(no subject)

[feotakahari]

I’m refusing to attend my brother’s supposedly “COVID-safe” wedding. My mother is crying. I’m trying to be comforting without backing down, but I just I want to ask her what the fuck is wrong with her. Why is this so important? Why is one person’s absence from another person’s wedding something she can’t handle? Why is it my job to control her emotions for her? Why are all these social conventions things she thinks will make me a ”real adult,” when I think they make her more childish?

Comments

[feotakahari]

Mom’s culturally Mexican and grew up very poor. I think she internalized the idea that doing everything picture-perfect and looking “normal” is necessary in order to be safe.

I don’t mean to diminish her. She was pretty brave about supporting feminist causes, and she’s been a good mother in a lot of ways. I was just pissed off.

(Me and fiction again: there’s this movie called Fido that’s about zombies attacking a 1950s community. The way the characters were more afraid of social shame than of zombies kept reminding me of Mom.)

[lb_lee]

...huh. That makes a lot of sense, and you saying that also explains a lot of how my own mother behaves, even though her culture was US, not Mexico.