My mother has three sisters. Two of my aunts have no backbone. One of them is mentally/emotionally about ten years old, despite being in her mid fifties. Both are incredibly passive-aggressive. The other aunt is a bully. Two aunts, the bully and the child, tend to punish my mom for things I do to make her mad.
They all compete over who is in worse health and how, whose back/shoulders/hips/knees hurt more, who is in worse shape financially. They compete over whose life is more stressful. I grew up around this kind of one-upsmanship, and sometimes it's really hard to keep sympathizing with people's problems from turning into this because of that early training.
My mom and her sisters need therapy. They need a lot of therapy. I don't recall one interaction that was healthy between the four of them in all of my twenty-some-odd years of memory. They can't all get together without somebody starting a fight.
It was interacting with my mom's family on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and birthdays that made me hate family get-togethers. Honestly, the only thing that's saved Thanksgiving and Christmas from total hatred is the time we've spent with my in-laws the past ten or so years.
Tomorrow, I'm permitting all of my family to gather for celebrating my son's third birthday (which happened yesterday). I'm afraid the trends will hold, and someone will start a fight, I'll react to protect my children from jealous harpies messing with their heads, and my mom will be punished for me removing my kids from that situation. And, since it's not fair to my kids that they don't get to know their family, I don't know that I really have many options.
And that can fuck off.
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3 comments:
So many burrs under my saddle right now...
1. The Occupy Wall Street types calling for the overthrow of capitalism. Do they not realize that while capitalism may have some serious problems (and I would argue that's CRONY capitalism right now), it's still a damn sight better than the alternatives? Do they REALLY want to go back to a subsistence economy where we all have to grow/hunt/gather our own food?
2. Michael Moore and his cronies, who talk about the "evil rich." Um, Michael - what does that make you? I'd argue that "entertainers" (not that I found Moore very entertaining ever) are worth even less to our economy than people who run corporations - because corporations employ people, and in an ideal world, they employ people at GOOD jobs that last for a long time - not like the hangers-on of some rapper or baseball player who burns through his money and then can't pay any more.
3. Students who wait until 15 minutes before a homework assignment is due and then come and say they "don't know how to do it." Um, you had a fricking WEEK to work on this. I don't have time to re-teach the class material to you now. Sorry.
4. All the damn useless regulations that are hurting businesses that might employ people. And the high corporate tax rate. And then the fact that some politicians come out and shake their fingers at the corporate owners for "not creating jobs." Uh, they CAN'T, you dink, not under the current restrictions.
5. Inflation.
6. My allergies, and this migraine that's nibbling at the edges of my consciousness. FOAD, migraine!
So true, HH, how family can be a double-edged sword. I hope everything goes well for you. (Also--wow, he's 3!)
Ricki, I had a lot of your #3 this week. . . only my students are under 14.
All the coverage of the O.W.S. stuff can FO. (Although I'd give an "F-yeah!" to the 22-year-old who held up a "this guy is clueless" sign next to one dude.) Really, it's not going to do much of anything.
Sick (supposedly) library secretaries can FO. I am so tired from doing double duty that I barely can keep my eyes open.
I got nuthin', having been on vacation for a couple of weeks. But I'll second the above.
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