As you can guess, my mom does not get along well with her former sister-in-law. This only got worse when my mom and dad separated.
Yesterday my aunt called (she’s hosting Christmas at her house) to give me an update. I was at work when she called, so my mom talked to her and promised to relay the message. Over the phone, my mom told her former sister-in-law how I was relieved my dad was well enough to be able to come down and visit, so that I could see both parents. SIL told my mom, “Well, Incubus should be old enough to make his own decisions anyway” which pissed my mom off something fierce. Why get so mad at a mundane comment? Because my mom gets labeled as a control freak by my dad’s family regarding us. SIL thought that I would be manipulated out of visiting my dad just because my mom ‘said so’. What has me mildly ticked off is that with both of them squabbling over who said what/means what/did what, anything I do will validate one family’s belief of somethingorother. Come on, people, I’m 24, but I do still want to spend Christmas with my entire family if possible, and whatever I do, is my decision and not influenced by who I am currently living with.
I’m not super pissed off about this, and it is a bit too silly to warrant being in the pit. I guess I just realized how long-standing my mom and SIL’s differences are in opinion, particularly raising kids. Another part of it is that my aunt can be rather judgemental about others, and my mom is fiercely defensive about us.
My dad was the only one of his siblings who had sons. All of his siblings wanted sons, and got girls. Sometimes I think that my dad’s family looks at my brother and I and thinks, “well, if Incubus was my son I would so-and-so” which is a possible source for this conflict. One thing that sucks about being the firstborn son in a family is the tendency to get treated as some sort of ‘social prototype’ which everyone looks at with baited breath.
Still, its Christmas, and I’m certaintly not going to let some petty words exchanged over the telephone ruin it for me. At the very least, my dad, stepmom and brothers will be pleasant enough company. 