So I mentioned a disagreement with my mother yesterday. 

Generally speaking my mom’s responses to fights are either to wait a while and then pretend nothing happened, or cajole my dad into following up instead. The reason she’ll do the latter is because she’s sure my dad doesn’t take enough of a role in parenting, and because she thinks she gets the blame all the time. 

So today we didn’t talk until dinner. During which time she mostly pretended like nothing had happened. And then felt compelled to tell a story she heard from a friend.

Her friend had a fight with her daughter. They were driving in France, and the mother suggested directions to take and places to stop. The daughter got upset at her mother telling her what to do. The mother insisted she was just giving advice. 

Oh, transparency. To add insult upon that, she even nudged me before telling that story. 

I overheard them talking when my dad got home. My mom is quite loud when she’s telling him to do something for her. This has happened before, like in long distance phone calls when I could hear her telling my dad what to say. Or even on menial things, like telling my dad to call me for dinner. She says it so loudly that sending him is moot. 

So I could hear her saying that my dad isn’t involved enough with us. And after dinner, when it was just my dad and I cleaning up, he was unusually active in conversation. 

I don’t mind talking with my dad. But I can’t help holding back when I know it’s been nudged by my mom. 

And it’s obvious that she hasn’t considered where she might have gone wrong.