Family Dynamics

[poliphilo]

We forgot to give my mother her newspaper this morning- and she didn't notice.

Yesterday, though,  we were running late with lunch (the packet said 30 minutes cooking time but it lied) and she not only noticed but got on her high horse. She may look and act like a fluffy old lady but underneath there's a daughter of the big house who believes there are things she's entitled to.  I got angry in turn but managed to hide it.

What I wanted to do was flounce out the house.

Later, as I cooled down, it came to me that flouncing out the house was just what my father would have done.

Comments

[artkouros.livejournal.com]

Nothing like a good flounce.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, but you feel silly afterwards.

[(Anonymous)]

high horse - oh dear!
Jenny x

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

When she does it I'm reminded of why I moved to Manchester.

[wyrmwwd.livejournal.com]

Ahhh... the entitlement thing...

People who have a sense of entitlement rarely notice how much it puts other people off.

I was late meeting My Favorite Pilgrim one day last week. WOW she got mad at me. She read me the riot act, all about how this was "unacceptable" and "unprofessional." She was so mad at me that she put "good" instead of "excellent" on my evaluation for the CPE.

Her brain is drawing on old programming in order to make sense of the world.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The world changes so fast. My mother has paid very little attention to the things that have happened in her lifetime- and hasn't really upgraded her programming since the 1930s.

I know I'm falling behind myself. One slows down and the young race ahead. It's what happens.

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

My parents are flouncers and I admit to having flounced out a few times myself. You were right. It's a fleeting pleasure, at best.

I watched my mother swing from desperation, as she tried in vain to help her mother get on as before, to anger and exasperation, as the two easily slipped into old antagonistic roles even through the dementia. The nonagenarian who had no idea where her purse got to still remembered exactly how to get under her daughter's skin, while for all my mother's sixty-odd years she was powerless to stop it. I hope that I do better or die young. Not sure I care which.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

My mother and I are neither very communicative. We can both go hours without speaking. It helps, I think.

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

I suspect it does help. I'm communicative and my mother is not. It works, but only when she's in a good mood.