[Blindtlk] Being Disrespected: How to Handle

Sun Oct 5 15:56:19 UTC 2014

oh this is so true. Our son is 27 and I'm sure that I have given 
unwanted advice but he has been graceous about it. I felt overly 
protected and work now not to do that with our son and it isn't always 
easy but the effort is worth it.
On 9/28/2014 8:52 AM, Judy Jones via blindtlk wrote:
> Well, I can say that moms want to be useful, still feel needed.  We 
> may do it in the wrong way sometimes, but just because she does things 
> like that may not necessarily have to do with the fact that she is 
> sighted and you guys are blind.  I am a blind mom, yet I have been 
> guilty of straightening up for my older daughter, when, in fact, I 
> disrupted her housekeeping pattern.  By the way, as you know, I am the 
> blind mom, she the sighted daughter, yet I caused the same problem.  
> She was very nice about it, but was a good lesson for me.
>
> Remembering back, when my mom would come to visit and used our 
> kitchen, for a week afterwards, I was still trying to find stray small 
> appliances and kitchen items.  However, when I visited them, I ended 
> up doing the same thing, and we would both laugh about how we 
> disorganized each other's kitchens.
>
> It's all about parents getting used to their children's housekeeping 
> styles, adapting to them being out of the house, no matter what age, 
> and growing into the relationship with adult children.
>
> Judy
>
>
> -----Original Message----- From: Carly Mihalakis via blindtlk
> Sent: Sunday, September 28, 2014 6:46 AM
> To: Brandon A. Olivares ; Blind Talk Mailing List ; Blind Talk Mailing 
> List
> Subject: Re: [Blindtlk] Being Disrespected: How to Handle
>
> Good morning, Brandon, and everyone,
>
> Something about the sensibilities of Ol'Sighty, particularly when
> Ol'Sighty is also your parent! My boyfriend and I are also totals. My
> Mom doesn't come up so much anymore but when she did, she would do
> the same thing, moving things, "putting things away" all in the name
> of you guessed it, neatening up! One time, we have a little bowl
> containing quarters for laundry, and there is also a container of
> sundry coins. She put the quarters in with the change! I mean, do you
> really need too much of an imagination to suspect a bowl full of
> quarters maybe having some purpose for being segregated like that?
> So, Sunday morning when we got up to do our laundry and seeing that
> and having to dig through all the change in search of our quarters,
> Upon asking her about it later, however, she gave that old tired
> line, "I was just trying to help..."
> As has been said by many: Some people you just can't reach! 05:16 AM
> 9/28/2014, Brandon A. Olivares via blindtlk wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> My wife and I are just looking for a bit of advice on how to handle a 
>> difficult situation.
>>
>> We're both in our mid-twenties. We live on our own in her own home 
>> town, about 250 miles from my own family. By all accounts, we keep a 
>> nice house. It's not perfect, but it's clean enough, as confirmed 
>> also by several of her family and friends.
>>
>> But still, every. single. time my mother comes up to visit, she finds 
>> something to complain about. The worst thing is that I think she 
>> believes she is doing it out of love, but on our end it feels like 
>> she is being condescending and disrespectful.
>>
>> I've tried before telling her before she visited to please not say 
>> anything because Christine worked very hard on the house to make it 
>> nice for her. But still she says or does something every time, 
>> without fail.
>>
>> I'll provide two examples to illustrate:
>>
>> The first happened a few months ago when she came up to visit. 
>> Christine was out somewhere, but told me not to let my mother try to 
>> touch anything. I said okay. So my mother visits, and pretty soon, 
>> she says the table is cluttered and wants to clean it up. I say no, 
>> please don't. We have it handled just fine. But then she starts and 
>> just says she's only putting some things in the end-table drawer so 
>> the coffee table looked nicer. I asked her not to, but she kept doing 
>> it. I figured it was just small things here and there she was putting 
>> away, but when Christine looked later on, every single item on the 
>> table was put into the drawer, messing up our organization 
>> completely. It took us a while to put everything back in its proper 
>> place.
>>
>> Case #2: It was my birthday just last week and my mother came up to 
>> visit. Again I asked her not to say anything, and she said she 
>> wouldn't. She made a few attempts which I successfully headed off. 
>> But then she said the bedroom floor had cat hair on it and needed to 
>> be vacuumed, and asked if she could do it. I said no, thanks for 
>> letting us know and we'll take care of it. Well five minutes later, I 
>> hear the vacuum being turned on. Apparently she told Christine behind 
>> my back she was going to do it anyway, and not to tell me. Christine 
>> was a bit intimidated I think so didn't speak up. But it was very 
>> hurtful that I specifically asked her not to, but she did anyway.
>>
>> The ironic part is that before we moved out here, we stayed with her 
>> for over a year, and she was never a neat-freak. Her own house was 
>> often worse than ours would ever be.
>>
>> So we're not sure how to handle it. I didn't want to make a big fuss 
>> about it last weekend because it was my birthday and I didn't want 
>> drama. But she might come up for Christmas and we really don't want 
>> this to keep happening. Unfortunately as said, every time we mention 
>> something, she agrees, but then ends up doing it anyway. At this 
>> point we're tempted to just not let her visit our house, but she'd be 
>> very hurt by that. But we feel disrespected and degraded, because it 
>> seems like she thinks we don't know what we're doing just because 
>> we're blind. I'm 26 and Christine is 24, and we're both quite capable 
>> to handle things on our own.
>>
>> Sorry about the lengthy message, but any advice would be appreciated.
>>
>> Brandon
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>
>
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