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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To Have Walked Out

400 replies

queeneileen · 08/04/2015 20:23

My mum is truly doing my head in. She's managing to drum up arguments left, right, and centre with both me and my DS(13) I've got to the point where I'm limiting the time DS and DM spend together to less than 30mins at a time - they're as stroppy as each other and wind each other up - but I still go round every night after work for a brew. She's 67, disabled (can still get out and goes out every Saturday night to the local for company), but doesn't really do much socialising during the day.

Aaaaaanyways, she's just becoming more and more argumentative. Yesterday we rowed about politics, royal mail, the SNP, Scotland, her tv guide.
Today it was about employment law and the fact she thinks it's a shame employers can't hire who they want but instead have laws they have to cow-tow to. This was all sparked from her asking if Asians owned my opticians as the place was "flooded" with them. I work for an employment law company and started telling her about (quite sodding obvious) laws in place to stop discrimination happening. Queue massive row where I don't allow her to have her own opinion and it culminated in her accusing me of calling her a racist pig, and me telling her she IS racist. She is - not 15mins before she told me she was nearly sick when the Asian optician was checking her eyes as he was in her face. (note: I'm sorry. It's what she said)

She decided then she was offended that I think she's racist, and offended that I could say that to her in the manner I did. And I just said I was leaving and walked out.

I can't hack listening to her. I can't hack the rows. I can't hack the expectation of me sitting there listening to her spout bullshit because it's her opinion, even if I find it offensive. I end up openly questioning what she's saying and - I'll be honest - telling her she's talking crap.

I'm hugely sad I've walked out but AIBU to have done so?

OP posts:
Kampeki · 11/04/2015 21:47

Daffs, I'll try again, as you didn't answer the first time:

If we shouldn't call racist behaviour racist, what do you propose we should do about it? What should we say about it?

daffsandtulips · 11/04/2015 21:47

Call me what you like it no longer matters.

pinningwobble · 11/04/2015 21:47

sample quote from my granddad:

'it's getting worse and worse all the time, there's even a polish shop on the high street'

oh HEAVEN FORBID, A POLISH SHOP?! Whatever next?!

I mean seriously. I quite like going in for some nice polish sausage (not a euphemism!) and a bit of pierogi.

daffsandtulips · 11/04/2015 21:50

Well it is strange for your grandad. He hasn't seen it before. Don't you get it? Like I said before, things take time and screaming racist is just rude.

pinningwobble · 11/04/2015 21:52

daffs no you're totally right, every time I see something I haven't seen before my immediate reaction is to treat it with shock and horror.

daffsandtulips · 11/04/2015 21:53

It may serve you all well to stop thinking "racist" and understand why people are scared of change, its a NATURAL thing in humans.

PeppermintCrayon · 11/04/2015 21:54

Ah, daffs, the old: they're not racist, they just don't understand / are ignorant / can't cope with change.

What do you think racism is? Some pure emotion that is mutually exclusive from the above?

Enjoyingmycoffee1981 · 11/04/2015 21:54

Daffs, you are judging people against your own standard of "needing time" to get your head around people of from different countries living in the same vicicinity as you

For many people, and that includes older people that you utterly patronise, we don't "need time" to stop being twatty about the fact that there are people from other countries (or "denominations" as you put it!) living alongside us.

Kampeki · 11/04/2015 21:55

So are you suggesting that we should just accept racism as normal and natural, daffs?

Chippednailvarnish · 11/04/2015 21:55

Denominations?!?

Yet another completely absurd comment.

pinningwobble · 11/04/2015 21:55

daffs, there's a huge difference between being 'scared of change' and actively disliking an entire race or nation of people for no other reason than that they suddenly have a shop in your home town.

daffsandtulips · 11/04/2015 21:56

Try to change terrible goings on in "culture", not easy.
Try to change terrible goings on in "religion" not easy.

So we are talking basic human nature surely?

pinningwobble · 11/04/2015 21:57

daffs, my parents were a mixed-race couple in the eighties. as they walked along a street in cambridge they were spat at and my Dad was called a paki. According to you should I feel sorry for and be understanding to this person because they were just 'scared of change'?!

daffsandtulips · 11/04/2015 21:59

Absurd? really? are you saying you are better than me chipped? Why are you banging on and trying to make me out to be some sort of underclass? what is your problem?

daffsandtulips · 11/04/2015 22:00

Shall we turn this around then pinning, if i were to walk along a street in pakistan then maybe I would be spat at. I wouldnt be allowed to marry into a pakistani family would I?

pinningwobble · 11/04/2015 22:01

I notice Daffs is conveniently ignoring most if not all of the arguments put to her.

Kampeki · 11/04/2015 22:01

Sorry, I didn't understand your post.

I think you are saying that you think racism is normal and natural. Is that right?

Chippednailvarnish · 11/04/2015 22:03

Do you actually know what absurd means?
And how do you know if Pinning's family is from Pakistan?
Have you been to Pakistan?

pinningwobble · 11/04/2015 22:04

daffs...wow? seriously?

You would not get spat at if you walked along a street in Pakistan, no (I speak from experience).

Two of my friends have married into pakistani/muslim families where they have been welcomed with open arms.

In any case, even if you WERE spat at or not allowed to marry into a pakistani family, no that would not suddenly make behaving the same way towards other people acceptable!

daffsandtulips · 11/04/2015 22:05

Im saying that the influx in England has been on mass. Im saying culturally we are very easy going people. I have no religion where a woman is an underclass. I have no culture where yet again a woman is an underclass.

I am saying that I have not gone to another country and expected them to adapt to me wholey yet. Its rude.

pinningwobble · 11/04/2015 22:05

For the record my Dad is actually latino and he came here having been imprisoned and tortured in his home country. He's very dark skinned so this ignorant moron felt entitled to call him a 'paki'.

Enjoyingmycoffee1981 · 11/04/2015 22:06

She is ignoring because quite clearly she doesn't understand what we are saying. So she constantly resorts back to whinging about name calling (even though we are not. On goodness, we could, we really really could, as there is so much ammunition here, but we are not) and the fact that it "takes time".

pinningwobble · 11/04/2015 22:06

culturally we are very easy going people

Hmm yes and you seem to be a shining example of that.

Kampeki · 11/04/2015 22:07

Can you answer my question with a simple "yes" or "no", please, daffs.

Enjoyingmycoffee1981 · 11/04/2015 22:07

"Im saying culturally we are very easy going people"

That's something to be proud of Daff!

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