With part of my family – the members that I don’t have to deal with very often – the relationships are passive-aggressive. There is a lot of walking on eggshells and pretension. Love wears away and is lost.
With another part of my family there is more fussiness. The teenagers tell each other to shut up all the time. I don’t know if they picked it up from their parents or not. But the family laughs a lot together. Our motto seems to be You piss me off; let’s go eat. Still, I wouldn’t think of telling the grandchildren to shut up. But it might slip out if I were very tired or irritable.
It just occured to me that I have been needlessly polite with my cat by telling her to “hush.” WTF? She’s not going to know that I’m being rude if I tell her to shut up or even if I use profanity. This could be the beginning of some really cathartic experiences for me.
What I saw in the other thread was (1) Mom & Dad in room watching television while (2) MIL deals with dinner, kid, and dog vomit and (3) kid asks a question that might be perfectly reasonable but hits MIL the wrong way, so (4) MIL tells kid to shut up.
Nobody else has addressed the fact that at the time of the incident, apparently, the parents were in another room, doing something else–not supervising their child or interacting with Grandma.
I don’t know, I may be projecting here, but if my kids ever move back home, particularly with spouses and children, or both, in tow, they will of course be welcome, because only very dire circumstances would bring them back, but they can expect some displays of bad temper because I will feel crowded, I don’t have a particularly great temper in the first place, and I used up every last shred of patience I had raising them in the first place. So with this in mind I sympathize with all concerned–“Shut up” is not a nice thing to say, but it’s not on the same level as, for instance, calling the kid stupid, and kids can be annoying & it sounds like a progressively stressful living situation for all concerned.
So…parents should not leave child attended only by Grandma, unless Grandma is amenable.
After reading the original OP, and the elucidation and responses here, I would have to say that I think the OPer’s are making a bloody mountain out of a molehill.
Grandma said “Shuddup”. That’s it?
If my kids with their grandchildren moved back home regardless of the need and/or circumstances, you can bet your bottom dollar my temper would be short, and I would not stop at saying shuddup either.
I don’t care whether your mum initiated the move back home. I don’t care whether you are ‘paying your way’ or doing the domestic stuff or whatever. The reality is that YOU are in HER space, and whatever she feels like saying or doing is fine. It’s her home, and you are mere lodgers there.
And, along with the opinions of other people here, I think it’s time for you to move on.
“Her house, her rules” is bullshit. I’ll bet none of the people saying that would countenance Harborkid telling grannie to shut up. Hell, I’ll bet grannie wouldn’t like it much either. I’d go with “your kid, your rules.” You probably don’t want your kid running around telling her elders to shut up, so I think it’s only fair to expect her to be afforded the same level of respect. “Please be quiet” is a request. “Shut up” is an order. I’m amazed at the number of people who seem to think living under someone else’s roof means you have to accept abusive language from them. So, kambuckta (and similarly minded folks) how’s about you just SHUT UP!
Actually, dinner is my responsibility. I’d done the cooking and the dishing. We went into our room to watch television there and Harborkid remained in the living room. She’s more than welcome to do both. We go to our room to avoid crowding anyone.
Kambuckta, for the most part I agree with you. This is very much a mountain out of a molehill. It’ll be a five second talk today and that’ll be the end either way.
I don’t think it’s needlessly polite to be polite to things that don’t know it. I think how you act when you’re alone or when you don’t have to have be nice indicates your true nature.
A “snark board” is any one of several offboard venues on LiveJournal, et al, where some current and (mainly) former SDMB members gather to anonymously slag the boards, various posters and the administration. Basically, a buncha immature wussies who don’t have the balls to speak their mind here, so they go over there and snipe behind our backs under cover of anonymity.
No doubt, they’ll love this post. Like I care. :rolleyes:
If you’re really determined to see for yourself, you can email me and I’ll give you some links. It’s entertaining in a gradeschool-boy’s-room-wall kinda way.
OT, but: Hilarity N. Suze, is your location a Placebo reference? If so, nice.
I tell my cat to shut up all the time. His nickname is “little bastard.” It’s kind of a thing we have. I certainly don’t think it reflects how I feel about my cat or reveals me as some kind of monster.
OK–but usually adults cry for only deep, BIG things–I mean real sobs etc. This may just point to different upbringings, but if I am to cry like that, I do that in private or with just one close friend or similiar for company. Public crying like that (for me) would only take place with a death of a family member or close friend, and so would not only be allowed for, but expected.
I cannot equate cleaning up dog vomit with deep grief. PIA? Even enraging, depending on my energy level that day? You bet. Believe me, my kids get on my last nerves at times. But that is my issue–and one I don’t need to take out on them.
I like “hush” and reading it here makes me remember my mother used to say it to all 5 of us–alot. Never shut up. My mother wouldn’t let us say something stank. It “smelled”–which is NOT the same thing at all…
Maybe I could see crying about cleaning up puke if say, Gramma had a long hard day cleaning and straightening up, running errands, etc. Now it’s dinner time and she just wants to sit, eat, and relax. And then along comes Fido, and blows chunks all over the floor she JUST cleaned an hour ago. I could see bursting into tears of frustration, maybe.
[QUOTE=davenportavenger]
OT, but: Hilarity N. Suze, is your location a Placebo reference? If so, nice.
[QUOTE]
Psst . . . the Placebo song is a reference to the Bob Dylan song. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Dylan song is a reference to something else in turn, but I don’t know what. Googles Oh, now I do. According to this page, it was based on “The Bentley Brothers “Penny’s Farm,” a 1920s musical complaint about a rural landlord.”
Someone’s not up on their classic rock. That someone would be me.
And yeah, when I cry it’s far more likely to be due to frustration than sadness; I literally never cry when I’m sad, I just keep it in and let it fester and lay in bed all day watching the same movies over and over. Same with when I yell at people, it has to do with me more than it has to do with them. That’s why I think Grandma is the one who needs to be comforted. It’s not “Grandma can’t handle a little dog puke,” it’s “Grandma is heading for a serious meltdown, so maybe we should analyze the reasons behind it instead of taking her stress reaction as an affront to our kid.” And it seems that maybe one of the things that’s setting her off is living in a stuffed house, at least I know that having three people live with me would be a major stressor. Doing a favor for someone doesn’t mean you get to lord it over someone, but it does mean that as the favee you have an obligation to the favorer. Especially when the favor gets to be a little too much for the favorer to handle.
