This all-encompassing rant was brought on by this rant [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=104691"]here.](http://http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=104691)
What is wrong with you people? Post after post berating this woman for having “issues”? A typical reply went “You’re FORTY! You have ISSUES! You should GET and live your OWN LIFE!” blah blah blah ad nauseum.
I hate to break the news to some of my ignorant fellow Dopers, but there are more things under the sun than you have ever seen or dreamed of. This woman does not have “issues,” nor is she “codependent” just because she cares what her mother thinks. Is her mother not in touch with the younger generation? HELL yes, just like every other 70±year-old person out there! When YOU are that old, you’ll be hopeless too! And I’ll bet you’ll want YOUR kids to stick around, as well!
There was a time in this country where people like kiz were the norm, not people with “issues.” The freedom we now have to ditch our families and move across the country is not only a mostly North American phenomenon, it hardly existed 50 years ago.
So, instead of subtly implying someone is pathetic, maybe some of us should reflect on the fact that wisdom lays in realizing how much we don’t know about the world. Someone else’s lifestyle may make no sense to us, but it’s a safe bet they don’t need our condescension, whomever they are.
NOTE: this rant is not meant to apply to everyone who responded to the other thread, only certain individuals who seemed to show a serious lack of decorum when discussing kiz’s admitted personal shortcomings.
The woman was asking for advice, some of us gave it. You, on the other hand offered no advice, but only criticism. My opinion is still that her difficulties are obvious to an outsider in that she has incompatible goals.
You are like the irritating relative on moving day who sits down in a chair and talks to interrupts those trying to get work done by mindlessly telling folks not to hit the walls/furniture with each other. We already know what you are telling us, but none of it is helpful in getting the woman to the point of deciding what she wants and getting it.
Your attitude that she should let her incredibly selfish mother continue to boss her around and not have a life for the next 20 years is rather self congratulatory. Them eggs have a shelf life, and she needs to act on that if she wants to use em.
O.K, since I was the first person to use the word “issues” that you’ve taken offence to, I’ll bite.
I personally think it’s wonderful that Kiz enjoys living with her mother. There aren’t many parent-child bonds like that, and I think it shows maturity and tolerance to be able to have that sort of relationship with your mother. If the only thing of interest here was that she was living with her mother, it wouldn’t have received so many concerned replies.
That’s not what I, and I think almost everyone else in that thread, was saying. Take another look at that thread. It’s good that she cares what her mother thinks. It’s not good if her mother’s thought are more important than her own. When Kiz was saying things like the following :
warning bells ring. Her mother scares off SO’s. Her mother determines whether or not her 40 year old daughter should be in a sexually active relationship or not. Her mother flat out refuses to let her get married. She feels stuck in the middle, not knowing what to think. Most people do move out of home and start their own family, when she discusses the possibility of doing so, her mother goes apeshit. Her mother’s reactions are jiggling her foundations. She’s never been able to (I assume she means tell her mother NO).
This is where the problem is. If she stated that she’s happy living at home, I wouldn’t judge her at all. When her mother is persuading her to not do things she wants to, or throws a tantrum at the mere suggestion of the possibility of moving into herown home there is a problem. Look again, we didn’t judge her for caring what her mother though.
I am truly sorry, Kiz if I came off as implying I thought you were pathetic. Let me state here and now, that I don’t think you are pathetic. I never did, either. I think, due to circumstances and having a great relationship with your mother that you ended up in a situation where your mother now expects that your life should revolve around her. I do not think there is anything wrong with living at home, and if I implied that, too, I’m sorry. What I do think is wrong is stopping yourself from doing what you want because of somebody else’s problems. If you want to start a new life with this SO, go for it. If you want to stay at home, do that. All I was trying to say was that it’s about what you want.
Oh, and Lizard, she asked for suggestions and insights. We gave them. If you don’t like what we said, either e-mail her a link to this thread, or go back to her thread and tell her your opinion ! What do you suggest ? What constructive advice do you have ? I suggested counselling. I wouldn’t have suggested counselling if I didn’t think it was warranted. If she was being hassled by somebody solely for living with her mother at 40, I would be one of the first to tell her to not give a hoot about other’s ! It’s about what she wants. Not about what anybody else thinks she should want, be that me, you, her SO or her mother. If she speaks with a counsellor, just maybe she’ll find out what she truly wants, and how to have the strength to get it. I couldn’t give a hoot what she decides as long as it’s what she wants and it makes her happy. Life is too short to not follow your dreams, and too much fun to have regrets.
BTW Lizard, I consider myself VERY experienced in life with a broad mind to boot. You don’t get to my age in this world without learning a few things along the way kiddo. (God, now I sound like an insufferable middle-aged bore.)
I’ll be the first to admit that sometimes I’m still a twit.
I must admit I’m quite puzzled by your rant, Lizard, especially in light of this post by kiz in the other thread.
If kiz thought the advice was useful, I’m not quite sure what your problem is.
It’s quite obvious, at least to me, that people in that thread were saying what kiz already knew. Nonetheless, appearently it’s exactly what she needed to hear.
In any event, what sort of response would you suggest? A Zen koan? A quotation from the Prophet? Enigmatic, new-age psychobabble? “Kiz, I feel your pain. A mother is like the ocean. We may step from her embrace onto the shore of life, yet our feet remain wet.”
offering advice as how to deal with her mother is one thing, (and there was some very good advice to that effect in the thread)
But some people thought that posting links to “cheap” housing is something different altogether.
She said that she cannot afford to to move out where she lives, and we should take her word for it, instead of insisting that a solution to all her problems would be to move out.
Good lord what pants pissing weak-kneed namby pamby ranting.
(a) Her situation ispathetic. Not that she lives with her mum, the conditions of living with her mum, including the clearly described inability to live a normal adult life per her apparent desire to (i.e. to fuck when she wants to with who she wants to, etc.). It is pathetic. Stop bending fucking over backward to be inoffensive and empty-mindedly ‘open-minded.’
(b) Housing, no Twisty, we needn’t take her fucking word for it. Nor should one take someone’s word for something that’s clearly false. She made statements in re the affordability of the area (Boston) which were ** clearly ** non-factual (read false) excuse making. There is cheaper housing available including but not limited to shares. Further, as I noted, when I was a yung’un I managed to live on next to nothing in New York City, by myself. While she may have a meager income, to say it is ** impossible** to move out and find an apartment (period) with less than a 6 figure income is fucking false. Gobear provided links to illustrate just that point. Now, it may be that she can’t afford to move out and live ** in a place just as nice as her mum’s** house. That may be true. Well, then say so. Say I don’t want to leave the comfort and style of my mum’s house and be honest with oneself. Insofar as it seems to me that a big first step for her is a good deal more personal honesty to figure out what she really wants / needs etc., a bit of reality check on her excuse making in re housing costs is a good thing.
Perhaps she will take the occasion to come to a more honest evaluation of what’s keeping her with her mum. She could decide to simply live with her, that that’s what she really wants, relationships be damned. Fine. Or perhaps she’ll realize what level of unhealthy dependency she has on the old bag and move in with her SO. Or get mum counseling so all three can live together.
God damned namby pamby accepting gets one fucking nowhere, a hard dose of reality is what gets one forward.
There is a housing shortage here. She qualified the six-figure statement afterwards and gave a more accurate assessment of the rent situation, and then came the list of affordable places to live. Nobody claimed finding one was impossible, but I totally agree with her about the difficulties involved. If an apartment stays vacant long enough to be listed, with the thousands of possible tenants out there, there’s something wrong with it or the landlords are being ahem very picky about who’s gonna live there. Gobear’s list didn’t address that. Good material for a debate, not so good for diagnosing a person’s mental health.
Besides, she’s not a young 'un, and since Mom is in her seventies, she may just want to stick close by. Why is trading her Mom in for a few roommates considered a step up? Whatever works for you, kiz. But stand up to your mother.
Which half do I belong in, the smallminded one or the other, unspecified, one ?
How did you derive your conclusions ?
I want to see your methodology, I want to know on what criteria I was judged upon, I want you to publish your study and I want that study to be peer reviewed.
Or could this be just a broad pigeonholing of a swathe of people based upon nothing more than you having a differant opinion to a tiny, almost vanishingly small, percentage of them.
Address those with whom you have a differance of opinion, not everyone on the SD boards, otherwise you risk including yourself in the group you describe in your thread title.
Horsefeathers! Kiz used the excuse that the exorbitant rents in the Boston area made it impossible for her to move out on her own. I showed that was not so.
I live in the Washington, D.C., area .one of the tightest and most expensive housing markets in the country. I found an apartment within walking distance of the Metro and major shopping centers for $595. No, it didn’t have a dishwasher or vanity sinks in the bathroom, but it was clean, safe, and within my budget. I find it difficult to believe that Boston is any different. The issue is not the expense of rent, but the inability of Kiz to achieve a mature, independent relationship with her mother.
I may be a twit and a small-minded one at that, but I’m damned if I’m inexperienced.
Collounsbury, I’m surprised. You’re such an intelligent and well-informed poster; I don’t get the ire in your post.
I would not go so far as to bandy about the insults that Lizard was making, but as I indicated in that thread, I took umbrage at people who seemed to imply that there was something inherently whacko about living with one’s parent(s).
I also think that posting links to specific apartment ads isn’t necessarily proof positive that getting a cheap roof over one’s head is easy. I used to work in leasing (albeit not in Boston) and had to shop the competition. Unusually cheap apartments were usually that cheap for a reason, a reason that wasn’t divulged in the classified ad. Horrible neighborhood, poor upkeep, weird layout, etc.
I have no doubt that ambivalence about leaving could cause inertia, and could cause someone to convince themselves that it’s impossible to move when in truth it’s merely difficult (not impossible). It’s a mistaken conclusion, granted, but it seems a little unkind to growl about it being “fucking false.” I too find it impossible to believe that one must make at least $100,000 to live in Boston, in no small part because I know numerous people living there on far less. I think we’d be more helpful by being encouraging than by lambasting someone. Family situations like this are damned difficult. That inpires my compassion.
