October 27, 2009
Maternal advice
My mom told me to just throw out my life and go get a new one, yesterday.
I’ve just given up on expecting her to think before she speaks, really.
(1) Oh, so you think it’s encouraging to treat my life as something I could just toss aside? When I’ve only complained about one tiny little aspect of it?
(2) And you think I’ve done such a bad job of making a life (stable, gainful employment? check. Reasonably good health? check. Pleasant living environment in a good neighborhood for a reasonable sum? check. A hobby and some friends? check.) that I should just throw it all out and start over?
Look, lady. This is why I don’t come home more often. Because you and I both know what you’re talking about, and it’s none of your business. This is why I don’t come home more often, in case you were wondering.
Seeking John Galt 
Carla said,
October 27, 2009 at 10:57 am
Look at the bright side… As much as it hurt what your mother said, you were able to analyze your life and check the boxes that are important to you. And at the end of the day, it’s YOU being satisfied with YOUR life that really matters.
Would you prefer to be unhappy with your life, but have a mother that thinks is great? Both options lead to a clueless mother, and though the second option the mother is more supportive it won’t make your own satisfaction with your life any better.
Alias Faux said,
October 27, 2009 at 12:32 pm
In times like these, I find it helpful to remember that our parents are not who we imagine them to be when we are children. They are not all knowing, they are not all powerful, and though both they and we sometimes forget, they are not a source of wisdom or authority for us by virtue of our lineage (once we become adults).
Your mother has a lot of very good qualities. So do you. You have flaws and weakpoints. So does she. In this instance, your flaws and hers (the tendency to care too much what other people think, and the tendency to speak her mind when it’s neither asked for nor appropriate, respectively) don’t match up well.
It can be hard, but imagine your mother as a woman, nothing more, nothing less. She’s another person, who just happens to be a person who needs to learn to keep her mouth shut from time to time. We all know people like that, and we learn to take what they say with a grain of salt, and brush off their negativity at times.
She had authority over you for 18 years, so it’s hard to think of her that way, but you’re an adult now (and an Awesome one at that), and she has no more right to say how you should live your life, or to judge your life than I do. Or VVK does, or Voldemort does.
Yes, I meant Awesome, regarding our previous conversation about the word. You live Awesome.
Meghan said,
October 27, 2009 at 12:47 pm
My mother does the same thing and it drives me bonkers! It’s reached a point where when I see her number on Caller ID 4 of 5 times I send it straight to voicemail (and then delete the message without listening).
I’m soooo sorry for you.
restaurant refugee said,
October 27, 2009 at 3:22 pm
I could leave you one of the more horrific stories about my mother but this isn’t about who among us has the worse stories. Let me just say that I can relate all too well.
Dagny Taggart said,
October 27, 2009 at 10:56 pm
Carla: That is a good way to look at it. And at least she cares, right?
Alias Faux: I’m guessing you intentionally named the least judgmental commenter EVAR to further your point… And I know I’ll eventually brush off most of what she had to say, and add salt where needed. Right now, though, the wound is still smarting and I’m going to whine a bit as I apply peroxide.
And now that I’m finished thoroughly butchering metaphors…
Meghan: It’s especially frustrating when you *want* to have a good relationship with her, you *want* to have normal conversations, but aaaaarrrrrghhhhh! You have my sympathy.
restaurant refugee: If only it were true, that misery loves company. I’ll just raise my glass in your direction and say, “Cheers”.
vvk said,
October 28, 2009 at 12:28 am
One of my favorite quotes from the Dune series is:
There is probably no more terrible instant of enlightenment than the one in which you discover your father is a man–with human flesh.
(from Frank Herbert’s Dune)
I love that wording… “terrible instant of enlightenment…” the clash of the negative and positive at the same instant.
Like others have said, your mother is human, with human flaws and failings… and so are you.
My relationship with my parents was for many years extremely toxic for both of us. It finally improved with some professional intervention (aka family counceling). The councilor essentially told my parents to shut up and stay out of what was no longer their business, and told me to cut them some slack and not take what they sometimes say quite so personally. Now I (1) don’t take some of their comments quite so personally, and (2) feel free to interrupt them and tell them to stop talking and change the topic (aka shut up and butt out)… and they don’t take it personally when I do that. It’s a wonderful change.