapbook my mother had put together, which included all the letters she and my father had exchanged before their marriage. They had the same conversations young people always do; they complained about their parents, talked about their dreams--shared their fears and hopes.

What that scrapbook really did, though, was provide a window into my parents as people--because we usually don't see them quite that way. We see them as Mom and Dad and they will always be there with a soothing word or their irritating habits that drive us crazy--whatever. ...[snip]... I wish I had had that insight before they died.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Organ Builder:
I suspect like most empty-nesters (an assumption I'm making) she's feeling a little lost and neglected. These are all things we would notice immediately with our closest friends, and we would have nothing but sympathy for them. It's a little harder to view one's parents in that same light, but sometimes they need it more than our friends do.

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quote:

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Originally posted by comet:

quote:

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Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Or roast him again on your own special fires. I've had it with him.

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I don't know. fish in a barrel and all that. I prefer a little bit of a challenge.

and all of you who actually managed to get upset by francy's words, here's a hint - read it with the drunken slur that it actually comes with. ups the entertainment value and lowers the actual value.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
See, this is why people don't want to let every asshole and fuckwit on the Ship know where they live.

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Marv FTW.

 

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Posted by Pyx_e (# 57) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:
Saying that nearly 7 hours after his last post is incredibly helpful. Thank you.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Pyx_e:

quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:
Saying that nearly 7 hours after his last post is incredibly helpful. Thank you.

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Was I writing to you? You well oiled tiny ball sack.

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quote:

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Originally posted by comet:
("oiled"? do you all oil those things?)

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quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:

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Originally posted by Pyx_e:

quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:
Saying that nearly 7 hours after his last post is incredibly helpful. Thank you.

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Was I writing to you? You well oiled tiny ball sack.

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I'm a Hellhost. You're always writing to me.

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quote:

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Originally posted by comet:
("oiled"? do you all oil those things?)

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quote:

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Originally posted by Pyx_e:

quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:

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Originally posted by Pyx_e:

quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:
Saying that nearly 7 hours after his last post is incredibly helpful. Thank you.

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Was I writing to you? You well oiled tiny ball sack.

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I'm a Hellhost. You're always writing to me.

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Not when you don't sign as a Hellhost I'm not. raisin-nads.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Pyx_e:

quote:

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Originally posted by comet:
("oiled"? do you all oil those things?)

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orfeo does or they chap

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quote:

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Originally posted by Pyx_e:

quote:

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Originally posted by comet:
("oiled"? do you all oil those things?)

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orfeo does or they chap

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quote:

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Originally posted by anoesis:
Anyway, one good thing to be said for raisins - (and they usually are oiled), but at least they're not hairy.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Porridge:
Anoesis, for what it's worth (nuttin'), here's my diagnosis: this isn't actually about you. It's about your mother's friends. The "everybody else got visits from the grandkids" line gives the game away. Your mom sounds like someone who needs constant "proof" of other people's "love" for her, so she can yak about or brag on or run down or whatever her grandkids (& possibly you) to her circle to make herself seem important. Does she want to see[i] or [i]use you as fodder to inflate her image with her friends?

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quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:

Also, your claims to have intimate knowledge of my genital area are puzzling.

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He's just fishing. He wants the job of oiling them.
 

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Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
Great. That's another page ruined.
 

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Posted by Left at the Altar (# 5077) on :
 
Well, my mother so incensed me (and my siblings) by yet again turning up to Christmas and announcing that she had not had time to buy presents for anyone (despite having nothing at all to do all fucking year) so had nipped down to KMart that morning and bought us each a $2 torch and then proceeded to tell us about how she and my father have been planning their next overseas holiday, I spent at least half an our googling "Cheapest funerals". Lucky for her she didn't cark it that day, or she'd have been buried in a plastic bag, upright in a hole dug by a post hole digger, with no service at all.

I have calmed down somewhat now.
 

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Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :
 
Just like you've never been away, LATA. Missed you. Nice to see you, to see you, nice.

[I seem to have returned from the Dark Side ...]
 

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Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
That's the spirit.
 

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Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :
 
If I'm lucky. Doesn't have a high alcohol content, anyway. Shall I ruin it by some further speculation about a certain HellHost.

Tempting ... but Nahhh. You'd think I really had gone nuts.
 

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Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Left at the Altar:
Well, my mother so incensed me (and my siblings) by yet again turning up to Christmas and announcing that she had not had time to buy presents for anyone (despite having nothing at all to do all fucking year) so had nipped down to KMart that morning and bought us each a $2 torch and then proceeded to tell us about how she and my father have been planning their next overseas holiday, I spent at least half an our googling "Cheapest funerals". Lucky for her she didn't cark it that day, or she'd have been buried in a plastic bag, upright in a hole dug by a post hole digger, with no service at all.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ariston:
I came here for snark and smackdown, not…whatever mental image I just accidentally got.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Gee D:
No more small talk of Orfeo's genitals please.

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Again with the size references.

 

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Posted by Left at the Altar (# 5077) on :
 
I forgot to add that I planned to tell anyone wanting to buy flowers, to donate to the Australian Labor Party instead (communists, in my mother's eyes).

My mother envisages herself looking down from heaven at everyone weeping and taking note of who hasn't turned up. The very thought of no flowers AND no mourners AND the commies getting her flower money would be more than she could bear.

I, as you know, am a heathen, who reckons she'll just be dead, so she wouldn't see anything. Or care.

Makes no sense at all. And I have to say, I do feel fairly guilty for my rather hideous behaviour (although my youngest sister got into the spirit of it and proposed that we save on the costs of the digger by getting her father in law's tractor and hiring the drill thingy), but bloody hell, she gives me the shits. She's tighter than a cat's bum when it comes to buying anything for anyone else. She'd better die with a shitload of money.

ETA: I'm sure you're hung like a donkey, orf.

[ 24. January 2014, 08:09: Message edited by: Left at the Altar ]
 

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Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
Yes,you are awful and horrible. And so am I for laughing myself into a hernia.

No kidding-- and y'all Who fans, just shut. up.-- throughout my life, my mom would occasionally drive us past a nearby cemetery and instruct my sister and I to make sure she got this headstone when she died. I presume we were supposed to access our gigantic trust funds to pull this one off.

Like I said, styrofoam cup.

(ETA: They call him Tripod.)

[ 24. January 2014, 08:14: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
 

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Posted by Left at the Altar (# 5077) on :
 
She wants a drunk angel headstone?
 

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Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
Oh now I want to make that happen. And to weld a brass replica of a bottle of Jack Daniels into the angel's hand.
 

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Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
You should tell her to carve it herself. That's exactly how THAT tomb got it.
 

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Posted by Left at the Altar (# 5077) on :
 
If she wants THAT tombstone so badly, tell her you'll consult the current occupant to see if she/he is interested in a timeshare arrangement.

[ 24. January 2014, 08:21: Message edited by: Left at the Altar ]
 

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Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
Hee. It was Teddy Roosevelt's cousin.


And I got the wrong grave-- or the same stone on the wrong grave.

Here is the one I got rubbed in my face all those years.
 

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Posted by Left at the Altar (# 5077) on :
 
That's one sloshed angel. Lying all over dead folk everywhere.

Does your mother have a drinking problem?
 

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Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 


Stop! Stop!
Jesus, I'm gonna be haunted by the friggen' ghost of Jenny Pool tonight
 

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Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :
 
This thread looks as though it is about to become a LEGEND. Coffee over keyboard and all.

anoesis

I remember you very well from the time we had the same avatar and played "I'll change; no I'll change". You were generous; I never forgot it. Even though in the end it was me who changed.

I hope the recent fun and games has helped; relatives can be anything but a joke, sometimes, but it does help to laugh. Helps us to manage what cannot, often enough, be changed.

LATA always adds something special to the party spirit anyway. It's a gift.
 

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Posted by Jonah the Whale (# 1244) on :
 
Just for the record, I have decided never to touch a bowl of muesli again. Ever.
 

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Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :
 
Originally posted by anoesis:

quote:

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I sometimes propose visits to her, and sometimes they are proposed to me, and likewise with her visiting us, and its all okay.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Barnabas62:
True-ish, LATA, and I agree probably best handled that way. Only one reservation, really. Underneath, there may be a desire to continue to control, put down. Some parents are like that, more's the pity. They never learned how to let go, recognise the adulthood of their children. Actually, it's childish of them but not the sort of thing children can easily correect, no matter how old we get.

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Indeed. I take a thyroid supplement every day. I have done for 30 years. Whenever my mother stays, she asks me, "Have you taken your medicine today?". It drives me batty.

She has threatened many times to cut me out of the will for being a communist (I'm not), marrying an Italian (I did), not being a Christian etc. Actually, she is so manipulative, her usual line is that my father will die of disappointment/cut me out of the will etc because I am hurting him. I doubt he could care less.

And from time to time she makes me so angry, I look up how much it is to bury her upright in a bag, without flowers.

But she can still do my ironing if she's that desperate.
 

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Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
I'm castigated continually for one of the opposite problems LATA: being a Christian.

According to the latest news, the Nag Hammadi scrolls were suppressed by the church for ages because they revealed Judas was chosen to betray Jesus because he was strong enough to handle it.

Apparently she's just trying to "open my mind".

I told her an open mind is fine, just don't be so opened minded that your brains fall out. (*)

I love my mum and we generally get on famously. But oh my lordy does she have a massive chip on her shoulder about the Church and oh my lordy does she not hesitate to tell bring it up continually even tho she knows I am very much part of The Establishment.

She also loves pointing out to many of my Christian cronies that she's a Muslim, Pagan, Quaker.


(*) Thanks Mudfrog

[ 24. January 2014, 12:30: Message edited by: Evensong ]
 

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Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :
 
Originally posted by Barnabus62:

quote:

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They never learned how to let go, recognise the adulthood of their children.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Kelly Alves:

Like I said, styrofoam cup.

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quote:

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:
I would like to go beyond her suggestion and, when he dies, build him a tomb of marble and porcelain.

I would visit often and leave something appropriate.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
[T]hroughout my life, my mom would occasionally drive us past a nearby cemetery and instruct my sister and I to make sure she got this headstone when she died.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Barnabas62:

But doing the ironing can't harm. It's not the thin end of a wedge unless you let it become that.

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My MIL used to do our ironing then complain to all and sundry that she'd 'had' to do it. It was her way of still feeling useful and letting people know it.

If it got too much I hid the ironing - but usually I just let her get on with it (and the complaining). She really didn't know how to communicate her real needs.

She was very hard work. But I miss her, all the same.
 

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Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by North East Quine:
Originally posted by Barnabus62:

I have never taken Mum out for a cup of coffee. There are things I've done with my daughter that I've never done with my mother.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
my mom would occasionally drive us past a nearby cemetery and instruct my sister and I to make sure she got this headstone

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quote:

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Originally posted by bib:
All people annoy each other from time to time, me included. I used to struggle with my Mother in law's rants about all men ( especially when she went on and on in front of FIL). In fact after her death my FIL was a changed man who became funny and charming.
However, nastiness in families just feeds more unpleasantness and life is too short to start making mountains out of molehills. As my old teacher used to say 'don't sweat the small stuff'.
I'm sorry that you are having relationship issues with your mother, but you don't seem to be seeking intelligent ways to resolve the issues. Can you try to put yourself in your mother's shoes and consider what you would do and say in her place? Her words to you are unfortunate, but she sounds anxious and lonely to me. Is there a way acceptable to you to ease that loneliness and to she her that you love her? Sorry if you don't like being given advice, but I miss my own dear mother so much since her death and would do anything to be able to see and talk to her again.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Left at the Altar:
She has threatened many times to cut me out of the will for being a communist (I'm not), marrying an Italian (I did), not being a Christian etc.

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quote:

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Originally posted by comet:

...and lord protect me from my children someday "allowing" me to do stuff because it will make me feel useful. fuck that. if I'm that much of a burden stick me out on an ice floe and get it over with.

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quote:

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She was very hard work. But I miss her, all the same.

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quote:

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Originally posted by anoesis:

quote:

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Originally posted by Left at the Altar:
She has threatened many times to cut me out of the will for being a communist (I'm not), marrying an Italian (I did), not being a Christian etc.

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She's straight-facedly anti-Italian but thinks of herself as a Christian? Whoa...

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quote:

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Originally posted by Left at the Altar:
I'm sure you're hung like a donkey, orf.

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quote:

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Originally posted by North East Quine:
Mum cooks meals for me at her house, but refuses to eat food I've cooked at my house.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Barnabas62:
[Nuts jokes have moved into crapper jokes. This is clearly a progression. Will orfeo welcome it?]

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What, you mean we've eaten the muesli and now it's coming out the other end?
 

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Posted by Left at the Altar (# 5077) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Barnabas62:
I need brain bleach after reading some of the stuff online produced by people who self-declare as Christian. Seems to come from Planet Zog.

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• How John Howard betrayed conservatives by banning ownership of assault weapons
• How inferior indigenous Australian are (on this point, his friend, John says - and I quote - "Their lack of hygiene & intelligence is a direct symptom of their lack of spiritual awakening from the bondage to an idiotic & meaningless culture.")
• How our so-called conservative PM should pay attention to Vlad Putin and learn a thing or two about how to handle sodomites
• Abortion. His favourite topic

I used to get really cross with him, but I was just saying to my daughter, that it makes me immensely happy that he is so dissatisfied with the world and that he will never be happy. (He thinks our current PM is nowhere near conservative enough ).

He apparently has a wife and children. Now, he would be a challenging relative.
 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
Oh Lord. I was just thinking the same about someone else I have the displeasure to deal with daily.

How do such people ever get married?
 

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Posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe (# 5521) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Left at the Altar:
(In fact, there is one person I secretly stalk on Facebook - and I hasten to add, he is the only person - whose background pic says "Repent: Believe in the Gospel" and who has racist, bigoted rants for every post. He has a lot of friends who join in. And they all claim to be Christians).

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quote:

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Originally posted by Chorister:

quote:

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Originally posted by North East Quine:


I have never taken Mum out for a cup of coffee. There are things I've done with my daughter that I've never done with my mother.

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She's from a completely different generation. Going out for coffee would have seemed terribly wasteful 30 years ago as, I suspect, would be many things you do with your own daughter. And that generation also expected you to fit in with what your elders (and betters!) wanted. They are of their time - some have adapted to the 21st century, but a large number have not. You may need to meet her where she is.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Ta. Perhaps a laxative wasn't exactly strong enough for the purging I had in mind?

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quote:

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Originally posted by North East Quine:


Gran spent the last year of her life in hospital increasingly confused. On one visit, I asked her if she knew who I was. "Yes," she replied, "you're me."

---

That is the coolest thing! It might have been tough for your mother but how amazing for your grandmother, a woman who seems by your description to have probably had a tough time with personal relationships, to have found a true kindred spirit in you.
 

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Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :
 
@LATA

Stop it!

Seriously, a mite too strong ...
 

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Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :
 
The grandmother, grandchild thing is so common that there's a saying about it - 'My grandchildren are so wonderful I should have had them first'.
 

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Posted by Pyx_e (# 57) on :
 
For a small fee I awill come over and make passes / inapropriate hugs / ass touch any relies driving you mad. It sends them into a tail-spin and they for ever ask "Is that man going to be there?" and not come if you say "He might be."
 

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Posted by Taliesin (# 14017) on :
 
I'm almost dead with stress this evening after a full on parents and in-laws fest. Plus kids concert and older kid being ill.
What happened to the anxiety thread? I can't find it in all saints.
 

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Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :
 
Here?

Sorry to hear that Taliesin. There are some good laughs in this thread, but now may not be the right time for that. All the best.
 

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Posted by Leaf (# 14169) on :
 
Another Website has a board called "raised by narcissists". Google the phrase. It is eye-opening for those of us who have not had parental experience with Kelly Alves' mom or similar.
 

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Posted by Dennis the Menace (# 11833) on :
 
I need to have a rant!!

I have an aunt by marriage (Mum's brother's wife) who regularly bombards me with phonecalls etc.

She has a blocked number so I cannot screen her calls. Both Mum and her brother are deceased and Aunty Dot(ty) is in her late 80's and has slight dementia. She has an adopted daughter and son, several nieces and nepews. The son has nothing to do with her (another saga!!) and the daughter seems only interested in aunty's money, and the nieces and nephews give her a wide berth!!

I live 10 mins drive and daughter 45mins, and will ring me with the least little problem, usually when daughter is away/wont answer phone etc. The last was that I didn't visit her for Christmas. No I didn't as she was at daughters, she had forgotten!!

I refused to give her my work phone number but she managed to track it down and has caused me trouble with the boss for doing so. She won't take the hint that I cannot take phone calls from her at work regarding trivial matters that can wait till after hours.

When my poor uncle was alive it was a case of aunty giving instructions and uncle dutifully obeying.

Rant over!!
 

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Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Leaf:
Another Website has a board called "raised by narcissists". Google the phrase. It is eye-opening for those of us who have not had parental experience with Kelly Alves' mom or similar.

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quote:

---

posted by Chorister:
She's from a completely different generation..... And that generation also expected you to fit in with what your elders (and betters!) wanted. They are of their time - some have adapted to the 21st century, but a large number have not. You may need to meet her where she is.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by kingsfold:

quote:

---

posted by Chorister:
She's from a completely different generation..... And that generation also expected you to fit in with what your elders (and betters!) wanted. They are of their time - some have adapted to the 21st century, but a large number have not. You may need to meet her where she is.

---

Ay, and there's the rub. If you are expected to fit in with what your elders (and betters) want, do you spend your time being a doormat and doing what they want? Do you compromise what's important and meaningful to you in order to fit in with what they want? Do you bow to the emotional manipulation and expectation that you will behave as they want? Do you compromise your integrity to fit with what they want/believe should be? Is that "meeting him/her where he/she is?" Should we shoehorn ourselves into a shape or behaviour that is not who we are, in order to fit in?

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Doublethink:
Oh, and I feel this thread needs a soundtrack.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by North East Quine:

quote:

---

Originally posted by kingsfold:

quote:

---

posted by Chorister:
She's from a completely different generation..... And that generation also expected you to fit in with what your elders (and betters!) wanted. They are of their time - some have adapted to the 21st century, but a large number have not. You may need to meet her where she is.

---

Ay, and there's the rub. If you are expected to fit in with what your elders (and betters) want, do you spend your time being a doormat and doing what they want? Do you compromise what's important and meaningful to you in order to fit in with what they want? Do you bow to the emotional manipulation and expectation that you will behave as they want? Do you compromise your integrity to fit with what they want/believe should be? Is that "meeting him/her where he/she is?" Should we shoehorn ourselves into a shape or behaviour that is not who we are, in order to fit in?

---

My mother did not want me to to do a non-vocational degree.
My mother did not want me to marry my husband.
My mother did not think we were fit to be parents; she spent the whole of my first pregnancy worrying about what a crap mother I was going to be, and telling me how worried she was.
My mother wanted us to stop after two children.

I do not know who I would have been had I been the daughter my mother wanted.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by kingsfold:

quote:

---

posted by Chorister:
She's from a completely different generation..... And that generation also expected you to fit in with what your elders (and betters!) wanted. They are of their time - some have adapted to the 21st century, but a large number have not. You may need to meet her where she is.

---

Ay, and there's the rub. If you are expected to fit in with what your elders (and betters) want, do you spend your time being a doormat and doing what they want? Do you compromise what's important and meaningful to you in order to fit in with what they want? Do you bow to the emotional manipulation and expectation that you will behave as they want? Do you compromise your integrity to fit with what they want/believe should be? Is that "meeting him/her where he/she is?" Should we shoehorn ourselves into a shape or behaviour that is not who we are, in order to fit in?

---

No, but I do believe there are ways where you can adapt when you are with someone with a different (more old-fashioned?) world view to yours, without compromising your own integrity and way of being. It's hard, but achievable. Saying you'll bear their advice in mind (without any intention of actually following it), for example.

Can anyone remember the TV ad (forgot what it's advertising now) where student writes to gran that he's having a great time - he words it really carefully so she thinks he's the perfect studious old-fashioned boy, but actually he's living it up in nightclubs, etc. Very clever - it's all in the words you use.
 

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Posted by tessaB (# 8533) on :
 
God it's hard isn't it when parents' ideals and children's ideals dont match up!
My mother wants me to be slim, beautiful (but not as slim and beautiful as her), married to a successful career driven man (but with not as much money as her) have slim pretty children who also have good careers, have a big house which looks like something out of House & Garden, and most importantly - stop doing voluntary work for the church (oh and vote tory )
I however am fat, not very good-looking, have been married for 30 years to a lovely man who put his family before his job, have gorgeous children with various developmental difficulties, cannot be arsed with housework and find doing things for God totally fullfilling. Oh and will never vote Tory!
I am such a disappointment to my mother and oh my Lord, doesn't she let me know!
 

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Posted by Ariston (# 10894) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by tessaB:
God it's hard isn't it when parents' ideals and children's ideals dont match up!
My mother wants me to be slim, beautiful (but not as slim and beautiful as her), married to a successful career driven man (but with not as much money as her) have slim pretty children who also have good careers, have a big house which looks like something out of House & Garden, and most importantly - stop doing voluntary work for the church (oh and vote tory )
I however am fat, not very good-looking, have been married for 30 years to a lovely man who put his family before his job, have gorgeous children with various developmental difficulties, cannot be arsed with housework and find doing things for God totally fullfilling. Oh and will never vote Tory!
I am such a disappointment to my mother and oh my Lord, doesn't she let me know!

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Stories like those make me wonder if, perhaps, there are some people one should try their absolute damndest to disappoint.
 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
I went to lunch with my father twenty-five years ago and announced my engagement. To which he responded, "You KNOW I don't believe in marriage."

Thanks, Dad.

I disappointed him horribly by marrying a seminary student and becoming a missionary. That's a backward kind of rebellion, I suppose!
 

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Posted by Pyx_e (# 57) on :
 
A few weeks before my 13th birthday my sister had a nasty cold/flu bug. Moving on to a few days before my birthday. I started to develop a temperature and stomach pains. Cue my Mum saying “Your sister had it last week, stop making such a fuss.” As daily my symptoms increased and worsened she repeated this mantra more forcefully obviously to kill my germs and keep my very mild mannered Dad quiet with the accompanying Stern Look.

So on that fateful day (my birthday) when I did not get up for my presents in the morning (offstage loud row as my father, bless him, tried to suggest a doctor) and then again not rising for Dr. Who in the evening (unheard of). At this point my Dad rang the GP, who came (I was delirious by this stage and have no recollection). He apparently took one look at me and bundled me into the back of my Dad’s car and we picked up a police escort on the way to the hospital 16 miles away. On operating my ruptured appendix exploded and covered the whole operating theatre in pus and shit. I was in IC for two weeks after and nearly died on several occasions.

My Mum was never wrong. We never spoke of this incident again and I offer it to you as a fable of my whole relationship with her. I would die rather She be wrong.

She died 24 years ago and I love and miss her more now than ever. She was totally bat shit crazy and screwed us all up forever. Learning to live with these two truths is a real insight into Love. Christ have mercy.

edit for SP as ever, and to note Dr Who saved my life

[ 27. January 2014, 13:20: Message edited by: Pyx_e ]
 

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Posted by Anselmina (# 3032) on :
 
'Strewth. My mum drives me mental poo-flinging bananas at times. But compared to some of the stuff here, I am deeply grateful for her!
 

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Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on :
 
Pyx_e's story.

I have no words.
 

---

Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :
 
From talking to ones I know well, living with an alcoholic only parent is not significantly different from the way Pyx_e describes, either. Sometimes people decide that the most positive response is to be the best parent they can possibly be to their own children - they can't change the past, but they can change the future.
 

---

Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :
 
Like your sig, Chorister!

Pyx_e's story gets you in the gut, doesn't it. I suspect there are many accidents waiting to happen out there. The gradual freeing of children from apron strings while making sure they don't come to great harm in growing up is a bit of an art. Protection can be over-protection (control issues) or under-protection (neglect issues). Bet all the parents here have misplayed their hand sometimes on that balance. I know we have.

My dad had these lovely ways about him if he thought my mum was straying into the overprotective territory. "Listen to your mum" he'd twinkle, "she may have her faults but being wrong isn't one of them". Said in front of her, of course. She'd bridle, sometimes a lot, but eventually she'd laugh, and we'd talk. She got her own way a lot, but that was because she was very often right. Makes me smile now to look back on those times. Sometimes she'd have to make the case. But if he knew, or learned, that she was right, they were like iron together; we learned that too.
 

---

Posted by Nicolemr (# 28) on :
 
Pyx_e has the right of it. My mother was pretty batshit crazy too. And she did horrible damage to both my brother and I. Which doesn't stop me from missing her now that she's gone.
 

---

Posted by Leaf (# 14169) on :
 
Kelly Alves: Aw shucks.

Pyx_e: Jee. Zus.
 

---

Posted by David (# 3) on :
 
Good story Pyx_e, my mother thought she was Mary reborn and that Bob Hawke was Jesus, but at least she didn't nearly kill me with passive-aggression. Quite the contrary, her everlasting gift to me was that dire housekeeping skills that saw me growing up in the worst rubbish tip in the worst street in the worst houso suburb in the city also made me resistant to nearly every known disease.

Anyway, I left as soon as I was 15, not a moment too soon. Some 30 years later dodgy kidneys put her out of our misery. People often ask me how I turned out normal, I have no idea what they're talking about.

Not as exciting as your story I'm afraid, doesn't end with any hint of grace or Dr Who either.

[ 28. January 2014, 04:30: Message edited by: David ]
 

---

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Anselmina:
mental poo-flinging bananas at times

---

Room for manoeuvre with the hyphenation there.
 

---

Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :
 
Good though, Kelly. Especially the bug resistance. Could have done with that. This thread is becoming a Philip Larkin celebration zone ... with bits of gratitude thrown in for good measure.
 

---

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
Uh, that was David. Huge compliment to me, but David will probably wreak horrible vengeance on you for insinuating he is anything like me.

Having said that, funnily enough I can relate to what David said-- and, in a milder way, with what Pyx said. Maybe a general weirdness about sickness is part of the whole NPD thing.

My mom is-- the sickest person in the family always, forever. God help you if display symptoms that might draw attention away from her, God help you even more if you display evidence of taking care of yourself. From November to December of last year, I had a few oral surgeries back-to-back, and the ensuing weeks were a nightmare of health competition.

This has been going on since sis and I were kids-- so that when were were going through all the normal childhood illnesses, not only were we pretty much expected to care for ourselves, but if we dared demonstrate our symptoms in front of her, we were quickly reminded of who the sickest person in the house was.
 

---

Posted by PeteC (# 10422) on :
 
Basically, I suspect we have all had quirky mothers. By the time I was 39 and my mother was dying, I adored her. But there is no denying that she was quirky, and had her own ways of manipulating all 5 of us (and Dad, for good measure). Some good times (usually when we were obedient) bad times, too many to be counted. When we finally left home, we got on better with her, but oh, my! The quirkiness never abated.

I never doubted her love, but the quirkiness drove me batshit. All the grandchildren she lived to see adored her... mostly.
 

---

Posted by Smudgie (# 2716) on :
 
A sudden burst of insight: motherhood forces a degree of manipulativeness upon you in many cases. Not wanting to be nagging all the time, knowing that telling a child (especially a teenager) not to do something might well push them further into doing it, needing to find a way to guide someone into doing the right thing or the safe thing or the best thing without causing tantrums or arguments or fights.... a bit like a sheepdog works a sheep into going the right way, not by picking it up and taking it there, but by "driving" it.

After nigh-on twenty years of adopting that approach, it's hardly surprising that it's a habit that's become ingrained.

Nastiness, on the other hand...
 

---

Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Smudgie:
A sudden burst of insight: motherhood forces a degree of manipulativeness upon you in many cases...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Nicolemr:
Pyx_e has the right of it. My mother was pretty batshit crazy too. And she did horrible damage to both my brother and I. Which doesn't stop me from missing her now that she's gone.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Francophile:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Nicolemr:
Pyx_e has the right of it. My mother was pretty batshit crazy too. And she did horrible damage to both my brother and I. Which doesn't stop me from missing her now that she's gone.

---

She obviously didn't teach you English grammar.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Francophile:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Nicolemr:
Pyx_e has the right of it. My mother was pretty batshit crazy too. And she did horrible damage to both my brother and I. Which doesn't stop me from missing her now that she's gone.

---

She obviously didn't teach you English grammar.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
Look who came by to take dump.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Nicolemr:
Pyx_e has the right of it. My mother was pretty batshit crazy too. And she did horrible damage to both my brother and I. Which doesn't stop me from missing her now that she's gone.

---

quote:

---

you miss a bad parent more than a good one

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by BessHiggs:
My mother is an extremely toxic person. Without going into sordid detail she did a real number on me while I was growing up and it's only after some pretty intensive therapy that I've come to realize that I'm not the awful failure and all around shit she told me I was. I have had no contact with her for going on 2 years on, save the odd sniping email from her. I'm a stronger, healthier person for it.

Pushing another human being through your vagina makes you a mother, it does not make you a mum. There's no magic nurturing dust they sprinkle on you in the delivery room. I have been blessed through the years to know some wonderful, caring, loving maternal women. My mother does not happen to be one of them.

Perhaps it is a failing on my part that I cannot find the grace or understanding to fully forgive my mother. Considering all the other failures in my life, it's just one more thing I will have to answer for in the hereafter.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mdijon:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
Look who came by to take dump.

---

I see what you did they're.

---

It was five in the morning. Give me some slack.
 

---

Posted by Pyx_e (# 57) on :
 
Kelly, I described over 50 years in 2 small posts, you got to be who you got to be. Lions gonna lion. Sorry if I made it sound easy or complete.
 

---

Posted by comet (# 10353) on :
 
I don't know if this helps anyone here. hope it does.

My mom is awesome. We have our issues, but for the most part I consider myself very lucky. She is an explorer, a naturalist, a feminist (in the good sense), an activist, a musician, an actor, and generally a wonderful mother and grandmother. She ain't rich, she's a little stuck in her (post-hippie) ways, and she will never suffer a redneck. but she's generally amazing.

plus, when her red locks turned gray, she dyed them all the colors of the rainbow. so she's a tattooed almost-70 punk rocker looking mama, too.

I hear lots of talk about how having abusive parents will fuck you up, make you a dysfunctional human being, make you a terrible parent.

My mom was raised by a single mom. my grandmother was mentally ill and an alcoholic who did all the kinds of stuff I'm reading here and more. She was a classic abuser. when my mother was 18, she was given custody of her mother, as well as her little sister. things were bad.

But my mom is great. I can't ask for better. she raised me right, she has done right by me and hundreds of students she's had over the 40 years she's had of teaching, not to mention her foster kids and random collection of lost causes she straight-talked back onto their feet. She is respected in her community (and a few others) and is even in a few books for her work as an educator.

So yes, your shitty parents can fuck you up. but that doesn't mean they will. Don't lose hope. your kids, your students, your parishioners, etc may someday be singing your praises just like this.

There is nothing wrong with you.
 

---

Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:

quote:

---

Originally posted by mdijon:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
Look who came by to take dump.

---

I see what you did they're.

---

It was five in the morning. Give me some slack.

---

Lyda, mdijon and I both thought you were being smart by missing out the "a". Challenging a nazi-grammar call, we thought. Or so I think.

But that's 'cos you are smart, of course. Now we know you won't take a compliment you don't feel you deserve. That makes you double-smart, dunnit?

Maybe that should have been innit?

Anyways, nice move. Take a Such skills are very useful when handling difficult anybodies.
 

---

Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on :
 
The worst part of dealing with a mother who has a bad view of life is you can learn to shield yourself from the manipulation, but there are times when you talk to yourself and you hear her voice offering the dysfunctional opinion.
 

---

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
Yeah. This is very common. Like comet said, you can be a fantastic person despite abuse, but damn, it takes mighty hard work.
 

---

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
There's an old story in therapy circles that you miss a bad parent more than a good one. I don't know if it's true or not, but I believe it.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Pyx_e:
Kelly, I described over 50 years in 2 small posts, you got to be who you got to be. Lions gonna lion. Sorry if I made it sound easy or complete.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Lyda, mdijon and I both thought you were being smart by missing out the "a". Challenging a nazi-grammar call, we thought. Or so I think.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Barnabas62:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:

quote:

---

Originally posted by mdijon:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
Look who came by to take dump.

---

I see what you did they're.

---

It was five in the morning. Give me some slack.

---

Lyda, mdijon and I both thought you were being smart by missing out the "a". Challenging a nazi-grammar call, we thought. Or so I think.

But that's 'cos you are smart, of course. Now we know you won't take a compliment you don't feel you deserve. That makes you double-smart, dunnit?

Maybe that should have been innit?

Anyways, nice move. Take a Such skills are very useful when handling difficult anybodies.

---

(I don't dare write a reply. )
 

---

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
Every time someone annoys that tool an angel gets its wings. Fuck that guy.

---

Not in any way, shape or form.
Besides, you'd be done up as he's naught more than twelve.
 

---

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
You are my guardian angel, girl.

[ 29. January 2014, 04:33: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
 

---

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
(I don't dare write a reply. )

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by lilBuddha:

quote:

---

Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
There's an old story in therapy circles that you miss a bad parent more than a good one. I don't know if it's true or not, but I believe it.

---

My first reaction to this was bullshit.
However, I think this is a probable dynamic in a number of relationships.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by PeteC:
Basically, I suspect we have all had quirky mothers. By the time I was 39 and my mother was dying, I adored her. But there is no denying that she was quirky, and had her own ways of manipulating all 5 of us (and Dad, for good measure). Some good times (usually when we were obedient) bad times, too many to be counted. When we finally left home, we got on better with her, but oh, my! The quirkiness never abated.

I never doubted her love, but the quirkiness drove me batshit. All the grandchildren she lived to see adored her... mostly.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by lilBuddha:

quote:

---

Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
There's an old story in therapy circles that you miss a bad parent more than a good one. I don't know if it's true or not, but I believe it.

---

My first reaction to this was bullshit.
However, I think this is a probable dynamic in a number of relationships.
My parents are both alive, so I cannot personally attest. However, I've two uncles who died prematurely. One who was greatly loved by many, a surrogate parent at times to me. I celebrate his life and mourn his death and think of him often.
The other died alone after alienating most of his family, including his own children. He did nothing to me, but the havoc he wrought lessened my care for him. When I do think of him, it is with sadness, but not nearly so strong.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
A man who corners his teenage daughter in the hallway the evening that her boyfriend broke up with her and giggles that of course someone would dump and ugly, zit-faced slob like her, and why did she think any guy would want her/?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by anoesis:
However, my enduring memories of childhood are the following soundtracks: Side A.) "Sit up straight! Stand up straight! Don't slouch! Don't scowl! Don't sulk!", Side B.) "Well, you did that to yourself, didn't you? Well, what did you expect, really? What did I tell you?"

---

And let's not forget the bonus tracks "You're useless" "You're pathetic" "let me look at your schoolbooks and point out everything that's wrong, and not mention anything that's good" "your younger sister is so much more wonderful than you, we approve of everything she does, and nothing that you do".

Between us, I think we've got the full box set
 

---

Posted by Pyx_e (# 57) on :
 
Great post Twilight. My fav Woody Allen (“Manhattan” I think) is when in reply to the sentence “Just think of him as having two Mothers” he says “Raised by two mothers...wow, most of us barely survive one” my family crease up at that one.

We were in a restaurant a few years ago and in the booth next door our daughter and her friends were complaining about their parents. We overheard stories of smacks and groundings, no phones and no car. Our beloved chirped in “Yeah my Dad gave me such a bollocking for squeezing the toothpaste out of the middle of the tube.” Which just goes to prove its all subjective. I often remind her of what a hard life she had. The irony is of course is the way she nags the ass of her partner for squeezing the toothpaste out of the middle of the tube.

And I really do struggle with the fact that for good or bad most of my gifts are similar to my mothers, some of my strengths and empathy come from the battle I fought to be free of her and ultimately understand and forgive her. You think you have dealt with it and then threads like this crop up, sigh.
 

---

Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by The Phantom Flan Flinger:

quote:

---

Originally posted by anoesis:
However, my enduring memories of childhood are the following soundtracks: Side A.) "Sit up straight! Stand up straight! Don't slouch! Don't scowl! Don't sulk!", Side B.) "Well, you did that to yourself, didn't you? Well, what did you expect, really? What did I tell you?"

---

And let's not forget the bonus tracks "You're useless" "You're pathetic" "let me look at your schoolbooks and point out everything that's wrong, and not mention anything that's good" "your younger sister is so much more wonderful than you, we approve of everything she does, and nothing that you do".

Between us, I think we've got the full box set

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:

I think the word 'miss' is problematic, since it might suggest 'think fondly of', but here it really means that it's hard to mourn a bad parent, and it takes a long time. However, it's also useful, as something is missing.

And if you don't mourn them, they tend to get inside you, and fuck up your relationships, your work, your personality, your sex-life, etc.

But I think that people don't want to mourn a bad parent - they just want to forget them, but you can't, otherwise we just recreate them in our lives.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by The Phantom Flan Flinger:

quote:

---

Originally posted by anoesis:
However, my enduring memories of childhood are the following soundtracks: Side A.) "Sit up straight! Stand up straight! Don't slouch! Don't scowl! Don't sulk!", Side B.) "Well, you did that to yourself, didn't you? Well, what did you expect, really? What did I tell you?"

---

And let's not forget the bonus tracks "You're useless" "You're pathetic" "let me look at your schoolbooks and point out everything that's wrong, and not mention anything that's good" "your younger sister is so much more wonderful than you, we approve of everything she does, and nothing that you do".

Between us, I think we've got the full box set

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Pyx_e:
You think you have dealt with it and then threads like this crop up, sigh.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ecumaniac:
But what if the kid really does slouch all the time? What if their school work is actually rubbish? Should it not be pointed out?

(This is why I shouldn't have kids I guess.)

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by lilBuddha:

quote:

---

Originally posted by ecumaniac:
But what if the kid really does slouch all the time? What if their school work is actually rubbish? Should it not be pointed out?

(This is why I shouldn't have kids I guess.)

---

It is not about addressing real problems, but the method used.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by lilBuddha:

quote:

---

Originally posted by ecumaniac:
But what if the kid really does slouch all the time? What if their school work is actually rubbish? Should it not be pointed out?

(This is why I shouldn't have kids I guess.)

---

It is not about addressing real problems, but the method used.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:

I think the word 'miss' is problematic, since it might suggest 'think fondly of', but here it really means that it's hard to mourn a bad parent, and it takes a long time. However, it's also useful, as something is missing.

And if you don't mourn them, they tend to get inside you, and fuck up your relationships, your work, your personality, your sex-life, etc.

But I think that people don't want to mourn a bad parent - they just want to forget them, but you can't, otherwise we just recreate them in our lives.

---

quote:

---

The most obvious example is abuse: many people who were seriously abused either find someone else to abuse them, or become abusive, (in other words, they repeat it all). But this can be halted, by the ghastly work of letting go of the abusive parent.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ecumaniac:
But what if the kid really does slouch all the time? What if their school work is actually rubbish? Should it not be pointed out?

(This is why I shouldn't have kids I guess.)

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:

People usually say that you get what you can deal with; I don't really know if it's true or not, but the small stuff is often really important.

---

First of all, that's a misquote of Paul, and a lot of people hate it. Second, I think people in program would say, you get what will force you to admit you can't deal
 

---

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :
 

quote:

---

you miss a bad parent more than a good one

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ecumaniac:
But what if the kid really does slouch all the time? What if their school work is actually rubbish? Should it not be pointed out?

(This is why I shouldn't have kids I guess.)

---

As I pointed out, my mother wasn't mistaken about the slouching in my case, and it would certainly have been better for me in the long term if I could have learned not to do it. But the manner in which she went on about it communicated that either slouching was a sort of moral failing in me, an outward manifestation of an inward slackness, or that I was doing it to annoy her. As to the first, who can say? But for the second, I wasn't doing it to annoy anyone. It's just how I am - how I sit, how I stand, it feels completely natural to me and anything else feels unnatural. I know this because I have gone through periods in adulthood where I earnestly tried to cure myself of it. I end up going to bed about eight o'clock because the effort of being vertical is just getting too much...
 

---

Posted by Francophile (# 17838) on :
 
Funny how everyone posting their experiences is the misunderstood or bullied or badly-parented suffering child or somehow the victim of a relative's unreasonableness.
Are SoF posters only ever victims and never perpetrators? Is anyone prepared to admit in full detail to their actions as a mad/unreasonable/vicious parent along the lines of Pyx's mother?

Deafening silence ensues. I thought so.
 

---

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
Other than the one atop your head, did you have a point?
Your nanny needs to have better watch over your internet use.
 

---

Posted by The Phantom Flan Flinger (# 8891) on :
 
Oooh - I post some of my experiences, then Francophile pops up from his sewer and has a go - I feel like part of the gang now
 

---

Posted by The Phantom Flan Flinger (# 8891) on :
 
Oh, and Franco - I'm 40 this year, I've been married 18 years, and I'm not a parent - not that it's any of your business.

[ 29. January 2014, 20:20: Message edited by: The Phantom Flan Flinger ]
 

---

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 
It suggests that GeneralissimoFrancophile's toxic shithood is entirely self-achieved. Just as well he is vanishingly unlikely ever to be a parent.

[ 29. January 2014, 20:23: Message edited by: Firenze ]
 

---

Posted by anoesis (# 14189) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Francophile:
Funny how everyone posting their experiences is the misunderstood or bullied or badly-parented suffering child or somehow the victim of a relative's unreasonableness.
Are SoF posters only ever victims and never perpetrators? Is anyone prepared to admit in full detail to their actions as a mad/unreasonable/vicious parent along the lines of Pyx's mother?

Deafening silence ensues. I thought so.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by The Phantom Flan Flinger:
Oooh - I post some of my experiences, then Francophile pops up from his sewer and has a go - I feel like part of the gang now

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
So that, it's not that you don't criticize, it's that you make sure you spend enough time genuinely noticing and enjoying and appreciating and celebrating the great things about your kid (student, nephew), when it comes time to point out a flaw, they have such a solid basis for your regard for them that they can take it.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Francophile:
Funny how everyone posting their experiences is the misunderstood or bullied or badly-parented suffering child or somehow the victim of a relative's unreasonableness.
Are SoF posters only ever victims and never perpetrators? Is anyone prepared to admit in full detail to their actions as a mad/unreasonable/vicious parent along the lines of Pyx's mother?

Deafening silence ensues. I thought so.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Francophile:
Funny how everyone posting their experiences is the misunderstood or bullied or badly-parented suffering child or somehow the victim of a relative's unreasonableness.
Are SoF posters only ever victims and never perpetrators? Is anyone prepared to admit in full detail to their actions as a mad/unreasonable/vicious parent along the lines of Pyx's mother?

Deafening silence ensues. I thought so.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Francophile:
Funny how everyone posting their experiences is the misunderstood or bullied or badly-parented suffering child or somehow the victim of a relative's unreasonableness.
Are SoF posters only ever victims and never perpetrators? Is anyone prepared to admit in full detail to their actions as a mad/unreasonable/vicious parent along the lines of Pyx's mother?

Deafening silence ensues. I thought so.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Penny S:

quote:

---

you miss a bad parent more than a good one

---

I've been dwelling on this. Could it be that after a lifetime of having to push against all that negative stuff, when it is suddenly not there, the person cannot cope with the absence, or know how to redirect all that energy.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ariston:
Again, sorry for the trollfeeding, but someone had to mention their normalish past—and jerks bug me.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:
Oh alright, I'll join the Kum Ba Ya circle. When I was a teenager, my best friend and I both agreed that I had the better parents.

I've seen them twice this week and it's been perfectly enjoyable and drama free both times. SO THERE.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Francophile:
Funny how everyone posting their experiences is the misunderstood or bullied or badly-parented suffering child or somehow the victim of a relative's unreasonableness.
Are SoF posters only ever victims and never perpetrators? Is anyone prepared to admit in full detail to their actions as a mad/unreasonable/vicious parent along the lines of Pyx's mother?

Deafening silence ensues. I thought so.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Francophile:
Is anyone prepared to admit in full detail to their actions as a mad/unreasonable/vicious parent along the lines of Pyx's mother?

---

quote:

---

Would I be able to hack it, or would I be resentful of all the freedom I'd lost?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

I worry about what kind of parent I might be should I ever have kids - it's an unimaginable level of commitment and sacrifice, and often a thankless one. Would I be able to hack it, or would I be resentful of all the freedom I'd lost? It's a question nobody can answer until they actually have kids, and by then it's too late to find out that you shouldn't have had them.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Of course they bloody aren't, because if they thought that about themselves they'd change the way they act.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Speaking as a son, son in law, and father of mature sons, ain't that the truth. With grandchildren in the mix, the double-truth. People goof off. Parents and children are people too. Sometimes both of those truths get lost. Hard to see through the both-way expectations. A mistake I've made in both directions. So have they.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jane R:
Marvin:

quote:

---

Would I be able to hack it, or would I be resentful of all the freedom I'd lost?

---

Yes.

Most people muddle through somehow, with the occasional flashes of resentment at not being able to do stuff that they took for granted BC (before children). It's not really an either/or question.

---

quote:

---

That's the old theory that the first born gets all the shit flung at them, since the parents are young/fucked up/anxious, but if they have more kids, they relax more. I don't think it's always true, but it often is. There's a name for it, which I've forgotten. First born fucky uppy-itis, I suppose.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:


I worry about what kind of parent I might be should I ever have kids - it's an unimaginable level of commitment and sacrifice, and often a thankless one.

---

You can't be serious.

My kids give back a thousand, thousandfold the commitment and sacrifice I have given and continue to give. They are extremely cool kids and loads of fun.

If you put your kids first ( like any good parent should) I reckon you'd make a great parent.

[ 30. January 2014, 11:30: Message edited by: Evensong ]
 

---

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by North East Quine:
Originally posted by quetzalcotl:

quote:

---

That's the old theory that the first born gets all the shit flung at them, since the parents are young/fucked up/anxious, but if they have more kids, they relax more. I don't think it's always true, but it often is. There's a name for it, which I've forgotten. First born fucky uppy-itis, I suppose.

---

I know exactly when my firstborn reached all his milestones, I know what his first word was, and what he said the first time he put two words together.* I have a list of his entire vocabulary on his first and second birthdays.

My second must have started talking at some point, because she certainly talks enough now, but beyond that I have no idea.**

*"Up" and "Door shut" since you asked.
** Although I do know the date she first slept through the night and finally dropped the 2am feed, which was two weeks before her second birthday.

---

I remember women who would sit by their sleeping new-born, worried in case he stopped breathing. I think with the second and third, that anxiety abates!

I also remember women who swore that the first born was the messiah - well, in a way, s/he is.
 

---

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
There are endless photos (well, mostly slides actually) of my older sister placed in front of various interesting locations in Europe, and at Disneyland. I sat through them all many times in my childhood.

Mum struggled to find a decent photo of me when I needed one for school for some reason.

I'm not bitter or twisted about this one little bit, no sirree. Nor about the fact that my sister lived overseas for a couple of years and went to Disneyland and I never left Australia until I was an adult. Nope. I'm fine with all of that. They looked after us both equally...
 

---

Posted by MrsBeaky (# 17663) on :
 
Phone call with my mother this week.

She was talking about boys in general and reminiscing about my younger brothers in particular:
"Yes, as I recall they were very nervous about being left, boys are you know. I can't say I was concerned about you really as you were the eldest and the girl and were out there forging ahead....."

Hey ho!
 

---

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by North East Quine:
Originally posted by quetzalcotl:

quote:

---

That's the old theory that the first born gets all the shit flung at them, since the parents are young/fucked up/anxious, but if they have more kids, they relax more. I don't think it's always true, but it often is. There's a name for it, which I've forgotten. First born fucky uppy-itis, I suppose.

---

I know exactly when my firstborn reached all his milestones, I know what his first word was, and what he said the first time he put two words together.* I have a list of his entire vocabulary on his first and second birthdays.

My second must have started talking at some point, because she certainly talks enough now, but beyond that I have no idea.**

*"Up" and "Door shut" since you asked.
** Although I do know the date she first slept through the night and finally dropped the 2am feed, which was two weeks before her second birthday.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Penny S:

quote:

---

you miss a bad parent more than a good one

---

I've been dwelling on this. Could it be that after a lifetime of having to push against all that negative stuff, when it is suddenly not there, the person cannot cope with the absence, or know how to redirect all that energy.

---

That's part of it. It's complicated - people also hold on for grim death to a bad parent, when they have gone. Partly, we wait for what we didn't get - I think it's possible to wait for ever. And they are just inside you - so how do you let go of them?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
...
I read the John Cleese and Robin Skynner books: Families and how to survive them and the Life one - and that helped.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mdijon:
My father is past 80 and he comes round to do my DIY. I let him. He enjoys it, feels that he's useful and not old, and I bring him cups of tea during and dinner after.
...[Text deleted to save space]...
And one day he will be dead, and I and my children will remember that he did my DIY when he was in his 80s.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gwai:
I-an oldest-promised my sister that there would be just as many pictures of child #2 as there are of #1, and told her to hold me to it. I think we've safely actually done that too, and if we hadn't my sister would hopefully have reminded me, because it really bothered her that there were a ten snaps of baby me for every one of her and her twin.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:



I remember women who would sit by their sleeping new-born, worried in case he stopped breathing.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dormouse:
Indeed - I was looking through mum's old photo albums...a page of photos of new born older sister plus newspaper cutting of the birth announcement. Many photos of growing child. Page of new born photos of older brother. No birth announcement. Fewer photos of growing child. And Me (youngest)? Nothing. Zada. Zilch.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Two things you can only say to other parents, or in Hell:

1. You wish you could live twice. Once with children, once without.

2. You only realise how great not having children is once you have them.

---

Would be rather nice if parents said this to non-parents once in a while, instead of the usual guilt-tripping accusations that are thrown!!!!
 

---

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
Yeah, and I have a lot less of a problem with folk who can articulate "forbidden" thoughts like that than people who won't acknowledge them and take their resentment out on the kids.

Or (worse yet) articulate those thoughts only to the children, and expect to be treated like parent of the year regardless.
 

---

Posted by mark_in_manchester (# 15978) on :
 
How about this re-interpreted as an early recorded case of narcissistic parental dysfunction, with disaster narrowly averted by direct and timely divine intervention.
 

---

Posted by mark_in_manchester (# 15978) on :
 
It gets better.

The noble look on the lad's face as he prepares to take one for the family team is especially inspiring.
 

---

Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :
 
An old friend, has given me a stern talking to.

I visited my parents this week and intercepted my mother filling a hot water bottle for me. I asked her not to. She seemed surprised that I did not want a hot water bottle.

This has a long history. In my teens Mum and I fought many a fight over hot water bottles. ISTM that every time I had a hot water bottle, as the bottle cooled, so did I, and I'd wake up at 3am cold, and not be able to get back to sleep. But Mum kept trying to sneak HWBs into my bed.

These days, I just remove any HWBs I find and waft the duvet till any hint of warmth has been dissipated. But if I catch my Mum in HWB-filling action, I asked her, pleasantly, to please don't as I don't like them.

I remarked to my friend that I'd probably told my mother that I don't like HWBs 5 times a year for the past 20 years, 10 times a year for the preceeding 10 years and at least 20 times a year in the 5 years before that. So not less that 300 times. And each time Mum reacts as though I'd never mentioned this before.

And my wise friend said that my mother regards putting a HWB in my bed as a loving gesture. Minor details, such as my opinion, don't count. What counts to Mum is that she is Doing Something For Me. And she loves Doing Things For Me, because, my friend said, my mother loves me very much. And I should just Suck It Up. Pull up my big girl panties and deal.

We are, apparently, in Corinthians 13 territory.

My mother's love for me is not self-seeking - she knows there will be no pay back in terms of gratitude in return for her attempts to put HWBs in my bed, do my laundry, clean my kitchen floor etc.

My mother keeps no record of wrongs - all 300 rejections of her HWBs, ranging from the full-on teenage tantrum, and slammed door, to the mildly exasperated refusal, are instantly forgotten.

My mother's love perseveres. Perhaps one day I will let her do my ironing!

My friend pointed out that I like to interact with people I care for by communicating with them. And it frustrates me that I cannot communicate with my mother.

Communication isn't important to Mum. She shows her love by Doing Things for other people. Including things they'd much, much, rather she didn't.

Families. Meh.
 

---

Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on :
 
Oh jeeze, though, NEQ, the frustration. My husband has traces of whatever it is your mom has. He has a list in his head of "things women like," and it doesn't fit me. For example women like plants and flowers for gifts and the fact that I don't has never gotten through, in spite of 34 years of heavy hinting. But that just happens a few times a year.

Every night he politely sits at the table watching me eat. I'm a slow eater, plus, I fall behind since I'm the cook/server. I tell him to go ahead, watch TV, I'll be awhile, no fuss. I have serious talks about how being watched while I eat makes my throat close up and I can barely swallow. It doesn't matter. In his head it's not nice to leave the table until I'm done.

Don't your mother and my husband have any duty at all to adjust their definitions of kind and caring, according to circumstances?
 

---

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
That's very much treating love as an abstract concept: I Am Being Loving. (aren't I good)

Actually loving a person, I would have thought, ought to involve getting to know their individual qualities.

Or maybe we're dealing with folks who take 'do unto others as you would have done to you' very, very literally. I would like people to give me hot water bottles, therefore I am commanded to give other people hot water bottles...
 

---

Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :
 
There's a whole list of stuff like that. For instance, if my journey home from my parents involves train/ walk to bus stop / bus/walk home, I will never be grateful when Mum gives me a parting gift of an iced cake and an admonition to keep it level. And yet....
 

---

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Twilight:

Every night he politely sits at the table watching me eat. I'm a slow eater, plus, I fall behind since I'm the cook/server.

---

Sounds like you could accommodate both your desires if he did the cooking/serving, which would slow him to closer to your natural pace...
 

---

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :
 
posted by orfeo

quote:

---

Or maybe we're dealing with folks who take 'do unto others as you would have done to you' very, very literally. I would like people to give me hot water bottles, therefore I am commanded to give other people hot water bottles...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by North East Quine:

I will never be grateful when Mum gives me a parting gift of an iced cake and an admonition to keep it level. And yet....

---

There's an entire comic movie in your mom and my loving husband, and yes, Orfeo has them in one, "Aren't I good!"

And, LC, if he did the cooking, I'm afraid my throat really would close up, permanently.
 

---

Posted by Tubbs (# 440) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by basso:
Fucky-up happens sometimes regardless of birth order.

I'm the eldest by a year. When I graduated high school, I got a check for $50.
My sister graduated a year later -- by the skin of her teeth. She got a trip to Hawaii.

(This may be partly because I didn't really even know that trips to Hawaii existed...)

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:
That's very much treating love as an abstract concept: I Am Being Loving. (aren't I good)

Actually loving a person, I would have thought, ought to involve getting to know their individual qualities.

Or maybe we're dealing with folks who take 'do unto others as you would have done to you' very, very literally. I would like people to give me hot water bottles, therefore I am commanded to give other people hot water bottles...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:
That's very much treating love as an abstract concept: I Am Being Loving. (aren't I good)

Actually loving a person, I would have thought, ought to involve getting to know their individual qualities.

Or maybe we're dealing with folks who take 'do unto others as you would have done to you' very, very literally. I would like people to give me hot water bottles, therefore I am commanded to give other people hot water bottles...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:
That's very much treating love as an abstract concept: I Am Being Loving. (aren't I good)

Actually loving a person, I would have thought, ought to involve getting to know their individual qualities.

Or maybe we're dealing with folks who take 'do unto others as you would have done to you' very, very literally. I would like people to give me hot water bottles, therefore I am commanded to give other people hot water bottles...

---

Interesting points. I think 'getting to know their qualities' means actually seeing someone. Some of the parents on this thread just sound more narcissistic, and people who are like that, often can't see someone else, except as a kind of reflection of their own needs.

I remember my own mother really could not understand why my son didn't like certain foods - and she used to say pitifully, 'but there's nothing to dislike'. Oh, what a wealth of information is contained in that remark!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by L'organist:
But then the same woman gave her son a book Life after Divorce:create a new beginning for his birthday...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by North East Quine:
My mother's love for me is not self-seeking - she knows there will be no pay back in terms of gratitude in return for her attempts to put HWBs in my bed, do my laundry, clean my kitchen floor etc.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Spike:
If it's sympathy you're after, you're on the wrong board

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Twilight:
I'm having a terrible guilt attack, prompting me to come here and mention that Hubs does about 30 hours per week volunteer work for the food pantry and starting today, he's doing taxes for free for anybody who wants it. Now I hate myself.

I hope you're happy Francophile.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Francophile:
Yes, very happy, thanks for enquiring. I have/had wonderful parents who I love/lived greatly.

---

poor things must really wonder where they went wrong.

Twilight - get the fuck over yourself you delicate little snowflake. Spike's comment easily applies to the whole thread, but of course, it's all about you, isn't it?
 

---

Posted by RuthW (# 13) on :
 
Huh? Since Spike's comment came directly after Twilight's post, she was hardly mis-reading it.
 

---

Posted by Left at the Altar (# 5077) on :
 
I've always said that Twilight has amazing foresight.
 

---

Posted by RuthW (# 13) on :
 
She wasn't mis-reading it in her subsequent post. But you knew that.

[ 01. February 2014, 00:44: Message edited by: RuthW ]
 

---

Posted by Left at the Altar (# 5077) on :
 
She has pretty good hindsight as well.
 

---

Posted by Taliesin (# 14017) on :
 
Sorry, but I feel the need to give advice!

NEQ, you have my total sympathy and admiration. Please just smile and say 'no thanks' when handed an iced cake. Don't take it in your hands. If you had a car, she could put it in the boot, but you don't, so she can't. Don't worry about hurting her feelings, because she clearly has a different set of... perceptions. She might think you're odd, but that's hardly a new concept.

Twilight, when you're eating and feel uncomfortable, pick up your plate and fork and go and sit somewhere else with it. On the stairs, if necessary. When he asks why, tell him you don't like being watched while you eat. I guarantee you he will say, you should have told me, or similar.

Just smile and agree.

Anyone can now tell me of for giving advice. But this is hell, and I can do what I like.
Francophile, you are horrible.
 

---

Posted by Francophile (# 17838) on :
 
Well, I suppose it depends in your perception of horrible.

Some filk might think that a non-horrible reaction to being presented with a cake by anyone, not least your elderly and much-loved mother, would be to accept it graciously, express your thanks and live to her, embrace her, make her feel loved and wanted and appreciated, promise her that you will take great care with the box/tin/receptacle on the journey home, take such care even if inconvenient and phone your mother on your return and tell her that you and the cake are both home safely.

I suppose, unlike you lot, I just had the good fortune to grow up with loving parents who I cherish(ed).
 

---

Posted by Alicïa (# 7668) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Francophile:
Well, I suppose it depends in your perception of horrible.

Some filk might think that a non-horrible reaction to being presented with a cake by anyone, not least your elderly and much-loved mother, would be to accept it graciously, express your thanks and live to her, embrace her, make her feel loved and wanted and appreciated, promise her that you will take great care with the box/tin/receptacle on the journey home, take such care even if inconvenient and phone your mother on your return and tell her that you and the cake are both home safely.

I suppose, unlike you lot, I just had the good fortune to grow up with loving parents who I cherish(ed).

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by North East Quine:
My mother's love for me is not self-seeking - she knows there will be no pay back in terms of gratitude in return for her attempts to put HWBs in my bed, do my laundry, clean my kitchen floor etc.

My mother keeps no record of wrongs - all 300 rejections of her HWBs, ranging from the full-on teenage tantrum, and slammed door, to the mildly exasperated refusal, are instantly forgotten.

My mother's love perseveres. Perhaps one day I will let her do my ironing!

---

quote:

---

“The knowledge that she would never be loved in return acted upon her ideas as a tide acts upon cliffs. . . . She secretly refused to believe that anyone (herself excepted) loved anyone. . . . She saw that the people of this world moved about in an armor of egotism . . . in dread of all appeals that might interrupt their long communion with their own desires. . . . She knew that she too sinned and that though her love for her daughter was vast enough to include all the colors of love, it was not without a shade of tyranny: she loved her daughter not for her daughter's sake, but for her own. She longed to free herself from this ignoble bond; but the passion was too fierce to cope with.”

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Francophile:
Well, I suppose it depends in your perception of horrible.

Some filk might think that a non-horrible reaction to being presented with a cake by anyone, not least your elderly and much-loved mother, would be to accept it graciously, express your thanks and live to her, embrace her, make her feel loved and wanted and appreciated, promise her that you will take great care with the box/tin/receptacle on the journey home, take such care even if inconvenient and phone your mother on your return and tell her that you and the cake are both home safely.

I suppose, unlike you lot, I just had the good fortune to grow up with loving parents who I cherish(ed).

---

Just sitting waiting for my mother at the Saturday nurse-led macular clinic at hospital, having driven my mother 50 miles to her monthly scan to prevent blindness. Her third hospital visit since the beginning of the year which I have taken her too so far. I have the urology clinic with her on 12 February. Just as well I've got the energy. Some of you seem to find carrying a cake tin or chucking a hot water bottle out your bed just too much to cope with.

I love and respect her and want to do as much as she needs and as much as I am capable of. Its called love.
 

---

Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
Fun
 

---

Posted by chive (# 208) on :
 
Francophile,

I think when I read your posts the big thing you don't seem to realise is that some of us would love to have the relationship you have with your parents. Some of us pray for it daily. Some of us yearn with a yearning that can't be described for a family that make us feel wanted, loved, cared for, whole, whatever. Some of us would give up everything they have for that. And some of us know that whatever we do, whether it is giving our last penny, our last drop of blood, our last breath, it will not be enough. We will still be rejected, unloved, abused, hurt, destroyed. We come back and try over and over again to stop this but we can't.

Every time you post one of your passive aggressive bullshit posts it reminds us that our families don't want us except as receptacles for their use and abuse. That makes us feel great.

Families are not all wonderful. Some families are deeply and tragically pathological. Some of the children of these families do the things you do, drive their mothers to the hospital, wait for them. They do that despite the abuse, the rejection and the sadness. Because of the fantasy that one day, maybe even for one second, they will feel the love and comfort you take for granted. But it doesn't happen. Doing things for people you love is easy, it is not sacrificial, it is nothing to boast about. Doing things for people who destroy you is hard. Loving someone who despises you is sacrificial. You clearly know nothing of this. Be grateful.
 

---

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 

 

---

Posted by Ronald Binge (# 9002) on :
 
Lord have Mercy! I've just read Pyx-e's story and believe I am travelling across a plain called Ease in comparison.

Where on earth does this thing about being always right come from, because it boggles the stuffing out of me, every day when I get it here.
 

---

Posted by Taliesin (# 14017) on :
 
yes. Completely beautiful Chive. Would you like to be my honorary relative? We would love to have you.
 

---

Posted by tessaB (# 8533) on :
 
I do love my mother. I see her every week and would always want to help her. When she was in hospital recently for a week I visited her every day and when she came home I did her shopping, helped her bathe and washed her hair.
However I also dislike her deeply. She sneers at my husband and my sisters husbands. She carps at my beautiful daughter for not being some slim identikit blonde clone. She tells people in front of me about the fact that my son is severely autistic and what a worry he is to her and how she can't understand why I don't worry (translation - she is better than I am.)
She is 82 and looks set to be with us for many more years. I dread her dying, partly because I love her and will miss her, partly because I worry I will be relieved.
 

---

Posted by The Phantom Flan Flinger (# 8891) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Francophile:

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Francophile:
I love and respect her and want to do as much as she needs and as much as I am capable of. Its called love.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Palimpsest:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Francophile:
I love and respect her and want to do as much as she needs and as much as I am capable of. Its called love.

---

It's a pity that offering what you call love to her creates so much resentment in you that you have to spew so much venom here.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Francophile:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Francophile:
Well, I suppose it depends in your perception of horrible.

Some filk might think that a non-horrible reaction to being presented with a cake by anyone, not least your elderly and much-loved mother, would be to accept it graciously, express your thanks and live to her, embrace her, make her feel loved and wanted and appreciated, promise her that you will take great care with the box/tin/receptacle on the journey home, take such care even if inconvenient and phone your mother on your return and tell her that you and the cake are both home safely.

I suppose, unlike you lot, I just had the good fortune to grow up with loving parents who I cherish(ed).

---

Just sitting waiting for my mother at the Saturday nurse-led macular clinic at hospital, having driven my mother 50 miles to her monthly scan to prevent blindness. Her third hospital visit since the beginning of the year which I have taken her too so far. I have the urology clinic with her on 12 February. Just as well I've got the energy. Some of you seem to find carrying a cake tin or chucking a hot water bottle out your bed just too much to cope with.

I love and respect her and want to do as much as she needs and as much as I am capable of. Its called love.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Firenze:
I expect he'll be along to point out you've used 'their' instead of 'they're'. He's good at that sort of thing.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Firenze:
You wonder.

And when - as in course of nature they must - his parents go, who has he then to 'love'? Judging by the attitude he's displayed on this thread, I'd be surprised if there are any.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Left at the Altar:
Yes, yes, he was wonderful. We've got that. But did he love you?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Left at the Altar:
Well, you see, it's just that the way you react to people who have difficulty giving and expressing absolute unconditional no-matter-how-much-you-drive-me-nuts love to their own, flawed parents, isn't all that suggestive of someone who grew up feeling the love themselves and understands that shit happens in families.

Your approach seems more Honour Thy Parents No
Which might be strictly biblical, but it's hardly realistic.

We don't all have to be martyrs. And if you choose to go down that path (and I'm not saying you are, mind, but you kind of sound like it) then getting all self-righteous and expecting everyone else to do the same is going to slow down your path to sainthood. If that's what you are aiming for.

It's great you take your mum for her appointments. I'm sure it's draining and rewarding at the same time. Maybe she's grateful, maybe she's not. You do a good thing.

We ain't all good though. I'm not. And my parents love me. I know that. I'm thankful for their love. But they drive me batshit.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Francophile:
Well, if you'd read the thread properly you'd know that my dearly loved father died on 20 February 2013 aged 87 years. We scattered his ashes at Lamlash, Isle if Arran on 4 August 2913. He loved that place, having spent 50 years of sailing holidays on the Firth of Clyde and west coast waters. A wonderful man.
Thank you for your concern.

---

quote:

---

Get on with wiping shit from backsides of your old mum or dad. Someones got to do it.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Francophile:
Be grateful that she thinks she's doing you a favour.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Left at the Altar:
X-post. orfeo, stop butting in!!!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Left at the Altar:
Maybe we'll be in non-arse-wiper hell for all eternity, wiping Francophile's bony donut.

---

I think you may need to start believing in eternal redemption at this point, LATA. It's an ill wind ...
 

---

Posted by Left at the Altar (# 5077) on :
 
I like to live on the edge.

If it's wipe-arse-hell I'm tempting, I'll take the risk.
 

---

Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :
 
You have a talent for bringing out the . That's pretty redemptive in itself! Thanks.
 

---

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 
We're not doing this right, are we? We're failing to be guilted-out by his level of filial devotion. We are not feeling sorry for him (possibly because he is so sorry for himself). We feel uncondemned by our inferiority to him, no matter how often he points it out.

But at least he can scream at us that we're all fuccking (sic) bitches. Something you feel he would like - oh so much like - to do nearer home.
 

---

Posted by Left at the Altar (# 5077) on :
 
I just called my parents. My mother is out. I spoke to Dad. He is deaf. We talked about his distant cousins.

Him: We are going to see .. I can't remember his name .. he has no chin
Me: Bill
Him: He lives with his sister
Me (louder): Bill
Him: He has trees all over place. She has dogs
Me (shouting): BILL!
Him: She's Lesley. What's his name?
Me: Bill?
Him: I'll think of it in a minute.
Me: Is it Bill?
Him: What?
Me: Bill?
Him: Could be. Yes, I think it is.

Gotta love him.

[ 02. February 2014, 09:11: Message edited by: Left at the Altar ]
 

---

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
See, the trick is to figure out how to turn that shit into a drinking game.
 

---

Posted by Left at the Altar (# 5077) on :
 
Every time you have to repeat something you just said, you get to drink a bottle of vodka.
 

---

Posted by Left at the Altar (# 5077) on :
 
Everything they repeat something they've said 50 times, you get to drink 3 bottles of gin.
 

---

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Left at the Altar:
I like to live on the edge.

If it's wipe-arse-hell I'm tempting, I'll take the risk.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Firenze:
We're not doing this right, are we? We're failing to be guilted-out by his level of filial devotion. We are not feeling sorry for him (possibly because he is so sorry for himself). We feel uncondemned by our inferiority to him, no matter how often he points it out.

But at least he can scream at us that we're all fuccking (sic) bitches. Something you feel he would like - oh so much like - to do nearer home.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Firenze:
We're not doing this right, are we? We're failing to be guilted-out by his level of filial devotion. We are not feeling sorry for him (possibly because he is so sorry for himself). We feel uncondemned by our inferiority to him, no matter how often he points it out.

But at least he can scream at us that we're all fuccking (sic) bitches. Something you feel he would like - oh so much like - to do nearer home.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Left at the Altar:
I like to live on the edge.

If it's wipe-arse-hell I'm tempting, I'll take the risk.

---

Even if there's gastro?

EDIT: I've finally done it. I've hit a new low as a Hellhost. Toilet humour.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:
I don't remember ANYONE resenting that, actually. People were resenting emotional manipulations, not bodily functions.

It was Francophile who decided to bring up wiping shit from backsides.

And I hate to break it to you, Evensong, but being a parent and doing all that stuff for kiddies doesn't give you the right, when they're older, to play with their minds or ignore their emotional needs. Which is what we were talking about.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evensong:
I had to repeat that. No one laughed the first time - you must have missed it.

---

You're on the bloody internet woman, not in front of a live studio audience.
 

---

Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 

 

---

Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on :
 
Another nice thread ruined. Some of us were getting a bit of harmless relief, venting about the things our loved ones do that drive us crazy, but Francophile had to come along and lecture us all about not being grateful for our hot water bottles of passive aggression and iced cakes of inconvenience, and Spike had to drop in to tell us that if we (or I) were "looking for sympathy we wouldn't get it here," sounding just like the "I'll give you something to cry about," parent, and Comet, smelling her favorite blood source, had to jump in to tell me to get the fuck over my delicate little snowflake self as it's not all about me and Left at the Altar had to rush in to agree with her about me before telling Francophile, three or four times, that, clearly his mother doesn't love him. Because she knows.

Just once, I wish we could keep the anger all going in the same direction without allowing ourselves to be sidetracked this way.
 

---

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evensong:

I think you're conflating NEQ's mum with the french lover's mum ( or was it the Spanish Dictator's mum? - I had to repeat that. No one laughed the first time - you must have missed it.)

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Barnabas62:

Why are you venting over people's right to vent in Hell? orfeo is right. You just don't get this place. Of course you can be pissed off with the pissed off. Which in turn gives everyone else the right to be pissed off with you. Which they are. And, frankly, who can blame them? Empathy level epsilon minus moron. Not even semi-moron. O brave new world, that has such assholes in it.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Twilight:
... and Comet, smelling her favorite blood source, had to jump in to tell me to get the fuck over my delicate little snowflake self as it's not all about me and Left at the Altar had to rush in to agree with her about me ...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Left at the Altar:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Twilight:
... and Comet, smelling her favorite blood source, had to jump in to tell me to get the fuck over my delicate little snowflake self as it's not all about me and Left at the Altar had to rush in to agree with her about me ...

---

No I didn't you batshit crazy cow.

I responded to RuthW, who thought that what you wrote came before anything Spike wrote. It was a one-liner having a friendly dig at Ruth. And then RuthW corrected herself and I wrote another - again having a dig (friendly, again) at Ruth.

Get over yourself.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Left at the Altar:
I just called my parents. My mother is out. I spoke to Dad. He is deaf. We talked about his distant cousins.

Him: We are going to see .. I can't remember his name .. he has no chin
Me: Bill
Him: He lives with his sister
Me (louder): Bill
Him: He has trees all over place. She has dogs
Me (shouting): BILL!
Him: She's Lesley. What's his name?
Me: Bill?
Him: I'll think of it in a minute.
Me: Is it Bill?
Him: What?
Me: Bill?
Him: Could be. Yes, I think it is.

Gotta love him.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:
My own kids have permission to slap me hard if they catch me pulling that one.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ariston:

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:
My own kids have permission to slap me hard if they catch me pulling that one.

---

After one particularly memorable conversation with my grandmother, my parents told me to look at a map of Canada and pick an ice floe for 'em. I don't think they were fooled by my claiming the Chambly Canal totally counts.

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I speak as a henpecked daughter-- when you actually get to the point when you hear something that brilliant coming out if your mouth, it is almost worth all the bullshit. In other words-- to your folks.

My dad once demanded that I call myself the stupidest person he ever saw, and I heard myself correct his grammar.


My memory of what happened next is a bit...grey. But my memory of that story only makes me love my punk self. I was about 8. I was a badass kid.

[ 02. February 2014, 23:23: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
 

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Posted by Ariston (# 10894) on :
 
Eh, I wouldn't say I was being a brilliant henpecked son, so much as trying to figure out what the nicest ice floe in Canada would be. I may be abandoning my elders to their fate, but, given that there's a brewery in town and Montreal a few miles away, I don't think they'd mind.
 

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Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
I was actually talking about your folks--they were the brilliant ones in that particular story. They went through the effort to pull out a map?
 

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Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Firenze:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evensong:

I think you're conflating NEQ's mum with the french lover's mum ( or was it the Spanish Dictator's mum? - I had to repeat that. No one laughed the first time - you must have missed it.)

---

Possibly because we'd already had that one 3 pages ago.

Do try to pay attention.

---

OMG. I'M SLIPPING
 

---

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:

My dad once demanded that I call myself the stupidest person he ever saw, and I heard myself correct his grammar.

---

A very sincere
 

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Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by lilBuddha:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:

My dad once demanded that I call myself the stupidest person he ever saw, and I heard myself correct his grammar.

---

A very sincere

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evensong:
OMG. I'M SLIPPING

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by lilBuddha:
No, no, Barnabas62! Let him appreciate being admired, It might help stimulate puberty. He may not mature any, but he mightn't type so much with one hand occupied.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:

My dad once demanded that I call myself the stupidest person he ever saw, and I heard myself correct his grammar.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by The Phantom Flan Flinger:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:

My dad once demanded that I call myself the stupidest person he ever saw, and I heard myself correct his grammar.

---

Am I reading this right Kelly - your dad told you to insult yourself?

---

That's a stereotypical British Army thing it isn't - as in: "You're a useless little bleeder Private Smith, what are you ?" "A useless little bleeder, sir"
 

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Posted by The Phantom Flan Flinger (# 8891) on :
 
Indeed it is Doublethink - mind you, it sounds like Kelly could have given the most gruff Sergeant Major a run for his money
 

---

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by A.Pilgrim:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Palimpsest:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Francophile:
I love and respect her and want to do as much as she needs and as much as I am capable of. Its called love.

---

It's a pity that offering what you call love to her creates so much resentment in you that you have to spew so much venom here.

---

I've just had an idea regarding Francophile...

One of the most profoundly revealing things I've ever read is the following: 'We hate the expression by others of that which is repressed within ourselves'. So why should Francophile hate all the posts in this thread which express the unpleasant and ambivalent feelings about difficult relatives - especially parents? Well, perhaps he or she has the same feelings buried within his/her own psyche, but is unable to acknowledge that they even exist, because to do so would disrupt the functioning of the relationship as it currently exists.

I might be right, I might be wrong. But another hint is that the response of someone who came from a truly happy family background to hearing about the unhappiness of others would be sadness, not irritation or hatred.

Angus

---

quote:

---

Came in to hear the audiologist explain (not that mom could hear her) that the problem was not with the hearing aid or the quality of sound getting thru. It was that after years and years of not wearing the aids the neural synapses that would allow her brain to understand and interpret those sounds had atrophied.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Came in to hear the audiologist explain (not that mom could hear her) that the problem was not with the hearing aid or the quality of sound getting thru. It was that after years and years of not wearing the aids the neural synapses that would allow her brain to understand and interpret those sounds had atrophied. And there's no going back.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doublethink:

quote:

---

Originally posted by The Phantom Flan Flinger:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:

My dad once demanded that I call myself the stupidest person he ever saw, and I heard myself correct his grammar.

---

Am I reading this right Kelly - your dad told you to insult yourself?

---

That's a stereotypical British Army thing it isn't - as in: "You're a useless little bleeder Private Smith, what are you ?" "A useless little bleeder, sir"

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Came in to hear the audiologist explain (not that mom could hear her) that the problem was not with the hearing aid or the quality of sound getting thru. It was that after years and years of not wearing the aids the neural synapses that would allow her brain to understand and interpret those sounds had atrophied. And there's no going back.

---

I didn't know that. My father (94 in February) gave up on his hearing aids because they were giving him so much trouble. I should really be evaluated myself, but I've vowed not to do it because of my father's experience. In light of what you said about neural synapses atrophying, though, maybe I should reconsider.

---

I got two assessments by reputable firms when I finally decided I had to get help with my hearing. They both told me this, 'use it or lose it'. I suspect I have already lost some.

My husband got assessed not long afterwards and also got hearing aids which he does not wear.
He swears he wasn't told this, even though he saw the same person I did!!
 

---

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Came in to hear the audiologist explain (not that mom could hear her) that the problem was not with the hearing aid or the quality of sound getting thru. It was that after years and years of not wearing the aids the neural synapses that would allow her brain to understand and interpret those sounds had atrophied. And there's no going back.

---

I didn't know that. My father (94 in February) gave up on his hearing aids because they were giving him so much trouble. I should really be evaluated myself, but I've vowed not to do it because of my father's experience. In light of what you said about neural synapses atrophying, though, maybe I should reconsider.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Taliesin:
Yes,I was interested in this, too. Is it possible for them to atrophy in one ear only,I wonder?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:
The really hell-ish part of this is that, because hearing loss in the elderly tends to happen gradually (as it did for my mom) as opposed to all at once when you're younger (and more likely to learn sign language or some other form of communication) it's all too easy to discount to true cost of your deafness until it's too late. The relational cost is huge-- watching my kids grow up unable to communicate with their grandma, watching them try to tell her some little thing about their day then all of a sudden she's talking over them (because she didn't realize they were talking). Watching our own conversations whittle down to talking to her only about what I absolutely needed to tell her (because telling her anything at all became so very difficult) then realizing how much of a relationship is built on all those little conversations about nothing at all, but amount to sharing a life together.

Ah, thinking about it makes me sad all over again. Hellish. So, yeah, wear your hearing aids.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
[

It's quite amusing, but after all, let's face it, awfully fucking boring. If I want to have a good moan about my mother, and somebody doesn't like it, then fuck off and read something else.

---

In another moment of cosmic irony, this just came on the cFe sound system.
 

---

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Thyme:

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:
The really hell-ish part of this is that, because hearing loss in the elderly tends to happen gradually (as it did for my mom) as opposed to all at once when you're younger (and more likely to learn sign language or some other form of communication) it's all too easy to discount to true cost of your deafness until it's too late. The relational cost is huge-- watching my kids grow up unable to communicate with their grandma, watching them try to tell her some little thing about their day then all of a sudden she's talking over them (because she didn't realize they were talking). Watching our own conversations whittle down to talking to her only about what I absolutely needed to tell her (because telling her anything at all became so very difficult) then realizing how much of a relationship is built on all those little conversations about nothing at all, but amount to sharing a life together.

Ah, thinking about it makes me sad all over again. Hellish. So, yeah, wear your hearing aids.

---

Yes, we went through all that with my Mum. I lost her long before she died because she wouldn't admit she was deaf and I couldn't have a conversation with her. Her mental faculties were sharp as a pin to the end.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:
The last few years of her life she had some physical health issues, but remained very sharp mentally. But when she was in assisted living or the hospital, I found her caregivers always assumed she was incompetent because of the deafness, and would treat her that way or ask me to make decisions that she wanted to make for herself.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:
The last few years of her life she had some physical health issues, but remained very sharp mentally. But when she was in assisted living or the hospital, I found her caregivers always assumed she was incompetent because of the deafness, and would treat her that way or ask me to make decisions that she wanted to make for herself.

---

Interesting. I find that doctors assume that about my father because he is so physically feeble and frail, although mentally he is as sharp as he ever was (thank God).

---

grrrr... hellish, isn't it? Both doctors and nurses (who oughta know better) would ask me questions right in front of her as if she were an incompetent child. I would have to keep reminding them, "she will make that decision herself" (followed by, "here, write the question on her white board, it's much easier than trying to get her to hear you...")
 

---

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
An, erm, relative of mine does that to Mom. She (mom) seems to be hovering on the fence of "does that habit suggest caring or patronizing?"

I basically refuse to respond to an answer of a question I have asked Mom. I will just ask her again.
 

---

Posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe (# 5521) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Both doctors and nurses (who oughta know better) would ask me questions right in front of her as if she were an incompetent child. I would have to keep reminding them, "she will make that decision herself."

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Taliesin:

Because we all want to love our parents, they just sometimes make it difficult.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by lilBuddha:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Taliesin:

Because we all want to love our parents, they just sometimes make it difficult.

---

Well, there are some who are utterly, irredeemably shit. And some who are near perfect.
But most are somewhere between, yeah?
ISTM, the most difficult to come to terms with are those who do foul things sometimes. Because the good times make one hope it could always be this way.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Francophile:
Surely all parents do foul things sometimes. Even the near perfect ones on the spectrum from irredeemably shit to near perfect Both mine did foul things sometimes. So that means that everyone (except the unfortunate ones with irredeemably shit parents) has to Come To Terms With It. Its called Growing Up and Dealing.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Francophile:
Surely all parents do foul things sometimes.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Francophile:

quote:

---

Originally posted by lilBuddha:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Taliesin:

Because we all want to love our parents, they just sometimes make it difficult.

---

Well, there are some who are utterly, irredeemably shit. And some who are near perfect.
But most are somewhere between, yeah?
ISTM, the most difficult to come to terms with are those who do foul things sometimes. Because the good times make one hope it could always be this way.

---

Surely all parents do foul things sometimes. Even the near perfect ones on the spectrum from irredeemably shit to near perfect Both mine did foul things sometimes. So that means that everyone (except the unfortunate ones with irredeemably shit parents) has to Come To Terms With It. Its called Growing Up and Dealing.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
I agree with this in principle (where we're not talking about criminal behaviour). However part of Growing Up and Dealing is dealing with it as a grown-up. It is not unkind or unloving to break out of the roles our families cast us in as children, or to decide that we aren't going to read from their script anymore.

However, it seems to me that parents who expect their children, as adults, to continue to play out the characters allotted to them by their parents sometimes interpret the adult child's unwillingness to do this as somehow hostile to them.

Tolerating someone else's unhealthy expectations for your relationship doesn't have to mean playing along with them.

---

YES! My main monk!

To that end, whinging is not just self indulgent, it allows you to 1. articulate something and thus take away it's power (how often have you been in mid-whinge and discovered it doesn't bother you anymore?) and 2. articulate something and confirm its reality ("Holy crap- I did not realize how crazy that behavior was until I wrote it out!")
 

---

Posted by Francophile (# 17838) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by The Phantom Flan Flinger:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Francophile:
Surely all parents do foul things sometimes. Even the near perfect ones on the spectrum from irredeemably shit to near perfect Both mine did foul things sometimes. So that means that everyone (except the unfortunate ones with irredeemably shit parents) has to Come To Terms With It. Its called Growing Up and Dealing.

---

Why is Coming To Terms With It and Growing Up and Dealing (not sure why we need the upper case, but still...) incompatible with having a rant about it from time to time?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Francophile:
Surely all parents do foul things sometimes.

---

There's a difference between those for whom "sometimes" means every decade or so, and those for whom "sometimes" means every.fucking.day.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:


To that end, whinging is not just self indulgent, it allows you to 1. articulate something and thus take away it's power (how often have you been in mid-whinge and discovered it doesn't bother you anymore?) and 2. articulate something and confirm its reality ("Holy crap- I did not realize how crazy that behavior was until I wrote it out!")

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Francophile:
Get with it you fucker. We've agreed there's a spectrum from irredeemably shit to near perfect. Thus the near perfect might act like shit once every 10 years while the almost irredeemably shit will do it every day.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
To that end, whinging is not just self indulgent, it allows you to 1. articulate something and thus take away it's power (how often have you been in mid-whinge and discovered it doesn't bother you anymore?) and 2. articulate something and confirm its reality ("Holy crap- I did not realize how crazy that behavior was until I wrote it out!")

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Francophile:
Did I say it was incompatible with having a rant from time to time?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Francophile:

And presumably you'll let me rant from time to time that you're a fucking idiot from time to time.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by lilBuddha:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Francophile:
Did I say it was incompatible with having a rant from time to time?

---

Yes. Yes you did. In your very first post on this very thread. And every subsequent post on this thread until now.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Francophile:

And presumably you'll let me rant from time to time that you're a fucking idiot from time to time.

---

And we shall rant most of the time that you're a fucking idiot most of the time.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
Well, at least Mummy wuvs you, Franky.

(But man, you're tedious.)

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Chorister:
Funny how threads called 'Difficult Relatives' always seem to deteriorate into threads which should be renamed 'Difficult Shipmates'....

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Francophile:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
Well, at least Mummy wuvs you, Franky.

(But man, you're tedious.)

---

Not half as tedious as you, puella. How many versions of my name have you used?

---

One.
 

---

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Francophile:
For the sake of the fucking wee man, dont take yourself so fucking seriously!

---

So first, you say we should not rant. Next you plead that your explosive diarrhea of a posting spree was just a rant and should therefore be excused. Now you were not serious. Trolls used to at least be consistent.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Francophile:

But if you rant in public, someone's bound to rant back and call you the selfish bitch that you are.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Francophile:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
Well, at least Mummy wuvs you, Franky.

(But man, you're tedious.)

---

Not half as tedious as you, puella. How many versions of my name have you used? Gies a been.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by The Phantom Flan Flinger:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Francophile:
Surely all parents do foul things sometimes. Even the near perfect ones on the spectrum from irredeemably shit to near perfect Both mine did foul things sometimes. So that means that everyone (except the unfortunate ones with irredeemably shit parents) has to Come To Terms With It. Its called Growing Up and Dealing.

---

Why is Coming To Terms With It and Growing Up and Dealing (not sure why we need the upper case, but still...) incompatible with having a rant about it from time to time?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Francophile:
Did I say it was incompatible with having a rant from time to time?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Francophile:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
Well, at least Mummy wuvs you, Franky.

(But man, you're tedious.)

---

Not half as tedious as you, puella. How many versions of my name have you used?

---

One.

---

You gotta admit, though, "puella" is pretty exotic...
 

---

Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on :
 
True. Could be worse.
 

---

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
I have been walking around the last couple hours humming "Puella DeVille, Puella DeVille..."
 

---

Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on :
 

 

---

Posted by PeteC (# 10422) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
True. Could be worse.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Francophile:
But if you rant in public, someone's bound to rant back and call you the selfish bitch that you are.

---

Human beings can produce the most extraordinary complexes of contradictory behaviour. Can you see how your accusations of selfishness or view that people deserve your responses for ranting in public are a little self-defeating considering the approach you take to it?

Your explosive rants are very much less pleasant reading than anything I've come across for a while. At first I wondered if you'd simply had a nerve tweaked by something that had been posted, but now it starts to look like your standard mode of engagement.

That can't be good for anyone can it?
 

---

Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :
 
Opps, my grasp of languages other than English is somewhat wanting - I thought it meant something much worse . Thanks for the translation Pete.
 

---

Posted by Taliesin (# 14017) on :
 
Hi. Francophile has his own thread now, so if you'd like to take any further responses to his comments there, that would be great.

I'm really sorry I can't link to threads.

[ 05. February 2014, 05:58: Message edited by: Taliesin ]
 

---

Posted by Left at the Altar (# 5077) on :
 
Well, well, well.

We apologise for this interruption to our service and return you now to our regular program.
 

---

Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
Idly wonders who Franco was a sock puppet of.

It shall remain one of Life's Great Mysteries no doubt.
 

---

Posted by The Phantom Flan Flinger (# 8891) on :
 
So anyway, difficult parents.

Did I mention the time my “dad”* punched me to the ground and gave me a black eye? Or that he terrorised our entire family, to the point that no-one would dare disagree with him? Or the black eyes he gave my mother?

I often wonder how I can obey the Biblical commandment to honour that.

*Inverted commas not meant to imply he’s not my actual father, just that I don’t consider him worthy of the title.
 

---

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :
 
Perhaps the best thing those of us with consistently 'difficult' relatives can do is resolve not to become one ourselves?

No, not a saintly twee outpouring but the rows, arguments and relentless unpleasantness were so dreadful in my family that persistent nastiness now makes me physically ill.
 

---

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evensong:
Idly wonders who Franco was a sock puppet of.

It shall remain one of Life's Great Mysteries no doubt.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by The Phantom Flan Flinger:
Did I mention the time my “dad”* punched me to the ground and gave me a black eye? Or that he terrorised our entire family, to the point that no-one would dare disagree with him? Or the black eyes he gave my mother?

I often wonder how I can obey the Biblical commandment to honour that.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Taliesin:
Except whisky. Whisky is apparently acceptable.

---

I have yet to come across the situation where this isn't true.
 

---

Posted by Taliesin (# 14017) on :
 
I was trying to edit this - i'd cross posted with quetzalcoatl, and my kindle had rendered 'blow by blow' as 'note by blue' ... What the..?

but the ship had tossed me overboard.

whisky is often acceptable in this life, but not when self-righteously refusing to take prescription drugs. but, what the hell. I keep expecting the next call to tell me he's dead, and I don't know how to react. I'm afraid I'll react very differently to how I've always imagined.

And dead is one thing, but incapacitated?

there's no manual for this stuff. When I've done it, I'll write a book. 'How to cope when the parent who was a complete shit but mostly harmless in the end, finally shuffles towards the edge of/off the mortal coil.'
 

---

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
(Not so funny story)
Once when I was married, my mom called when I was preparing dinner. I let her know this straight off. She gossiped about friends. I let her know I was sitting down to dinner. She complained about relatives. I repeated that I had to get off. She talked about Oprah, ffs, I kid you not. I finally sighed and said I had let her know at the start that I was sitting down to dinner, and it was getting cold, and I needed to get off now.

She snapped, "Ok, have your dinner. By the way, [very good friend my own age who sang at my wedding]James died. Just thought you would like to know. Bye."

This was before caller ID, so for a good month I made my husband answer the phone when it rang and tell Mom I was unavailable when it was her. I couldn't speak to her.

[ 06. February 2014, 18:15: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
 

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Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
Is it at all possible, that she called to tell you - but found it difficult to do so - so kept talking about other things till pushed into blurting it out by imminent call termination ?
 

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Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
Possible, but she did't blurt, she snapped. It was like she was punishing me. Her tone was angry and cold.

It was completely unfair.
 

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Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
Oh, and my mom refusing to get off the phone and ending the conversation with something sullen and punitive is kind of her style. She just had extra ammunition in this case.

Also, she voluntarily elects herself caller when someone dies in the church , and I've heard how she handles those conversations. Basically, a greeting and a immediate, respectful delivery of the facts. Not only us she not awkward at it, she is pretty good at it. She treats sensitive situations with me and my sister differently than she does with anyone else- and that's mainly, we are not to bore her with our feelings when she is having hers.
 

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Posted by Taliesin (# 14017) on :
 
I have a friend with a mother like this, Kelly. Absolutely the same style. She would contrive to break her own limbs rather than have a child of hers 'one up' her in the rights to sympathy stakes.

Everything is about her. My friend severed all contact about 10 years ago, which has helped enormously. It was a wise and ultimately compassionate decision. Sometimes, things just can't be fixed.
 

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Posted by anoesis (# 14189) on :
 
I haven't popped up here for a while, but I've been meaning just to log on quickly and recommend a book to all those who have had difficult/traumatic family lives.

http://www.amazon.com/Stitches-A-Memoir-David-Small/dp/0393338967

This is a graphic novel, by a talented illustrator, about his childhood, which was not a happy one. He was never able to reconcile with his difficult parent in their lifetime, but I nonetheless found there was something redemptive in the book.

It was also a huge lesson for me (a very wordy sort of person), in the power of the pictorial. There are some pages in the book which express an emotional state that you just could never really reach with words.

*I don't have any connection with the author or publishing house btw*
 

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Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
Alison Bechtel (yes, that Alison Bechtel) did two graphic novels about her dad and mom. The one about her mother had huge resonance with me. ("Are You my Mother?")

There us one scene in which Bechtel recounts trying to discuss some literary accomplishment of hers with her mom over the phone, and Mom just keeps tacking dismissive little asides on to what she is saying and redirecting the conversation back to herself, until Bechtel is finally just sitting there with tears streaming down her face. She made some excuse to hang up and had a long cry. She said it was that it finally dawned in her that her mom wasn't capable of a reciprocal relationship with her.
 

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Posted by Taliesin (# 14017) on :
 
Did you ever read the drama of being a child? Alice Miller. Very good. Very clear.
 

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Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
Holy cow, a big part of Bechtel's book is about how that book changed her life!
Yes, a long time ago, want to read it again.
 

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Posted by Mertseger (# 4534) on :
 
("Bechdel", dear cunicular axe-wielder.)
 

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Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
I thought that was right! Spell check checked me!

And how the hell are you?!
 

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Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :
 
It's Mertseger! Good to see you again. SoF is like the Hotel California.

"You can check out any time you like
But you can never leave".

Hope you keep checked in!
 

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Posted by Mertseger (# 4534) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
And how the hell are you?!

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I have a new job over in San Rafael with access to the forums at work. I'll be lurking a bit more at the very least.
 

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Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on :
 
Mertseger! Great to see you!
 

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Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
Gahh! Topic! Merts, go to the "returning prodigal assclown" thread in AS before you get eaten!


Anybody out there got more "Sh&t my mom/ dad says" stories? Seriously, I got a million of them, but I don't want to dominate the thread.

[ 09. February 2014, 18:49: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
 

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Posted by anoesis (# 14189) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
Anybody out there got more "Sh&t my mom/ dad says" stories? Seriously, I got a million of them, but I don't want to dominate the thread.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by anoesis:
Anyway, my mother, despite not having any children engaged with the curriculum, ordered a copy of the materials so that she could make a submission on them when they went before a select committee. (I was about 12 or 13 at the time). So, anyway, she ordered these documents, they duly arrived, she left them sitting around in the lounge while she was working on them (despite their apparent danger to children), and on one occasion, I clearly remember her being so incensed by something she read that she shoved it in front of my face and said 'Look at this! Just look at this! Can you believe they are planning to brainwash children like this?'..

I cannot think of this episode without sort of giggling, but I do wonder what other cultural insights I missed out on by being kept away from 'brainwashing'.

---

Not much, I guess, if she's gonna go around showing stuff to her child and asking, "can you believe anyone would show this to a child?!?"

Sorry, this belongs in the family quotes thread on the heaven board. Or perhaps it can be our first-ever (is it?) dual-entry for both boards!
 

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Posted by Arabella Purity Winterbottom (# 3434) on :
 
I don't know if any of you know the site Daily Afflictions but I came across one of my favourites when I was having a tidy over the weekend and thought of this thread.

quote:

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It is important, if you grew up in a dysfunctional family, to take time to reflect on the competitive edge it has given you. People from happy, harmonious homes may feel healthy and well-adjusted, but they're fixed on one family model which they try to emulate for the rest of their lives. If you grew up in a dysfunctional family however, you may be deeply damaged, but you've acquired a broad repertoire of negative models to outgrow...

---

The actual Daily Affliction is "My parents taught me everything I need to unlearn."
 

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Posted by Landlubber (# 11055) on :
 
I have been bringing my piece of kindling to this hell fire - slowly, underneath my coat and umbrella, near my heart, so that it would stay dry and burn well when we got here. As we got nearer, I saw a number of charred fragments of posts float past and stopped to grab one or two. I won't now read them aloud to my aged parent, but I will keep them for a talisman during difficult visits. Catching hold of those, I dropped my kindling in a puddle. I picked it up and threw it on anyway. Maybe it will dry out enough to burn.

Cue background of parent screaming "I didn't particularly want children but once I had you I had to make the best of it." Making the best of it how - and for whose benefit - exactly?

The bad fairy wishes "you might grow up to be successful, but you'll never be happy"? Complaints starting "after all I've done for you ..."? Calls for help worded "you'll have to ..." followed by "that's no good" afterwards? Announcing, at my Christmas dinner table, "I don't want to see your children if I can't see X's"? During a birthday visit giving other children cakes and drinks but leaving mine hungry and thirsty? Telling my eldest child, a much longed for daughter, that my husband and I wanted a boy? When, once old, being visited or taken out once or twice a week, while telling the world that she has not seen anyone for over a month?

But there was always hot food on the table when I was a child and we always had warm clothes. So now we visit, make sure there is always heat and food and company. And my beloved children got taken for treat food on the way home from That Birthday and know who is out of step here. And last visit, she said thank you for coming.
 

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Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
You are being so gracious and wise and measured that I am just going to say it for you-- what an evil, vile, contemptible bitch troll from hell.
 

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Posted by Landlubber (# 11055) on :
 
If I don't curl up in shame at complaining in public, I'll have to learn the language.
 

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Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
Sorry, that was visceral. Especially what she said to your kids.
 

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Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :
 
On Sunday, we painfully have my father for supper, ever since I rescued him from Mexico where he and my dead mother* moved the month their first grandchild, my daughter, was born, now more than a quarter century ago. My children are grown adults, and they have never known them. So now he talks about the boring conversations at supper with the other residents of the assisted living I pay for: "they keep talking about their children and their grandchildren". My wife, bless her heart, simply said firmly and gently, "well you could talk about your's", looking him right in the eye, and he was lost for words, not exactly sputtering, but deliciously and never seen of him before. For about 2 minutes. But it was a Good two minutes. Probably it is evil for me to enjoy it, but I did I did I did. It is one of those odd things that you must either enjoy or get to crying about.

(*I can't actually tell you how many years ago my mother died, I think it's 5, could be 4 or 6, well it was in July.)

(**ashes don't 'scatter', they sort of plop in a lump)
 

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Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :
 
It seems strange that we took my father's controlling behaviour as a parent for granted when we were growing up. Two incidents that made things clearer to me happened when I was an adult.

In one my eldest brother and I were visiting a friend of mine when her husband came home. Brother (who didn't know my friends)leapt up off the chair he was sitting on in case it was the host's chair and he might be angry to find someone else there. He only sat down when they both reassured him it was OK.

In the second my youngest brother was having fun with his son J. J said something in fun and we all laughed. Middle brother said, "I wouldn't have dared say anything like that to dad".

Sometimes it takes watching other people and their interactions to work out how destructive a relationship is/was.

There are some things I wish I had said to my parents before they died and there are others I couldn't even let myself realise while they were still alive.
 

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Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Huia:

In the second my youngest brother was having fun with his son J. J said something in fun and we all laughed. Middle brother said, "I wouldn't have dared say anything like that to dad".

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by L'organist:
I don't think young people today do expect their parents to be 'mates' - I think there are a lot of middle-aged people out there desperate to hang onto their yoof who like to think they are their child's 'best friend'.

Having older parents, my children are deeply cynical about this type of parent and have profound sympathy for their friends who have kidults for parents.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Taliesin:
My own childhood experience was hard because it was out of step with my culture and time...

...it was a pretty hostile environment. And no one understood, for example, why I had to be home hours before anyone else, or not let friends eat anything in my house unless they were sitting down to a meal they had been invited to, or why I never had any money. Or new clothes, ever, apart from school uniform. well, hardly ever. Occasional random things like a pair of red polyester pedal pushers, remember those? But I didn't have a new pair of jeans no one else had ever worn until after I left home. Endlessly being laughed at because I was a decade out of step with fashion. Being the only girl at school without pierced ears, and later, without a perm. And not really knowing what was wrong.

And the worst bit was not knowing what was ok for my own children. I read endless books and kept trying to learn, but I still struggled to let them spend money, or know how often to buy clothes, and what kind, and how much choice.

---

I identify very strongly with this. And I am struggling to know what to do with my own children. I know that I feel we were brought up in an unnecessarily austere way, but I don't know where the middle ground between that, and reacting against that, is. As a result I suspect I overthink stuff a bit too much. My sister spends a lot* of money on buying her kids toys and equipment, and meals at Burger King, etc., and it has become clear to me over the last couple of years that my mother disapproves of this. She demonstrates it by buying my sister's children birthday and Christmas presents that are more in the nature of a gesture than anything else - I suspect on the basis that they have more than they 'need' already. I have also had my sister on the phone saying to me, 'I can't understand why she doesn't buy the kids an icecream or something when she takes them down to the beach - I mean, not every time, but sometimes, surely? Don't grandparents like to treat their grandkids?' And I cringed inwardly and mumbled something incoherent, because she does buy my kids icecreams. I can only assume because they are judged to be not in danger of being 'spoilt'.

I don't spend all my money when I get it because I'm not a risk-taker - I have no taste for living on the edge. But I do. not. understand. austerity for its own sake.

*It occurs to me that I am making a judgement here, almost certainly based on my background conditioning. What I suppose I mean is that she spends a considerably greater proportion of the weekly income on this than I do.
 

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Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :
 
Taliesin - slapped with hand or a rolled up newspaper by my mother, could have used flip-flops. One of the times she lost her temper with me I was kicked. She was wearing wooden clogs with metal studs around the front. That was brought upon me by my little sister blaming me for something she (little sister) had done.

Weapon of choice for my father was a riding crop (usually known as a whip), but if that wasn't to hand, yes, a belt, or slippers or shoes.
 

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Posted by The Phantom Flan Flinger (# 8891) on :
 
Curiosity - a very un hellish That's abuse, whatever the generational or other attitude.
 

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Posted by Taliesin (# 14017) on :
 
yes. I hope you've found good support and therapy over the years, Curiosity. There are some very good survivors groups out there. And sometimes, it can help so much to have it all acknowledged. That it wasn't normal, not ok, not a reasonable response to you or your behaviour. Not your fault.

I know you probably know, and did all this work years ago. You still deserve to hear it though.
 

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Posted by Leaf (# 14169) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Chorister:
It's worth remembering, though, that the standards of a generation ago were rather different. <blah blah condescending bullshit snipped> While I would have liked it to be different, it wasn't - so you have to accept the context of the times. Back then, the attitude of 'What I say goes', corporal punishment, etc. was still normal. Now it would probably be considered abusive. But you can't go back in time, even if many times we might like to.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Chorister:

quote:

---

Originally posted by L'organist:
I don't think young people today do expect their parents to be 'mates' - I think there are a lot of middle-aged people out there desperate to hang onto their yoof who like to think they are their child's 'best friend'.

Having older parents, my children are deeply cynical about this type of parent and have profound sympathy for their friends who have kidults for parents.

---

Yes, now you mention it, that does ring more true. Weren't those young in the '70s the ones who seriously believed they'd never grow old?!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Taliesin:
yes. I hope you've found good support and therapy over the years, Curiosity. There are some very good survivors groups out there. And sometimes, it can help so much to have it all acknowledged. That it wasn't normal, not ok, not a reasonable response to you or your behaviour. Not your fault.

I know you probably know, and did all this work years ago. You still deserve to hear it though.

---

This. Well said, Taliesin.


 

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Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :
 
Of course there is a world of difference between highlighting stricter parenting styles and accepting outright abuse. (Just in case anyone should misunderstand what I said upthread....)

And as for the person who said they never had new clothes, pierced ears or a perm, neither did many people. I was expected to earn my own money to provide for non-essentials (and even quite a few of the essentials, too). But again, wasn't that more normal then? Particularly in more rural areas, where people didn't think it necessary to furnish their offspring with every latest fashion item.

The middle line between 'having a whinge' and 'suffering abuse' might be blurred, but the extremes are pretty obvious.
 

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Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :
 
But Chorister - much of what was happening to us was just seen as stricter parenting styles. We didn't speak out as children because enough people heard what was happening and didn't speak out for us. And you learn silence. When you say something about home life, innocently, in passing, and see disbelief cross adult faces, you shut up.

And we were also dealing with much of the other stuff too - the home-made clothes, haircuts ...

I have a good spidey sense for abused kids now, because I recognise the signs. And this thread has reminded me that I need to be a bit more proactive for a child I have concerns about.
 

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Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :
 
OK, so I choose to call my experiences 'stricter parenting styles' and you don't. We all have to come to terms with our past in the way that makes most sense.

I'm trying to get at whether there is a definite dividing line between people who were genuinely abused (within their cultural context) and those who were just being petulant at not having a privileged life at a certain age. And, if so, where that divide lies.

I wonder if the difference is whether or not parents thought they were doing it for the best? Misguided behaviour, but arising out of good intent / ignorance / inadequacy, being much more healthy than that arising out of bad/evil intent.
 

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Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :
 
Sorry, I obviously haven't made myself clear.

I would not describe my childhood as stricter parenting. My youngest sister still has the scars of the whippings she took as a child. That's not stricter parenting, that is abuse. Beatings like that happening regularly means you grow up in an atmosphere of fear and reminder that it's always on offer for you.

But you grow up in what is normality to you. And it takes a long time to work out that what is normal to you is not necessarily normal to everyone else.

So someone saying things like

quote:

---

Of course there is a world of difference between highlighting stricter parenting styles and accepting outright abuse. (Just in case anyone should misunderstand what I said upthread....)

<snip>

The middle line between 'having a whinge' and 'suffering abuse' might be blurred, but the extremes are pretty obvious.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Chorister:
OK, so I choose to call my experiences 'stricter parenting styles' and you don't. We all have to come to terms with our past in the way that makes most sense.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Chorister:
I'm trying to get at whether there is a definite dividing line between people who were genuinely abused (within their cultural context) and those who were just being petulant at not having a privileged life at a certain age. And, if so, where that divide lies.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Chorister:
I wonder if the difference is whether or not parents thought they were doing it for the best? Misguided behaviour, but arising out of good intent / ignorance / inadequacy, being much more healthy than that arising out of bad/evil intent.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by anoesis:
I was prevented from wearing jeans or sneakers, or ornamenting myself, dressed like a grandma in mostly secondhand clothes (often cut down from my Mum's clothes), and of course this made me an object of derision. I did once or twice try to talk to my mother about it, but I suspect the experience was meant to be character building, and anyway, there was a principle at stake: we may be in the world, but we are not of the world. This sort of thing has nothing to do with privilege - the experience of being a social outcast for much of my childhood and adolescence continues to colour my life to this day. I submit that for me to be resentful about this is not petulance.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by no prophet:
Things have changed. Those of born in the middle of the 20th century, say those over 50, the experience of parenting was rather different, at least in my Canadian experience.

Spanked, usually by father with a belt once or twice a week. Strapped on the hands at school for minor infraction, using a leather strap about 18" long. For major infractions, a wooden board on the buttocks while holding your knees. We used to count the number of strokes. I was usually on the low end with about 110 per year.

If you got it at school most of us got it again at home.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by The Phantom Flan Flinger:
Kelly - maybe your Mum wishes there were more fun times to recall, and that's her way of expressing it? Doesn't excuse her, but still.....

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Taliesin:

On the 12 years a slave thread, Kelly strongly disagreed with me, but more importantly said my priorities were wrong. I could hear a powerful female making a definitive judgement about me, and my actual physical reaction was fear. In response I can a) leave the ship. b) become an outcast on the ship c) find a way of convincing her I have really, genuinely, properly changed my faulty attitude. But it won't work, because it's too late, not good enough and I have irrevocably failed in some way.

Now, Kelly's not a bit like my mother! Has never reminded me of her before or since. It's nothing to do with Kelly, but the unconscious buttons we all have, and play out all the time in work and home and social life.

Thankfully, Kelly didn't ignore me and explained that this is, in fact,a discussion board.

---

Can I say that I have been on the other end of that particular reaction enough to recognize what was going on? My reaction was, "Why the hell does she give a shit about my self-important pseudo- cineaste opinio- oh."

Since I am the youngest in my family, I am used to people not giving a hot damn about my opinion, or dismissing it automatically. Therefore I have grown really bold in expressing it, because I figure people will just talk around me anyway. The situation with you taught me a lesson-- I have a responsibility for my words, and my decision to believe "nobody listens to me anyway" can be self-indulgent and self-serving. And I can hurt people that way.I appreciated the "schooling."

[ 15. February 2014, 06:51: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
 

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Posted by Taliesin (# 14017) on :
 
Yes! I recognise that. And my 'I am very angry' post to chorister is grounded in my learning to state my case or feelings firmly, and not wobble if people say, so fucking what?

I used to try to hint and suggest and vaguely imply, and wonder why I was never heard.

As an adult,I mean. My mother says 'you're very loud, since you became a teacher.' And, 'where has my sweet, quiet baby gone'

Cute vomit smilie. She also says, 'oh, I suppose I've hurt your feelings now, "oh, oh oh, you hurt my feelings, you don't listen to me!" ' in reference to one occasion, nearly 10 years ago, when I tried to explain the impact she had.

And the last time she said that was after she'd stayed for two weeks, being looked after. it obviously comes from a place of vulnerability.

She thinks I have all the power now, and will hurt her very badly, given the chance. I wouldn't though.
 

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Posted by Taliesin (# 14017) on :
 
Cue! Cue vomit smilie. I can't actually use it, but it would have been appropriate.
 

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Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :
 
Something which has kept coming back to me since my last post happened when I was 16ish. I was a questioning 16 year old, and my Girl Guide Commonwealth badge had sparked an interest in other religions - a purely academic interest, but I was reading whatever I could find.

Out of the blue, Mum told me that she'd spoken to our church elder, and had agreed a date on which I was to join the church. In the Church of Scotland, that involved standing up and making a profession of faith in front of the whole congregation.

I was aghast, as I felt nowhere near ready to make what was, for me, a hugely significant step. So I said no, I wouldn't. Dad backed me up and said Mum should have spoken to me before arranging it with our elder. Mum wasn't happy, as she said it would be embarrassing for her to go back to the minister and say I'd refused. And she said I was being ridiculous, because, she said "No-one asked me if I believed before I made my profession of faith!"

I think that was true - no-one was interested in her views on the matter when she joined the church. She was expected to, and she did. With the result that it didn't occur to her that I might have an opinion.

I wonder how many opinions and views of her own Mum was allowed when she was growing up? I wonder how baffling and alienating it is for her that she has an opinionated daughter?

[ 15. February 2014, 09:58: Message edited by: North East Quine ]
 

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Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
Brilliant example, NEQ. It reminds me of my mother, who used to try to prove logically that there were certain foods that you couldn't dislike. She did it with me, and with my son also. She also used to lie about what we were being served with.

I know it's trivial compared with a profession of faith, but it's always stuck in my mind as an example of over-weening authority - you don't actually dislike this, because I have decreed it!
 

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Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :
 
Taleisin: now that is real. Genuine. Now I do believe this thread is working.

In answer to your question, I had two younger siblings. One died.

I don't really feel the need to say any more at the moment. But will bear your offer in mind should the thread lead towards a more relevant contribution I could make.
 

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Posted by Taliesin (# 14017) on :
 
Ok chorister, thanks.
Sorry to hear about your sibling.

I do sort of feel that everything I've said so far is real, and genuine, but I guess you might mean it resonates for you now.

I'm glad.


 

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Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :
 
I guess I mean the thread makes sense to me now.
It feels good to resort to fisticuffs to clear the air on occasion. Pow, pow.
 

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Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on :
 
We were all scared.
 

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Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :
 
Grrrrr.....
 

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Posted by Nicolemr (# 28) on :
 
I had a dream about my mother last night. Not a good dream. I guess I still have unresolved issues.
 

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Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
I think this thread is working on us. I had a dream a couple nights ago that Mom was being such a bitch that my long dead drunken abusive father showed up and offered to help me escape.
 

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Posted by Nicolemr (# 28) on :
 
It could be...
 

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Posted by deano (# 12063) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by North East Quine:
I wonder how many opinions and views of her own Mum was allowed when she was growing up? I wonder how baffling and alienating it is for her that she has an opinionated daughter?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by deano:
He tells me “I don’t believe in God, your are forcing me to do something I don’t believe in. It’s unfair”. But he isn’t going to use the time reading, or doing homework or tidying his room… oh no, he’s going to play Minecraft with his mates!

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