The Toxic Family

OK, kind of a follow-up to the last post, only this one is about the more toxic nature of some of my family.

I didn’t tell any of the Chicago family that Munchkin was going to Europe until right before we left. Why? Well, despite it being a phenomenal chance to do something really special, I knew that they would all think it was a terrible idea. They happen to be some of the most bigoted, closed-minded, mean-spirited people alive. Not bigoted in the sense that they don’t like people of a certain color or creed, but rather in the sense that they don’t like anyone who isn’t like they are.
OK, they aren’t all that way, but enough of them to really annoy me.

True to form, I told them all, and despite not asking for their opinion, I got it in spades. It wasn’t safe…foreign countries are dirty and bad…her parents never would have let her go…etc. Underneath all of this is that they all hate the fact that she knows rich kids. And her mother and father were exactly the same way. I am not gonna lie, I am concerned about her being around kids that are so spoiled that it warps her world view, but I feel like it is a manageable problem.
They, on the other hand, just assume that rich people are evil. Why? Because they are all poor, and therefore feel like they must blame that on faceless rich people. Never mind that most of them are just plain lazy fuck-ups who barely made it to, let alone graduated from High School…this is all the fault of someone else.

I am getting mad thinking about this, and I am leaving the worst part out. I am too mad to write it, but if someone reminds me, I will write it some day.

Anyway, one of my mother’s sisters tried this "Your mother NEVER would have let her leave the country for a month with those people." Emphasis on "those people" to make it sound like they were members of some weird cult. I have to add that I do not speak to this aunt, and never will again, related to the last paragraph. She has committed un-forgivable acts for which I will never absolve her. I know God says we should forgive, but it should come to no one’s surprise that God is a lot nicer than I am.

She was, however, factually correct. My mother wouldn’t have let her go. More specifically, my mother would have been such a bitch around this other girl’s parents and put in so much effort to not let them play together that she never would have been invited. That, however, is neither here nor there.

I was proud of my response…"Aunt Whore Bag, I don’t care what my mother would have done. I am raising her based on what I think is right, even when that is not what my mother would have thought." Maybe not those exact words, but that was the gist of it…that I don’t feel like my Mother was the kind of role model I should be deferring to. I can raise Munchkin only one way; by doing what I think is best. I can’t worry about doing what others might have.

Well she got pretty pissy and gave me a nasty tongue lashing about being a know-it-all and a sell-out and disrespecting my mother’s memory. Which I ignored by leaving the room. That was kind of the end of it. I got some shit from other family members (but not from Uncle Awesome, who said that not only should I let her go, but that I was completely right in telling my Aunt what I did).

Munchkin’s older brother took a lot of the heat off of me by telling his family and adding that he thought it was a great idea and was ecstatic she was going. I still got some shit, but nothing I can do about that. When someone hates you, it is usually not worth fighting.

Anyway, I am not sure how this is related…lol. But I felt like telling…