My DM is an extremist

[Summersunshine112]

My parents have always had strong political views, strong racist views, strong fattest views. From a young age I always knew I didn't agree with them and I tried my best to argue back. But I was shouted down and punished for voicing my own opinions. I am ashamed that I have parents who have these views.

However my DM as she's gotten older has begun to have more extreme views. She now follows a far right extreme political party (you probably can guess which one). She has begun watching so much stuff online and since all this unrest recently she's been further sucked into it all. She even told me that she was considering going to a protest in London. She's never said anything like this before.

I have a young DC and I am also worried about them being around my mum. I don't want her extreme views put onto them.

I love my DM because she's my mum but I don't like her as a person and what she believes in and stands for. I feel sad for me. I feel embarrassed and ashamed by her too.

Has anyone else got parents like this? If so what did you do?

Simply, I wouldn’t have her round my child. I would also likely heavily reduce contact. We have family like this (in law side) and see them 3 times a year for an hour at the most. Absolutely no time for racist facist dickheads in my life.

I know, I have limited contact atm. I've reduced it further after I found out she had considered protesting.

I just feel sad that my mum is like this and nothing I say or do can change her

I have gone NC with my father over his views.

My ex (father of my kids) has just hung a confederate flag on the wall in his flat. Haven’t dealt with it yet but I will.

I find it strange how it's always the older generation (55+) who are the right-wing racists and bigots on these types of threads on Mumsnet. Yet all the right-wing/racist rioters in every town and city over this past week have been a younger demographic. In their 30s and 40s. Some in their 20s.

Just to add some balance to this ageist thread.

You are wonderful. To overcome the family pressure and think differently to your parents is so hard. As an only child I too was frightened of expressing contrary opinions and ridiculed for my ideas. As an adult I had little contact with them, and only talked of daily issues, never a discussion of big issues. I think that you cannot 'win ' here so I would do as you are doing, and keep your distance. You are upset by her ideas and she is not. Avoid them as much as you can feel comfortable with. The public participation and expression is worrying too, and your children would not benefit from contact. I can see a lot of minuses and few pluses in the relationship.

My granny is a Putin supporter. I don’t understand why and I don’t want to. I love her, she is wonderful in every possible way except for this odd kinship with Russians she had her entire life which now escalated to this… She is an intelligent woman, though and knows how the rest of the family feel about it. More often than not she will change the subject herself if anyone as much as mentions that part of the world. I on,y ever get an earful if I make a comment, forgetting that she has a view on the subject. Like the recent case of a playwriter and actor being prosecuted by the Russian court for writing a play which an anonymous source found so offensive that they made a report to the authorities. I saw it on the news and out of shock said “Did they go back to USSR there”? I immediately got a lecture that imprisonment of intelligencia never happened and soviet censorship was a hoax. I had to immediately change the subject. Then called my mum who laughed and said that next granny will claim holocaust never happened.
She is absolutely harmless, though, She would definitely never join a protest and would never allow herself to voice her views in front of the young uns. Not that they would have any idea what she is on about.
I have no idea what we would have done if she did. I suppose just explain to the kids that everyone is entitled to their views but these are the reasons why we think these views are unacceptable. We generally tend to give information to the kiddo from both sides of the argument and let her make her own mind up. My partner has some fairly unsavoury views as well so we model the acceptable behaviour by showing that you can have calm discussions despite having opposing views. I also model substantiating claims and fact-checking. All good life lessons for the teen.
Definitely don’t feel embarrassed for your parents. It’s got nothing at all to do with you so you don’t need to carry this shame for them.

It's not an ageist thread - it's a specific thread. OP is talking about one person.

There is always an opportunistic element to riots. Younger kids very often get involved just for the fun of it, sometimes without even knowing what the issue is.

I can relate Op. It’s hard! My parents are right wing, racist, homophobic and used to vote BNP. I’m no contact with them now. They used to get furious when I would argue back, you had to agree with them or else.

My Dad used to tell me all Africans were lazy and the hiv pandemic was a good thing to thin out the population. He’s a terrible human and cutting him out of my life has only been a good thing.

The thread has nothing to do with ageism. The fact that the mother is of a certain age is irrelevant and a natural consequence of the OP being old enough to have young kids and post on the forum. The question was specifically about how to shield the kids from extreme views. Naturally, this probably wouldn’t have come up if the OP’s mother was 20 unless OP somehow teleported herself into the future.

When young, I established rules that expressing extremist views in front of my child would mean we left. Then I followed through. training didn’t take long.

when older, I raised a thinking child who could understand that grandparents can have abhorrent views. Then we do funny things like spend Christmas present money on lgbtq+ causes of dc choosing. We don’t tell the grandparent, we just say they bought a poster or a bag or some pins, whatever swag came with a nice donation from a teenager. So the grandparents get a nice thank you and it’s all very polite, but we know we are fighting back.

How is this ageist. I'm literally posting about my mum and her extreme views. I never mentioned anyone's age. Don't try push your own agenda

DH's mum is like this. She last saw the DC 4 years ago...

I guess I've been holding on as I'm a single parent and don't have any other support network. However I don't think I can deal with DM expressing these views to DC.

Would the extreme party be Reform? The one that got more votes than the Lib Dems?

Disgusting isn't it.

I’ve a young relation who has come out with some v strong views a year or two ago.

Still not sure if my DC reported him to Prevent.

Fortunately he’s calmed down a bit now (+ has a girlfriend)

Persuade them otherwise.

It’s so so hard

There’s a load of advice on how to interact with family members, who have been radicalised, which is basically what you’re talking about. https://actearly.uk/advice/tips-for-talking/ Just found that link but you may find better

I totally understand that you don’t want your kids being subjected to it, might want to think about talking to them about it in an age appropriate way, and let her know it’s a red line and if she crosses it what the consequences will be

for what it’s worth, I have two family members who have been set radicalised into 2 different similar hideous ideologies and they are both becoming disillusioned and moving away from them now after several years. people often get into these things because of fear I think, they don’t see it as hateful, they feel persecuted. It’s fucking tiresome but it kind of helps me have some compassion which gives more space for dealing with it

Keep her far away from your child.

My Dad is the same. I manage it by living in a different country and, when I do speak with him, keeping the conversation entirely away from politics and completely shallow. On the one hand, I know that trying to involve him in a discussion/trying to argue with him by presenting facts, wouldn't work at all. Nothing I can say would change his mind. On the other hand, I feel disappointed in myself, as if saying nothing is being complicit. We visited last week. All I could manage was a "I am not enjoying this conversation" and then changing the subject. I should have said more. But being with my Dad also takes me back to being a scared teenage girl (he was violent then) and so I don't speak up.
I am so sorry you are in the same situation. It's tough. Funnily enough, both my brother and me have political beliefs entirely opposite to my Dad's.

My parents are like this. They didn’t used to be as extreme but seem to have fallen down a rabbit hole since covid. They follow a very right wing political blog and get their news off there. So far they aren’t expressing their views around my kids and the family has recently instigated a ban on political chat which has helped - they’re still doing it but only when kids have gone to bed. I’m monitoring the situation and if it starts being around the kids I will assess my next steps. It’s very upsetting to see the people who raised you espousing such hateful views. We have lgbtq family members and my kids aren’t English which makes it particularly upsetting. We only see them a couple of times a year due to distance which helps.

Don't be silly. You might just as well call it a sexist thread, since it's about a mum and not a dad. You're projecting something onto OP's very personal situation. Give it a rest.

OP, same situation here & DM gets all her brainwashing on facebook.