....to dread family gathering

[AnnaSewell]

My mother has a birthday coming up. She is in her late 90s with very little mobility and sight, so we are visiting her in her small sheltered flat, rather than my older brother's house nearby.

I am my.mother's least favourite child. She never intervened to protect me from my late father's violence and expresses no interest in my life She only really engages with me to ask about my husband and adult daughter. At the moment I ring her once a week, ask her how she is and listen to her.

I have recently been involved in some quite long and high profile employment litigation. She has never asked me anything about the case. Both my brothers expressed interest and sympathy and made contributions to the crowdfunder. My mother who is wealthy, ignored suggestions from my older brother that she might do the same.

Meanwhile my daughter has decided that I was completely wrong to have engaged in this legal battle, which was significant for others working in the sector. (The lawyers thought otherwise. I received an apology, a settlement and much sympathy from the wider public.)

In order to demonstrate her disapproval.my daughter no longer visits me and ignored my own recent birthday.

The prospect of being in the same small room as them both for several hours is making me feel sick.

Going for a walk and/or leaving early are both options. Repeating the mantra, 'This too will pass' under my breath a lot is another...

Arrive late, show your face, smile (through gritted teeth), bit of small talk, don't engage emotionally and leave early.

Is the OP going with the intention to provoke, make it all about herself and discuss contentious politics, or is she saying that if someone asks “and how are you?/What have you been up to?” she doesn’t want to be limited to saying “I’m fine, not been up to much” (otherwise she’ll be seen as a show off/troublemaker)?

I would say you been in contact with someone with covid and you're starting to feel unwell.

I'm GC with DC that believe in gender ideology. I have found that discussing my views just led to them taking a more entrenched position. I think we do need to make some some concessions to gender ideology if we hope to protect children from medical interventions and female prisoners from being housed with sex offenders.

Not to mention that I'm becoming more sympathetic to the fact that the debate as it stabds is hurtful to the humanity of existing trans/gender dysphoric people. I think MN is a bit of a polarising place on this issue and it isn't always helpful to the GC view.

Do they let your daughter speak? Ask questions about her life/hobbies?

My daughter is the only grandchild of the family and is therefore is much loved. It is hard to know what the dynamic would be if there were male grandchildren.

I'd say my own mother is a much more fond grandparent than a parent.

My own feeling is that the attention my mother pays to my partner and my daughter is partly designed to emphasise my lowly position.

Infuriatingly my younger brother has inherited my mother's attitude. He addresses all his conversation to my husband and never asks me anything. (My sister in law has also noted that he never bothers to talk to her. )

My also mother likes to drop bitchy comments about my sister in law who ferries her to countless medical appointments, alters her clothes for her, and sorts out any problems re carers. So there's a wider pattern of dissing daughter figures no matter how helpful and caring they might be.

That sounds infuriating

OP you sound so critical and disparaging about your family. Their daily lives are also important. You do seem to be making it all about you and showing a real lack of respect for your mother and daughter. To fall out with the two most important females in your life is very sad. Go to the party with the intention of being exceptionally loving and attentive to both your mother and daughter. In six months time you will be so glad you were kind to them both.
Michelle Obama is famous for saying, 'When they go low, we go high'. It is great advice for so many situations. Make your mother's late 90th birthday all about her. Do abide by your daughter's request and avoid talking about yourself which might be interpreted as gloating. You will leave the party feeling good about yourself and you might open the door for a more positive relationship between you and your daughter.

My own DD is very GC. I'm not.
Sometimes it is tedious and boring listening to her.
Maybe we could swap DDs? 😅
Seriously though, neither of us would let this come between us. Something's are too important to risk.

I have never met you and don't know what legal case you are referring to. I was thinking post office first, but that doesn't fit your other comments. But, is it possible you have let this event overtake everything else in your life and some family members just dread getting into conversation with you?

I have a family member who used to work in a particular profession and pretty much every single conversation would be dragged around to that eventually. It was tedious.

So even a family gathering for an elderly relative became a pain because of this other person. General chit chat and catching up with family, passing round old photos etc., soon got railroaded around to them. Everything ended being about them.

Congratulations on your achievements, I am not knocking whatever it is you have done, but there is a time and a place for all conversations, and sometimes granny's birthday tea isn't one of them.

There’s quite a lot of different issues here OP, I’m only going to chime in on the GC issue/your daughter. First of all well done on your litigation and I admire your bravery. On discussing it with family, I’m GC too but I’m quite selective about the situation I raise it in. For example I have one side of the family with a trans kid and I’m quite circumspect about it in gatherings because it would have potential to upset and require a lot of explanation/careful discussion and basically dominate the entire event.

Your daughter asking not to talk about it isn’t silencing you, there’s a time and place for everything and frankly not everyone wants every social or family encounter to turn into a heavyweight discussion. That applies to anything, not just GC issues, I’m passionate about a lot of things politically but it is easy to tip over into kind of haranguing people on issues without realising. I’m desperately appalled by the Israel-Gaza situation for example but realise it’s not really an appropriate topic for heavy discussion at a birthday, unless everyone is equally enthusiastic. Don’t go if you don’t want to, but equally would it kill you to just have some cake with your mum and catch up with everyone’s everyday news for a couple of hours? Especially if you do want to teach your daughter about perseverance and forbearance with family.

(And again, congrats on speaking out in your field. That’s what is really important.)

I don’t understand why OP’s family can’t show a normal level of interest which you expect of healthy families, without going into the politics - “Oh yes, you’ve had this court case! It must be stressful. Have you been making sure to eat well and get plenty of rest? And how is going at work, do you think you’ll be able to recover? Is there anything I can do to help? It must be nice to be meeting all these interesting people, what’s that like? Are they friendly? Have you planned anything nice for yourself now that it’s all over?” etc, etc.

It's so sad to see so many people on here deciding that banging the drum about their gender critical beliefs is more important than having a relationship with their children.

Is your daughter in a position to set government or social policy on this issue? I'm guessing not, so why try to raise the issue around her at all? It doesn't further your cause and is isolating you from your daughter.

You say she is thinking in a cult like manner, but actually it's you who is being dogmatic and intransigent. She just asked you not to discuss it. That's not the same as being unable to speak or not being afforded respect.

Do you have hobbies? Something you're watching on TV? A fashion trend you're trying out, a place you'd like to travel to, a joke you've heard... anything.

There's lots to talk about that isn't divisive.

If you can't get your head around that then I agree with PPs, pretend you have Covid and drop a card around in a week.

It's so sad to see so many people on here deciding that banging the drum about their gender critical beliefs is more important than having a relationship with their children.

Where’s that happening? You must have read a different thread.

Your further posts are very interesting OP. You come across as dogmatic, and frankly rather a bore! Can you not spend 2 hours with your family without bringing up this legal triumph? It doesn't matter as much to them as it does to you.

I'm as GC as they come by the way.

With my daughter I think I want to convey the (perhaps unfashionable) idea that one perseveres with family relationships even though there are times when communication is less easy.

No I think you are doing a great disservice to her by teaching her that if something is toxic you stay no matter what. Your mother did not protect you from abuse yet she expects her kids to rally around as if she was a good mother. I wouldn't go. Your dd is and adult and her treatment of you is really awful.

So sorry for you, it sounds awful and hurtful. You are within your rights to protect yourself and not go. But if you know yourself and think you will feel guilt, then going and keeping that mantra in your head might be the best decision for YOU - not them

I should add that I am fond of my older brother and his wife.

I fully expect to spend time asking Derek about his golfing progress and Dominic about his retirement plans as well as listening to my mother reminisce and/or talk about her changed circumstances.

I am fortunate that my sister in law Desdemona is a great conversationalist.

I really don't know with my daughter. While it is not my intention to talk about the ideas on which we disagree, her job is in social policy. So it does sadden me that she will not look at evidence that the ideas she holds so strongly may impact negatively on issues around safeguarding.

Her behaviour to me - even allowing for her strongly held beliefs and the influence of her peer group - has been unnecessarily cruel and hurtful.

While it will be interesting to hear about what she is doing, I also believe that seeing her will cause me a certain amount of pain.

A little harsher than I would say but basically this. I don’t want to discuss politics or heavy issues at every event and it would be very wearing to have a relative who would determinedly bring it up each time.

I also believe that seeing her will cause me a certain amount of pain.

Yes. It will. However, you should really go, and bring an excuse to leave early if it’s unbearable.

@Makethemostofit
The OP refers to her other threads as do PP where her daughter has begged her Mum not try and discuss GC issues when with her. Her daughter would rather they agree to differ. As I understand it the OP refuses to comply with her daughter's request.

It sounds like this case has become part of your identity. I understand that it took a lot of time up, but maybe you need to talk about other topics?

In a family setting there is always compromise. I would not spoil a family gathering by insisting on talking about a controversial topic, when there is no pressing need.

That does not then mean you have to sit there in silence and serve tea.

I feel for you, OP.

As far as your mother is concerned, she sounds pretty horrible but realistically she won't be around for much longer. I would go to the party, bring her some flowers, be in the photos and then make an excuse to leave early. You'll never have the relationship with her that you probably wanted, but at least you won't feel guilty about missing her last birthday party and your last family event all together if she keels over into her soup the next day.

I don't know what to suggest about your daughter, other than that it really doesn't sound like discussing gender critical issues is going to bring her round to your way of thinking and it is clearly damaging your relationship.

Does your daughter have or is she likely to have children of her own?

Go, with very realistic expectations, ie getting through it with the least amount of upset to you, following your prepared steps to achieve that eg batting away uncomfortable conversations

Exactly.
If you can't even mention that you have been to say itv studious and interviewed by xyz and spotted Lorraine in the corridors, then what's the point of even speaking?

They expect you to just deny you have been up to anything for last few months? That's just mad!

That was all the op was thinking she may have to discuss in front of her daughter on a past visit? Logistics around a court case rather than the factual content of the issues being discussed.

Daughter sounds nasty if she thinks mum should be sacked for expressing gc views rather than "agree to disagree". I sn not sure how much most people could cope with that -say you were sacked for standing up against racism-Would it still be okay then for daughter to think it right she was sacked and mum had to agree to not mention her being sacked. Talk about elephant in the room where you can't even mention work or lack of it!

Yes, it's a bit elephant in the room

I suppose the thing is that my views - on a topic about which people can and do agree to differ - affected my employment/income and then litigation followed.

While people can become boring about any stressful experience, there is a level on which some major unexpected event can end up affecting your identity.

Having children does. Moving house does. So does divorce or bereavement or major ill health or a new relationship

I honestly think it has been up there with these experiences. I am not the quite the same person that I was before.

So some people might think, 'Oh I can go and see my family and as long as I avoid talking about my recent divorce, they won't mind seeing me.'.

Or, 'This gathering will be fine. My parents simply want me to avoid mentioning I am in love with a woman and it's the least I can do for them to avoid bringing up my sexuality.'

But a more common reaction would be, 'Why am I expect to repress this? Is it caring of others to wish me to do so?'