My example from today:
History - I have not had a paid job since 1996 or so. I have a chronic mental illness (bipolar) and was at one stage not expected to survive my illness.
over the last two years i have got my life into some sort of order - I have even had a job Offered to me (because of my volunteer work teaching English as a second language) I have accepted the offer and was given a start date (17th Jan) today.
I rang my mum to tell her.
Her response was basically “oh ok - seeya”
I know I should be grateful that it wasn’t discouragement (which is her normal sop) but a little “great” or “good onya” would have been nice.
sigh.
Congratulations to both Ann Hedonia and madrabbitwoman for your achievements! How sad that your moms can’t appreciate the magnitude of your accomplishments.
My mom has mellowed over time. I still have problems with her, but they are minor compared to most of those mentioned in this thread.
This thread reminded me of my grandmother back in 1973 when I decided to join the Navy. And I don’t think her comment was nasty or meant any way other than matter-of-factly - it still makes me laugh a little. But it was jarring.
I had gone to see her before leaving for boot camp. I knew my mom wasn’t convinced I’d made a good choice, but my dad was very excited for me. And my grandmother, as she said goodbye, added “Well, we did our best to talk you out of this, but…” Honest to goodness, I don’t recall anyone trying to talk me out of it, especially not her. And she was only 60, so not senile yet.
I think you’re missing the point. Hairstyles come and go, but moms remain the same. I think it’s likely that had you pulled your hair back, she still would have criticized you.
I’ve noticed that it’s mostly women in this thread that have the most to say. I wonder if there’s a mother/daughter relationship that’s a little unique in families. I remember my sister absolutely despising our mom when sis was a teen. But sis grew up and mom learned what foods she shouldn’t eat, and now they get along great.
I hope that you all find peace, with or without the approval of your psycho moms.
It does seem pretty universal. I love my Mom, she’s wonderfully supportive most of the time, but when she talks to me she seems to turn off that “need to be diplomatic” switch in her head and it always comes out painfully blunt.
Take my nerd embroidery project. She took one look at the Team Fortress 2 Medic icon I was prepping and went: “That’s an ugly pattern for hand embroidery. Why don’t you make some nice flowers instead?” Me: “Because that’s not what I want to make.”
She is getting better about it, though. The other day I volunteered, without prompting, to do the dishes for her without realizing that she’d hurt herself. Old!Mom probably would’ve complained that I was a flake who didn’t notice her being hurt for days. New!Mom was very thankful and even bragged to my Dad.
My mum paid for me to go to counseling sessions. At the second session the counselor told me my mum had called her wanting to know what we’d been talking about, since I wasn’t communicating with her and she was paying for all of this.
The remainder of the sessions consisted of the counselor telling me things to say to my mother after the session. In essence, my mum paid for me to go to counseling to get counseled on counseling her. Is there a name for that?
I noticed that too. Even though we’re grown, it’s my sister that complains more about the $#!+ our mom says than I. Maybe she has a lower tolerance for fools than I, I don’t know, but I have always wondered why she seems to push my sister’s buttons more than mine.
I phoned my mother in tears the day I received my master’s degree results, because I’d just missed out on an upper second class degree, and only got a lower second.
Her reaction? “Oh thank god, I was sure you’d failed!”
I guess we all have our buttons installed in different ways.
But as far as this being mostly a mother/daughter thing, I think I spoke too soon. I was really looking forward to talking to my parents today. When I got off the phone I was feeling sad and frustrated. The first thing my dad said to me was to make sure I expend more calories than I take in today. On the one day of the year that we get to celebrate life and good feelings by pigging out, he started by commenting on how my lifestyle was lacking. Maybe he thought it was funny, but I found it annoying.
And it’s clear to me that neither of my parents really understand what I’m doing with my life right now. The more I try to explain it the less they get it. It’s really frustrating!
I dunno; maybe it’s mostly women and their mothers, and men and their fathers. I know that the stuff that my mom and I clash over would not likely bother a guy (I don’t put my dishrag in the right place, or some stupid thing like that).
That’s exactly what I thought. You call someone crying and saying, “I <sniff> g-g-got my results…WAHHHHHH!” and the first thing I would think was that you failed too.
In my family it’s Middlebro and me, and both parental units (but Mom more, even when Middlebro was a teenager - Dad barked, but if he was being unreasonable and you proved it to him, he admitted you were right; Mom believes she’s right on grounds of being Mom). Li’l Golden Boy, aka He Who Has A Flower In His Butthole, has never gotten as much flak as either of the other two, but he’s gotten enough and seen enough to understand when us two complain - or, as the case is right now, will sleep in his house rather than Mom’s over the Christmas visit. Plus he’s got his own maternal complaints… she’s “not interested” in us two because we weren’t the sons she had in mind, but “not really interested” in the real Littlebro either, only in the son she did have in mind (he’s the one who’s closest to that mental image - but he is not that image; she refuses to accept this).
First off, congratulations Ann Hedonia! I’m impressed
My contribution:
When my SO and I first started living together, we still kept our own houses… his just sat empty. After about a year, we decided to take the next step by selling mine and moving to his. When I called my mom to tell her, her first words were “REALLY?? Does he know what a lousy housekeeper you are?” :smack:
A. He already lived with me for a year, so if I were a lousy housekeeper, I think he would know and
B. I’m not a lousy housekeeper! I can’t even begin to figure out where that came from.
Dusty Rose, I think we have the same mom, that is exactly the kind of thing she would just blurt out.
I have a million of 'em. I once bought James Beard’s book on fish cookery (looking through it not long ago, noticed probably half the species mentioned are endangered or extinct!) and showed it to mom, so pleased with my purchase and my plans for trying out some of the recipes on my boyfriend. “Yeah, you need to cook more fancy shit, your ass is fat enough already.”
She was a Chinese-American and her parents, traditional old Chinese they were, would think nothing of uttering the most ridiculous insults to their daughter, sometimes while I was even sitting right there! And these were, y’know, full-on insults, not the backhanded “sounds nice but is really insulting” type of deal. Once she invited me to dinner at her house and as soon as I sat down her dad said to me, “Why are you going out with my daughter? She’s so fat and ugly, you could do much better” in front of everyone. At our high school graduation his daughter graduated with honors, but I overheard him telling my GF, “You’re such an idiot! Why aren’t you valedictorian?!” Later on, when my family and their family met for lunch the same day, her old man apologized to the whole table for bringing his “idiot daughter” to eat with us. Everyone in my family was absolutely mortified, not least of all me.
