You know, there is just no polite way to tell someone that they are a stupid doormat, a piss-poor mother and that their daughter is an irresponsible, emotional retard and a cheating, manipulative slut.
You ever meet someone as a friend and really hit it off? You find out you share a lot in common - attitudes about life, spirituality, politics, feminism, sexuality, men, society...and you start to hang out since you have so much in common and the more time you spend together, the more the other person comes to like and admire and trust you and begins to confide about her background.
Then with dawning horror the more you find out the more you realize that if you had known what this woman was really like, you wouldn't have touched her with a 10 foot pole.
And now you can't get rid of her.
It is a new co-worker of mine. She's older than me, a widowed single mother (her husband committed suicide, which should have warned me I guess).
She has done nothing wrong really, she has just turned out to be the kind of personality that I abhor and cut out of my life a long time ago.
And here I am, stuck with her.
Her latest crisis is just so ridiculously stupid, it's a Jerry Springer episode. Her college daughter - bragged on by her mother as incredibly intelligent, mature for her age, is on the fast track to be a vet, has a gift for working with animals and independent as hell - has called her mother.
Oh, she's dropped out of college after flunking 4 classes, working in vet offices as a vet tech didn't pay very well, so she has been topless dancing for a while now, but she stopped doing that, and is now unemployed, uninsured, and - oh, yes, pregnant and she wants to keep the baby. Oh, the father? A recent boyfriend she's cheated on several times, dumped him, took him back, he ignores her, tunes her out which causes fights and he's unemployed too.
And they're coming down to be with her mother.
She e-mailed me this travesty and I was just appalled. Worse, I was appalled because my friend simpered, "Oh I'm going to be a grandmother! The timing is not good, but if she's happy, I'm happy for her."
If it could have, my jaw would have hit the ground.
Apparently all the talk about feminism, controlling one's own life and being responsible was just that. Talk.
Her daughter just called to say she's joined the very large group of poor unwed pregnant young women with no health insurance and
she's happy for her?!?!?She talks about her daughter getting on welfare and having her baby on the public dole at a community hospital as perfectly fine and normal.
She never
once lectured her daughter on irresponsibility.
Why? Because of her abusive background, my friend has never overcome being a doormat and just wanting to make people around her happy and not confronting them. Hence, her piss-poor parental skills.
So she will accept whatever harebrained idea her daughter comes up with and - lest she alienate her - just accept it with a happy smile.
My sister after hearing this tale wondered how I would face my friend without a look of disgust on my face.
I said it would be easy. I wasn't going to see my friend much anymore. Her daughter and unemployed boyfriend were moving in with her, she was going to support them while they looked for jobs and once the baby came, babysit so her daughter could take night classes. Not that her daughter has actually said she is GOING to take night classes.
My friend was taking night classes, practicing her music - she used to be a torch singer in a nightclub - wanting to improve her life and economic status. She was all excited about coming with me to Italy on my next European sojourn...and now all that's in the toilet. She's never going to do anything but stay at her level because she no longer has the luxury to quit or change careers or even take a vacation - not with her daughter and soon to be present grandchild dependent on her.
Sad sad sad and extremely pathetic.
