7 Reasons Why I Can’t Take My Mother Seriously Anymore

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1. You can’t apologize.

I know you had a brain tumor as a child, and I’m sorry for that. Now that I’m older, I recognize that a lot of your abilities and actions have been influenced by that incident. If I could take it away or fix it, I would, but I can’t, mom. And honestly, I’ve dealt with some issues of my own that you have no idea about: like major depression, and the time I cut myself. You don’t know about those because I try to protect you, but you don’t try to protect me. And I know sometime you fight with me and you say things you don’t mean, and I’m willing to forgive those and excuse them as a byproduct of a serious condition but… you never apologize. I’ve learned to forgive you without hearing and apology, but it would be nice, just once, to hear “I’m sorry” out of your mouth in a non-sarcastic way.

2. I’m more of a parent than you are.

I know that it’s common for children to take on more responsibilities than they should, particularly in dysfunctional families. But when people comment that we act more like siblings than mother-daughter and people have to sometimes ask who the parent is and who the child is, there is a serious issue. Usually, a parent has to restraint a child during a temper tantrum; so why is it that I, as an 18-year-old, had to restrain you, my 50-year-old mother, during an argument you had with dad? I’ve parented you as much as you’ve parented me, and that doesn’t make me want to call you “mommy” very much.

3. You are as, if not more, immature as I am.

You’re a parent and have had years of experience on this earth, both in the working force and in the social realm, and yet you consistently act on a 5-year-old level. Your arguments with me dissolve into weak character attacks instead of confronting me with the issue, you’ve literally tried to yell at an automatic call, and you become obsessively angry over the slightest of issues. You are incapable of rationally and maturely having a conversation with someone who disagrees with you – and oftentimes, you cannot refute their position; instead, you turn to religious attacks to try to prove your point.

4. You flaunt religion in my face.

We both come from the same background. You go to church more often, I study the Bible more often. One of the things I learned in both is that you can’t judge another person’s spiritual walk, yet you seem to have skipped over that lesson. If I support something you don’t, you claim that “the devil is working on my life.” Most people call it rational expansion, or having my own opinions, but you can’t handle that; instead, you resort to a satanic influence as the cause for my “incorrect thoughts.” Sorry mom, but plenty of Christians and other religious people think that a woman’s right to have an abortion is, well, their right, and not something our morality can dictate. You can’t quite understand the concept that our moral guideline is not law in this free country. Hence the “free” part.

5. You claim my successes as your own and refuse to give me credit except in public (when other people make it impossible for you not to).

You’ve told me multiple times that the only reason I got into a Top 20 university is you (really? Who took the AP classes and the tests and wrote the essays? You don’t even read), that I only got scholarship money because of dad (yes, the scholarship is sponsored by an organization that his company is part of, but I still had to apply and beat many other qualified applicants), and so on. A mother should congratulate and praise a child on accomplishments, not discredit them and take them as the mother’s own.

6. You don’t read.

You refuse to read, you refuse to study, you refuse to improve. As a parent, you should set an example for your child, but the last thing you read to or with me was an Amelia Bedelia book, and it seems that is where your reading level is at. You occasionally read magazines and tabloids, but anything more intelligent than that, and you’re lost. If you legitimately were incapable, that would be okay, but you aren’t. You just choose not to be able to read and comprehend these things. You’ve never read a book in its entirety, and you haven’t gotten past page 10 in any book I’ve given you to try to read. How can I respect you and give you credit for my academic success when you don’t and are unwilling to read.

7. You told me you didn’t love me anymore.

If you had said you hated me, that would be okay. Love and hate aren’t mutually exclusive terms. But it is impossible to love and not love someone at the same time. And if you were really going to be my mother, you would have to love me. That’s the basis of family anyway, isn’t it?

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image – RBerteig