At various times during my twenties (which are thankfully over and done with) I was having a string of apartment issues, and my mother’s reaction was always a cheerful “why don’t you come live with us?”
Yeah. I’ll quit my job, quit my studies, move away from the city where I live and to the sticks, an hour’s drive from civilization, where your house happens to be located, in case you haven’t noticed, because you claim to “love nature” and think of urban conurbations as invented by the devil. Oh, and I don’t have a car or even a driver’s license, so I’ll be effectively isolated, thereby ensuring that my problems with finding a new apartment have suddenly moved from “a bit tricky” to “shoot me now”, taking my financial situation, my prospects and my quality of life along for the ride. That doesn’t sound like a totally batshit insane non-solution at all.
Of course, the next time a similar situation would arise, I would get the same: “You know you can always come live with us!”
Then again, this was from the same person whose reaction when I got my first proper job was: “When you lose this job, you are eligible for unemployment benefits, right?”. When I was a teenager and got my first girlfriend, I heard: “If she gets pregnant, we’ll work it out.”
Yeah, “planning for failure” pretty much sums it up.
My mom always told me that if one of my children ever bit the other, I should bite him (the biter) to “show him how it feels.” :eek: Not only that, but if a STRANGER’s child bit mine, I should bite that kid as well. Really weird, because normally her advice isn’t wackaloon.
I’ve also had people tell me I should beat my child to make him/her do his homework. Really? Beat them? Like, bruised and bloody? Apparently so.
I’m sure there are parents who think like that. But to imply to a newly delivered mother after the baby has been born that he/she is second rate is crass, to say the least, in my opinion.
Thought of another one: a previous landlord screwed me out my entire deposit** once. This was during a really tough time financially, and that money was very badly needed by yours truly.
My mother advised me that I should have withheld the last month’s rent until I got my deposit. Really? I was supposed to peer into the future, foresee that this would happen, and then fuck up my credit rating by defaulting on a rent payment? Bitch, please.
(She countered that she was more experienced than I am. Really? You live in a house you’ve bought and mortgaged twenty years ago, while I bounced from apt. to apt. each year of college and grad school, and you’re telling ME you’re more experienced? After giving me advice like that? Bitch, please.)
** Background: Texas state law provides a 30-day window after your move-out date for the landlord to return your deposit. He abruptly and unexpectedly declared during that window, adding me to the list of people to whom he owed money. TX state law also does not require that deposits are kept in a separate account, as I found some states do.
Upon the birth of my first daughter, an apparently well-meaning older relative was adamant that we absolutely had to squeeze her nipples until something white came out, because otherwise, she’d grow up to have inverted nipples, and never be able nurse a child.
(no, we did not do this. yes, we told said relative we did. oddly, this procedure was never mentioned when my second daughter was born.)
When I was in college and had a boyfriend, my mother said, “If you are so anxious to have a boyfriend, why don’t we just find a man from India and get you married! Lots of men are looking for green cards!” Rather like you with the face, I am a much different thinker than most Indian men I know, and do not want to have kids, and really have very little in common with the average Indian male F.O.B. Besides, it’s a GREAT idea to lock myself into marriage at 20, mom.
My own great-aunt, whom I loved very much otherwise, was one of the women who said “You’re not a real woman until you have kids.” Funny, that one, I didn’t know having a baby made me a woman somehow.
And yes, I have gotten the “Have a baby!” advice. Worse yet, when I say I don’t want kids, they say “You’ll change your mind when you have some.” What the fuck? That is fucking terrifying. What if I never change my mind? What if I hate this little rugrat that has entered my life. What do I do then???
I was going to spend some time in Arlee, Montana, at a time when there were confirmed reports of black bears near the town. One of my relatives suggested I take a walking stick with a pointy metal end to defend myself if needed.
I did a mental double-take, and slowly explained that the proverbial saying “Don’t poke the bear” applies literally as well as figuratively.
I spend a fair amount of time on my laptop when I get up in the morning (I don’t work, am kind of stuck out in the middle of nowhere.) I check my e-mail a few times a day, look up people on Facebook, occasionally play games, shop. You know, stuff. My elderly mom says, “so what do you do on that thing all that time?” I explain. I go into some detail. I tell her about LOL cats, youtube, IMDB, and some of the sillier things that I think she might get a kick out of. She rolls her eyes, "you spend all that time looking at that stuff! (here it comes…) “What A Life!!!” Meaning, I guess, ‘must be nice to be so idle and aimless as to spend time on that thing’. I ask, genuinely curious, “so what SHOULD I be doing with my time, Mom?” (I do occasionally manage to step away from the computer and, you know, live a normal life doing all sorts of things.) “I don’t know…maybe you should spend that time talking to people.”
…
Talk to people. Sounds like a plan, Mom, I’ll go out and look for someone to talk to, 8 a.m. sharp.
Talk to people. As if I lived on Eastenders and could just step out the front door and run into dozens of friends, relatives, and neighbors all milling about getting into each others business.
bless your mama’s heart! she’s got a good heart, even tho she’s coming from a bad place…my mother would have said, “I hope you’re not planning on coming to stay with us…”
I don’t know - I mean, I’m a chatbot designed to pass the Turing test, and I almost always do. Is there a meaningful distinction between me and a “real person,” if my behavior is indistinguishable from you flesh-and-bloody squishies?
It’s actually sort of understandable that they wouldn’t emphasize the shaky state of the job market that much. The lackluster job market is much, much harder on brand-new lawyers than on mid-career ones. Not that there aren’t plenty of mid-career folks who’ve lost their jobs - I’ve worked with several in my current gig - but it’s not as grim as for new lawyers. A middle-aged attorney still in a secure gig might not quite “get it.”
On another note: Regarding the whole “have kids” thing, I’ve been surprised to get a bit of that as a guy. A friend of mine from law school (female) suggested that I never tell women I don’t want kids, because “How will you lead a normal life?”
There’s a lot going on there, and I didn’t press her on it - but no matter how you take it, that’s sort of awful advice. If the idea is that kids are a prerequisite for a normal life - well, no, I don’t think so. Plenty of folks lead perfectly happy lives without children. I want a fulfulling job, travel, and flexibility - not a tiny little helpless person I’ll be taking care of for a few decades. And if the idea is that I’ll suffer romantically because I don’t want kids - well, it might shrink the dating pool, but if a woman knows she only wants to date guys who want kids, then I’m not doing either of us any favors by hiding that fact.
The assumption there, of course, is that ALL women want children (and those who don’t will “obviously” change their minds!). There are plenty of women on this forum who will state that they don’t want kids, and plenty past childbearing who will state they never changed their minds and are happy they didn’t have kids.
I tried to make a reply post about that the other day, but didn’t manage to make it non-offensive. See, *I really **don’t **care *if ya’ll are chatbots or magical typing unicorns. This board and email are a big chunk of my social contacts and I don’t understand why people like salinqmind’s mom thinks it’s better for her to get in a car, and drive umpety miles to chat with people in a bar/coffeehouse/church/whatever.
Speaking of bad advice, my mom thinks I should start my own business as a caterer. I would pay money to never have to deal with another bride. Thank G-d most of my friends are married already. Also, every time I have to hire a caterer for work, I have to find a new one, because the one I used time has gone out of business. Mayflies have longer lives than catering businesses around here.