Ah, now we see the violence inherent in the system! COME SEE THE VIOLENCE INHERENT IN THE SYSTEM!
Ok, new idea: TWINS! Then we can outdo that crappy movie by one…we’ll make MILLIONS!
I’m still not sure what you mean by “environment”. Can you clarify?
Meanwhile, I wonder what all this is like for Harborkid. First she has to live with you guys and the roommates you mentioned in the other thread. Now she has to live with you guys and Grandma. Those can be positive experiences, or they can be very negative, depending on whether the child gets to be part of a family (traditional or non), or whether she’s ghettoized on account of being the only kid in the house.
Does she normally get along with Grandma? Did your roommates, when you had them, regard her as a member of the household? Or was she and is she constantly told to stay in her room because the grownups are doing stuff? I don’t know Harborkid’s behavior patterns, but sometimes kids act poorly socialized because it’s the only way they can get any attention at all. Kids need attention, and they need to be able to interact with other people; that’s how it is. Perhaps your mother’s not able to meet Harborkid’s needs. And if so, sorry if I offend you, but you’re not doing right by her. Or, I might add, your mother.
On preview: Dude, you’re going to BUILD the house?! Well, then you’re never gonna get out of there! Settle! Settle, goddamnit! Do you want your kid to be miserable in houses or happy in an apartment?
It sounds to me as if he means something along the lines of “Grandmother has no problem watching violent, R rated for nudity/sexual content movies with the child, whereas they don’t want the kid to see such things” to me, Rilchiam. Am I somewhat right Harborwolf?
Ditto here. I see this kind of thing in India all the time. more often than not when you marry you are expected to live with his family. Why, I knew of one woman that had a semi-arranged marriage*, moved in with
Him
His mom & dad
His younger brother & her wife & 2 kids
His younger sister.
And the two wives had to “do” for everyone, since the mother was past the age now - what’s she marry her sons off for? And the younger sister had to study.
And tensions were bad. Bad, bad, bad. BTW, have you talked to your mom about this and told her how much it hurt Alias? Or bothered her? Not Alias, but you should do it. And maybe talk to **Harborkid **- is he overly bothered? Tell him “Grandma was a bit upset. Wouldn’t you be if you had to clean up doggy vomit? Grandma didn’t mean it at you, though.”
Best of luck, Harborwolf. No matter what this is a tough situation.
*A semi-arranged marriage is one where your mom says “You know, you could marry the Smith kid. Or the Shah kid, that’s a fine one. Or maybe the Singh kid.”
Why is this on the SDMB? Please start a livejournal or myspace account. This is not your personal drama-mine.
Not so. Plenty of other people post lots of stuff about their personal issues. I can’t tell you how much support I’ve gotten about my mom.
I dunno, I like almost everybody here, and kind of feel like this place is…not family, but perhaps the next thing. It’s familiar here. I like telling people what hurts me and bothers me and hearing frnak, honest opinions.
I don’t know if I would have had the courage to post something like this in the Pit, and for that I admire **Harborwolf **for sucking it up and dealing with it.
I guess exposure to certain terms.
The roommate situation is one of those things that sounded great at the time. They were friends of ours, got along well with Sage, and it was going to save us money. We found out that moving in with friends is a good way to end a friendship. It was just a bad arrangement all around. Harborkids school was downright awful. The stress in the house was constant. That was a much worse arrangement than the current.
No offense taken. She got along with the roommates. They regarded her as a member of the household. We have never told her to go to her room while we do grownup things. Anything along those lines (usually the farthest “grown up things” go is watching movies that she would bore her to tears) waits until she goes to bed. She’s our daughter, not our burden.
She gets along with Grandma just fine and has no lack of socialization. The reason that we stay in the area is that there is a lot of family around on both sides. She’s been going to school in the same one for her life so she has lots of friends.
Harborkid is not miserable in the house. The area we live in is a resort area. The rent withing 50 miles of us is huge. Buying an existing house is ridiculous. Getting a house put on pre-existing land, as nutty as it sounds, is just as viable and as affordable an option as renting an apartment since we already own some land. This isn’t a decision that we came to lightly. We decided that we would rather be paying money for something that we will own than paying the same amount for something we wouldn’t.
I hope that’s clear.
On preview, it’s a much smaller scale than you think Zabali. It’s basically a matter of how adults treat other adults. We don’t want Harborkid to see certain things as acceptable behavior. This is actually a very small issue, but stress in other areas magnified it.
FYI, Grandma sticks to shows like Antique Roadshow and Animal Planet. 
I’m going to talk to her once we’ve gotten some distance from it and our schedules come together. We already spoke to Harborkid (who’s a she) and pretty much said just that.
VCO3, this started here by someone elses actions. That’s why I’m dealing with it here. I’m not here to start drama or to attract pity.
Ana pretty much hit it on the head. This board, to me, is community. There are people here whose opinions I value. If they think less of me for this, I can deal with that. I’d just rather they think less of me for the actual circumstances.
I see. Thank you.
Ah, it’s truly a “grin and bear it while sometimes letting off steam safely” situation then, isn’t it? Those often turn out to be the most stressful (at the time they occur) but also can be patched up once people have had some time to enjoy having their own households and being out of each other’s hair. Just bear in mind that all of you are going to need a “vacation” to recover, time and distance will help you all get your balance back. Don’t let it break your relationship, stay flexible and hang in there.
Get bent. Like it or not, this is a community of people with problems and emotions, not some sterile repository of knowledge and ignorance-fighting posted by faceless drones. Deal with it.
In Soviet Russia the children rear you!
Just sayin…
I was thinking about posting in the other thread but there’s nothing like posting late in a pile-on for futility. For what it’s worth, Harborwolf, I thought the pile-on was pretty much completely unjustified. Your family is stressed out, and Alias complained about a matter that is, of course, ultimately not important but at the moment rankled a great deal. And suddenly a crowd of people stopped in to say just how disgusting your living arrangements were, with out even finding out the situation. The grandmother was being inappropriate in telling your daughter to shut up; your wife had a right to complain about it in a setting like this where we, you know, complain about the minor (and sometimes major) annoyances and upsets in our lives. The resultant pile-on was just pure lunacy.
Look, I’ve got no problem with people hashing out personal shit on the SDMB. It is a community, and we all know and love each other.
The problem comes when you spread drama that happened in one thread to a new thread, especially one with a drama-baiting title to the effect of, “BRING IT ON, MUTHERFUCKERZ!!!1” If a bunch of zaniness comes up in one thread, deal with it in that thread instead of starting a new one to spread the fallout - starting a new “battle thread” just really reeks of attention whoredom and shouldn’t be allowed here (is it?).
This coming from the guy who starts Pit threads about messages on Starbucks cups and people wearing phones that annoy him: VCO3, shut up.
Have you read any of my posts in this thread, or are you responding simply to the title? The title was less bluster and more “let’s get this out of the way.” I figured that the title might be taken the wrong way, so I made sure to clarify in the op and in a couple of posts after.
Colour me totally in Harborwolf and Alias’ corner on this one (and I hope I’m never in a position where I owe anyone from the original thread a favour, since that would apparently be carte blanche to treat me like shit). I think that’s the first time I’ve ever just sat there, mouth agape, reading response after ridiculous response.
Question: What would have happened if MIL was living with Harborwolf and Alias, and Harborkid had told Grandma to shut up? Grandma would have to just slink off to her room, ashamed that she had the temerity to speak aloud. Using the logic displayed in the other thread, she should just be grateful to have a place to live, right? Or are courtesy and manners only a one way street, to be paid from the younger to the elder?
Honestly, that thread was really an unpleasant eye-opener on some people’s attitudes.
My personal opinion is that you set the best possible example by letting it go. People DO talk to each other that way, all the time; the problem in real life is not so much the first parry, but the escalation that follows. Show your daughter how to minimize and deflect conflict. Standing there saying “but our principle is better than hers” is childish.
And the person whose house it is DOES have more power. Someone has to.