[Blindtlk] Being Disrespected: How to Handle

Sun Sep 28 20:46:27 UTC 2014

If I told my daughter that I wouldn’t do a thing anymore, I would make every effort not to do it as I had promised. Mike, you are right about mothers, and I know it is very hard for many of us to turn away from being the mother of a young child to the mother of an adult, but as a mother, I know it is something a mother must surely work at if she wants to maintain a happy relationship with her child, at least in many cases.

Cindy

On Sep 28, 2014, at 9:37 AM, Mike Freeman via blindtlk <blindtlk at nfbnet.org> wrote:

> I think part of this is just due to her being your mother -- blindness just
> exacerbates the situation. Have you ever known a mother that didn't worry
> but was still a good mother? There aren't many of those.
> 
> Mike
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: blindtlk [mailto:blindtlk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Brandon A.
> Olivares via blindtlk
> Sent: Sunday, September 28, 2014 6:22 AM
> To: Cindy Ray
> Cc: Blind Talk Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [Blindtlk] Being Disrespected: How to Handle
> 
> Cindy,
> 
> Yes she was quite over-protective. I was an only child, and blind to boot,
> so you can imagine. I feel like part of it is that now that I'm out of the
> house and she doesn't have someone to care for, she doesn't feel useful. She
> wants to feel like I need her, so she ignores my protests.
> 
> We both don't want to have to resort to preventing her from visiting, but we
> need some breathing room, too. We thought moving 250 miles away would help,
> but apparently not, lol.
> 
> On Sep 28, 2014, at 9:03 AM, Cindy Ray <cindyray at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> I agree that part of this is a mother-in-law problem. I have experienced
> it in the past. However, I think it is definitely a blindness problem as
> well. Brandon, was your mother especially attentive when you were at  home.
> It fascinates me when parents do this.
>> 
>> I am afraid that even if I was my mamma's baby, I would have to tell her
> without rancor that, while I love her, I am not willing to have her do these
> things, thus hurting me and demoralizing my wife. I think I would tell her I
> want to be ale to trust that she will treat me like the adult I am, but if
> he cannot do this, saying she'll do things or not do things that she has no
> intention of following through on, I would tell her that in the future she
> will not be welcome in my home if she continues to treat us that way. I just
> think it needs to be nipped in the bud. Of course all this takes courage,
> and it would be sort of hard to do it. Otherwise, the advice to let her do
> something like reorganize the table but make her say where she put each
> thing. And if you are picking battles, heck, let her vacuum. But for me,
> people think that as blind people we don't know if the house is messy, and
> trust me, it doesn't sound as if yours is.
>> 
>> As for the term "sighty", I rather hate that term. I think it is sort of
> disrespectful of sighted folks, but others I know do not share my view.
>> 
>> Cindy
>> 
>> On Sep 28, 2014, at 7:16 AM, Brandon A. Olivares via blindtlk
> <blindtlk at nfbnet.org> 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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