To cringe at the way my mum talks about homosexuals?

[BatmansWilly]

My mum is very judgemental old fashioned but she pretends she isn't. One of her favourite sayings is:

"I don't have a problem with gay people, as long as they leave everyone else alone ... "

Or...

"I'm not against gay people at all! Like I've said ... lesbians, prostitues etc, they all have as much right to be here as normal people ... " argh!!!!! I CRINGE whenever she starts on about it. She really thinks she is being "cool" and non-judgemental by saying stuff like this.

I have said to her "mum, you can hardly class lesbians the same as prostitues!" so she replies "no no ... but you know what I mean, people 'like that' ... but I have no problem with them at all!"

So today she was telling me about her day with our extended family, she hasn't seen them for 30+ years. I asked "did you get on ok with everyone?"

First thing she said was:

"Well ... you know Sue's kids ... two are lesbians and one is a queer? "

so I'm like "yes" through gritted teeth ...

so she replies

"Well ... they were really nice!!! in fact, sometimes I think those types are nicer than normal people ... " ffs

It really winds me up! anyone else got a "non-judgemental" parent like this?

My nan does that she says the words Lesbian, or Gay in distorted tones that she kind of half mouthes silently, she nieghbours are Lesbians though and she thinks they are sisters as (in nans obvious distorted whisper) 'Lesbians' wouldn't live next to an elderly lady.

She is also very patronising to Black people it is cringe worthy.

My mum met a man she liked and she eventually brought him home only to find he was afraid of my nans dog to which my nan declared

'Don't worry about the dog dear, you should bond your the same colour!'

MIL is particularly annoying about immigrants and seems oblivious to the fact that she herself is one. Random comments:

Her: "so what are the Polish like then"
Me: well the ones i have met are very nice
Her: I suppose they are ok. But not Romanians, all Romanians are thieves

Arrghgh. She doenst even have the excuse of being elderly shes not 60 yet.

my parents are like this too and it is very cringey. However my own response to their idiocy worries me somewhat:

Do I

A)stand up for my own beliefs, and what I think is morally correct, and therefore telling them that they are, whether they think it or not, being racist / homophobic. Or do I

B) remain silent, and therefore complicit in their (unintended) racism / homophobia because I respect my parents and understand that they are from a different generation that doesn't seem able to grasp that this is simply wrong? and I don't want to get into confrontation with them.

They're hardly about to join the BNP, they are pretty harmless, but I feel bad that I usually take option B. I am clearly spineless.

Their comments are exactly as most above - my mum spoke about a colleague in the office - "she's Asian but she's very nice." Arrrgh. If she just changed the "but" for an "and" it would be a lot worse!

last sentence should have said "a bit better" not "a lot worse"...

kay you are so right!

My MIL met our gay neighbour and afterwards said 'but...but he seemed quite nice'!!

That's the mother of my female partner, who is obviously a lesbian!

My gran is the culprit in our family - she's very right-on, an active member of Amnesty (loves to denounce female genital mutilation at every dinnertime opportunity) but when my husband first met her she asked him where he was from and wasn't satisfied with 'Luton!'.

She also apologised to him that we didn't have any guavas or mangos for him to eat!!

MIL is exactly the same, tho' she also extends this to anyone 'coloured' .

SHe has used the phrase 'paki shop' in front of my 2 yr old DS. I've told DH that next time he catches her, to confront her as this will be the exact phrase he'd pick up and repeat.

I HATE it! Oh, and don't get me started on SIL..... she votes BNP and has sent me the most vile 'joke' text messages in the past.....

It's so hard to deal with as I love them as people, but their views on homosexuality and race, are just awful.

this thread has me pmsl

my nan is the same, there are two ladies at church and they have lived together forever and its common knowledge they are more than friends

she turned around one day 'did you know joan and joyce are hush hush wink lesbians' with the most outrageous look on her face. She now makes a special effort to speak to them so they don't think she is offended!

Now here's a classic:
When I was a teenager and REALLY into Duran Duran, my Mum used to proclaim:

"Oh why do you like all these big girls' blouses that wear make-up? Now when I was your age I went for real men, like Rock Hudson."

That was obviously before Rock Hudson was publicised as being gay, with AIDS.

How I cackled.(Not at Rock dying of AIDS, of course). I still remind her of that one.

my mum genuinely likes everyone but tries so hard not to offend that she gets herself in knots..
and she has a really nice friend who very patiently smiles and does not react when my mum introduces her as "my lovely black friend Grace".
And she knows that certain terms are offensive butr can't ever remember which is OK and which isn't so she will say "...he was a really nice looking guy and black I mean coloured I mean black, umm west Indian or African or one of those - you know"

It always make me want to crawl under a stone.

Funny though now she has a grandson with SN she gets really shirty if people use what she regards as offensive terms for DS2

My mother is the same but I can't laugh at it I'm afraid. It stinks of bigoted homophobia/racism/prejudice and isn't excusable imho. It is exactly these "I don't have a problem with..." people who are reading the Daily Mail/Torygraph/Express and agreeing with the views on immigration, etc.
I think the number of people posting on this thread shows how ingrained these ridiculous opinions are in our society.
My mother always makes a point of saying "He/she is such a lovely person" whenever talking about someone of a different ethnic origin or sexuality to her - I always point out to her , er yes, is there any reason why they shouldn't be?!!!!!
Funny how it turned my mother's world upside down when my brother came out, she spent ages moaning about where she had gone wrong and STILL couldn't accept she was homophobic.
This underlying prejudice is the hardest to overcome but causes as much harm as the more outspoken kind.

my mum cannot get over the fact that my friend is a lesbian but she has children. ...I have explained with the patience of a biology teacher all about turkey basters, but she still can't quite compute the concept!

Her sister hs been openly gay for years so my mum thinks she has some authority on the subject.

Last summer we walked past two women holding hands and kissing. And she staged whispered 'They're lesbians. I'm getting a good gaydar'

God..my mum does this
and i'm mixed race..you'd think she'd be a little more in the know wouldn't you?
'my lovely coloured friend x'...that is just what she would say
Or...'you know the man in the chemist...he's asian but he's really nice'
i always wonder if she calls me 'my coloured daughter troutpout'
I suspect she does actually

my mil and fil and mum do all the above. My mil is scandalised that women get paid maternity leave, she doesn't think that dh should help me at all when I'm on leave (her husband does all the shopping, cooking and cleaning in her house ). Both mil and fil will denounce "the Moroccans" and the "Polish" and do not see themselves as foreigners - ie English in Ireland. However, they are good natured people, really . My mum doesn't say gay she says "ducky" and flutters her hands in the air.

My grandmother tends to assume anything slightly weird my dp does (like growing a beard) must be because he is chinese. We've given up even trying to get her to accept that he is British 'cos he was born here.

I remember most people saying "coloured" in the 70s. It was the acceptable "polite" word for black people.

My mum is a bit like this. I'll never forget waiting for my best gay friend to arrive to pick me up for a night out and my mum at the window like a scalded cat waiting for Lily Savage to arrive. She was most disappointed when he turned up and was normal.

Another occasion involving said friend: he came with me to my grandmother's 80th birthday dinner, and was sitting at one end of the table with me and my uncle and various cousins, who by this time had fathomed that he wasn't my new boyfriend, and was gay. From the opposite end of the table, my aunty remarked that she thought all gay people should be 'put on an island and bombed'. Honestly, he thought the uncomfortable silence that followed was completely hilarious. Although, I am very aware that he could quite legitimately have had a lot to say to her.

Horrifying.

this thread has just reminded me of my nan - she used to complain about 'all thse foreigners coming and taking our jobs' - this was back in the early 80s.

We tried telling her that she shouldn't really say that - but on further discussion, turns out that her definition of foreigner was a little bit narrower than most people. To her, anyone that came from outside the southern half of her county was a foreigner... no, that's not a typo, I really do mean county!

All we could really do at that point was . She ended up with two welsh DIL - she thought they were practically aliens

I had a little chuckle the other day when my 80 year old friend looked at my DCs with their umbrellas and said "Ooh, look at those lovely gay umbrellas." I had visions of hunky gay men wandering down the street with a Fimbles and Scooby Doo umbrella and then wondered if the umbrellas themselves might be gay and in a same sex relationship. I don't think I've ever heard anyone use teh word in its original context ever. It was quite sweet really and made me think about how much things have changed since I was at school and we thouht that being gay wasn't real, it was just boys who were 'a bit girly' .

So we've all got parents like that then. I cracked up when my friend's particularly embarrassingly intolerant (whilst being very tolerant, obviously) parents, who had a lesbian couple living next door (terraced house) then got ANOTHER lesbian couple moving in the other side! They were sandwiched! Amused me...

When my nan met my OH she loved him but insisted on telling him about every black person she had every met. He sat very patiently for quite some time. This conversation was made more complicated by the fact Nan and Granddad were both Deaf, sign language users. It was a sight to behold. (I shouldnt be smug but his family have put me through a great deal worse).

Same nan caused my mother (v.uptight, bless her) huge embarressment by shouting at the top of her voice 'OUT OF THE WAY DEAF WHEELCHAIR. LET ME THROUGH DEAF WHEELCHAIR' when she took her to the Co op.

Although the irony is that OP's mum at least talks about "gay people", rather than just "homosexuals" which denies them humanity, referring to them instead as just an amorphous mass.

This thread has reminded me of my gran's obsession a few years ago with me finding her a "nice old queen with a Rolls" to hang out with and go shopping with. I was charged with this task because I spend a lot of time on the internet, which is clearly where such people can be found , and the queen bit was necessary "so sex won't be involved" - since she is 90 this year, I'm rather hoping that sex hasn't been involved for the past 30 years!