INXS had several good songs over their career, but I think The One Thing, one of their earlier songs, was probably the best.
It's also an excellent argument/confrontation philosophy. No matter how upset you are or how many just causes you might have, it's better to talk to someone about one thing that's bothering you, the most important thing, The One Thing. Trying to confront someone about a list of things will only get you dismissed as being angry. If you want to be heard, I think you have to focus the message.
Focusing the message isn't a guarantee you'll be heard, but it ups the chance you will be.
Lately, I've been aware that I've been grinding my teeth a lot, literally, because I've been angry about a number of things my mother has said to me. I've let it slide, because I felt that 1. confrontation wouldn't accomplish anything because 2. she isn't going to change who she is magically overnight.
Just this past week, she called me to tell me about a story she saw on the news about companies who are giving people gas money if they will put the company's advertisements all over their car.
She was completely serious that this was something she thought I should do.
I was flabbergasted. Aghast. Stunned. Appalled.
I didn't confront her over this because that would've been pointless. Her car was ad-free as of yesterday, but she really thinks I should do this. She really thinks I should have zero class, take a job delivering pizza or get a tattoo for an internet gaming site willing to pay a few bucks to people willing to do so, give up on ever getting a decent job, give up on my education and experience, admit I'm a loser and a failure at 37 and show the world I am low-class, and they should feel free to treat me and my son accordingly in the drop-off lane at private school. Yep, nothing like having all your third grade friends aware that your mom is not a professional and never will be because she will do anything for a buck…
To some degree, the concept of conducting oneself with dignity and class is foreign to my mother (but not enough so that she'd sell ad space on her car). She never taught us anything about conducting yourself with self-respect. Everything I have figured out about that, I've learned as an adult. I know it was a hindrance as a teenager not to have these concepts down, and it isn't something I'm going to revisit or impart to my son.
My mother has stated I should get on food-stamps, welfare, whatever. I make more on unemployment than the poverty level in ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Arkansas. I don't think there's any shame in accepting unemployment, because that's a right if you're laid off until you find another job, but I'm not looking for a handout. I know I will get another job, and it won't be delivering pizza or wearing a sign-board in front of Subway, not because there's anything wrong with that but because I have a degree and a lot of professional experience, and I will get paid for using my mind. I deserve to get paid for using my mind. I could get a job waitressing, but I'm not going to. I haven't been complaining about making ends meet, I haven't been asking anybody for money, and I'm not desperate. I think if I conducted myself in a less than professional manner by taking an 'unskilled labor' job, I could kiss my future as a professional goodbye.
Oh, and this week I learned the book I've been contracted to write and am working on is available for pre-sale online.
We live in West Little Rock, which isn't the Hamptons, but I want the Ninja growing up learning he's as good as everyone else, that we'll never have enough money for our every whim but nobody should, and we will make ends meet in transition times. I want him to grow up knowing stability. I didn't, but he deserves better than that. I've worked hard to let him know we are cutting back on some things right now, but we're ok financially, the rent is getting paid, and life is going on.
It is a wonder I haven't ground my teeth down to the gums over this.
But, like I said, I don't think I can change my mother on this, and I haven't wasted my breath.
I am aware that if I had a boyfriend or friend who was around to witness these encounters with my mother, they would most certainly call her behavior abusive and perhaps not understand why I don't say more in rebuttal.
I am comfortable, though, that I pick my battles well. I don't go to war over every comment, but it doesn't mean I'm not willing to go to war if the circumstances warrant.
There have been countless other nasty comments by my mother: that I will have a problem getting a job because I'm too old, that my resume is 'too good' and I should dumb it down if I want to get a job, that I need to just take any job as long as it's right now, that my standards are unrealistically high and I just need to settle for the next thing that comes along…
Blah blah blah.
It makes me angry, but I remind myself that it isn't about me even, it's about how her mother treated her, it's about her being unable to be supportive or happy for anyone, and it's probably about some bad feeling she has inside about how she was parenting when she was my age vs. how I parent (AWOL and hanging out in bars to meet guys while the kids were unsupervised, vs. me being incredibly responsible, loving and supportive of the Ninja. She is deeply critical of me taking taekwondo lessons, basically saying I don't deserve to have any adult activities in my life or anything that brings me pleasure, I should do nothing but sacrifice every moment of my life, until I snap and go AWOL the way she did… I know she is probably a little jealous of the shape I'm in compared to where she was when she was my age: I earned a blackbelt just shy of my 37th birthday. The remark about me being too old to get hired is proof enough there's some personal jealousy there, that and the unreasonable hatred of the ATA…
Anyway. I've let all this slide. But the past few days, I was really thinking about the fact that it is starting to make me so angry that I need to say something, just to release that inner pressure.
If anything, I think I may be too reserved when I fight. I keep it to The One Thing. I absolutely never name-call, I don't yell, I don't act like a child.
So all this leads up to yesterday. My mother insists on going to Magic Springs (because she secretly wants me to be some magically-supported stay-at-home mom that can focus on entertaining her). We're in the car, and she brings up the fact that the Ninja isn't on anybody's insurance. My insurance was practically worthless, you had to meet an out-of-pocket deductible of around $3200 before it paid a dime. So I don't feel like us having no insurance right now is a big deal: it isn't that different. My mother argues that if something happens and you're hospitalized, you will not get the same care without insurance as you would if you had insurance. And maybe she's right, although I don't think it's so easy to make such a blanket statement. At any rate, I am willing to accept this risk for now. She isn't. But she is absolutely freaky in how paranoid she is about things: storms flip her out, the Ninja participating in anything athletic flips her out, the Ninja playing any video games or going to anything more than a G rated movie…it's a long list. I have refused to let her irrational fears limit my life.
We were in the car yesterday, and she's going on about how worried she is that we don't have insurance. I don't appreciate this conversation in front of the Ninja. He recently asked me what insurance is, and an 8 year old shouldn't have to know these things.
Then she said she wished she could carry the Ninja on her insurance. She frequently makes this kind of statement, which annoys me, it's like saying 'I wish I had a unicorn and a rainbow in my room'. There are simple rules about who you can carry on insurance, and wishing isn't going to change that. Just accept that those are the rules and everybody has to live by the rules (not learning that lesson as a child also was a hindrance, but I'm trying to embrace the idea that I am not above the rules, and neither is my mom). Then she says my ex would never allow it, and I realize she's talking about me giving up custody of the Ninja to her so she could legally put the Ninja on her insurance.
I know this because it isn't the first time she's brought it up. While I was going through the divorce she frequently brought it up, that somehow the Ninja would be better off if she had custody of him.
I KNOW it's ridiculous to imply I'm not a good parent. I'm a great parent. And just because she fucked up being a parent when I was a kid doesn't mean she gets my son for a second try. It's ridiculous, and I'm not sure it isn't just one of her many subconscious ways to tell me she thinks I am a total loser failure. She can't admit she's made mistakes, so she projects it onto me as being a complete disappointment in every way.
Like I said, this isn't the first time this has come up. It's outrageous, I'm quite aware normal grandparents don't say that shit to their kids who are being responsible parents. When I tell people my mother treats me like I'm 12, pregnant and on crack, I am not kidding or exaggerating: just as a parent might seek to get custody of their minor child's child, my mother thinks I can't raise my son properly.
And I couldn't let this all pass, not in front of the Ninja. I said 'I would never allow it, nothing will change that he is mine'. And I dropped it.
Today I realized I had to confront her. I called her and said, simply, no cussing or raised voice, don't ever say anything about adopting the Ninja, or say anything remotely negative about his dad, in front of the Ninja ever again.
People who are in the wrong and can't stand being wrong will follow a pattern: that's not what I said; ok that is what I said but you misunderstood; hey there are 15 things wrong about you so how dare you complain about what I said; you've done the same or worse; and fine I will just stay out of your life altogether if you're going to treat me like this.
And that's what happened. She yelled, she cussed, she listed all the many many things wrong with me and that I had a lot of nerve and couldn't tell her what to say in front of the Ninja…
As disappointing and frustrating and heart-breaking as all this is, I at least feel like I did maintain my composure and class throughout the argument. I didn't get into an argument about all the many distractive things she brought up, I stayed on topic (except for one brief moment when she was saying I should be looking for a job instead of going to taekwondo at night, and I tried to ask what in the world the two things had to do with each other, as if I'm going to get a logical answer).
She went off about how she supports us (with some things, like buying the Ninja school clothes, but not with paying bills or loaning us money, and not because I have asked for anything…this is the woman who can't be bothered to baby-sit for me once every few months when I might want to go out) and therefore has the right to tell me what to do and when and how to live my life and what my priorities should be….
It's pathetic, it really is.
I know she was furious because she perceived me to be taking up for my ex at her expense, which is silly. I don't particularly like him, but my son will never know that. For the Ninja's sake, I will not allow anybody to talk bad about his dad around him.
Right before this happened, I was putting new pictures up on the refrigerator. And for a brief moment I questioned myself, whether it was right that the vast majority of pictures on the fridge are of mine and Ninja's friends. But that's because our friends are the ones who are there for us, who cheered us on when we got blackbelts and nobody in our family could force themselves to show up and support us. We don't have recent family pics because we don't see any family except for my mother. Pictures of our friends are on the fridge because they make me feel good when I look at them, I think about good times and people who treat me well, people who believe in me and don't try to run me down. You can't fault anybody for wanting happy thoughts everytime they go to the fridge.