My 67-year old mother will be selling the family home and moving to a smaller condo next year some time. As she has a lifetime of family possessions that won’t fit into the new place, she is looking for people to take some of the things off her hands. The next time I am over there I will be looking in the basement to see what is left of my childhood toys, what can be cleaned up, and what might be of interest to my girls. However, she also has a number of larger items that have sentimental value to the family, and in particular two shipping trunks that my great-grandparents used to immigrate from Italy in 1902.
In a recent email discussion with my mother, she mentioned all the things that my younger brother has agreed to take off her hands, including both trunks. I was a bit surprised that she has already made these arrangements with him as I wasn’t aware that we were thinking of anything but the childhood toys at this point. But I can kind of understand as my brother lives a 5-hour drive away, whereas I am in Europe. But I attach sentimental value to these trunks, and I figured that for something like this it would be worth paying for a transatlantic shipment. So I asked my mother if I could take one of the trunks. To my surprise, she said no, that she did not want me to have either of the trunks. Her exact words were ‘I can’t bring myself to allow them to be sent off to another country. Your great-grandparents went through a lot, both physically and emotionally, to come to the USA, and that’s where their things need to stay.’
I am both surprised and disappointed, because I am probably the most sentimental person in the family when it comes to these things (and I am the only member of the US branch of my family ever to visit our ancestral village in Italy). But I don’t know whether or not I should also feel hurt or even offended. On one hand, these trunks belong to my mother, and it is her right to dispose of them however she wants. And it would be understandable if she wanted them to be near to her and someplace where she would see them once in a while.***** But on the other hand, I have a rather checkered history with my mother, and she has never been happy that I chose to live abroad or to marry someone of a different nationality and race, and in 14 years has never once visited us in Europe, despite many invitations.
So I would be curious to know what Dopers think. Is my mother within reason to want the trunks to stay on American soil, or have I been insulted?
***** Note that she did not say anything about desiring proximity, only that the trunks needed to stay in the US on principle.
I think if you have to ask if you should be offended, the answer is usually no. But I’d be disappointed/surprised, too, at the explanation for why the trunks have to stay.
I may not entirely agree with her reason, but it seems she has a logical reason and one that seems pretty heartfelt. I think it’s reasonable to be disappointed or annoyed, but I’m not sure offended is.
You sound a bit like you’re trying to come off as a martyr here.
“Oh, here I am being the sentimental son, and I’m not being given the sentimental items, and this after the snubs from my mother over my marriage and my residence in Europe. I even went to a village that was easier for me to get to than any of my siblings, but lo, they get the trunk and all my mom has is a sentimental reason to cover a sentimental item”.
Ok, maybe you don’t mean it that way, but I think if you don’t your mother how you felt she’d tell you to stop whining.
In short, I agree with the rest of the posters that you have no room for being offended.
Overthinking it won’t change who she is, but it will make you feel worse and worse.
Let your brother know how important the trunks are to you, and that you really hopes he takes care of them. One day at a later date, it may make sense to rethink who has them. But for now, let your mom have her way. Don’t dwell too much on being the “real” family historian. You do what you do because it brings you joy and meaning, not to earn brownie points.
Take a deep breath and let it go. It’s just a thing.
I get her reason for wanting them to stay in the US–these were her grandparents, and she almost certainly spent her childhood listening to them talk about what it took to get over here, what it was like over there that made it all worthwhile, etc. If I’d spent my childhood listening to people I loved tell me those stories, I don’t think I could bring myself to ship their stuff back to the place they were so desperate to leave. I would feel honor-bound to give you a heads-up about the fact I wasn’t going to offer you either trunk and why before making arrangements with your brother, so you hopefully wouldn’t get all hurt and offended, but this honestly seems like something simply isn’t about you.
And there’s nothing to stop your brother giving you one or both trunks after Mom passes.
I just reread my mother’s email and realise that the rest of the sentence that I excerpted adds a bit more context. So the whole sentence reads:
“Wilbur Mogul is a giving and fair person at heart and I’m sure he will give you one of the trunks whenever you might be ready for it - however, I can’t bring myself to allow them to be sent off to another country. Your great-grandparents went through a lot, both physically and emotionally, to come to the USA, and that’s where their things need to stay”
I’m not happy at having to beg my brother to give me a trunk, and I can’t help but interpret ‘whenever you might be ready for it’ to mean ‘whenever you finally return to the US’…
Well, yeah. She seems pretty clear that she wants them to stay in the US. I don’t think that’s anything to be offended about- it’s not you, it’s your physical location.
No, it’s Orville mogul. This is a way for his mother to show her disapproval of his decision to live so far away. Plus, she’s romaticized the hell out of those trunks. Being the family curator now, they have become her legacy.
I think the most tactful way of dealing with this is to talk to your brother later on, and explain the situation to him. Since there are two, perhaps he would be willing to send you one of the trunks unbeknownst to your mother.
Have you requested any other ‘sentimental items’ and if so, what has been her response on those? If she has denied all requests, then yeah, it’s probably about you and your life decisions. If she has accepted other requests and only denied this one, then it’s probably more about her feelings about the trunks.
I think Orville has done his own romanticizing of them as well, but she’s made it pretty clear she wants them to stay in the US. Right or wrong, it’s a decision with some family history rationale behind it, so I don’t think he needs to be offended. It’s been explicitly said she’s not happy he lives abroad, so I don’t think there’s a hidden agenda. Later, he ask his brother for one.
I agree in that this is not cause for bitter disagreement or deep resentment of any kind. I’m sure the OP has come to terms with how his mother feels about this. Doesn’t mean he can’t feel a brief pang of disappointment over the decision, which to a large extent is not about the trunk at all. But I think that’s fairly well understood by the OP as well.
I agree, which I what I said in my first response to the OP. He posted additional info he implied would shed more light on his mother’s motives. I didn’t think his additional info did. To me it just reinforced the sincerity of her original explanation.
My interpretation of the additional quote was that my mother was implying that I wasn’t ready to take the trunk in the current circumstances, but when I demonstrated that I was ready (which could only happen when my taking the trunk would not require it to leave the US) then maybe my brother would let me have one.
I know that I am really dissecting this, but honestly, can you interpret the ‘whenever you are ready’ line any differently?
I do admit that I have over-romanticised the trunk a bit. Honestly, I hadn’t thought about the trunks in years until my mother told me they were going to my brother and probably wouldn’t have thought twice about them if she had explained herself more nicely (i.e. that she wanted them nearby). But that’s the thing with my mother: she thinks that being old and Italian allows her to say hurtful things (these are her own words, not mine)…
It’s your mom and you know your relationship best. However, I see nothing hurtful or not nice in her explanation. It seems internally consistent and reasonable (even if I personally wouldn’t decide that).
I interpreted “when you are ready” as you did, meaning being back in the US. She doesn’t like you being abroad. She doesn’t want those trunks abroad. She wants you to realize you should be back in the US (obviously!) and when you do you can have a trunk because then the trunk will be on US soil.
Sorry if I came across that way. You are correct that I should not have an attitude of entitlement about this. I don’t have any more claim over the Italian ancestry than anyone else in the family. My only argument (if I have one at all) is that as one of two sons I should, all things equal, have a claim on one of the two trunks.
(but FTR, my brother lived in Germany for a year as an exchange student and toured through Europe, including Italy, but did not make an effort to see the village)
I can’t. It’s passively aggressive. But then I’ve got a relative who says similar things so I may be equally predisposed to taking things like this more personally than I ought.