# Battles your parents won't give up on. **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 22, 2010, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battles-your-parents-wont-give-up-on/529945 "2010-02-22T04:17:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2010, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battles-your-parents-wont-give-up-on/529945/81 "2010-02-25T19:13:48Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > Somehow, although Mom and I can discuss literature, finance, politics, wine, and many other adult interests, when it comes to physical activities, I’m still the toddler she had to keep on a leash lest he wander out into traffic. My son (who is eleven) skateboards and snowboards. Both tolerably well, but he isn’t doing half pipes or anything - yet. He was watching youtube videos of Shawn White and Tony Hawk et. al. And I looked over his shoulder and said “your mother does not even want to know.” He’s eleven and he is still my toddler when it comes to skateboard jumps. And he will be my baby when he is twenty one and skateboarding. ---
**Author:** ![missred](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/missred/32/14096_2.png) [@missred](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/missred)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2010, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battles-your-parents-wont-give-up-on/529945/82 "2010-02-25T19:35:09Z")
> [@overlyverbose](#): > > My mom also seems determined to wring some sort of commiseration out of me by telling me who died if there’s a remote possibility she, my sister or I might know them. “ **overly** , did you hear?” > > “\” Do we have the same mom? 😛 I’ve lived 400 miles away from where I grew up for many years, yet she (and to a lesser extent, Dad) has to tell me about every neighbor, church member and anyone else locally that has passed. ---
**Author:** ![tr0psn4j](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/958977/32.png) [@tr0psn4j](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tr0psn4j)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2010, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battles-your-parents-wont-give-up-on/529945/83 "2010-02-25T19:43:14Z")
I will be shot and killed if I end up sleeping in my car somewhere. ☹ Oh and drinking is bad and I never drink. We actually had that conversation a week ago. She was throwing away some cups, including the one I drink beer in. I told her to save the cup because I don’t like the plastic ones for drinking beer. I think she almost had a heart attack. She went on to tell my aunt and everyone else that was in the house at that moment about me drinking. Guess she forgot all those times I told her I was going to a bar. Or all the beers I’ve bought. Or the alcohol we’ve drank at the dinner table… ---
**Author:** ![Spavined\_Gelding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/958977/32.png) [@Spavined\_Gelding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spavined_Gelding)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2010, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battles-your-parents-wont-give-up-on/529945/84 "2010-02-25T20:17:23Z")
There is no end to it, friends. The old folks will pick their horse early and ride it into the grave. It is just the nature of life. Be grateful that you don’t have to deal with the parents every day. For example, my mother-in-law is a 90 year old plus widow. My wife, her oldest daughter, had and has a successful career, has retired once, and gone back to work, our children are grown and gone and have children of their own and they have successful careers. Every time my wife and her mother talk (several times a week) the conversation, includes at least one sortie by the old lady into her perpetual grievance – that her daughters chose to work outside the home rather than stay home and do housework and church work like she did. To my knowledge the old lady has been chewing on this bone for 46 years. She is not likely to quit as long as she has breath in her body. After thirty years or so you just let it go. She means well and it does us no injury. Just let it go. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2010, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battles-your-parents-wont-give-up-on/529945/85 "2010-02-25T20:28:46Z")
> [@Spavined\_Gelding](#): > > . > > After thirty years or so you just **let it go**. She means well and it does us no injury. Just **let it go**. So, apparently, you will be going to YOUR grave harping on everyone else to “let it go” 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![melodyharmonius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/melodyharmonius/32/21310_2.png) [@melodyharmonius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/melodyharmonius)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2010, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battles-your-parents-wont-give-up-on/529945/86 "2010-02-25T20:51:25Z")
funny story. I let it go once. once. ---
**Author:** ![notfrommensa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f14d63/32.png) [@notfrommensa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notfrommensa)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2010, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battles-your-parents-wont-give-up-on/529945/87 "2010-02-25T21:40:35Z")
When I was kid, when Dad was closing the trunk of the car, he used to say watch your fingers. I could be 30 yds away from the car,and he still would yell “watch your fingers” just before he closed the trunk. Well I don’t see Dad very often anymore, but I did visit him 3 yrs ago. He was getting a bag out of the trunk of his car and and yet again, “watch your fingers.” I was 46 yrs old. I have Male Pattern Baldness and started to lose my hair about age 19. Mom hated for me to wear a hat because she thought it would accelerate the MPB. ---
**Author:** ![tr0psn4j](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/958977/32.png) [@tr0psn4j](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tr0psn4j)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2010, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battles-your-parents-wont-give-up-on/529945/88 "2010-02-25T21:41:59Z")
> [@melodyharmonius](#): > > funny story. > > I let it go once. > > once. My father hung me on a hook once. Once. ---
**Author:** ![Spavined\_Gelding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/958977/32.png) [@Spavined\_Gelding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spavined_Gelding)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2010, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battles-your-parents-wont-give-up-on/529945/89 "2010-02-25T22:36:20Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > So, apparently, you will be going to YOUR grave harping on everyone else to “let it go” 🙂 [Full geezer mode] You better believe it, sonny. Sooner or later you learn to pick your battles. In the meantime I intend to keep on pontificating until they drag me out of here feet first and on a shutter. That is one of the privileges of the elderly. You young folks, just feel free to ignore me.[End full geezer] ---
**Author:** ![Incubus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c68b51/32.png) [@Incubus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Incubus)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2010, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battles-your-parents-wont-give-up-on/529945/90 "2010-02-26T00:50:27Z")
I am a bus driver. My job is paid hourly, which is great because if you want to make a lot of extra money, there is always plenty of overtime available (similarly, if you enjoy your free time its totally feasible to work a straight 40-hour workweek). For the time being, I enjoy this flexibility, I can work more and make more money, or scale back my hours and relax. My mom always asks, “So when are you going to apply to be a Supervisor there?” The supervisor position is salaried, and if you compare the hours they work and the hours WE work, if I worked those kinds of hours in my position I’d probably end up making more money since my current position pays overtime. They also have to deal with the worst of both worlds, dealing with surly passengers AND surly bus drivers; many of my coworkers have a huge vendetta against management on virtue of simply _being_ management. Its just simply not something I’m interested in taking on anytime soon. But try convincing my mom that. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2010, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battles-your-parents-wont-give-up-on/529945/91 "2010-02-26T01:04:12Z")
> [@missred](#): > > Do we have the same mom? 😛 > > I’ve lived 400 miles away from where I grew up for many years, yet she (and to a lesser extent, Dad) has to tell me about every neighbor, church member and anyone else locally that has passed. How about this one? “Oh, I ran into Sally Smith at the grocery store… you remember Sally, right?” “No, I don’t think so.” BIG MISTAKE. ALWAYS SAY YES, BECAUSE THEN YOU GET: “Oh, YOU remember Sally Smith. She wears the hats to church! You used to play in the band with her grand-neice - her daughter had that mastectomy - she lives in that big Tudor house…” And when she finally gets to whatever the fuck Sally Smith had to say in the grocery store, it doesn’t even matter whether you knew her or not because it’s totally irrelevant to the story. ---
**Author:** ![StrangeBird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e480ec/32.png) [@StrangeBird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StrangeBird)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2010, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battles-your-parents-wont-give-up-on/529945/92 "2010-02-26T06:17:43Z")
> [@Jack\_Batty](#): > > Oh, man. > > “Stop shoplifting. Stop shooting herion. Stop mudering prostitutes and burying them under your floorboards.” > > It’s like they’re a broken fucking record. To be fair, they have a point. There are much better places to bury a body. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2010, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battles-your-parents-wont-give-up-on/529945/93 "2010-02-26T14:37:18Z")
> [@StrangeBird](#): > > To be fair, they have a point. There are much better places to bury a body. Especially if you don’t want to be driven mad by the beating of their hideous hearts. ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2010, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battles-your-parents-wont-give-up-on/529945/94 "2010-02-26T15:57:31Z")
Well, to be fair, I don’t like MY kid driving after dark, either, because she just got her license 3 months ago and this is her first winter of driving. I don’t know whether I fear more for her, or my car. (At least she hasn’t hit the house yet when she comes roaring up the driveway into the garage.) My mother finds stuff for me to do two minutes before I want to leave - change the light bulb, put batteries in things, stop the toilet from making that noise, take a look at this Important Mail (sweepstakes “winner”, junk mail from banks). I don’t mind doing stuff for her, but I wish she didn’t wait until it was time for me to leave, when I HAVE to get out of there before I go nuts, when we’ve just sat around all afternoon reading gossip magazines. And then I have to wait some more while she casts around for stuff for me to take home - half a bag of chips, an almost empty can of peanuts, a bag of rotting lettuce and an onion, a 10 pound bag of potatoes, some mystery food in a margarine container, some disgusting looking piece of cake some neighbor made, and a random stack of old lady clothing that doesn’t fit her any more. Oh, and magazines, junky “gifts” from charities, a plant, a can of hair spray, cans of catfood her cat doesn’t like any more…a virtual grab-bag. I’ve learned, long ago, it’s easier to plan your escape a half hour before you mean to, to just take all the stuff and put it in the car and deal with it later, to not argue or say “I don’t need a 12 pack of cheap week old Danish from Walmart, mom, really.” Just take it, thanks a lot, mom , and go home and deal with it later. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2010, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battles-your-parents-wont-give-up-on/529945/95 "2010-02-26T16:30:32Z")
My mother is utterly and completely convinced that I am perfectly suited to one of two jobs- community college teacher or travel photographer. She mentions this every time I see her. It’s just kind of baffling- why these two things and only these two things? ---
**Author:** ![lindsaybluth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/90db22/32.png) [@lindsaybluth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lindsaybluth)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2010, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battles-your-parents-wont-give-up-on/529945/96 "2010-02-26T17:13:52Z")
> [@wolf-alice](#): > > “In a bin liner? On fire? _Focus on the shirt, Mother!_”. Good god, this killed me. ---
**Author:** ![lindsaybluth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/90db22/32.png) [@lindsaybluth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lindsaybluth)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2010, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battles-your-parents-wont-give-up-on/529945/97 "2010-02-26T17:24:17Z")
> [@pbbth](#): > > My mom is also afraid that I have died in every major catastrophe within an 800 mile radius. Plane lands in the Hudson river? I am getting phone calls to make sure I’m safe. It doesn’t matter that I wasn’t on a plane or in the Hudson at the time, I still need to call and tell her I’m alive. A power plant explodes 4 hours away in bumblefuck, CT? I need to call her and let her know that I was not in another city and state at the exact moment that the explosion ocurred. A blizzard in Vermont? I need to call her and tell her I have plenty of bread and milk on hand. Sweet jesus, this too. It’s hilarious to me, but it must wear very thin on you. My (future) mother in law is a nut about driving when it’s less than sunny and warm. Currently I’m going to physical therapy for my knee close to where she lives (25 minutes from me) and she’ll call if a snowflake hits the pavement anywhere in a 50 mile radius “Don’t come here. It’s not safe!!11!1!1!!” ETA, she also hates technology. She’s just 51. She calls computers “glorified typewriters”. Already I’m setting up her digital cable box and other assorted things for her. She’s a lovely lady, so I don’t mind, but really…when the newspaper stops putting out its paper edition, I think she’s going to lose it. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2010, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battles-your-parents-wont-give-up-on/529945/98 "2010-02-26T17:41:06Z")
I think my filing for bankruptcy finally drove home the point to my mother that I cannot be putting money into a savings account when I don’t have enough money to pay my bills. For the last couple of years every comment on my debt or inability to pay my bills has been met with some dumbass comment about how I should STILL be putting money into savings. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2010, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battles-your-parents-wont-give-up-on/529945/99 "2010-02-26T21:27:30Z")
> [@salinqmind](#): > > My mother finds stuff for me to do two minutes before I want to leave - change the light bulb, put batteries in things, stop the toilet from making that noise, take a look at this Important Mail (sweepstakes “winner”, junk mail from banks). I don’t mind doing stuff for her, but I wish she didn’t wait until it was time for me to leave, when I HAVE to get out of there before I go nuts, when we’ve just sat around all afternoon reading gossip magazines. She doesn’t want you to leave. My mother-in-law is a champion at that sort of thing, drives me nuts. ---
**Author:** ![BlinkingDuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eada6e/32.png) [@BlinkingDuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlinkingDuck)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2010, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battles-your-parents-wont-give-up-on/529945/100 "2010-02-26T21:38:28Z")
> [@tr0psn4j](#): > > My father hung me on a hook once. > > Once. This gun shoots through schools… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battles-your-parents-wont-give-up-on/529945.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battles-your-parents-wont-give-up-on/529945.md?page=6)