Comments on: Aw, shit

By: Claire

Claire — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 14:21:21 +0000

My father’s side of the family get absurdly upset when my sister doesn’t address envelopes properly. I really don’t understand it. My granny once got really mad when my sister wrote ‘Granny, 16 Street road, Townsville, Somewhere’ on an envelope instead of her formal name. I thought it was cute. Our elders and betters are as human as the rest of us and they’re also working through the cultural barrier of modern times. Not a consolation but there you go.

By: wolfangel

wolfangel — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 14:36:53 +0000

You know, I could deal with it if they just had trouble adjusting to different times. And maybe if the favouritism were in my family’s favour it would be easier. But it’s not that they dislike sex on tv (which they do, and swearing), it’s that they utterly reject things in my sister as wrong and bad that they think are cute and funny in my cousin. And that they don’t take into account what distance can do.

By: Michelle

Michelle — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 22:15:50 +0000

Sounds like not even just the typical favoritism, but the habitually knocking down of your sister for her errors, to boot. And it’s always so disturbing when people we love do these things. Easier to dismiss and/or tolerate out of someone that you can just say, Well, he’s a jackass.

By: wolfangel

wolfangel — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 23:13:22 +0000

It’s a little of both — there is absolutely favouritism, as well as some sort of dislike for my sister. Both of them. My aunt dislikes them both, too; I have often wondered how much of a role their being adopted plays in this.

But you’ve got it right, because it’s hard because I do love my grandparents, but I hate this about them.

By: Michelle

Michelle — Tue, 31 Aug 2004 05:23:16 +0000

The adoption status flitted across my mind while reading but I didn’t think it would be polite to ask.

I don’t know if you know this, but I was adopted by my mother’s second husband when a baby and my status in my paternal grandparents’ house was elevated ridiculously since my natural father had died young and they never got over it. It was clear even to me while very young that many of my relatives resented me for it and to this day, I don’t understand what my grandmother was thinking. But she later sold my own land out from under me so who can account for people’s actions.

By: wolfangel

wolfangel — Tue, 31 Aug 2004 13:48:46 +0000

No, I don’t mind asking. I don’t know if it’s true; I do think if it is, it’s unconscious.

I did know you were adopted by your mother’s husband, but not that you were extra-loved (as it were) by your grandparents. Maybe they just weren’t thinking or noticing? I don’t know if you can help but notice, but maybe they thought iti wasn’t obvious. Or something.

Sold your own land? Dare I ask?