Saturday was my sister’s birthday. I was on Facebook to wish
her a happy birthday and to post pictures of the kids with Santa. Once I
finished with my two tasks, I was scrolling along when I saw a post from my
mother. I thought we had gotten past the passive-aggressive nonsense on social media but I was wrong. My mom posted two pictures of cookies with the caption, “So
it begins…..sad my daughters stopped the cookie making tradition…..guess I am
on my own. Christmas music playing.” The comments were equally discouraging.
One woman reassured her she had plenty of work “daughters” to eat what she
baked. Another lamented not having anyone to bake with and my mom responded, “We
have always baked cookies as a family, especially the cut outs to see who could
decorate the coolest cookies, but the last 3 years my daughters decided they
don’t like traditions anymore, it is just sad for me because it started when
they were tots.” I wanted to respond, “we were not invited to bake cookies,
number one and number two my children are not welcome and it’s hard for me to
find childcare for an entire weekend.” But, I did not respond at all. Usually I
text my sister in these occasions but it was her birthday, so I didn’t want to
bring her down with this nonsense. I don’t know why my mom does this. I spoke
to her Tuesday night last week and she made no mention of baking cookies over the
weekend. In the past, when I offered to come over with the kids, she vetoed the
idea because they would require too much supervision and would make too much of
a mess while baking. I think it was last year or the year before when she made
cut-outs for my kids to decorate. The one and only time we did that together. The thing is, Chica Marie would really like
doing the baking with her now. Heck even Love Bug would be into it for a few
minutes. But, notice how there was no mention of sadness over not sharing the tradition
with her grandkids? I’m trying to let it go, really I am, but it’s just darn
irritating to have this snippet of family drama splashed out on the interwebs
for all the world to see and judge without knowing half of the story. This is
not the first time my mother besmeared her daughters (but never her son) on
Facebook and I’m sure it won’t be the last. I wonder what she hopes to get out
of this? She doesn’t know if we have seen it, but she has to think we have seen
it. Is she hoping for a response? Is she hoping we hash it all out on social
media so her friends can jump to her defense? Why would she start this just a
few weeks before Christmas? I have no answers. I just feel like, here we go again.
Oh that's really tough. It's as if she wants you to still be adoring little daughters, rather than a mother yourself, with kids and traditions to establish of your own. It's attention-seeking, but immature too. I'm glad you were the "adult-in-the-room" by not rising to the bait.
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