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Original poster

My house isn’t a ‘real’ house and my toilet isn’t a ‘proper’ toilet !

113 replies

ChocoIateandTea · 19/10/2019 08:54

According to my DM ......

I have a council house and a secure lifetime tenancy, according to her this still isn’t a ‘real’ house not like dsis flat as she has a mortgage .......

Dsis has 2 REAL PLUMBED in toilets and my second one is a macerator so it’s not a proper toilet

And best of all my dh who works full time ........ his job ‘isn’t as good or important’ as bil job because .....
Bil wears a suit to work 🤣🤣🤣

I give up I don’t know whether to laugh or cry

OP posts:
Strawberrycreamsundae · 19/10/2019 10:37

She sounds exactly like my mother OP, even down to the doctor comment.
I live in a red brick semi, very happily with lovely neighbours, but she has never visited in 20+ years unless we collected her, because 'it looks like a council estate (it isn't but so what if it was?).
After 65+ years of never doing anything right I make my visits to my parents very brief because I am sick of it.
I wish I'd gone NC years ago.

RueCambon · 19/10/2019 10:38

She's MY mum!!

Are you my secret sister?

My mum told me the same from 30 to 40. She's given up now. I actually told her loudly in front of sisters that if I was seeking style advice it wouldn't be from women a generation older than me, and that my own generation and the generation below me got long hair and it wasn't an issue for them, and I was hardly going to cut my hair because who ever sets out to be old.

At 46 I took a mad fit and cut my hair short and she was delighted. I'm growing it a bit longer atm though.

She thinks my daughter is fat and gives her less food than she gives my son!

You have to feel sorry for women of that generation I think, how boxed in they were. They do not even realise that they've internalised the patriarchy.

Actually, if you want to make your mum blush, just say to her ''The problem here mum, is that you've internalised the patriarchy''. My mum nearly gets sick when I say the word patriarchy!

Original poster
ChocoIateandTea · 19/10/2019 10:39

I think she just has this ‘idea’ that life is marry first then have 2 children
Wear a suit and earn lots of money
Be white and middle class

Dsis has follows these rules and that’s all good as far as dm concerned. I wish she would just disown me tbh seeing as my family doesn’t fit her ideal

OP posts:
Original poster
ChocoIateandTea · 19/10/2019 10:42

She has a group of friends they do all seem the same
Very concerned that things like front doors are clean and shoes always shiny too ..... being kind doesn’t seem to factor in the grand scheme of right and wrong but a grubby front door and you’re the devils relative

OP posts:
TottieandMarchpane · 19/10/2019 10:42

That’s what my mother calls “doing everything RIGHT”. Hmm

You could disown her.

RueCambon · 19/10/2019 10:43

I feel like I've forgiven my mum for all of this now. She wanted better for me (than she felt she had/got) but without ever letting go of the same patriarchal mindsets that held her back. So she sees that I do what I want and that I have more freedom, and one part of her realises that I have more freedom but what she really wanted was for me to be conventionally successful as a woman confined by the patriarchy which is a tightrope. why anybody would wish that on their daughter is a mystery. I want my dd to feel what she does, to marry or not to marry that it's her choice. My mum bullied me in to being a secretary which isn't even a 'thing' anymore. They should have let me follow my own meandering path of self-discovery. I was never lazy. Always had a job, even if it was Shock in a shop. So, I know I would have climbed some greasy pole somewhere on my own terms but no, was hauled out of shop and made to do a secretarial course !

Original poster
ChocoIateandTea · 19/10/2019 10:45

Yes my mum chose my college courses for me too! I had to do a levels as the beauty therapy course was ‘too common’
I did a year and dropped out I hated it

OP posts:
RueCambon · 19/10/2019 10:48

@ChocoIateandTea I'd turn it round. Tell her you're worried about her.
Give her a book called ''what really matters'' and put your head to one side and say ''are you ok?''.

This crap is normal but she will keep it up forever if she doesn't get that no, she alone doesn't get to define normal or right or abnormal and wrong.

What would your mother think of this, I went and stayed in a hotel on my own. I had a few days free and I stayed in a hotel. My mother said about five times ''but you'd be on your own'' like only couples can go to a hotel! Like what. Not sure. I'm still having the experience even if there's nobody with me to see it. She didn't get it at all. Had to say to her in the end ''maybe I'm braver than you?'' and she didn't like that.

It has been hard work getting my mother to stop viewing me as awkward and sensitive. (sensitive because I put forward another way of looking at things)

Original poster
ChocoIateandTea · 19/10/2019 10:50

It’s a shame in a way for her as she’s missing out on knowing some lovely people dh included as they don’t fit her model of perfection

OP posts:
gubbsywubbsy · 19/10/2019 10:50

Fucks sake .. do people really still think like this !!!... who gives a shit .. I couldn't have a mother like that in my life !

Trills · 19/10/2019 10:50

The only people I know who wear suits are estate agents and middle management. Anyone more senior wears trousers and an open shirt.

I hope you don't mean an OPEN shirt... Just one with no tie?

BarbaraofSeville · 19/10/2019 10:51

Your DM is not as middle class as she thinks. An obsession with the state of the front door is as working class as they come.

TottieandMarchpane · 19/10/2019 10:53

It’s typical “married up” stuff.

Slappadabass · 19/10/2019 10:53

I'd start calling the cheeky cow Hyacinth, to her face Grin

RueCambon · 19/10/2019 10:53

@ChocoIateandTea oh nip it in the bud!

You're only 37 and I never really stepped out of the roles my mother cast for us until about 44 Blush Embarrassed of this now.

Up till that point, the template of The Right Way was set by my Mum.

Things are a little different now. She finally understands that pleasing her or her generation is not a huge motivation for me. She's also struggled not to say more when I say to my DD have another plate of chips if you want? I don't want my DD to struggle with her weight but realistically if she's going to eat a bit too much she's going to carry the extra weight but that's not something that's carved in stone for every. At any point my DD could just think, right, fitness kick! Making her feel shit for not being pencil slim is just a crap plan. But one that my mum would like to implement! I shut my mum right down. I know my DD is not pencil slim but she's hardly fat either and if she wants another slice of cake I say just let her fucking have it.

None of us contractually obliged to be thin.

Original poster
ChocoIateandTea · 19/10/2019 10:55

Slimness is an issue for my dm too. I’m not big a size 10 but a curvy 10
Dsis is a 6-8 i was told I’ve got a leg on each corner’!!! That I should aim to be ‘more like dsis she is a thoroughbred’ ffs !!!

OP posts:
goldplatedtoilet · 19/10/2019 10:57

Over 30's need to have their hair cut short.

Well that's me fucked then because I am not only over 30 but I have waist length hair. And I look god awful with short hair as well.

What a shame the car has broken down AND you've lost your phone AND the broadband isn't working on Xmas Eve so you cant tell anyone that you cant xmas visit this year.

notso · 19/10/2019 10:58

The only people I know who wear suits are estate agents and middle management. Anyone more senior wears trousers and an open shirt.

What like this? How very professional!

My house isn’t a ‘real’ house and my toilet isn’t a ‘proper’ toilet !
Original poster
ChocoIateandTea · 19/10/2019 11:01

I admit it did make me grow my hair when she said that it’s really long now !

OP posts:
Original poster
ChocoIateandTea · 19/10/2019 11:03

RueCambron it’s not good she’s saying that to your dd at all
What is the obsession with being slim why does it matter is it a generation thing ?

OP posts:
DragonontheWagon · 19/10/2019 11:07

Yikes, she sounds a delight!

My husband is a high earner but he goes to work in chinos and the same uniform shirt that the manual workers wear but he's not a manual worker. He just can't be bothered to choose and iron shirt in the morning so he wears a uniform top.

I'm in my 50's with long hair and wear the same stuff as younger people wear and I have zero intention of whacking out a nice knee length skirt and blouse ever unless it's look that's more on trend. I'll wear a polo neck with skinny jeans and a pair of leopard print boots to rock my inner Bet Lynch until the day I die probably.

TreestumpsAndTrampolines · 19/10/2019 11:12

Oh God - none of these are indicators - DP and I both earn well, we rent (have done for years - sometimes, shock horror, the house had a macerator toilet - although I lived in fear of the kids putting something down it they shouldn't)

I've had jobs where I wore suits, and jobs where I didn't, and jobs where I wore a uniform - and all in the same career. Just like DP. I found that actually it's the lower/middle management that were most strict on what I wore - when I was staff, or senior management I had much more flexibility.

Although personally I prefer a uniform - or at least a work polo or something so I don't have to think in the mornings. When I had to be smart I bought the same shirt in 6 colours, and two suits exactly the same, and just wore them on rotation!

katycb · 19/10/2019 11:21

It's ok my Gran still says that we didn't have a proper wedding (civil ceremony)!

RebootYourEngine · 19/10/2019 11:28

I know that it is easy for me to say as I am not in your situation but I would have to laugh at her. Or feel a bit sorry for her as she must have had a very sad life.

I would rather be poor and with a partner who loves me and doesn't mistreat me and makes me happy than with someone just for money that is going to make me unhappy. All for the status.

Oldraver · 19/10/2019 11:40

OP she sounds so much like my Mum... she's so ashamed of me being a single parent, having Tattoos, having a scruffy garden, having a hole in the wall (for 17 years that I won't fix) where the curtain fell down etc.

Everything revolves around how things look to outsiders. When I put a couple of discs out and ended up with sciatica she got my Dad to mow my front lawn as "how will it look to the neighbours " but nothing to actually help me.

We've not seen her for 10 months and I recently sent her a photo of DS, something I had stopped doing. Het first words were OMG he's got acne, is it the kind that scars ? Of all the things she could of said, DS has grown and changed so much in the last year

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