Her reputation preceded her. As Bourne approached the lectern for public comment — shouting about “healthy, whole women!” — scores of district-area teachers got up from their seats and walked out of the meeting.
Bourne went ballistic.
“Ask those teachers to stop interrupting my comment!” she shouted at the meeting chair. “I want my time back! I want my time back!”
Mothers like this tend to dig in and hold their ground when people tell them they are wrong about their children. For them, it’s not about love, it’s about control. They need their children to fit into these perfect little boxes they have constructed in their minds and if we don’t fit, it’s because there is something wrong with us or society has twisted us.
Source: I saw my mom do similar to my younger sibling. Now, my mother does not have a relationship with either of her children and I’m working on healing the damage she did between sibling and me. I’ll always stick up for sibling over mom as long as she behaves this way.
I also detect notes of how the world will think of them that THEY raised a child that turned out to be trans or gay. The actual happiness of the child isn’t a factor, but the appearance of the child’s happiness is, because that’s a reflection of the parent.
Good for you! It’s a hard step and people don’t always seem to understand how a child can cut ties with a parent. They never what those parent/child relationships are like leading up to going no contact with parents. Also, protip: she’s always going to behave that way.
The first thing I thought of from looking at the parent’s situation is how hopeless it is. Second thing was how Lily seems to be doing fine. Third was how similar to the ending of American Beauty the parent’s situation is.
100% agree with you. Many of these parents just see their children as a reflection on their own character and morals instead of being proud of the person they raised.
Yep, I’ve had folks tell me I’m a bad daughter for not having a relationship with my mother. They lost their wonderful mom to cancer and would love to have their mom back so obviously I should want to have my mom in my life, but they fail to realize that not all moms are wonderful like their own was. Even after explaining my circumstances, I’ve still heard “but she’s your mom and you should talk to her” like that means I have not tried for a decade to talk to her about how she makes me feel and that I am required to put up with her wreaking havoc on my mental health.
I’m fully aware of this unfortunately. She knows the things she has to do to have her children in her life, I’ve flat out told her what to do. She refuses to do something as simple as apologize, so she runs around telling everyone that her kids hate her for no reason. It’s the missing missing reasons factor 🤷♀️
My relationship with my sibling means far more to me than my relationship with my mother anymore. Sibling is a dork and can tease me, but ultimately is supportive and doesn’t judge me the way mom does.
Yeah. And it really does take that long. Usually the kid has to get out in the world and start swapping stories with other people, or get caught doing some damned Learned Behavior around normal people. After that the negotiation phase with the parent, and after that fails over and over again it’s no contact. It’s why I really hate the stories of people who got parentified…that’s their whole life spent and the one constant is you can’t get time back.
I wish it wasn’t so common for it to need articles that well written to exist. Parent attempts to capture kid in a false dichotomy, and when they find a way out and escape control, they parent tries to control the narrative. In the happy ending the kid loses their parent.
Congratulations keeping some family.