Ever spend a weekend with your parents and wonder how the hell you came from their genes?

We took my mother on a short trip to Texas this weekend. I have never met anyone who is more socially inept, rude, and all around impatient than my mother. She treated me like shit for most of it, was bossy and acted like the world needed to cater to her. And she has lived such a sheltered life she didn't understand some of the most basic of manners. She freaking farted at the breakfast table in the middle of the hotel breakfast chamber. How in the hell did I turn out as normal as I am. I was completely embarrassed the entire weekend. I was shushing her constantly and it was like our roles were reversed and I was suddenly the parent and she the child. I had to remind her to not freaking talk with her mouth full and to chew with her mouth closed. What the fuck is that about? Trips with your mother is supposed to bring you closer together not make you never want to speak to her again.
Please commiserate. Thanks.
Duckie

What am I supposed to do with that?
Duckie

I would give almost anything just to be embarrassed by my father for one more hour.

I lost my dad in 1996, and I agree with you, but my relationship with my mother has been very strained for reasons I will never understand since I started to not think she was perfect at around eight years old. She may have just driven the last nail in an already cool relationship.
Duckie

his cats and the History channel and that's right where i like him. I am nothing like the people in my family and i live on the other side of the country so when i do go and visit i grab a beer and chuckle in their general direction.

So we went. She wants to go on more trips, but I don't know....
Duckie

your mom is what she is, don't let it embarrass you because it's not you doing it and you have no control over her behavior.

:hug:

:hug:

Well, I did have that happen all the time. That is part of the reason I told my fathers side of the family to "fuck off." I don't have any intention of ever speaking to them again. Seven years without speaking to them. Best thing I ever did.

Is like a week with the devil. It is horrible every time.

So I can commisurate with you on that. Can't help you, but I get it.

This weekend was not fun. When we got on the train to come home, I put my ear buds in and listened to loud music while reading. I needed time to recharge my patience with her. I can't even ask my husband a question with out her going HUH? IF we take her again, I am going to make her bring a long a friend.
Duckie

are you sure she's not having mental/physical problems?

Unfortunately, my mother believes psychology is bunk. I believe she's bipolar, always have, but she will not see anyone about her issues. She needs meds, but she thinks that's just a way for them to bilk you out of money, and she will not hear a word of it. My god, you should have heard the discussion this weekend we had when she brought up learning how to pump her own gas. It was insane.
Duckie

I'm seriously bugging here. Thanks.
Duckie

And thats the worst word we say in front of her.

And I swear I said penis one time in a completely medical way and she slapped me across the face.
Duckie

Are we separated sisters? I was born in Chandler.:hug:
No, I guess not, my mom is in Texas all the time.
Unfortunately, so am I.

Get out of their holes and do something new. I am the antithesis of my mother and I think it pisses her off. She's always tells me I think that I'm better than her. You know what? I do just a little bit. She raised me the opposite of how I turned out. She still thinks it's terrible that I let my husband fix his own plate for dinner. Furthermore, she thinks it's terrible that he cooks most of the time. She just doesn't get me. At family functions she tries to wait on him and it's a little creepy.
Duckie

:evilgrin:

I'm sure she wonders where I came from. She thought I was a monster up until a few years ago. She hated me until like two years ago. And I think I'm putting it mildly.
Duckie

And then I stop to think and realize that the traits I have little patience for in others, are the very same traits I myself possess. I just try to remember that and attempt to do something about it.

...but I feel what you're saying.
Duckie

not to worry you but it sounds like early stages of dementia to me

you would have noticed if she was always like this

I always thought she was just a very 50s kind of housewife type of person. I'm not so sure now. I'm mortified. It was like we had a child on our trip. Our roles were completely reversed. It was the weirdest thing I've ever experienced.
Duckie

a v. 50s housewife type of person doesn't chew with her mouth open and fart proudly in public

she needs to be seen by a doctor, there is some chance that it's another form of dementia that can be halted from progressing (an example would be a friend's dad who turned out to have pernicious anemia, progression halted by vitamin b12 injections)

if it is alzheimer's, when the onset is late 50s, early 60s like this, it would generally progress much faster than usual but you still need to be prepared and to see that her finances are in order since she will ultimately need nursing care

it doesn't sound like a fun conversation to have but it will have to be looked into

one of my relatives was a jerk for years before she was diagnosed, we just thought, well, i don't know what we thought, that she was an asshole, i guess, very sad situation

and not with the parents you wish you have". I remind my sisters of this often.

The way I keep sane is remembering that they were definitely better parents than their parents were, and I hope I am a better parent than my parents.

My son, who was around 10 at the time, went out with me from a restaurant where we were having dinner with my parents. As soon as we were out the front door he doubled over laughing so hard he was crying. When I asked him what was so funny he said "I can't believe you lived with those people until you were 18!!"

Yup, those are my parents...

...then there are creepy ones like my mom. I'm hoping your parents are at least a little endearing.
I get what you're saying though.
Also, I take it from your signature that you have a dachshund. I do too. I love that little picture...and your name. That's great.
Duckie

Alcoholism at the top of the list. They both grew up in alcoholic and abusive families. They still drive my sisters crazy, but I have come to terms with who they are. We were all whacked pretty good when we were young. Some of us are over it, and some aren't. I have 5 sisters and 1 brother, BTW. My brother has alcohol abuse issues, and I and most of my sisters are being treated for depression. My parents can be endearing in small doses, but long visits can be pretty stressful.

And, yes, I am owned by a couple of dachshunds. Ruby is a 10 yo mini red longhair and Bandit is a 16 yo mini black and tan smooth. We adopted Bandit from Dachshund Rescue when he was 10. I try to publicize rescue as the best place to get a new doggie, and I hope that my sig sends some folks to Coast to Coast Dachshund rescue, where we found Bandit.

It's a shame you can never know your parents when they were the same age you are now.

She told me it was none of my business. I dropped it. What kind of parent won't tell their daughter about when they were their age or even when they were younger?
Duckie

affectionate questions about the past intrusive.

It was a shock to me. There's nothing my family likes more than talking family history.

I can't travel with my mother either; her behavior is too wacky and annoying to take out in public. She has a chip on her shoulder and yells at people in the store, for instance, if their carts are in the way.

Background: my Dad is normal, my mother is semi-loony. I believe she has many elements of being a good person - she loves animals for instance - but at the age of 64 has gotten somewhat bitter and negative (my parents divorced a long time ago; Dad moved on whereas Mom still has anger about it). She spends much of her time harping about family members she is feuding with - which is just about all of them including my sister (except for lucky me; probably because she lives 7 hours from me so we don't have much opportunity to squabble). She had a live-in boyfriend for many years with whom she fought quite often. He died and became a saint (in her view), and for years since his passing she's lionized him. Not to speak ill of the dead, but the guy drank a bottle of vodka a day and indirectly encouraged her own alcoholism as a result, then did nothing to help her stop when she realized she had to quit. Not exactly John Lennon.

Spending two or three days with my mother is tough because I can't handle the nasty gossip, the talking about the dead boyfriend, or the fact she asks me the same questions over and over about childhood friends like we're all still 15. Frankly, I turn on a baseball game or movie to try to tune out the situation.

Plus, there is no easy way to say this, but her personal hygiene is not all it could be: she bathes about once per week (yes, whether she needs it or not). She lives on a farm and shuns cleanliness, which as you might guess is the very epitome of my life thanks to my mother the slob. To give you an example, once while she was here I got sick with a stomach bug. After recovering the very first thing I did was dive into the shower. She got sick next and then when she felt better had no intention of bathing! I had to tell her to take a shower!

Fortunately my mother is still independent but I genuinely dread what will happen if she's incapacitated and can't work. Of course my wife and I will care for her - preferably by putting her up in a nursing home. If I had to take her in, I would, but it would be extremely tough - on my wife as well!

She sounds like my mother, who I haven't spoken to in over 7 years. I'm curious...is your father the precise polar opposite of your mother too?

My father was happy, loved us unconditionally, was the peacemaker. She was very abusive after he passed away when I was 16. She ignored me most of the time or she was screaming at me. It was always either or. Never anything else. And I was a good kid. Thank God my friends had good parents.
Duckie

(who yes, were totally different than I) but my brothers and sisters. they are totally different than i am (may be i was the adopted one?) but i am the one who looks like my father according to some relatives.

in fact, I hope every day to live up to their example. They are amazingly warm, generous, intelligent and compassionate people.

I wish I were more like my mother. At 99 she's still generous, loving, sociable, giving. I see myself as much more selfish and self-centered, sigh, but see Mother in my sister. I'm afraid I inherited pretty much from my father - we were adversaries, at the time I thought because I had to fight him straight down the line (to wear lipstick, to date, etc.) Now I can see we were adversaries because we were so much alike. Most of all I thank him for my intuition, which is a large part of who I am.

It's not so much "how the hell did I come from this," because I can see similarities in our personalities, but rather "holy shit, compared to this, I'm a model of decency."

My mother is bigoted toward everyone not a straight white person, hateful, borderline senile (and I'm pretty sure I got those genes), lazy as fuck, overbearing, overprotective, paranoid, stuck-up, possesses subnormal intelligence, has all the financial sense of a lobotomized chimpanzee, leeched off my poor dad so much he had to get back together with her (he was paying $1300-1700 a month for 8 fucking years to support her useless ass, and she held a job for maybe 2 of those years) and is generally worthless.

We can generally get along for an hour or two, after which point we blow up into a huge screaming match over something. Usually something petty.

I can think of mmm...three good things about her:

1. Despite treating me like shit at home, she usually stuck up for me against outside problems. (I'm gifted and have a learning disability. The local public school system had a lot of asshats in administrative positions who tried to treat me poorly because of it.)
2. She's creative, and those genes got passed on to me.
3. When I hit her with an accusation of "You'd probably have been happy if black people had been herded into concentration camps and murdered," she denied it -- and actually seemed sincere in her denial.

My dad, on the other hand, is a great person, too nice for his own good, and really doesn't deserve to be saddled with that worthless bitch.