Complex Numbers

Myth of Family

GAAAAH! I should have known something like this was coming, and skipped this month.

PROMPT May 10th

The prompt today is very simple: Write about the person you call Mom.

Every year starting, oh, around Passover, my inbox starts getting spammed with Mother's Day advertisements. "Gifts Mom Will Love!" "Treat Your Mom To This Shiny Thing!" "Make Mom Happy With This One Weird Trick!"

Now, I'm not against getting emails from companies I do business with, even if they're ads, but I wish Gmail had a "time out" function where I could send mail by certain senders into the Spam folder between, say, April 1 and May 20, and I'd do that with any merchant who uses the words "mom" or "mother."

It's not that I object to the made-up holiday itself. I mean, all holidays are made-up. Yes, that one. That one, too. Especially that one with the jingling bells and ho-ho-hos. Some were just made up earlier than others. But look, even the woman who thought up Mother's Day in the first place tried to make it go away   because it became commercialized.

Still, it's not the commercialization that annoys me. Start anything in the US, and it will become commercialized, just as sure as the sun rises in the east and gives you cancer if you're out in it for more than 30 seconds.

Some mothers are simply not worthy of worship on this fine day. Some of them are so toxic, so venomous, that you're better off just cutting them loose. Oh, I know, I know, "family above all and she's your MOTHER how DARE you," well, bullshit. If your maternal figure tears you down, undermines you, guilt-trips you, ridicules your aspirations, insults your dog, tries to run your life, or otherwise destroys your self-esteem, cut her loose. Mother's Day would be an especially good time to do this. Oh, sure, maybe she shat you out so she'd have someone to take care of her in her old age, but listen: you owe her nothing if she's not going to take care of you.

Eh, that doesn't apply to me either. But I have friends who complain about their mothers' bullshit, and yet still worship them. The myth of family is so ingrained in society that they just don't see there's a way out. You'll divorce your spouse in a heartbeat, even though you chose them, but separating from your mother feels like shitting on God, the American Flag, and a stack of $100 bills all at the same time. I can only imagine it's worse in cultures with an even stronger myth of family.

I have one friend who did it, "divorced" her mother. The lady is legit psycho, and my friend just couldn't deal with her anymore. But she still feels guilty about it sometimes, I think, and especially in May.

This all of course goes for dads, too, and if it were June that's what I'd be ranting about. But it's not. It's May. Besides, somehow it's more acceptable to kick your dad out of your life than your mom, maybe because so many fathers "go out for cigarettes" and never come back.

I don't mean you should ignore your mom if she simply votes the other way from you in elections, or gives unsolicited advice, or shows up unexpectedly. But despite what everything in society screams at you all the time, there are situations where you're better off without her.

My mom wasn't terrible, and I helped make sure she was taken care of in her old age, and I was looking into her eyes as she died, 21 years ago. I'm done with moms.