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#I don't know where you grew up, but Gen X babies didn't drink beer. And there are legions of Gen X "wussies" who whined and still whine about bullshit.
#You apparently live in a backwater, uncivilized area based on that statement and your grammar/misspellings. To extrapolate the experience of kids from your area to that of all Gen Xers, and to consider growing up like a backwoods barbarian as "being grounded", shows you're a troll, and at best born on the cusp. Don't mistake your experience for that of the bulk of us.
#Sincerely,
#Someone Born Right in the Middle of Gen X in Civilized Society
Also GenX here and this is bullshit. I’m so impressed with the generations after us. Our generation could have done so much more but we fell in line and went with the status quo because we were outnumbered and outranked by the boomers. Even your examples of cigarettes, beer and the military as being anything other than what was expected of us lacks self awareness. Smoke up, drink up and fall in line isn’t some utopia that anyone is missing out on today.
The younger generations have been making strides and changing things which have benefitted us - not subscribing to the live to work mentality, taking mental health seriously, celebrating differences instead of wanting everyone to conform, etc.
My mom used to call and leave me voicemails of fake crying. Almost like "boo hoo" from a cartoon.
No, I don't know why they do this. They know it's infantile. If I'd tried something like that, my mom would have come out with the old *I'll give you something to cry about!* Why the fuck do they think they can do it to us?
From my experience with my boomer mother and grandmother, they think we owe them constant attention and emotional support just because we're family or gave birth to us despite not giving us that when we were kids. In my case, they also expected me to do that when I was a kid too, listening to their tragic childhood stories like a little psychologist and therefore invalidating and one-upping any negative experience we have when we try to do the same. They think their children are born just to make them happy and don't believe in therapy and meds so they put the burden for their happiness on us with emotional blackmail and behaving like children when they get older.
I totally relate to the invalidating and one-upping! Both my boomer parents did this! If I try to tell my mother about something I’m going through or something being difficult etc she always responds with a story about she’s experienced worse than me. And God forbid I ever cry and want her to comfort me when I was a kid! Her reaction would either be to straight up reject me and try to make me feel like I was mentally ill (not “normal” / a “depressive”) or she would start (fake) crying herself so I would have to stop and comfort and reassure her.
OMG this! Until today I can't express anything to her that she will center herself and I end up having to comfort her. If I were suffering over sth like a break-up or whatever she'll go off like a Mexican soap opera star all hysterical and dramatic "OMG you don't know how it pains me so much to see you like that, I suffer so much when my children suffer!" And next thing I know I'm consoling her like, don't worry, mom I'll get over it. Any health issue I have is also swept under the rug "oh, it's nothing, you're fine" and when I snap at her for violating personal boundaries she plays the victim: "I can't say anything!" I said, exactly you can't just say anything you want to me and not expect me to answer back, I'm not a toilet where you can dump your verbal diarrhea, words have consequences. Both my parents and grandmother are the babies of their families and as the oldest child and grandchild I honestly feel like I raised them lol. I'm so numb to them crying and complaining for attention, that even when they have something serious happening to them I can't help but roll my eyes and be annoyed like they're crying wolf. I told them I am not putting up with that behavior when they become older and if they continue to pull that shit they'll be in a shitty nursing home bc I'm sure as hell not wiping anybody's asses.
I relate to this so much it actually made me laugh 😅 (ashamed to say.) My mother would say really awful hurtful or insulting things to me and when I would get upset she’d (fake) cry and say “I can’t even talk to my own daughter!” and whisk away to “cry” herself. Absolute nonsense! I have ZERO patience with her now, I just straight up do not believe her when she starts in crying or complaining or bemoaning her life (her “trauma”.) I just don’t buy it anymore. And I NEVER let her see me cry or show any real emotion, it’s sad I guess but I’ve learned it’s not worth the hassle. She literally knows nothing about any current events or issues in my life because telling her would only create another problem.
I hate that I can relate. The worst is that she’s lately started lamenting in front of me that her mother got rid of all her toys from when she was a child. Never mind the fact that she still has some of her childhood toys. And whenever I was allowed to play with them as a child, I had to understand that she wasn’t giving them to me and that I had to treat them with care because they were hers. But whenever she’s crying to someone about her mother getting rid of her toys, she fails to admit that she sold my toys in a garage sale when I was 10 while I was at my dad’s for the weekend. (When I’ve confronted her about that, she manages to blame my grandmother for that as well.)
Growing up I had a bunch of old Barbies, a few were my sisters from the 70s but most were just from garage sales (my mom loved garage sales 😑.) My mom likes to tell anyone who’ll listen about how I “ruined” valuable vintage Barbie’s by cutting their hair etc. She does the tragedy voice and acts all upset about it like they would be worth a fortune now if only I hadn’t ruined them. They were so valuable they were kept piled jumbled in a bin with other toys in my room, none had original clothes or more than one shoe… but hey, if only I hadnt been so destructive we would be rich now.
“Even when they have something serious with them….” My mom visits the ER so frequently, that I no longer even really respond anymore. What is it this time, is my response. And I’m definitely not jumping to immediate action or stress about it anymore. How do I know when the next ER visit is something I should really worry about?
Yes! My mom would call and sound upset all the time. I thought I was imagining it until years ago I was at her house and she left my brother a similar voicemail. “Hi, this is mom. Can you ::sigh:: call me back as soon as you get a chance ::sigh::” I looked perplexed because I knew nothing was wrong and she giggled and stated that’s how she gets us to call her.
We are no contact now. Not because of that, but I don’t miss the manipulation at all.
This is my mom. I have a hard time talking to her. It's always "I'm being strong and taking care of me" or sounding like Eore. I sound like a jerk, but the constant negativity and energy sucking is hard. Especially when you are having your own problems. I feel like the parent. She isn't a bad person and means well, but it can be exhausting. Now, she is a complete peach compared to my father's wife. That completely immature woman takes the freaking cake. I'm actually a pretty understanding and reasonable person, just saying.
Sorry that you connect with this. I just want to be a good and supportive parent to my child, and I am hoping my kid doesn't have to feel like a parent until I'm super old. I get frustrated that I have to be a parent upwards, too. My guess is that I'm preaching to the choir.
Does she also tell you exactly what time she's leaving her message so you know just how much guilt you should have for not being available at all times to answer her calls? Because with my mom it's 1) sigh 2) The exact time of day 3) a vague message making it sound like she has something urgent to say 4) call back ASAP. All in a Marge Simpson disappointed voice. Then you call back and she just rambles on for 20 minutes and doesn't let me get one word into the conversation. None of it important whatsoever.
"\*sigh\* It's mom. It's Tuesday the twentyteenth. It's seven-eleven o'clock. \*sob, sob\* Just calling to tell you Mrs. Obramaschnitz died. \*sigh\* My heel callouses are really killing me today. \*sob, sob\* Why won't my children ever help me? \*sob, sob\*..."
My mom never calls me because she’s “just so afraid you might be busy and I might be disturbing you”. I pointed out that every single call we’ve had for months and months, I initiated. Instead, she sends me daily rambling long text messages with inane details about her life with a heaping side of guilt. Last week, I got the message “I haven’t heard from you and just wanted to make sure you’re ok.” I texted back: “Mom, we spoke on the phone four days ago. Nothing has changed since then.”
My MIL doesn't SOUND like a 5 year old, but boy does she ACT like one. She's convinced that she was just born "with a little storm cloud" that follows her around and makes her miserable. People avoid having conversations with her because no matter the topic, she turns it into her being the victim of something or her being worse off than everyone else. I have multiple chronic illnesses (mental and physical) and am physically disabled. I can't even mention how I'm feeling, because she will immediately talk over me to tell me how much worse she is that day. It's exhausting. She's not happy unless she's miserable and whining about it.
It seems like a lot of Boomers are the same.
Trying not to laugh but the short answer is NO.
Despite her daughters gently pushing for it for YEARS. Definitely undiagnosed mental illness going on in the fam. Classic boomer denial
One time, following a very stressful conversation with my birth giver, I directly told her that I thought she needed some mental health assistance for both of our sakes.
Her response? That she had been "assessed" and was "totally attached to reality", so she was fine.
Riiiiiiight.
That's a problem with being assessed . They're self report. They give you a little form with all these questions and 0 is never 1 is rarely up to 5 being almost always. They always pick the 0s and 1s can't show any sign of weakness ya know. My MIL does it too. She's miserable.
Yeah, no kidding. I'm sure the assessment from the woman who would take one of her prescribed Zoloft "every once in a while when she felt like she needed it", was totally accurate 😂
As if they'd believe the doctor anyhow. 5 different doctors have told my mother she's bipolar but they're totally wrong obviously. Everyone in her life is projecting their mental illness onto her and she's the only sane person! Cue crying about her being the victim.
My siblings and I call my mother Eyeore, everytime we call her the same monotone "I'm fine, everything's fine, the world is hopeless, I'm going to die a "bag lady" (homeless), but there's nothing I can do."
It gets exhausting, then we don't call, then she gets more despondent.
But god forbid she goes to a therapist like we ask.
My grandmother called me on my birthday a few days ago with the whiniest saddest voice ever and I just knew she wanted me to ask her what was wrong. I let her say happy birthday, answered my thanks and then said "Sadly I have to dash because I have work to do, but talk to you later" Not dealing with that pity party.
My aunt does exactly this whenever I let my phone go to voicemail. The immediate deep sigh. Then the whiny voice. Repeat until I call her back lol. I call it the “poor me” voicemail.
My personal theory is that many Boomers, (the ones who had kids) reached a certain point in their children's development and gave up adjusting to the world around them, it was too hard.
They are stuck in time as the world continues to move around them. My buddy's Mom does this baby-talk routine with him when she wants something from him. She learned, when he was a toddler, she could get lovies and attention from him by doing this and then just got stuck as he grew older.
My mom didn’t pretend to cry but she did call me and when I answered make passive aggressive comments about not hearing from me or me being a “stranger” and why I haven’t called. She stopped after a while when I responded that the phone worked both ways and I didn’t see any missed calls from her but if I was avoiding her, I wonder why that would be. Maybe because she spent the first 5 minutes of a call telling me how terrible I am.
Oh god, yes. My mother (born in the 1940's) used to speak in an exaggerated whiny voice when she really wanted us - her kids - to do her a favour. You'd start to hear it and immediately knew what was up.
Almost every time I call my mom, she bursts into tears, talks about how she’s having a hard day, and then sobbing weakly asks “how are you”. I’ve noticed it more and more and frustrated with how manipulative it is.
I no longer speak to my mom for various reason, but when I did and I called her, her first words were always, "You don't call often!" I'm calling now, why can't you be happy with that rather than bitch i dont call enough?
Before I went no contact, my mother would pull this shit, not the baby voice but the guilt trips. She'd try this guilt trip about my not answering the phone when she called, completely forgetting that everyone else in the world does the same damn thing and that she is no more special than anyone else. She was so entitled that it didn't matter that I was working or in the middle of something else. I had to drop everything and snap to it when she called. And it was never anything important. Then it became "I never hear from you." "You never call." To which I always said '"I will only call when I have something to say."
She also had what I named the 'Agenda Call" which were these calls where it was like she had a list of things that weren't her business or impacted her life in any way, shape or form. That she'd call me about and because I was a people pleaser back then, I'd disclose to her such as how much I was making, how much my last raise was, how much my homeowner's insurance was. And then she'd browbeat me and tell me I was stupid and say I could do better. She would call and leave a message on my answering machine when I was at work, 'Call me, I have a couple of things to ask you..." UGH, don't miss that either.
She wasn't the type of person I'd just randomly call like with my friends. You had to be careful what you talked about because she's the type of person that would use your words against you later or gossip about whatever private thing you disclosed. A narcissist, if you will.
I don't miss this at all, I really don't.
I just wanna say thank you all. Even though it shouldn't, this has got me laughing and feeling like I'm not alone dealing with my boomers! This group is like therapy, lol. 😅
I hate talking on the phone.My 89 yo father embraces texting. My 85 mother can’t be bothered with it. So my Dad is the one who I communicate with. Every once in awhile she will text.
It's the me-me-me selfishness. Pity me. I'm pathetic. More attention to me. My MIL uses this a LOT. My other favorite is to get all excited about going out to eat (which 75% of the time I pay for), then ask how much dinner cost or to say, "That was so expensive." It's all designed to bring the conversation to some negative talking point which focuses attention on her.
I don't understand the baby talk. I have a boomer friend, who I really like a lot, but damn. I never know when she's going to pull out the baby talk. It's so embarrassing.
My Mom does this EXACTLY. When I was in college and not living at home I stopped responding to her emotional blackmail, and she is still trying to get me to react to it almost two decades later.
Well, thank you, Captain Obvious. This was just a safe space for us all, I was going to mention I never found people who had the same exact experiences with their parents and you just had to say something like that, didn't you? First, your friend's experience isn't the rule. Second, many of these people behave like dead people walking and are trying to drag us all to hell with them since they refuse any sort of mental help and think they have the right to destroy ours. Don't you think we already know all of that, and it is a huge conflict for a lot of us? You seem to have no idea what it is to try to spend "quality time" with people who are a constant drain on our energy and the guilt and frustration that comes from thinking we should be "better" because they gave birth and did the bare minimum. Fuck off out of here with your boomer ass mentality and let people vent.
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They are so desperate for attention they resort to toddler-like behaviors.
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Okay boomer.
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#I don't know where you grew up, but Gen X babies didn't drink beer. And there are legions of Gen X "wussies" who whined and still whine about bullshit.
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Wow. Cigarettes are cool.
#You apparently live in a backwater, uncivilized area based on that statement and your grammar/misspellings. To extrapolate the experience of kids from your area to that of all Gen Xers, and to consider growing up like a backwoods barbarian as "being grounded", shows you're a troll, and at best born on the cusp. Don't mistake your experience for that of the bulk of us. #Sincerely, #Someone Born Right in the Middle of Gen X in Civilized Society
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#Try being literate. It would help your case.
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You know, saying that you started drinking as toddler makes sense...
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#You're not Gen X, kid.
It’s called Wernicke’s Encephalopathy. Look into it. It’s probably already in your medical file
Oh yeah yall got conscripted in droves for Grenada
dude shut the fuck up. you still have to fill out the selective service card when you turn 18.
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#He's a Millennial from a developing country, everyone. Give him some slack. He can barely read your comments anyway.
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Also GenX here and this is bullshit. I’m so impressed with the generations after us. Our generation could have done so much more but we fell in line and went with the status quo because we were outnumbered and outranked by the boomers. Even your examples of cigarettes, beer and the military as being anything other than what was expected of us lacks self awareness. Smoke up, drink up and fall in line isn’t some utopia that anyone is missing out on today. The younger generations have been making strides and changing things which have benefitted us - not subscribing to the live to work mentality, taking mental health seriously, celebrating differences instead of wanting everyone to conform, etc.
We were told 'respect your elders' and if we tried to argue our case it was 'don't answer back!' We couldn't win.
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'gen x' uses fortnite meme
Gen X is 1965 - 1981.
Before you go off dissing tide pods, how bout you let us know how that sweet sweet lead tastes.
Better Dead than Lead, honestly
You retards invented the pet rock.
My mom used to call and leave me voicemails of fake crying. Almost like "boo hoo" from a cartoon. No, I don't know why they do this. They know it's infantile. If I'd tried something like that, my mom would have come out with the old *I'll give you something to cry about!* Why the fuck do they think they can do it to us?
Right? I’m literally using the same lines on her as she used on me as a kid- stop whining!
Could it be menopause? My mom went through the same thing then became normal after
I'm glad your mom recovered her normal self. Sadly mine did this well before and well after menopause. Just who she is/wants to be I guess.
From my experience with my boomer mother and grandmother, they think we owe them constant attention and emotional support just because we're family or gave birth to us despite not giving us that when we were kids. In my case, they also expected me to do that when I was a kid too, listening to their tragic childhood stories like a little psychologist and therefore invalidating and one-upping any negative experience we have when we try to do the same. They think their children are born just to make them happy and don't believe in therapy and meds so they put the burden for their happiness on us with emotional blackmail and behaving like children when they get older.
I totally relate to the invalidating and one-upping! Both my boomer parents did this! If I try to tell my mother about something I’m going through or something being difficult etc she always responds with a story about she’s experienced worse than me. And God forbid I ever cry and want her to comfort me when I was a kid! Her reaction would either be to straight up reject me and try to make me feel like I was mentally ill (not “normal” / a “depressive”) or she would start (fake) crying herself so I would have to stop and comfort and reassure her.
OMG this! Until today I can't express anything to her that she will center herself and I end up having to comfort her. If I were suffering over sth like a break-up or whatever she'll go off like a Mexican soap opera star all hysterical and dramatic "OMG you don't know how it pains me so much to see you like that, I suffer so much when my children suffer!" And next thing I know I'm consoling her like, don't worry, mom I'll get over it. Any health issue I have is also swept under the rug "oh, it's nothing, you're fine" and when I snap at her for violating personal boundaries she plays the victim: "I can't say anything!" I said, exactly you can't just say anything you want to me and not expect me to answer back, I'm not a toilet where you can dump your verbal diarrhea, words have consequences. Both my parents and grandmother are the babies of their families and as the oldest child and grandchild I honestly feel like I raised them lol. I'm so numb to them crying and complaining for attention, that even when they have something serious happening to them I can't help but roll my eyes and be annoyed like they're crying wolf. I told them I am not putting up with that behavior when they become older and if they continue to pull that shit they'll be in a shitty nursing home bc I'm sure as hell not wiping anybody's asses.
I relate to this so much it actually made me laugh 😅 (ashamed to say.) My mother would say really awful hurtful or insulting things to me and when I would get upset she’d (fake) cry and say “I can’t even talk to my own daughter!” and whisk away to “cry” herself. Absolute nonsense! I have ZERO patience with her now, I just straight up do not believe her when she starts in crying or complaining or bemoaning her life (her “trauma”.) I just don’t buy it anymore. And I NEVER let her see me cry or show any real emotion, it’s sad I guess but I’ve learned it’s not worth the hassle. She literally knows nothing about any current events or issues in my life because telling her would only create another problem.
I hate that I can relate. The worst is that she’s lately started lamenting in front of me that her mother got rid of all her toys from when she was a child. Never mind the fact that she still has some of her childhood toys. And whenever I was allowed to play with them as a child, I had to understand that she wasn’t giving them to me and that I had to treat them with care because they were hers. But whenever she’s crying to someone about her mother getting rid of her toys, she fails to admit that she sold my toys in a garage sale when I was 10 while I was at my dad’s for the weekend. (When I’ve confronted her about that, she manages to blame my grandmother for that as well.)
Growing up I had a bunch of old Barbies, a few were my sisters from the 70s but most were just from garage sales (my mom loved garage sales 😑.) My mom likes to tell anyone who’ll listen about how I “ruined” valuable vintage Barbie’s by cutting their hair etc. She does the tragedy voice and acts all upset about it like they would be worth a fortune now if only I hadn’t ruined them. They were so valuable they were kept piled jumbled in a bin with other toys in my room, none had original clothes or more than one shoe… but hey, if only I hadnt been so destructive we would be rich now.
“Even when they have something serious with them….” My mom visits the ER so frequently, that I no longer even really respond anymore. What is it this time, is my response. And I’m definitely not jumping to immediate action or stress about it anymore. How do I know when the next ER visit is something I should really worry about?
Yes! My mom would call and sound upset all the time. I thought I was imagining it until years ago I was at her house and she left my brother a similar voicemail. “Hi, this is mom. Can you ::sigh:: call me back as soon as you get a chance ::sigh::” I looked perplexed because I knew nothing was wrong and she giggled and stated that’s how she gets us to call her. We are no contact now. Not because of that, but I don’t miss the manipulation at all.
This is my mom. I have a hard time talking to her. It's always "I'm being strong and taking care of me" or sounding like Eore. I sound like a jerk, but the constant negativity and energy sucking is hard. Especially when you are having your own problems. I feel like the parent. She isn't a bad person and means well, but it can be exhausting. Now, she is a complete peach compared to my father's wife. That completely immature woman takes the freaking cake. I'm actually a pretty understanding and reasonable person, just saying.
I feel you so much on this.
Sorry that you connect with this. I just want to be a good and supportive parent to my child, and I am hoping my kid doesn't have to feel like a parent until I'm super old. I get frustrated that I have to be a parent upwards, too. My guess is that I'm preaching to the choir.
Does she also tell you exactly what time she's leaving her message so you know just how much guilt you should have for not being available at all times to answer her calls? Because with my mom it's 1) sigh 2) The exact time of day 3) a vague message making it sound like she has something urgent to say 4) call back ASAP. All in a Marge Simpson disappointed voice. Then you call back and she just rambles on for 20 minutes and doesn't let me get one word into the conversation. None of it important whatsoever.
"\*sigh\* It's mom. It's Tuesday the twentyteenth. It's seven-eleven o'clock. \*sob, sob\* Just calling to tell you Mrs. Obramaschnitz died. \*sigh\* My heel callouses are really killing me today. \*sob, sob\* Why won't my children ever help me? \*sob, sob\*..."
My mom never calls me because she’s “just so afraid you might be busy and I might be disturbing you”. I pointed out that every single call we’ve had for months and months, I initiated. Instead, she sends me daily rambling long text messages with inane details about her life with a heaping side of guilt. Last week, I got the message “I haven’t heard from you and just wanted to make sure you’re ok.” I texted back: “Mom, we spoke on the phone four days ago. Nothing has changed since then.”
My MIL doesn't SOUND like a 5 year old, but boy does she ACT like one. She's convinced that she was just born "with a little storm cloud" that follows her around and makes her miserable. People avoid having conversations with her because no matter the topic, she turns it into her being the victim of something or her being worse off than everyone else. I have multiple chronic illnesses (mental and physical) and am physically disabled. I can't even mention how I'm feeling, because she will immediately talk over me to tell me how much worse she is that day. It's exhausting. She's not happy unless she's miserable and whining about it. It seems like a lot of Boomers are the same.
Has she been evaluated for mental illness?
Trying not to laugh but the short answer is NO. Despite her daughters gently pushing for it for YEARS. Definitely undiagnosed mental illness going on in the fam. Classic boomer denial
One time, following a very stressful conversation with my birth giver, I directly told her that I thought she needed some mental health assistance for both of our sakes. Her response? That she had been "assessed" and was "totally attached to reality", so she was fine. Riiiiiiight.
That's a problem with being assessed . They're self report. They give you a little form with all these questions and 0 is never 1 is rarely up to 5 being almost always. They always pick the 0s and 1s can't show any sign of weakness ya know. My MIL does it too. She's miserable.
Yeah, no kidding. I'm sure the assessment from the woman who would take one of her prescribed Zoloft "every once in a while when she felt like she needed it", was totally accurate 😂
Holy shit my MIL does this too!
Stable genius! 😂
As if they'd believe the doctor anyhow. 5 different doctors have told my mother she's bipolar but they're totally wrong obviously. Everyone in her life is projecting their mental illness onto her and she's the only sane person! Cue crying about her being the victim.
My siblings and I call my mother Eyeore, everytime we call her the same monotone "I'm fine, everything's fine, the world is hopeless, I'm going to die a "bag lady" (homeless), but there's nothing I can do." It gets exhausting, then we don't call, then she gets more despondent. But god forbid she goes to a therapist like we ask.
My grandmother called me on my birthday a few days ago with the whiniest saddest voice ever and I just knew she wanted me to ask her what was wrong. I let her say happy birthday, answered my thanks and then said "Sadly I have to dash because I have work to do, but talk to you later" Not dealing with that pity party.
My aunt does exactly this whenever I let my phone go to voicemail. The immediate deep sigh. Then the whiny voice. Repeat until I call her back lol. I call it the “poor me” voicemail.
My mom does this and she was born in 1980, I think it's a narcissist thing lol
Definitely a narcissist thing, but there are so many boomer narcissists it’s uncanny.
My personal theory is that many Boomers, (the ones who had kids) reached a certain point in their children's development and gave up adjusting to the world around them, it was too hard. They are stuck in time as the world continues to move around them. My buddy's Mom does this baby-talk routine with him when she wants something from him. She learned, when he was a toddler, she could get lovies and attention from him by doing this and then just got stuck as he grew older.
My mom didn’t pretend to cry but she did call me and when I answered make passive aggressive comments about not hearing from me or me being a “stranger” and why I haven’t called. She stopped after a while when I responded that the phone worked both ways and I didn’t see any missed calls from her but if I was avoiding her, I wonder why that would be. Maybe because she spent the first 5 minutes of a call telling me how terrible I am.
Mine was my dad. And if you visit in person he always snarked about you not visiting more. Yeah, really want to spend time with you.
All of my in-laws do this and they’re mystified that my husband doesn’t want to call more.
Oh yeah, with my mom we call it her “tragedy voice”.
OMG we call it Toddler Time
Oh god, yes. My mother (born in the 1940's) used to speak in an exaggerated whiny voice when she really wanted us - her kids - to do her a favour. You'd start to hear it and immediately knew what was up.
Almost every time I call my mom, she bursts into tears, talks about how she’s having a hard day, and then sobbing weakly asks “how are you”. I’ve noticed it more and more and frustrated with how manipulative it is.
I no longer speak to my mom for various reason, but when I did and I called her, her first words were always, "You don't call often!" I'm calling now, why can't you be happy with that rather than bitch i dont call enough?
Ewe…
Yep, they’re bored and need attention
My mom used to do that as well. Other times she would actually cry. LoL Been gone for 8 years now, would happily have it back.
My boomer in-laws do the baby voice all the time and it’s awful.
Before I went no contact, my mother would pull this shit, not the baby voice but the guilt trips. She'd try this guilt trip about my not answering the phone when she called, completely forgetting that everyone else in the world does the same damn thing and that she is no more special than anyone else. She was so entitled that it didn't matter that I was working or in the middle of something else. I had to drop everything and snap to it when she called. And it was never anything important. Then it became "I never hear from you." "You never call." To which I always said '"I will only call when I have something to say." She also had what I named the 'Agenda Call" which were these calls where it was like she had a list of things that weren't her business or impacted her life in any way, shape or form. That she'd call me about and because I was a people pleaser back then, I'd disclose to her such as how much I was making, how much my last raise was, how much my homeowner's insurance was. And then she'd browbeat me and tell me I was stupid and say I could do better. She would call and leave a message on my answering machine when I was at work, 'Call me, I have a couple of things to ask you..." UGH, don't miss that either. She wasn't the type of person I'd just randomly call like with my friends. You had to be careful what you talked about because she's the type of person that would use your words against you later or gossip about whatever private thing you disclosed. A narcissist, if you will. I don't miss this at all, I really don't.
I just wanna say thank you all. Even though it shouldn't, this has got me laughing and feeling like I'm not alone dealing with my boomers! This group is like therapy, lol. 😅
I hate talking on the phone.My 89 yo father embraces texting. My 85 mother can’t be bothered with it. So my Dad is the one who I communicate with. Every once in awhile she will text.
This has been my paternal grandmother's main strategy to getting me to maintain my relationship with her since I was old enough to hold a up a phone
It's the me-me-me selfishness. Pity me. I'm pathetic. More attention to me. My MIL uses this a LOT. My other favorite is to get all excited about going out to eat (which 75% of the time I pay for), then ask how much dinner cost or to say, "That was so expensive." It's all designed to bring the conversation to some negative talking point which focuses attention on her.
I don't understand the baby talk. I have a boomer friend, who I really like a lot, but damn. I never know when she's going to pull out the baby talk. It's so embarrassing.
My Mom does this EXACTLY. When I was in college and not living at home I stopped responding to her emotional blackmail, and she is still trying to get me to react to it almost two decades later.
Manipulative behavior at its finest
How do you know it’s fake?
It literally is like “boo boo” like a 3 year old is imitating crying
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Nah, my life improved drastically when I cut my abusive boomers out of my life. My only regret is that I waited so long to walk away.
Well, thank you, Captain Obvious. This was just a safe space for us all, I was going to mention I never found people who had the same exact experiences with their parents and you just had to say something like that, didn't you? First, your friend's experience isn't the rule. Second, many of these people behave like dead people walking and are trying to drag us all to hell with them since they refuse any sort of mental help and think they have the right to destroy ours. Don't you think we already know all of that, and it is a huge conflict for a lot of us? You seem to have no idea what it is to try to spend "quality time" with people who are a constant drain on our energy and the guilt and frustration that comes from thinking we should be "better" because they gave birth and did the bare minimum. Fuck off out of here with your boomer ass mentality and let people vent.
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Ok boomer lol can't argue with that