Background: Last fall, I was hit by a car while walking and I fractured an endplate in my spine. I filed a lawsuit to be compensated for both damages and my pain and suffering. Turns out the car that hit me was uninsured, which means the pain and suffering portion would be on my car insurance (I live in a no-fault state and policies are expensive but it means your car insurance covers accidents even as a pedestrian). The insurance company is not paying, citing an arcane law that two family members cannot be on the same policy unless they live in the same house. My father and I live separately but bundle our cars to save money.
While this is a legal softball, I decided to not persue the punitive damages because the situation was so infuriating and my mental health was at stake. When I told this to my mother, she said “if you made more money, you could have had your own insurance policy and this wouldn’t have happened.”
I am considering total estrangement, as this comment was not only singularly offensive but is indicative of her draconian worldview, which is “got mine, fuck poor people.”
Does anyone have a secret for how to deal with a parent this shitty? Should I even bother?
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Personally I do the bare minimum of civility to ensure that I’m still in the will but otherwise don’t interact with mine.
Let it go brother
I could have had my own spaceship with my own spaceship insurance if you were a billionare and invested in my spacecon industry Moooaam. How about learn how to be a reaaal mom from
Propaganda is a hell of a drug and sometimes family members are soaked in it. My own mother is an absolute broken lib. Can’t talk, corporate priorities are more important. They don’t live in our world
I don’t care if I ever see mine again. They can find someone else to be disappointed in. I don’t want or need anything from them.
It sucks they say she responded to you. I hate that feeling. The pressure that no matter what it’s never good enough.
I’m hoping there’s more background to this than just that one comment. If that one comment is what is making you consider not talking to your mom anymore, I think that’s a bit of an overreaction.
What your mom said is factually true. It seems that you found it insensitive, but it also seems like you’re saying you want to cut your mom out of your life because she wishes you had a higher-paying job.
Saying you wish your kid had a higher-paying job isn’t solely indicative to me that your mom is a greedy capitalist, moreso that she’s recognizing that more money makes people’s lives easier in our current mode of production. And also, just being a capitalist is a bit of a low bar for cutting out one of your parents.
I think maybe you should sit and think on this decision for a bit.
You seem to have missed the bit where they were hit by a car and subjected to hostile legalism to deny them recovery, and the mother’s response was “guess you should make more money”. That is not “I wish you made more money because it would make this situation less terrible”, it’s “lmao, spin on it, poor”.
Parents are not owed the attention, affection, nor respect of their children by the fact of birth. Humanity is a two-way street, and she took the off-ramp.
Will no mod rid us of this turbulent lib?
I think there’s not enough context here for either of us to make an accurate read on the situation.
OP asked for advice on a subjective situation. I offered my interpretation.
Liberals who generally uphold capitalism but don’t think its rules should apply to their loved ones annoy me.
The ones who fully accept capital’s logic even as it destroys their loved ones terrify me.
My mom told me I was a mooch for accepting a whopping $1500 a year in student aid and I haven’t spoken to her except in passing in about a decade.
some parents assume that you will always be the subordinate in the future, as that was the initial dynamic when you were a small child without a fully developed brain and limited rights/autonomy.
these people are objectively stupid and in for the rudest awakening in the world. filial piety ain’t really a thing in the west, because if it were, the “bootstraps” line of our elites wouldn’t be one of our enduring myths.
just know that it can take a long time for a really thick person to realize they aren’t the boss anymore. to realize that the position was originally granted due to temporary expediency. they were not, in fact, appointed for life. and this loss would not be formally announced or recognized, but it would be felt when the role had lapsed and they attempted to exercise the power of the office.
though you should make sure you know what minimum legal responsibility you have to them first, which already murky, gets truly murky if you end up in different states.
i think it really only tends to come up if a parent is disabled prior to social security age and ends up becoming a ward of the state and put into a facility, that facility can pursue restitution for services provided if the child is pretty rich with some other conditions. i don’t really know how frequently it is enforced, but the point is if you stay in contact with them, are publicly living pretty large without intervening when you provably know they are disabled and destitute, you might be on the hook for some costs associated with housing them.
a lot of these laws are holdovers from the Great Depression and civil (not criminal), so it’s clear as mud to me how it works with parents reaping what they’ve sown from adult children. just something worth keeping in the back of your mind if you’re thinking of having a nuclear conversation.
ultimately though, the power dynamic will be the total opposite of what it was the day you were born regardless of any laws. most parents go through this with their own parents at some point, or they just sort of understand the implications of biology, legacy, and mortality after thinking about them for a few minutes. they start to back off being a swollen asshole as their kids transition into adulthood.
it takes someone special to miss the signs and do zero introspection in 20+ years.
“Got your nursing home payment plan sorted out? No? Well I guess you should have made more money before you got old.”
how do i deal with them?
I dont deal with them at all. I dont see them at birthdays (theirs, mine, or my childrens). I dont invite them to my kids school events. I dont call them for advice. I dont respond when they tell me something is broken in their home and can i help out? I do not send Christmas gifts, i do not keep gifts sent to me or mine. I give my kids rhe option to keep or send back the occasional gift they receive. They send them back. Ive been transparent with my kids why i donot ha e a relationship with my folks. Im trying to not perpetuate the whole thing.
Ive had moments of anger where i really fucking wanted to say something, whether in response or unprovoked but realized that id be better off if i didnt even bother. I dont need to be cruel in return. Silence is perfectly adequate. It just sorta stuck that way.
“if you made more money, you could have had your own insurance policy and this wouldn’t have happened.”
My father and I live separately but bundle our cars to save money.
Throw it right back and say if your Mom made more money you wouldn’t need to bundle your insurance.
