I disagree. They were his guests. Granted, he owes it to them to be on time, but they owe him the respect of waiting until he’s there to say “thank you for this” before tucking in.
Yes, I agree. If he weren’t paying for their food, I’d say go ahead and get in line. But if he’s offering to treat, it’s only polite to wait until he actually arrives before they start loading up the plates.
I’m glad you responded to this, because, while massive dysfunction may not be a universal experience, I’m sure many people out there can relate to this basic sentiment. It’s very easy for me to think about what sets me apart from other people, but harder for me to really think about the universality of family angst. So thanks.
Also I know what you mean by ‘‘can’t stop loving them.’’ It implies that you have tried to stop loving them. I’ve tried too. I know a lot of people with messed up families, but most of them hate their messed up families and have no problem watching them wallow in misery. I envy those people.
Maybe you had to be there, but I don’t see why this was so bad. It sounds like she did her best to please everyone there. Unless of course you think that she got an inedible gluten-free cake on purpose.
I’m sure she feels that way, too.
But picture it this way: Your mom has a little birthday party for you. At it she serves two cakes, one you can’t eat and one you can. She then spends the entire time telling everyone else not to eat the one you can eat, not with the suggestion that it is somehow special or reserved only for you, but with the suggestion that it is nasty and no sane person would ever want to eat it unless they had to.
In fact, I’m quite certain she said more than once in so many words, “You don’t want that one, have this.”
The thing is, the cake was perfectly edible and in fact quite scrumptious. If she’d just shut her damn mouth, most folks wouldn’t even have known it was gluten free, and my girlfriend wouldn’t have been put in the position of feeling different in that way that people don’t generally enjoy feeling, even on their birthdays.
Not my parents, but someone else’s. When my girlfriend’s son turned four, she gave him a little party, and made chocolate cake. And by chocolate cake, I mean a sugar-free buckwheat cake with a tiny amout of carob on top. The son was in sugar heaven. His friends were totally disappointed with the disgusting hippie food.
My own parents are great, but they are pretty selective about sharing their past with me and my siblings. I didn’t know until a few years ago that when they started dating, mom was only 14. I didn’t know until a few months ago that they met on a quadruple date. I didn’t know until ten years ago that my father’s tattoo was carved on him by a friend. He and three college buddies tattooed each other. I didn’t know until recently that he was one of the few at his then-job NOT chosen to work for NASA.
Ooo! I almost forgot this one. My first cousin sold the ceremonial oil from his father’s funeral pyre for drug money. I don’t want to hear any shit about drug addiction, either - he managed to not sell many other things in the house, but apparently the special ceremonial oil was fair game.
I love(d) my uncle a great deal and was heartbroken that I couldn’t even go to his cremation or see him one last time. I was more horrified to see the disrespect from his own sons.
Have you ever read Christina Crawford’s memoir of Joan Crawford? The biggest thing that struck me about that book, and really all kinds of such cases, is how little people believe you. They’re all, “Oh, I knew your mom, she wasn’t that bad,” or “You’re mis-remembering, you were just a kid,”, or my fucking favorite, “She was just doing it for your own good.” I try not to be an asshole about it but it needs to be known that it’s OK not to get along with your family or not to like them very much - we don’t choose them, after all, but everyone goes around with the whole “blood is thicker than water” thing. These kinds of threads are always a catharsis for me.
And yes, I have tried to stop loving them. I tried to cut myself off from them for a long time. But there were good times, no matter how bad the bad times were, and sometimes I remember that in the end they are just deeply flawed people.
I understand what KtK says, too. I don’t think you can really know how bad it feels to always be singled out until you’ve been there. Basicaly what the mom is saying there is “squeaky wheel gets the grease…and boy, my daughter SURE IS SQUEAKY, isn’t she? Oh so squeaky!” in a very negative way.
Hey, we have the same grandma!
When Mom got married a few years ago, she didn’t tell us for months. (Of course, I had done the same thing to her previously, but that’s different!)
A couple of weeks ago, my sister decided that her wedding (originally scheduled for late May) would be “indefinitely postponed”, because she finally saw the light - she and her fiance may be ready to play bride and groom for a day, but they’re nowhere near ready to be wife and husband for the rest of their lives.
I got a note on Facebook informing me of the change in plans.
My mother, as I found out last night, had not been informed at all.
I know it’s a really emotional decision, and it’s really not easy to have to repeat the bad news a few dozen times… but at the very least, ask a friend to do it on your behalf ESPECIALLY if your wedding is so far away that guests have to book vacation time, plane tickets and accomodations in advance.
(Give the circumstances though, we’re all too busy being relieved that she’s finally come to her senses to be annoyed over non-refundable plane tickets)
My husband’s mom is like that with his sister (she’s been out of the closet since high school). To her credit, sis-in-law can bring her girlfriend to family functions, and mom-in-law is friendly and polite, but she’s still waiting for her to “snap out of it” and settle down with a nice man. She’s also convinced that my husband and I never had permarital sex, even though we lived together for two years before we got married.
My father failed to pass on the news that his sister in law, my aunt, had died. I missed the funeral and found out three weeks later when my brother took me to task for not even sending a condolence card. (My brother was living abroad and had been in separate corespondance with my cousin).
I’d had two phone calls with Dad after he was told. He didn’t really explain why he hadn’t told me (or indeed even sent his own apologies for not going to the funeral) but I gather it upset him because it reminded him of my mum’s death. Fair enough but he could have given some thought to the other people who ended up upset by this.
I suppose it did some good though. It made me think about my own habits of avoiding dealing with upsetting things and I got myself into therapy.
I’m still surprised that my mother is still surprised at her parents… I mean, they’ve only been her parents for some 68 years and change.
Mom’s latest surprise was that Grandma’s little sister (a stripling of 92 springs, who’d suffered from dementia and been chairbound due to inability to remember how to walk for the last couple of years) died, and Grandma didn’t tell anybody until after the funeral. Mom was even surprised that Grandma (who is a ridiculously healthy 95yo and has spent over 70 years arguing with Gramps at the top of their lungs, they were one of those “make-up sex” couples, and the two of them have been playing power games and secrecy games for the same period) didn’t want to go to her younger sister’s funeral (once I asked Mom how would she feel about going to her own little sister’s, she relented on that part). The best way to ensure that your daughters and granddaughter (my cousin, not me) will not ask whether you want to go, therefore making you feel guilty about it even though they didn’t mean to? Make sure they don’t hear about it beforehand!
I mean, it would surprise me if it was illogical. But knowing Grandma, it was the most logical course of action. Then again, Mom’s logic tends to have so many holes I could use it to drain the spaghetti…
Oh. When my other Grandma died, I found out two weeks later because, you see, my mother refused to call me in Miami, say “call home,” hang up and then tell me when I called: since I called “home” every two weeks, and the day grandma died I happened to just have called, I found out 14 days later. So, she couldn’t spend that much effort and money in calling me to tell me my grandmother was dead, but now her own always-incommunicative mother has to suddenly become the NYTimes’ front page. Mom’s logic, flawless as usual 
Mom goes through different words like that. One he falls into repeatedly, and I break her out of it repeatedly (and other people as well) is asking “no?” in the middle of anything she’s telling you, sort of as a breather.
“So we were at the park, no?, and then this woman comes you know her she was the mother of one of your brother’s classmates although you may not know her because she had a daughter so you didn’t babysit her son’s birthdays as she didn’t have a son, no?, well she had one but he was younger and her husband used to work at the supermarket, no? and” “I hope yes, Mom.”
“uh?”
“You keep asking yourself ‘no?’ and since you’re the one telling the story, I hope you’re telling it right. I’d also appreciate it if you could finish telling it before the end of the month… no?”
The first time it took a concerted effort on all three siblings’ part to break her out of the habit. Now when she does it and we point it out, she stops doing it for several months before picking it up again.
BTW I know I abuse parenthesis but let me tell you, Mom makes me sound telegraphic!
That’s too funny. My mom can talk like this as well, but I tend to just make fun of her quietly, rather than correct her.
Yup, your second cousin.
I agree it’s mildly rude, but I still don’t think it’s something to be shocked by.
Most posters here mention their parents, but for me it was my sister who shocked me. She is about 10 years older than me and we are not very close. One rare time when we were spending some time alone together, she told me that she had cheated on her husband. Twice. I think it was the casualness of the cheating that shocked me more than the cheating itself. Both times, she and her husband got in a fight, and then she would find some random guy at a nightclub to take back to her studio. It sounded like she cheated primarily to punish her husband for fighting with her. That whole conversation with her was so bizarre - I just could not understand the selfish narcissistic mentality behind what she had done. The funny thing is, she was telling me so that I could tell her it was all right, and that she had done nothing wrong. Needless to say, I didn’t say anything of the kind.
My sister and her husband are the most tree-hugging, dirt worshiping, organic eating types you can imagine. He’s an environmental engineer and advises big companies (like Walmart) on how they can save energy. She’s a psychologist part-time, but spends a lot of time meditating, doing yoga and studying zen buddhism.
Of course they drive a Prius.
Here was my surprise: she just called me up all excited that just bought a multi-million dollar home. It’s huge and far away from their work.
It’s just so inconsistent with everything else about them. They’ll have to commute far for work, the place will use up lots of power to heat and cool, and the whole large acreage lot is so unsustainable.
It’s like they become someone else just long enough to buy this mostoro house.
My mother offered to buy our wedding rings, but wanted it to be a surprise for my future-wife at the bridal shower. Money wasn’t an issue. We expected to spend a given amount; Mom offered to pay that amount. FWIW, it was VERY modest. My ring is a simple gold band. My wife’s is a thin band with several very small diamonds on it. In fact, it looks hideously cheap and small compared to the engagment ring. But it’s practical, and all we were looking for at the time.
So Mom gives rings to future-wife at bridal shower. Tears flow, happiness, blah, blah, blah.
Mom asks to hold the rings at her house in NJ (as we lived 1200 miles away) and were getting married local to Mom. Seemed reasonable. One less thing to forget in Miami. Months later…
We drive from Miami to NJ. We get married. We eat cake. We consummate. We leave the hotel several hours after checking-in just to catch an early flight to Seattle where we’ll be catching a cruise ship to Alaska. We’re exhausted.
Finally, we’re on the ship and in our cabin. For some reason I take off my ring and inspect it.
The inside is engraved…
"Love, Mom and Dad 7-7-01"
My wife’s ring is not engraved.
Wait. Your parents bought your rings then presented them to future wife. Unengraved at that point. Then they took your rings to hold and then went and got yours engraved? From them???
Wha…? Why?
I experience this all the time. We’ve got several diabetics in my family. One on my wife’s side. Whenever we have a family get-together, my in-laws always point out the stuff that is “sugar free.” I don’t think they do it to be malicious or point out that there’s some deficiency. I think they do it because they want people to realize that if they choose to eat that item, they are a) possibly getting something different than they expected, b) reducing the availability of sugar-free items intended for the diabetic(s), and c) helping the back-to-nature families avoid artificial sweeteners. They do this for every single dietary need that is known to be present. It’s a big family that has varying degrees of vegetarians, allergies, and other diet-related maladies.
I find it awkwardly charming.
But what does seem to get under my skin is that the stuff is NEVER sugar free. I try to correct them by pointing out the difference between sugar free vs. no sugar added vs. things sweetened with sugars other than white sugar. Alas, it’s a battle I’ll never win.