About Mother (The Control Freak)
Mood:  irritated
Lately I've been having tiffs with my mother. I find her very unbearable. Several days ago she tried to restrict my sister's external activities by threatening to lock her out. Having to put up with her kindda behavior, I told her that she ought to stop controlling my sister since she's already way past 21 years old, but more importantly is able to make sound judgements. I think it's absurd the way she was seeking to control her own children (family) and I don't see what's the problem with Sis going out to meet her friends, she'll usually return before midnight, anyway. Being the stubbornly, self-righteous elder, she didn't like it when I told her off. I was also fed up of her whinning about Sis. Now, the latest tiff was over the TV. I bought this TV when our old one died on us some years back. My brother is currently not doing anything - not schooling, not working, exempted from NS due to some reasons that my mother gave. So he spends most of his waking hours watching soap operas from afternoon to night almost everyday. The worst out of it was that my mother encouraged that TV watching routine because she felt guilty about not providing sufficiently for my brother during his childhood. Well, she ought to be because she was responsible for making terrible decisions for my brother including foiling many potential opportunities that will benefit him in tersm of his future / career development. One of the decision she failed to make was sending my brother to a school for the intellectually challenged youth (better known as "special school"), in her best interest rather than my brother's. It was more of preserving her face. Since my brother stays home all the time, he become a victim. Needless to say who is the prime suspect in this. I've been looking for ways to help Bro but it's futile since she's the main obstacle in the path. I can't guarantee a sheltered job for Bro but at least he will somedays be independent and whatever job he will take is decent and respectable in its own way. Mother is also very shallow in thinking, deriving most of her knowledge on the numerous TV dramas that she'll watched with my brother. Her behavior is also consistent with the drama that she watches. Unfortunately they gave her a shortsighted view of life and in a way, affect her real life experiences and relationship with people. She wanted to hog the evening primetime but she uses my brother as an excuse to extend her TV-watching, enforcing that he wants to watch his programmes, rather than her. Most unfortunately Bro is the reluctant and confused one caught in between. Yesterday Sis was watching her anime programme when midway through Mother asserted that Bro wanted to watch his shows (again using him as an excuse). It happened too many times and this time round, I saw this as a deliberate attempt to chase Sis off. I voiced out that I bought the TV to be shared among all in the family, and not to be hogged by a few individuals. And concluded that it's very selfish not to be sharing the TV with others. She was also rude and self-centred, like she owns the TV and it has to be HER TV TIME always, when the irony of it all was that I bought the TV for all to share, not limited to one or two in the family. We're a family we have to learn to share things, not hog things even when we don't need it. I think it's also selfish that the one person wants to watch that programme and hog the TV all the time while depriving the others a chance to watch their programmes. She's a parent and an adult but she conducts herself very poorly before her own children. So just because of what I remarked, she got very petty over it. I'm not gonna lower myself to pacify such bad behavior. One other thing that made me really very angry about her is how she could lie. She lied blatantly about quitting her job just to care for her grandchild (my nephew) but she turned around and say that she wants to keep her job while thrusting the boy to my care because I was (still am) in between jobs. Why did she have to lie and shirk responsibilities? I remembered the tantrum that she kicked over the Chinese New Year period, just because she wanted the baby to be the one to care for the baby. Or was it a ploy to please my father. She promised the boy's parents but she failed to honor her word. All she care about is her job and she is worried about being left with nothing if the boy's parents decide to stop the current childcare arrangement. Nothing is permanent, plans change with time. Nobody will force her to accept that role if she is reluctant, she can always decline due to work commitments. But the worst is dragging reluctant parties just to solve her problem. It only create more problems with these people. Besides how long is her work lifespan as compared to mine. I have been a nanny to my nephew and all these while I have been losing out in terms of potential salary and even an opportunity to build my career, which is supposed to be at its peak. To keep me house-bound, she continuously threatened to cut the finances for my year end campus attachment in US, if I sought employment to help ease the financial burden. I don't like to depend on people for my finances and it's really a dent to my independence. How selfish can this person get? It's coming to a year since. While I'm really disappointed, I don't want Sis to be deprived of a potentially good employment opportunities. I hate listening to her whinning about her job, because she always wants to be in the position to control others, such as her co-workers. She can't detach herself from her fucking job. I think the management has made a grave error in giving her such opportunities. The way she is in the family, it's probably the same at her workplace because she brings her fucking workplace attitude and personality into the family home as well. I don't think much about her work either since it is very likely that she brags her way up. If she communicates poorly with her family, I'm not surprised that the same happens at her workplace. Just see how communications breakdown with her own siblings. I hate my mother's family, my siblings agreed unanimously that they are obnoxious, shallow and boorish. In the past, the relatives on her side used to dig at us in particularly her, how she'd be egged on by them to pressure us in our academic pursue. With Grandpa's demise, the tree just uprooted. Instead of feeling emotional, I felt relieved and glad. We are finally free of the ugly relatives' company. I'm glad that I'm different from her in that, I am different individuals both at home and at work. If you think that I'm whinning, well, it's my way of letting off steam. I don't care much about a silly old woman, after tolerating her abuses for many years, I've gotta make an independent stand for my beliefs. My way of rationalizing, I think she's a mentally disturbed individual who is using control to hide her flaws / weaknesses such as her low sense of security. I know that her main weakness is my father. She is afraid of losing my father's support and if she thinks that she is losing, she will resort to manipulation. I won't do such things to seek a person's support and favor if I respect the person, I respect his stand and the reasons for it.