I honestly cannot be gone soon enough
Conversation that just happened in my mother's living room.
Me: *Relays funny student gaff from paper I am currently grading, because it's funny.*
Conversation about said gaff follows.
Mother: You just can't get worked about about every thing one of them says.
Me: I was laughing, Mom, because it's funny!
Mother: *Flurry of "I just can't say anything to you!" and "It wasn't a criticism!"
Me, for about the fourth time this week: But you keep commenting on my feelings, and I really don't need it!
Mother: You're perfect. You don't need anything.
Now...let's set aside the minor but kind of relevant point that I'm the fucking teacher and it's literally my job to make judgments of student writing.
1. How is, "You need to stop engaging in this behavior" not a criticism? I mean, you can call it (known to be unwanted) advice, but it's still, "change this thing about yourself."
2. Admittedly, this is very triggering for me, because for literally my whole life, she has been telling me that it's my responsibility to react to things how she thinks I should react to them, with the idea that maybe people shouldn't do things that they know upset/bother/whatever me just a non-starter. (She has always been very big on the "don't get upset, and they'll stop this behavior" stuff, which, no.)
3. If your response to someone objecting to your comment is that said person must not need to change their feelings/behavior in any way, then you're criticizing them. Jesus Christ, fucking own it.
4. She has, as you might have guessed, been doing this ALL WEEK.
5. Yeah, I just can't visit for more than a long weekend anymore. That makes me sad, but I guess it's the truth.
Sorry, really needed to vent.
This entry was originally posted at https://cereta.dreamwidth.org/1198782.html. If you can, please speak there.
have spoken there.