Hobbes wrote: ↑Fri Mar 24, 2023 9:10 pm
I don’t understand why you would keep buying gifts for people who are ungrateful and rude about them…it’s ok to just stop buying!
If you did understand you wouldn't say that
. We'd never hear the end of it. Also, when someone is 87 you never know if it will be their last birthday/Christmas/Mother's Day, so there's that, too. She'd be really hurt. Yes, it's blackmail, but she's not going to change now, so there's no point in making a stand - I'm just sounding off, really.
A lot of people (specially of that generation) see their value and therefore self-worth in terms of things like how many cards they get, and how much 'trouble' others have gone to. Her friends are the same - the card from a son in Australia or somewhere - 'and you know, he's so very busy and the nearest shop is 500 miles away but he never forgets' (ie his PA or wife has bought it like she always does, despite being busy herself and the distance being the same for women) is much more valuable than the ones from daughters who work, run the house and bring the grandchildren to visit. They love boasting about how many grandchildren have visited, even though they'd rather watch Midsomer Murders than talk to an 18 month old, and check off every single card against their birthday book, with the soppy-versed ones at the front, as they have no concept of privacy and read one another's calendars and cards as a matter of course. Plus, they can re-read the 'So lucky to have had the best mum ever' shite and tell themselves it's true - a lot of revisionism goes on in later life. It's harder when the relationship was never that great in the first place. If you've had a lifetime of allowances being made for you, and a mother who's been tolerant of your foibles it must be easier to reciprocate. Plus, knowing you'll feel guilty when they die doesn't help.
I remember when Mum was younger and complaining that her own mother was like that. She used to say to L and me that if she turned out that way we should tell her, but of course we can't, any more than she could. Anyway, this is IWLTS - I wouldn't dream of saying any of it.
