So, my mom and I have a . . .umm . . .frictious (if it’s not a word, it should be) relationship. Although I love her, we have a tendency to rub each other the wrong way. Basically because she thinks she can run my life much better than I can, and well, I don’t care if she can or not - it’s my life!
Anyway, one of her recent power struggles has been about Easter. My boyfriend and I offered to come down and have Easter dinner with her and my nephew, she wants us to join her for church.
After explaining to her that based on the time we would need to be there, and the 2 1/2 hour commute to get there, it just isn’t feasible.
Evidently, she didn’t like this answer. So she called my best friend Teresa and implied Teresa needed to “convict me” about my lack of spiritual life and ungratefulness and non “honour thy father and mother ways.”
And when my best friend sweetly pointed out that I was an adult and knew what I could and couldn’t do given the fact I work 2 jobs et cetera, my mom hung up on her, leaving my friend shaking in the middle of Staples.
(FYI - this friend has spent the past year dealing with her husband having throat cancer and being in and out of hospitals on the verge of death. We call my friend “St. Teresa” because she is the sweetest person you will ever meet. And I had just told my mom the other day that Teresa’s husband was going back in to surgery this week. So my mom knew that Teresa was already under a lot of stress.)
I am still shocked that my mother would call a friend of mine to try to get her way.
So make me feel better - share some shocking things that your family has done to/around you.
My mom can be sweet, but she can also be very arbitrary when it comes to making plans/canceling them.
If one of her brothers/dad can’t make it to some family function, she’ll cancel it. But If I say I can’t make it, she’ll guilt trip me and try to talk me into canceling my own plans to come see her :smack:
I’m over the age of 40. I’ve never had children. Every year my mom sends me a Father’s Day card. Every year I remind her I don’t have children. Every year she says “Well… maybe some day.”
A few years ago I was living across the country from my parents. Around Christmas time, they called one of my friends who lived in the same building with me, and wanted to send my Christmas presents to them so that I wouldn’t open them before Christmas morning. Seriously. It wasn’t because they thought it would a surprise, or because they wanted me to spend Christmas morning with my friends, but because they thought I would rip my gifts open the instant I got them. My friends declined, and came to me wondering what the hell was going on. My parents eventually just sent me the gifts and told me not to open them until Christmas morning.
My mom’s mantra seems to be ‘I didnt want you to worry’. After surgery a few years ago I was told I needed a nerve induction test to check for nerve damage. I asked my mom, an ER nurse, what that was. She said it was quick, that the doctor would put two metal contacts on some of my muscles to measure conductivity. I assured everyone at work that I would only be gone a little while, and would be able to come back to work no problem. This was not to be. The doctor spent 3 hours jamming metal prongs into both of my legs and sticking long metal wires directly into the muscles of both of my legs and electrifying them. I was barely able to walk out on my own, and collapsed in bed when I got home. I was not able to go back to work. When I called her and told her about this, she just said ‘I know, I didnt want you to worry.’
To be fair, if she’d told you what sort of ordeal you’d be going through, would you have gone? Maybe she was just trying to make sure that you’d show up for the appointment.
Years ago I was scheduled to have an operation. The surgeon told me that I’d be unable to work for the rest of the day. I told my manager that I’d be in to work the next day. Just after they’d shot me up with anesthesia, the doctors told me not to make plans for the next week, maybe two.
I’m not trying to be frictious (awesome!) to the spirit of the OP, but whenever I read a thread like this, I thank the Powers In Whom I Do Not Believe that my parents are (or in the case of my mother, were) the sweetest, most reasonable people I have ever met.
Seriously, behavior like that described in the OP would mortify them.
My dad is quiet, intelligent, and utterly non-intrusive. He doesn’t like the fact, being very religious, that I do not go to church. True. He mentions it once every three years or so, and then lets it drop. I can live with that.
My mom would sooner have shot herself in the foot than try to tell me, an adult, what to do with my life.
Of course I would have gone. I was in a lot of pain already, and this was going to try and figure out why. I needed to know if I could go back to work afterward. She lied to me, and based on that I told my boss I would be there. I wasn’t able to go back to work, and was in lots of pain. ‘Cuz my mom lied to me’ didn’t sound so good when I went in the day after. She lied to me, giving me bad information which I used to make decisions. She knew this was why I was asking, I told her.
Now that sucks. No one said anything about recovery time up until that point?
My mother is a very sweet woman who would give up anything for me but she constantly sprouts racists comments about every single race, even the one we belong too. At least shes an equal opportunity racist.
My mom is continually sinking deeper and deeper into New Age Woo-woo-land. Or, as she would put it, “attaining the fifth dimension.” To her credit, she doesn’t expect anyone else to believe what she does, and she’s an otherwise rational person. But she believes she’s had mystical experiences while meditating, and she believes things that have been “revealed” to her during these experiences. I think her brain is tricking her, but I don’t fault her for believing her own experiences; what bothers me is that she seems to believe anything that any other Woo-woo-landian tells her. The latest and worst is this bit of chicanery. From the information sheet about their “frequency discs:” ahem
Beware of reading their “Science” page; your eyes just might roll out of your head. She’s become one of their licensed salespeople, which is what drives me nuts. Until now, her beliefs were crazy, but they made her happy and didn’t hurt anybody. Now she’s trying to convince other people to pay money for this bullshit. Is it still scamming if the scammer genuinely believes what they’re telling the mark? The effect is the same, anyway.
My parents are sweet and well-mannered, too. Even though neither has a college education, I do consider them to be smart. They haven’t done anything really horrifying to me (yet). But sometimes things just come out of their mouths that I cannot believe.
One day I was casually walking the dog with my mom and she said “I don’t believe in carbon dating.” I see.
Another time we were watching the news and the recent shootings in Mumbai came up. She said “I don’t trust places that change their names” (referring to previously-known-as-Bombay). I didn’t even know how to properly combat that one without an encyclopedia, so I just let it go.
My mom’s like that, too. Just last week, my brother and I got identical emails from her: Your dad and I just got home from the hospital. He had his gall bladder out yesterday. I didn’t call you before the surgery because I didn’t want you to worry or feel like you had to make the drive. He’s fine. TTYL!*
My brother and I have grown closer through several “WTF???” conversations recently.
Although I could tell story upon story regarding my mother on this thread, this just occurred today. My sister in law recently had a baby. They are trying to get the baby baptized the first weekend in May when family members will be in town. The parents do not care when that weekend the baptism takes place as long as they can make it happen on that particular weekend. The ceremonies usually take place after one of the Sunday masses. My mother is a regular at the 4pm Saturday mass and although the priest offered to perform the ceremony after any mass on that Sunday, she wants the child baptized at “her mass”. She calls the church and leaves a message for the priest as to her “problem”. He calls back my sister in law and says that he is unable to accommodate them Saturday at 4pm but he is willing to do a private ceremony at 11:30 that same day.
This is unacceptable to my mother as well since she will have to attend church twice that day and it is an inconvenience. She is on the phone now to “straighten this all out.” (Get her way in other words.)
My mother has no part in this ceremony btw. I am Godmother, my son is Godfather and she is a guest. I agreed to host the party so she isn’t even doing that.