When I was in first or second grade my mom was a bus driver. Not my bus driver, she had another route. Back then we had a bus stop at the other end of the block and all the kids from the neighborhood walked to the stop, 15 or so kids from 1st to 5th grade. No adults were ever there. It was the 70s….
So there I am hanging out and a bus pulls up from the wrong direction and stops across the road. 14 out of 15 kids were completely confused, I was not… the door flies open… “Daniel! did you wash your face like I told you to!…., I knew it! get over here, now!” All 14 kids wheeled around and were stunned, I think initially they all felt some sort of sympathy…. Out she came, wet face cloth in hand, in my head, I had started to run, but I’m sure my state of shock froze me for a second. Before I knew it, she had me by the collar and was scrubbing my face with her wet wash colth…… To top it off the cloth must have been right out of the kitchen sink, it smelled like musty old rotten hockey bag…. (to this day if I smell a dirty kitchen sink rag or sponge I instantaniously relive the moment) You can imagine the torture I suffered in the aftermath, and then for weeks, everytime another bus was seen coming…. “Dan, here comes mom to wash your face!”
Needless to say it has left scars….. And I always smell the face colth before it gets any where near any of my kids faces…..
I showered at my moms put the towel around my body and threw one over my head and gagged. I dropped both and reshowered and then grabbed those “pretty towels” I got dressed and came out with one on my head and she blew up infront of her company about how rude I was to use the “special pretty towels”. They left and I said the next time she jumped me about her towels I would tell her friends that all the other towels smelled. She took two steps back that day.
I have MANY mom stories…but this one stuck out this morning since it happened a few days ago. My husband and I just had a baby so we were moving to a two bedroom apartment on the 14th floor of a building. My mom calls me and asks “What’s the new apartment number?” I reply “Apartment number 1418.” This is when my mom’s annoying nature comes into play.
Mom: Okay, Fourteen-Eighteen
Me: Yup.
Mom: One Four One Eight
Me: Yes, mom.
Mom: One thousand, four-hundred and eighteen
Me: YES
Mom: So you live on the fourteenth floor, in room eighteen.
Me: YES MOM!
Mom: Why are you yelling?
Actually she doesn’t even live in the same state, never mind the same city. She just wanted to know where we were living so she could stalk us from a distance via mail. I’m 23 years old, married, and have a baby and when she visits she still tries to hold my hand when we cross the street.
AfterI turned 11, Mom didn’t allow anyone into our house, not even, or especially, other family members. So I was very shy as a kid, and as a young adult, and somehow made it through college a virgin. But this fact was the most shameful secret I possessed – even though it wasn’t really a secret. Everyone knew I’d never had a boyfriend at home, but I liked to pretend I could have had one at college.
But Mom, the cause of this shame – since how does one have a social life or learn to interact with people one is not related to without some kind of example to follow – thought nothing of my situation.
The only time we went out as a group was at Christmas time, to the houses of her two best friends, whose children I had grown up with, and whom I considered family. And the 50 to 100 other people also attending heard Mom say, in her best party voice, “[Boppie] is a virgin. I’m going to sell her to an Arab sheik.”
Enraged and humiliated, I told her never to say that again to anyone, anywhere, and that she had no excuse, since she was a teetotaller, for being so insensitive. She told me it was something to be proud of. I said I wasn’t, and she should never say it again, in public, or private, to anyone, anywhere. She agreed.
Guess what happened next Christmas? And the next one? And the one after?!?!?!?!
I found out telling her not to do something is like telling a small child not to cuss after you have laughed about it. That is just like saying lather rinse repeat, repeat, repeat. My mother liked to bring up that I ate poop as a little kid, so now everyone that is going to meet her I prompt them first. So when she says do you know what she did when she was little, they say oh yeah she ate poop. She is LIVID! Of course I have told them it was on her floor and they ask her why also.
Recently married, my parents came to stay with me and my wife. My mom liked to give decorating advice which was nice… until advice crossed over to action.
So my wife and I are asleep, until I’m awakened by my wife at 4am, “Do you hear that?”
“What?”
“Your mom’s in the kitchen.”
As I wake up, I hear my mom moving around the kitchen, dishes being moved around, drawers opening and closing, shuffling, a step ladder.
It dawns upon me that my mom is reorganizing our kitchen without asking. Not MY kitchen. OUR kitchen.
“DO something!” my wife exclaimed.
Well I was tired, and didn’t really care, but this was a clear violation, so I had to do something. I went out to the kitchen and caught my mom as she was creating plate displays on top of our cabinets. She was caught.
“What are you doing?”
“I was just… trying stuff… moving it around.”
“Stop.”
Well, she went to bed. My wife and I had a fight about creating ground rules for something that didn’t really bother me cause I had grown used to it, but I TOTALLY understood why it bothered her.
So many Mom problems could be solved, if only mothers would learn that “No means No.” But for some odd reason, Moms believe that “because they’re the Mom,” nobody can tell them No.
My mother reacts like “No” is some kind of deep insult. Like you’re calling her a “skank” or something.
When you say “NO” to my mother, her ears actually hear the words “PLEASE FORCE ME TO AGREE.” So she ratchets up the pressure. If you’re not saying “Yes” after my mother tries several times, then YOU become the problem, and she treats you as a hostile witness.
OMG… we must have the same mother. Mine is so bad that my siblings and I secretly call her the dishwasher nazi, because every time she visits our homes she rearranges everything, including the dirty dishes in the dishwasher so that they get “sanitized” better.
When I was in first or second grade my mom was a bus driver. Not my bus driver, she had another route. Back then we had a bus stop at the other end of the block and all the kids from the neighborhood walked to the stop, 15 or so kids from 1st to 5th grade. No adults were ever there. It was the 70s….
So there I am hanging out and a bus pulls up from the wrong direction and stops across the road. 14 out of 15 kids were completely confused, I was not… the door flies open… “Daniel! did you wash your face like I told you to!…., I knew it! get over here, now!” All 14 kids wheeled around and were stunned, I think initially they all felt some sort of sympathy…. Out she came, wet face cloth in hand, in my head, I had started to run, but I’m sure my state of shock froze me for a second. Before I knew it, she had me by the collar and was scrubbing my face with her wet wash colth…… To top it off the cloth must have been right out of the kitchen sink, it smelled like musty old rotten hockey bag…. (to this day if I smell a dirty kitchen sink rag or sponge I instantaniously relive the moment) You can imagine the torture I suffered in the aftermath, and then for weeks, everytime another bus was seen coming…. “Dan, here comes mom to wash your face!”
Needless to say it has left scars….. And I always smell the face colth before it gets any where near any of my kids faces…..
I showered at my moms put the towel around my body and threw one over my head and gagged. I dropped both and reshowered and then grabbed those “pretty towels” I got dressed and came out with one on my head and she blew up infront of her company about how rude I was to use the “special pretty towels”. They left and I said the next time she jumped me about her towels I would tell her friends that all the other towels smelled. She took two steps back that day.
I have MANY mom stories…but this one stuck out this morning since it happened a few days ago. My husband and I just had a baby so we were moving to a two bedroom apartment on the 14th floor of a building. My mom calls me and asks “What’s the new apartment number?” I reply “Apartment number 1418.” This is when my mom’s annoying nature comes into play.
Mom: Okay, Fourteen-Eighteen
Me: Yup.
Mom: One Four One Eight
Me: Yes, mom.
Mom: One thousand, four-hundred and eighteen
Me: YES
Mom: So you live on the fourteenth floor, in room eighteen.
Me: YES MOM!
Mom: Why are you yelling?
After that, let me guess. She went to the 7th floor, then blamed you for “not being clear?”
The “Constant Checking” technique drives me nuts. Watch for folks to post about it. I suspect many Moms do it.
As if the worst thing in the world could be “getting off on the wrong floor.” Would the universe explode?
Actually she doesn’t even live in the same state, never mind the same city. She just wanted to know where we were living so she could stalk us from a distance via mail. I’m 23 years old, married, and have a baby and when she visits she still tries to hold my hand when we cross the street.
AfterI turned 11, Mom didn’t allow anyone into our house, not even, or especially, other family members. So I was very shy as a kid, and as a young adult, and somehow made it through college a virgin. But this fact was the most shameful secret I possessed – even though it wasn’t really a secret. Everyone knew I’d never had a boyfriend at home, but I liked to pretend I could have had one at college.
But Mom, the cause of this shame – since how does one have a social life or learn to interact with people one is not related to without some kind of example to follow – thought nothing of my situation.
The only time we went out as a group was at Christmas time, to the houses of her two best friends, whose children I had grown up with, and whom I considered family. And the 50 to 100 other people also attending heard Mom say, in her best party voice, “[Boppie] is a virgin. I’m going to sell her to an Arab sheik.”
Enraged and humiliated, I told her never to say that again to anyone, anywhere, and that she had no excuse, since she was a teetotaller, for being so insensitive. She told me it was something to be proud of. I said I wasn’t, and she should never say it again, in public, or private, to anyone, anywhere. She agreed.
Guess what happened next Christmas? And the next one? And the one after?!?!?!?!
I found out telling her not to do something is like telling a small child not to cuss after you have laughed about it. That is just like saying lather rinse repeat, repeat, repeat. My mother liked to bring up that I ate poop as a little kid, so now everyone that is going to meet her I prompt them first. So when she says do you know what she did when she was little, they say oh yeah she ate poop. She is LIVID! Of course I have told them it was on her floor and they ask her why also.
Recently married, my parents came to stay with me and my wife. My mom liked to give decorating advice which was nice… until advice crossed over to action.
So my wife and I are asleep, until I’m awakened by my wife at 4am, “Do you hear that?”
“What?”
“Your mom’s in the kitchen.”
As I wake up, I hear my mom moving around the kitchen, dishes being moved around, drawers opening and closing, shuffling, a step ladder.
It dawns upon me that my mom is reorganizing our kitchen without asking. Not MY kitchen. OUR kitchen.
“DO something!” my wife exclaimed.
Well I was tired, and didn’t really care, but this was a clear violation, so I had to do something. I went out to the kitchen and caught my mom as she was creating plate displays on top of our cabinets. She was caught.
“What are you doing?”
“I was just… trying stuff… moving it around.”
“Stop.”
Well, she went to bed. My wife and I had a fight about creating ground rules for something that didn’t really bother me cause I had grown used to it, but I TOTALLY understood why it bothered her.
So many Mom problems could be solved, if only mothers would learn that “No means No.” But for some odd reason, Moms believe that “because they’re the Mom,” nobody can tell them No.
My mother reacts like “No” is some kind of deep insult. Like you’re calling her a “skank” or something.
When you say “NO” to my mother, her ears actually hear the words “PLEASE FORCE ME TO AGREE.” So she ratchets up the pressure. If you’re not saying “Yes” after my mother tries several times, then YOU become the problem, and she treats you as a hostile witness.
OMG… we must have the same mother. Mine is so bad that my siblings and I secretly call her the dishwasher nazi, because every time she visits our homes she rearranges everything, including the dirty dishes in the dishwasher so that they get “sanitized” better.