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Accepting an aged parent’s “ghetto” mentality
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Anonymous
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I hope my title isn’t hurtful but it’s the only clean descriptor I can think of.
My mother is a long-retired woman who grew up as so many of our parents did, in exceptional poverty. She was the eldest girl of a dozen siblings, and was born with a critical life-long illness that kept her indoors and she became not only the most responsible but best student by a mile in her family. She excelled in college, and was all but dissertation in grad school before starting her career. She is a good mother and grandmother, exceedingly intelligent and kind. But: retirement has been a disaster on some level. She’s depressed and won’t seek treatment. She never had time for hobbies because she spent her entire adulthood not only working and parenting but literally serving as the bank to everyone in our large, messed up extended family, literally bailing out multiple siblings, financing weddings. Many of my aunts and uncles have had a lot of interactions with the carceral system, and this has trickled down to many of my first cousins. Everyone’s hand was and is out. Everything was and is her fault (eg, my aunt was an addict who overdosed and died long ago. When I was a child this aunt tried to get my mom to legally adopt her kids and was infuriated when my father refused. My parents were seen as rich when they were caring for immediate and extended family on civil servant salaries. The adoption thing came up at our most recent extended family holiday, which is clearly insane.) She never developed hobbies, never took up reading or something engaging. Her siblings have always really loved casinos so that’s what they do, go to the waterfront or to Delaware or AC. They have fun from what I can tell. She doesn’t gamble in a way where she loses much, she is frugal. So what’s the problem? She is depressed and fills her days with tv and medical appointments and these crazy casino trips as her only pleasure. My father, brother and I have tried to suggest other things to take up (my dad isn’t retired and doesn’t want to yet) and she gets upset. She regards volunteering and museum work or seeing anything even in a museum as sort of snobby, white-identified stuff (my dad is white, Mom is a WOC). This element of what seems to motivate her is more pronounced the older we all get. I know some will say “enmeshed much” but we all love her, we want her to get treatment, take a walk in fresh air, anything other than MSNBC or doctors appointments all day with the occasional gamblers sojourn. The mentality that more typically engaging retirement pursuits like reading, gardening, classes, seeing exhibitions, all the kinds of things similarly situated people seem to do in the area, are “fancy” or for “other people” are the kinds of sentiments my aunts and uncles routinely said and say and it seems Mom fundamentally feels this way too. Can anyone relate? If you have wholly externally accepted this, how did you get there? If you can, please be kind. |
Anonymous
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I won’t use the word you did, and I do think the use is inapt here. What you are describing, to me, sounds like the result of deep and enormous trauma. My guess is that she has, for the first time, the time to think about a lifetime of trauma, and it is overwhelming.
My guess is that in-person therapy is off the table, but I do think she needs to get out of the house. Would she be willing to work with a volunteer organization that works with at-risk youth, preferably one that is focused on POCs? I wonder if she volunteered with an organization that helps kids like the one she used to be, whether her objections to volunteering would be mitigated. I’m not at all religious, but this is the sort of thing that churches can also help with. Would she consider a church? Really I think she needs a sensitive therapist who is aware of issues of poverty and race, but it may take time to get her there. Good luck to you. You are a good kid to be worrying about your mom. |
Anonymous
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My Mom's retirement isn't what I would want either. She talks a big game but at the end of the day - she's just lazy, and indecisive. She says she wants to take my kids out west to do one of her hobbies. But she takes no steps to plan a trip, secure a date, nothing. She said she would volunteer - hasn't. Covid probably was a hindrance, but she hasn't tried to reengage. I asked her to do a photo album with the crates of loose photos in her closets - nothing. Those are headed to the dumpster if she doesn't make sense of them.
I thought she'd do more with her retirement, but I don't see much to show for all those hours of free time. She worked until age 70 and was very active, but now just hangs around the house. |
Anonymous
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This is not ghetto and the terminology is seriously offensive. Given how much you disapprove, it’s curious as to your motivation. Do you care or do you just not want to have ghetto parents because of the poor reflection on you.
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Anonymous
| Huh, so my white mom is ghetto - I had no idea. I am in a similar situation, but I didn't realize it had to do with growing up in poverty. I just thought she had few interests and was sort of lazy. I long ago accepted that other people's idea of what to do with their free time will not be the same as what I'd do with free time, though, so I invite her as many places as I can and hope she takes me up on at least a few of the offers. |
Anonymous
meant to finish my last thought with: and I just accept she has her own plans on how to live out the rest of her life. |
Anonymous
| OP - you have the retirement you want. That's it. You will live the retirement life you want, when the time comes. Meanwhile, stop this analyzing of your Mother. Be with her when you can. Enjoy being with her when you can. |
Anonymous
| You should repost with a more appropriate thread title. |
Anonymous
| You have to accept that your mom's life is her own. |
Anonymous
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To some degree, you have to accept that maybe watching MSNBC all day *is* her hobby. It may not be the hobby that makes you happy, but has it occurred to you that she finds it satisfactory?
Sounds like she has had a long, hard, busy life and is maybe burned out. What she is doing now may be enough for her *right now*. Having people telling her, yet again, that she is not doing enough, or what it is that would please them for her to do, is not helpful. Has anyone bothered to ask her how she would like to spend her time? |
Anonymous
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You appear to be uncomfortable with your mother's class origins, even though she has been exceptionally strong and successful and deserves only respect. So what if she likes to gamble? So what if she has no intellectual pursuits? My uncle, who is a European aristocrat and lives in the family castle built in the 18th century, mucks out his own horses at dawn every day, and walks about looking like the ruddy-cheeked farmer he is. He can swear and holler all the way down the fields, calling his dogs and horses. He doesn't let on he speaks fluent Latin, has several degrees and had an extremely refined childhood. Just let her live her life. She's aging. Help her out with her medical appointments. Ask if the meds she is taking have side effects that can mimic depression (some do). Monitor her thyroid - lots of people are hypothyroid as they age, and one symptom is depression. The elderly are very often prone to anxiety and depression, for obvious reasons: they see their capabilities diminish, they don't feel useful, they don't have goals, no dependents to work for, their health starts to fail, something always hurts, and even with all that... today is still better than tomorrow. Aging is not for the faint of heart, OP. |
Anonymous
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One thing to appreciate is that people's levels of energy decrease a lot, and at various rates, upon aging. When my parents reached 70 I noticed that they just got tired a lot faster. So it could be that she is just really, really tired.
In addition to the PP who thoughtfully zero'ed in on the trauma issue, it may also be that she is struggling with a loss of identity since---from what you wrote---she was always the family savior/manager. Could it be that she is afraid that unless she sticks with the hobbies and lifestyles of her sibs that they won't love and include her since she isn't the "bank" anymore? What was your nuclear family culture growing up? Your expectations of what you envision a retirement should be are very focused on intellectual/UMC pursuits, while what your mom is doing is more of a working class model. Could it be that your mom was always caught between two worlds---the needs of her high poverty/constant crisis family vs. your bi-racial, more financially stable one. Does your mom feel judged by you and your dad? |
Anonymous
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Two things for her:
1. Church 2. Volunteering at a place to help people. Not museums, but for example at a shelter or something that helps the community she cares about. |
Anonymous
| If you don’t leave your mama alone!!! Girl. She is tired. With a capital T. Tired of being the bank. Tired of being the responsible one. Try to help bring her joy where she is. You, your brother, and your dad need to stop trying to “fix” her. She isn’t broken. |
Anonymous
| There are a lot of girls out there who could use a mentor or tutoring. Even if she tutors for free - maybe she could see using her brains and wits to help uplift a young person? |