E
ElizaE
Guest
My uncle and aunt had a baby just a couple days ago. The family got together to welcome the new addidtion to the family. A time of great joy… of course.
During the little “party” I left the table to be with my aunt and the new baby and talk to her in the living room while everyone else was in the dining room. All of a sudden I hear a great fight in the dining room, lots of yelling and screamig. I don’t want to confuse you guys too much but this was the fight:
Long time ago, my mother’s mother died. My mom is the 3rd of 5 children. She was 16 at the time. Her two older sisters were gone to college and did not help with the family home. My mom took care of her father, and her two younger brothers. One sister, E, got married. E and her husband came home (she was not a very pleasant person), and told my mother to make them something to eat. My mom said no that if she wanted something she could make it herself (my mom was 17 at the time). E’s husband proply slapped my mother hard on the face. Nothing happend to E’s husband and no one took my mom’s side, not her father, no one. This occured 39 years ago. Since then E and her husband divorced.
Yesterday, my uncle, A, was saying what a wonderful man E’s ex-husband use to be. My mom said that he wasn’t and that he slapped her in the face. And the fight begun, with my aunt, U, backing up A saying that "it is not as if he raped you, " and A saying, “why did you let him hit you”, and “I wasn’t there I just know that he was good to E, and too bad she divorced him.”
Sitting in the other room, I couldn’t take it anymore. I came into the dining room and said to U and A. “This man hasn’t been part of the family for 19 years and you are defending him for slapping your sister. It still hurts her that you will not take her side. All you have to say is that you wish it has never happend to her and that you wish you could have done something. That is all she wants and yet you are defending a man that beats up women.” After that, my husband took me home. Before I left, I heard that they were upset that her daughter was allowed to talk to them like that. How dare a brat yell at them.
Did I do the right thing to defend my mother? I just don’t know. How far do you go to be respectful to older members of your family. I just couldn’t take them saying such things to my mother.
During the little “party” I left the table to be with my aunt and the new baby and talk to her in the living room while everyone else was in the dining room. All of a sudden I hear a great fight in the dining room, lots of yelling and screamig. I don’t want to confuse you guys too much but this was the fight:
Long time ago, my mother’s mother died. My mom is the 3rd of 5 children. She was 16 at the time. Her two older sisters were gone to college and did not help with the family home. My mom took care of her father, and her two younger brothers. One sister, E, got married. E and her husband came home (she was not a very pleasant person), and told my mother to make them something to eat. My mom said no that if she wanted something she could make it herself (my mom was 17 at the time). E’s husband proply slapped my mother hard on the face. Nothing happend to E’s husband and no one took my mom’s side, not her father, no one. This occured 39 years ago. Since then E and her husband divorced.
Yesterday, my uncle, A, was saying what a wonderful man E’s ex-husband use to be. My mom said that he wasn’t and that he slapped her in the face. And the fight begun, with my aunt, U, backing up A saying that "it is not as if he raped you, " and A saying, “why did you let him hit you”, and “I wasn’t there I just know that he was good to E, and too bad she divorced him.”
Sitting in the other room, I couldn’t take it anymore. I came into the dining room and said to U and A. “This man hasn’t been part of the family for 19 years and you are defending him for slapping your sister. It still hurts her that you will not take her side. All you have to say is that you wish it has never happend to her and that you wish you could have done something. That is all she wants and yet you are defending a man that beats up women.” After that, my husband took me home. Before I left, I heard that they were upset that her daughter was allowed to talk to them like that. How dare a brat yell at them.
Did I do the right thing to defend my mother? I just don’t know. How far do you go to be respectful to older members of your family. I just couldn’t take them saying such things to my mother.
) to Arizona to see my mother, who lives in a nursing home there, and my aunt, who is coming into town from Connecticut soon. Nevermind the fact that we were just out at New Year’s and will be out again over the summer, that it is a 12-hour drive away, that it is very hard to travel with a toddler and a baby and stay in a hotel room with them, that it is very expensive to pay for gas and the hotel room, that I am sick to my stomach most of the time now, and that my DH teaches and is not off of school again until summer. I simply am *expected *to bring the babies (by myself, mind you!) to amuse the relatives (this “babies as toys” issue is also another thread entirely!). I have been “guilted” repeatedly over my polite refusals/explanations of this!