h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Is it wrong to want to escape?

I know it's terribly ungrateful but isn't everyone entitled to their own life or at least a bit of privacy?

Lady Godiva,
It is difficult to give a good answer, as I do not know anything about you (or your parents).

Normally you should leave their home when you are old and experienced enough, and if they are normal caring parents they should help you with it.

Can you help us with helping you by updating your personal space? It will make talking a bit easier.

Is there no way to have privacy without escaping?

It is wrong if you are a believing Jew or a practising Christian, unless you think you can "honour " them without liking them. It is certainly possible to love them and be grateful without liking them. My parents are a long time dead and I didn't like them for the last dozen years of their lives, BUT they gave me a very happy childhood and did the best they knew how. I finished really disliking their snobbery, narrow-mindedness (especially in politics), but they weren't bad people. Don't cut yourself off completely but get out and live your own life as soon as you can

The only way to get out and live my own life would be to become a traveller and even then I would get into a lot of trouble for doing it.

I am grateful. I know she is a good person and the way she brought me up was only because she was not bright enough to think for herself and realise that not everything the bible and the church say is necessarily right.

I am not a practising christian but I had to pretend to be for about 15 years so she would not be upset. Now people keep nagging me to go to church because I should not be so cruel to her.

You should be grateful to your parents for all the sacrifices they have made for you. You will probably never realise how many until you become a parent yourself.

But you are entitled to your own life. We all when we reach adulthood have to extricate ourselves from parents' lives and start living our own. We owe it to our parents to still be on good terms with them, but they owe it to us to let us go.

There is no way to have privacy without escaping.

I had my own flat once, for about 2 years, before I let them persuade me that I was being selfish, and even then she insisted on having a key and she never used to knock even whenshe knew I was in there and one day when I was really pissed off about it I left the bolt on so she had to knock and I got into a lot of trouble.

A few years ago I got fed up of her going into our room and fiddling with things so we put a lock on the door and that caused a lot of trouble too.

I can't even go out anywhere without her wanting to know where and why and if we go out somewhere without her people think we are really mean for not taking her.

But if they are old and they do not want to live alone what can you do?

We were thinking of moving to the far north of Scotland and buying a derelict house and living in a caravan while we rebuilt it and even then she said Oh yes I'd like to live in Scotlaand.

She goes on a lot of holidays and I was told off by a lot of people last time because I did not drive 800 miles to take her down to stay with the family and another 800 miles to collect her when she was ready to come back.

It's not wrong to dislike parents, just because they are your parents doesn't mean they are nice people. It is however hard to beat the instinct you have to love them.

But in this case, it does seem you need to get away. Is it not possible for you to leave to another city, so your mom can't just come around?

Godiva, I don't know your mother/mother-in-law, so take the following only as a suggestion. What you interpret as interfering and checking up on you might to her just seem like an interest in your life. She may not have a very interesting life herself. If you are the sort of person who does up derelict buildings, you probably have a full and eventful life and she finds it interesting. She doesn't want to be shut out.

Perhaps the best approach is to go overboard on being with her at certain times: take her on a holiday and let her help with the organisation. Then make it quite clear that there are other times when you are on your own and that she is not coming.

I moved 400 miles but she still came.

Even if we buy a completely derelict house she will come as soon as there is one habitable room and if we take too long they will all be on our backs for it and besides we don't want to have to spend years living in a ruin or a caravan either and isn't it wrong to even consider doing something like that?

How old are you, Lady? If you're over 18 (and I assume you are) then your parents attitude is not-on and you should tell them that. I don't think you're the one being selfish.

Lady Godiva,
have you ever tried to seriously talk about it with her? I know it can be very difficult to tell your mother that she is doing wrong, but somehow you must make her understand that she is really making you very unhappy.

Maybe moving to a lonely place is not a good idea. In that case all people living around will try to be "helpfull" and may just interfere doing that. Try a large city full of unknown and anonymous people, and try to communicate by mail only for some time.

Do you have brothers and sisters? Are they leaving you to look after this parent? Even if your parent is very old and unable to look after herself, you do not have a duty to look after her.

"Then make it quite clear that there are other times when you are on your own and that she is not coming."

We are not even allowed to have the kitchen organised the way we want it. If we try to insist on anything and my husband backs me up she starts screaming about how she is victimised all the time and we are trying to get rid of her because she is old and no use to us any more.

We only went out together twice last year, and once each year for the two or three before that.

I tried to employ a babysitter once, over 20 years ago, and I still have not been allowed to forget it.

She doesn't think our lives are interesting at all. She has never been interested in the same sort of things as we are and she thinks we are very boring.
OK we are very boring, but we like it that way.
She is always complaining because we don't live somewhere where it is easy for her friends to visit her and we don't have parties or go out to dances and the theatre and we hardly ever drink.

She goes away two or three times a year. We don't even have passports.

Zagreb I have a cousin who is 62 and still tied to his mother's apron strings.

The only way to escape is to wait till they die. One of my cousins couldn't get married till her father died when she was the age I am now (fortyish) because she was not allowed to have friends round or go out to their houses.

My mother has always been as strong as an ox and I am a pathetic little weakling. She will definitely outlive me.

Marjin we could not bear to live in a city. We are both too shy.
She loved living in a city. We keep hoping she will go back but she enjoys being a martyr too much to give it up.

They say you always turn into your mother. Am I being a martyr?

It is impossible to disagree with her. She either shouts me down or sings "Lalalalala" so she can't hear what I am saying.

Gnomon "Even if your CHILD is very YOUNG and unable to look after herself, you do not have a duty to look after her."?

She could have easily put me in an orphanage or the home the nuns ran for bad girls but she didn't.

She did her duty by me. Surely I should do mine by her?

A parent has obligations to the child to take care of them, but not the other way around.

It sounds to me like your mother is a typical controlling and manipulative parent Lady Godiva. She's a bully. I've heard this story many times, from my own wife, and even from one or two other researchers here.

A person doesn't have to love, like, or respect their parents if they treat that person like sh*t, and many parents do apparently. How on earth can they expect to win the respect of their children that way? If you treated a friend that way, how long do you think it would be before they told you where to stuff it? The "Blood is thicker than water" and "Honour your parents" thing is just like "My country right or wrong". It's codswallop. Respect has to be earned - it doesn't come automatically.

The biggest ptoblem I think you have from what I've read in these posts so far is actually standing up to her, but it's true that bullies will almost always crumble when their victim pushes back. If you do so, it'll probably get worse before it gets better, because you'll most likely get a lot of flak from your other relatives, and they'll put you on a huge guilt trip, but you have to stand up to them because nobody, whether they're your parents or not, has the right to treat anyone the way that so many parents treat their children. And if you're over 18, you're not even a child any more. You have your own life