Sunday night morbs

[cosmolinguist]

I had a pretty dispiriting conversation with my parents this evening.

Whenever I think "wow I'm shit at speaking up when I should," I hope I remember how far I've come.

My mom won't argue with the people in her life who persist in Trump support despite living in Minnesota in 2026. "We just don't talk about politics," I remember hearing this when I was growing up (once or twice; one didn't even need to talk about not talking about politics very often), and it seems so nonsensical as well as enraging these days.

And when she told me about a parent being ableist toward his young son, after said child's disability had been explicitly compared to mine... She was talking to the parents and made that connection herself, saying that how they described his sight reminded her of me, which got the mom to ask if I'd ever "had to" use braille. At this point I was wincing a little, she made it sound like an emergency plan I didn't have to resort to (when actually I taught myself (by sight, not touch) Grade 1 braille when I was 11 because I so desperately wanted to learn it), but whatever. Mom replied, accurately, that I did not learn braille. The kid's mom said that she'd asked because they as his parents had been told braille might be relevant to their child, and I guess here the kid's dad interrupted their conversation to say "absolutely not, he will never do that."

I was so upset. I shouted "that's horrible!"

Mom was upset...with my outburst. "I'm only telling you what he said," she told me, clearly not interested when I tried to explain why I thought this is horrible.

I've been having a bad-brain time anyway, but the idea that there are people out there who insist that their visually impaired kid will never learn braille is bad enough... and it stings to see that my mom isn't even interested in advocating otherwise even when she had been explicitly treated like an expert by the kid's mom by drawing this parallel between my condition and his.

My mom isn't really much of an expert on my condition -- she told me that people in her church prayed for me to stop being blind when I was a baby and I'm a miracle; Wikipedia tells me it's normal for people born with my condition to acquire some sight by the time we're five years old. And her own ableism was baked into the conversation: she's intensely uncomfortable with wheelchair users unless they are expected to "walk again some day" and she was just so paternalistic about the kid that even modeling better reactions (which is usually all I can do when my parents are like this) didn't feel good enough for me.

It just felt like the last straw: a difficult weekend, I accidentally broke the fastening on my current-favorite glasses chain while I was trying to clean glasses that always seem to be dirty lately, I have realized only tonight that all my train journeys this coming week will be even more complicated because Manchester Piccadilly is effectively closed... D kindly tried to fix a problem with my phone not sending e-mail only for it to confound him, leaving him frustrated and confused.

And now it's past my bedtime? I somehow have to go to sleep when I'm so dejected? Bah.

Comments

[angelofthenorth]

Hugs, I'm so sorry. It's difficult when parents are wilful at the best of times.

[otter]

Oh my friend, I'm sorry your mother did that thing again.

[diffrentcolours]

If it helps, I'm confused but not particularly frustrated about your phone :)

[radiantfracture]

<3

[redbird]

I'm sorry they're like that.

And I'm so tired of straight white people thinking that "we don't talk about politics" is a virtue, repeating ableist (etc.) crap, and then getting upset at you for challenging the things they're repeating. She's "just saying," but somehow she finds those things worth repeating, and what people like you say isn't worth listening to, much less talking back to the neighbor as "well, I was talking to my kid, and they said..."

Even if she doesn't understand ablism as a political issue, she doesn't have to quote what that guy said.

[barakta]

I'm sorry, you and the wee kiddo deserv(ed) better. As does all of Minnesota in the face of Trumpians.

Sending much love to you for maybe less stress, or at least the spoons to cope this coming week.

[ailbhe]

Oh that's layers of horrible, I'm so sorry.

[silveradept]

Aigh. You are clearly doing better than where you came from.

I'm puzzled why your patents plowed on further after you demonstrated to them that this was not something that was good for them to have continued on, but I guess they thought it was all okay? Or that it want sufficiently politics to he not talked about?

Oof, I hope the chain and the phone resolve well and the trips are uneventful.