Last week I got elected President of the Board of a corporation.
I was thrilled and suprised. I have done a lot of work for this company and done a really great job as a board member. But I haven’t been on the board for as long as most of the members and my share ownership in this company is really small compared to most of the other board members who own or control huge blocks of shares.
At the shareholder meeting last week I was mostly concerned with hanging on to my seat on the board since voting is per share and I was one of the few people running who couldn’t be guaranteed a seat just by voting my shares for myself.
I was very relieved to be re-elected and totally bowled over when the newly elected board members chose me as their leader. To me it was a triumph of talent and hard work over money and power.
So I call my Mom to share the good news.
Her comment…“Maybe they think you are stupid and easily manipulated”.
Way to go, SuperMom!!! Once again I realize why I am the only one of my siblings without crippling psychological problems.
Is it at all possible that she just doesn’t think much of your fellow board members and was trying to say they would be wrong about that? Either way it was just uncalled for. At the **very **least she needs a better filter.
By any chance did the former president of your corporation kill himself by running down a long conference table on the top floor of a high-rise skyscraper and jumping through the plate-glass window? Because that would certainly explain her comment.
Oh god, I could (and probably should) write a book. My mom has MS, which sucks for her and has totally wrecked both her short term memory and the part of her brain which tells you “this is some shit you really shouldn’t say out loud.” I don’t blame her and I try not to take it personally. But man, some of the things she says…
While I was living with Mr. Elysium before we got married, she proudly told me one that that “I don’t mind that you two are living in sin, because he’s such a nice guy!” Ok, thanks.
Also, when I was all dressed up and ready to go to my first homecoming dance in high school and really proud of how I looked, the first things she said when she saw me was “We’re going to have to do something about that stomach pudge, aren’t we!” Instantly my night was much less awesome.
Then there was the time I had a group of my friends (who never drank or did drugs) over for the night in high school, and she stopped one of them on the way to the bathroom and asked if we were smoking pot downstairs. Then she told my friend that she loved her and she was such a great girl. Mom then went back to bed, and I heard this second hand from that friend, who was totally weirded out.
That leads into the time in high school I was reading a book in bed late at night (1 AM or so) and my mom woke up confused, walked into my room, and demanded to know why I was smoking pot because “I smell cannibis!” I didn’t bring up the possibility that it might be all in her head.
Also sometimes she would ground me and then totally forget she did that. I feel bad that I took advantage of this, but hey I was 13!
I once wrote some heartfelt adolescent poetry that I shared with my dad because I wanted to let him know something about how I was feeling; I’m sure it was total dreck, but still, I was pretty deflated when he said with a laugh “Oh no, my son’s writing gobbledigook.”
A few weeks ago, my brother was on FB chat with one of his oldest friends, let’s call him Dan:
Brother: “Dude, I’ve got some really sad news. Me and [girlfriend he’s lived with for six years, who is also an old friend of Dan’s] have split up. I’m completely gutted.”
Dan: “Oh, sorry to hear that.”
Dan: “Hey I saw Rebecca the other day!”
Dan: “Yeah, she’s doing really well. :)”
Dan: “Anyway, gotta run!”
When I was a teenager, I got it into my head I wanted a short, short haircut. Showed a picture of it to my mom, who actually opened her big fat foul mouth and said, “you need to have a really pretty face to have a hairdo like that”. I felt like I’d been punched right in the gut. Why would anyone say that? There are other ways of discouraging a poor choice in haircuts, you don’t tell your daughter she needs a pretty face!
My mother told me I wasn’t qualified to be a stripper. (I was a 20yo 120-lb C-cup at the time; I’m pretty sure I coulda gotten a job somewhere.)
She also told me (well, screamed) that I was being “irresponsible” for using birth control. Then many years later, she tried to get me to get Mr. Horseshoe to get a vasectomy. In between those two events, she called 2 or 3 of my closest friends and tried to get them to get me to dump Mr. Horseshoe. (The “tried to get X to get Y to do Z” is a common pattern with her, where Z is something only she wants.)
She screamed at me (and my dad) when we got flu shots from our respective employers, ranting about how she wanted us to “never do something so stupid like that ever again!!1!”
When I went through a growth spurt and got a few stretch marks on my hips at around age… 13? 14? she looked at me once when I was in a bikini, clucked sadly to herself, and said, “We’re going to have to do something about those stretch marks, or no man will want to marry you.”
When I was a greasy teenager, she strongly discouraged me from washing my hair more often than once a week. I could take out my ponytail holder, and my hair would stay in a ponytail. Ick. She also forbade me from using tampons because she thought it would take away my virginity. This, when I had ballet lessons 4x a week. One of my friend’s mothers was a nurse and tried to, um, explain things to her a bit. My mother was very :dubious: about the whole thing.
Boy, she sounds like an illiterate peasant, doesn’t she? … except she’s not. She has a master’s in architecture, so I’m pretty sure she’d seen the inside of a schoolroom at some point in her past.
Thanks, by the way. I was this close to relenting and calling her over the holidays or something, try to patch things up. Thanks for reminding me of Teh Crazy. Like a splash of cold water to the face: brrrrr!! I needed that.
My mother told me I needed to have bangs (I didn’t), because I have “such a high forehead.” (Yes, and I also have two giant Dagwood Bumstead cowlicks at my temples that make bangs look like shit on me, and that you made me fight all through my growing up years. Yeah, thanks.
I also “have such strong opinions” (said in a tone that clearly indicates this is a major flaw). Yes, I do . . . and so does she, but I express mine and won’t cave to others on them, which is the opposite of her approach. Also, I suspect my strong opinions are so bad because they differ from her strong opinions.
You’re not being seriously incredulous are you? I’ve seen teachers with PhDs who are complete fucking morons. They give that shit out like candy these days.
I remember when I had just passed my oral examination for my masters thesis…I called her to tell her the good news. The exchange went something like this:
Me: Mom, I just had my thesis oral exam yesterday!
My mom was usually pretty supportive, but sometimes…
I was a shy, younger-sister, 11-year-old, a day or so after my first school dance. The dance had actually been a pretty good experience, with more than one boy wanting to dance with me, and one very nice compliment. So I said to my mother, “Do you think I’m pretty when I smile?” (Yeah, I was fishing a bit, but reassurance never hurts, right?) She said to me, “Everybody’s prettier when they smile.”
My translation: ‘Well, not really, but it helps.’ Mom, a simple yes would have been sufficient.
My mom’s favorite thing is to say something like, “Well, that’s great…if that’s what you REALLLY want…” in a tone that implies nobody in her right mind would want whatever the issue is, and I must be somehow settling for second-best, even if she couldn’t tell you what first-best is.
Wow. My mom is crazy, but only in a new-age woo-woo kind of way that doesn’t hurt anyone else. I’m going to give her an extra big hug next time I see her.