Ridiculous things your parents criticize you about

[Library Dragon]

My mother was/is always hyper critical, but my favorite is when she tells me I should "come out of the closet."  Her proof? That I didn't live with someone or get pregnant before I got married. I know that being happily married (except for the days I want to strangle DH) for over 30 and having two sons isn't definitive proof.  But as someone who has always gone my own way, if I needed to be with a woman I would have. 

Poor DH couldn't win with his DM.  If he hand wrote a letter she complained that she couldnt read his writing, if he used the computer it was impersonal, and then he was criticized because his brother who moved away didn't write. 

[Rockie]

My mother was adamant that I not register to vote (never mind just about everyone else in my family is...) and got mad at me when I did anyway while I was away at college. It was during a presidential election, so I needed an absentee ballot since I was in another state at the time. I never got it, so I couldn't even actually vote that year (and then she proceeded to rub it in my face when her candidate won - we don't see eye to eye politics wise ). When I asked why, she said she didn't want me being called for jury duty. When I asked what was so bad about jury duty, she had no answer. She at least seems to have gotten over that, though.

She's also criticized what field I wanted to go into and keep bringing up other fields she thought I should go into (and would get really pushy about it). Even when I did look into one of her suggestions (occupational therapy), she turned around and started saying it was a bad idea for me to go into it because I'd have to touch people a lot (yet she also suggested physical therapy and massage therapy as possible careers...oooookay...). When I pointed out she had suggested it and even had me talk to one of her patients who was in that field, she claimed "oh, it was just a suggestion, just exploring options". Whatever field I pick always seems to be wrong. For psychology: "but you'll be dealing with really crazy people and you'll get killed!" (ugh...) For speech therapy (wherein she even once offered to buy me a car if I would go into that instead of psych): "but you barely know how to talk yourself!"/"you sound like an FOB!". I give up...

[JadeGirl]

Apparently I'm too stupid to remember to drink water...and will need one of my parents to donate a kidney...and they're too old...

Because apparently tap water doesn't count. Only warm, filtered water (warm water? Blech!).

[Mel the Redcap]

Y'know, I have some problems with my mother, but WOW. It coulda been so much worse!

I get some nagging about my weight, and I used to get a LOT of nagging about my standards of tidiness, but I think the funniest was about ten years ago, when she really REALLY wanted me to learn to drive. I was suffering from chronic migraines that were triggered by a bunch of things, including bright light, and direct sunlight or reflections off other cars' windscreens definitely qualified. They were frequently literally blinding, and I had no peripheral vision on my left side, so I informed her that if I drove with these problems I would end up committing vehicular homicide or similar. She continued to insist that I HAD to be able to drive. (In fairness, at the time she was working with abused women from country areas, and one thing they frequently had in common was that they had been isolated, unable to drive, and stuck on remote properties with nowhere to get away from their partner/husband. Mum therefore got a bee in her bonnet that for true safety, as a woman, I HAD to be able to drive. Never mind that I live in a major city with good public transport and people ten seconds' walk or one loud scream away for help...)

Me: "The sunlight triggers my migraines and I go blind, Mum. I can't drive. At least on the bus I can sit there with my eyes shut!"
Mum: "So, you don't look at the sun!"
Me: "Mum, seriously, I live to the west of my workplace. I'd be driving east into the sun in the mornings and west towards the sun in the afternoons."
Mum: "Well... well, drive the other way, then!"

Yes, Mum. I'm going to CIRCUMNAVIGATE THE GLOBE to get home at night.

[caz]

From my mother: Coloring your hair is lying to the world.

Using that logic, so is wearing false eyelashes, any type of hair piece, Spanx, and having capped teeth.

Padded bra?

As for the bras, she thinks mine make my chest look "too showy." Not the bras themselves but the shape they give to me. I'm very sorry, mother, but wearing a smaller cup size isn't going to magically make the girls shrink.

I just remembered!  When I was 19, my boobs were "too high"...  a few years took care of THAT!

[Pen^2]

I used to be criticised for having a natural part in my hair. I used to be told how bad it looked, etc. and to change it, even though it would just move back to its natural position within minutes unless I stood perfectly still and didn't move a muscle. Yes, even with hairspray.

There's nothing like being told you look terrible just before people arrive for your birthday to ruin the mood. In hindsight, I suspect that I was told this and other similar things at purposefully strategic times, since it was always just before I saw friends or just when something good had happened and I was feeling happy.

My husband's mother constantly criticises him for being too short. I don't understand why, because height can't be helped, and if anything, she had more control over his height than he does (nutrition as a baby, arguably). And he is almost exactly average height (less than 1cm away), and he quit his job at the circus working as "Mr Amazing Tallest Man in the Whole Wide World" years ago  .

[poundcake]

My mother was always telling me, "Put that book down and go do something!"  She wasn't a reader, and apparently felt that reading wasn't doing anything.

Yours too? Mine usually told me that when she was lying on the couch watching television. 

[Venus193]

This is all about anything they're not comfortable with.

I haven't taken a serious vacation in a long time, but when I went to Spain by myself in 1993 my mother refused to believe that I had a good time because I went there alone.  She couldn't let go of that, saying I should travel with other people.  I came to realize that she envied my ability to travel by myself.

[XRogue]

How I fold laundry...I can be sitting there and make the exact same motions folding a towel as my mother does.... and it's wrong anyway.  So when I lived with them and we did laundry together, I did the sorting and carrying instead, and let her do all the folding.

Also, my hobbies and manner of dress are apparently the fault of ExH.....because when I left him, Mom asked me when I was "going to stop dressing like a geek" and "quit watching science fiction on TV and reading SF novels too!" Uhm, never, I dress in blue jeans and tshirts (rarely dresses, those are a funeral/wedding/Easter Sunday type thing) because they are comfy and the natural fibers I wear keep my eczema from going insane. I prefer to not itch thank you. I have also been a Trekkie from age 3, and I'll read/watch what I like. If someone else finds it boring, they need not participate.

My hair is wrong too. I am "too old" to wear it long. Also I am a henna redhead, and was informed I shouldn't use henna because it "was an Arab discovery!" Please, no offense meant.

My response? "Guess we'll have to give up using zeroes then!"

[CakeEater]

Man, I love my parents!

[lady_disdain]

How I fold laundry...I can be sitting there and make the exact same motions folding a towel as my mother does.... and it's wrong anyway.  So when I lived with them and we did laundry together, I did the sorting and carrying instead, and let her do all the folding.

Also, my hobbies and manner of dress are apparently the fault of ExH.....because when I left him, Mom asked me when I was "going to stop dressing like a geek" and "quit watching science fiction on TV and reading SF novels too!" Uhm, never, I dress in blue jeans and tshirts (rarely dresses, those are a funeral/wedding/Easter Sunday type thing) because they are comfy and the natural fibers I wear keep my eczema from going insane. I prefer to not itch thank you. I have also been a Trekkie from age 3, and I'll read/watch what I like. If someone else finds it boring, they need not participate.

My hair is wrong too. I am "too old" to wear it long. Also I am a henna redhead, and was informed I shouldn't use henna because it "was an Arab discovery!" Please, no offense meant.

My response? "Guess we'll have to give up using zeroes then!"

And alcohol, coffee, the guitar, medical stitches and opiates for anesthesia. By the time you take away the alcohol and coffee, someone will really need the opiate and stitches.

[Piratelvr1121]

My folks's biggest issue with me was that I wasn't them. 

I swear I never really did lose that conviction that I must be adopted cause I am so different from them personality wise.  In short, my parents never really lost the yuppie mindset.  Also they're type A, I'm type B.  VERY laid back.  My mother would push me to move up the corporate ladder in any job I had as an adult and if I couldn't make more $$ at the job I was in, well I ought to quit and find one where I could! 

Now yes, having enough money to travel and buy things you want without having to save is nice and I would like to get to that point by the time our kids are out of the house.  But for now, I'm really okay with being able to take little vacations like a few days at the beach or going to visit friends in other states.   I do want to go to Ireland but we're waiting till the youngest is old enough to appreciate it and remember the trip, like around 8 or so.  So I'm not without goals but I don't have the desire to climb some corporate or social ladder.  It doesn't mean anything to me.

Now if they had said "Well to each their own" we wouldn't have had issues but they always acted like anyone who didn't think or value what they did, there was something wrong with them.   

[Thipu1]

Whenever I did something out of the ordinary (for them), I'd hear, 'People like US don't do that'. 

Please know, they didn't think I was shaming the family.  The problem was that I was acting above their perceived station. 

People like THEM didn't go to college, move out of the parental home before marriage or take European vacations. 

It used to drive me nuts. 

[XRogue]

How I fold laundry...I can be sitting there and make the exact same motions folding a towel as my mother does.... and it's wrong anyway.  So when I lived with them and we did laundry together, I did the sorting and carrying instead, and let her do all the folding.

Also, my hobbies and manner of dress are apparently the fault of ExH.....because when I left him, Mom asked me when I was "going to stop dressing like a geek" and "quit watching science fiction on TV and reading SF novels too!" Uhm, never, I dress in blue jeans and tshirts (rarely dresses, those are a funeral/wedding/Easter Sunday type thing) because they are comfy and the natural fibers I wear keep my eczema from going insane. I prefer to not itch thank you. I have also been a Trekkie from age 3, and I'll read/watch what I like. If someone else finds it boring, they need not participate.

My hair is wrong too. I am "too old" to wear it long. Also I am a henna redhead, and was informed I shouldn't use henna because it "was an Arab discovery!" Please, no offense meant.

My response? "Guess we'll have to give up using zeroes then!"

And alcohol, coffee, the guitar, medical stitches and opiates for anesthesia. By the time you take away the alcohol and coffee, someone will really need the opiate and stitches.

Don't I know it, Lady Disdain! Take away my coffee especially and they'd be pulling back a bloody nub!

[Coralreef]

Let's see...

From mother :

I was a bad mother because I had to travel for work and abandonned my children (who had a good time with their dad).

I was going to be attacked by everyone because I was travelling alone.  Actually, that was said by several people.  Nothing ever happened. 

I would not see "everything" because I was not with a tour group. 

The only reason I got offered a job on the same day as the interview was because the employer wanted to sleep with me. The fact that I aced the interview and had the qualifications were not   a deciding point obviously.

Spending any amount of money on quality stuff was a waste. 

From ExMIL

I would not be a woman anymore because I had a tubal ligation.

DD was born premature, so she was a very skinny baby.  I was a bad mother because I was breastfeeding, so the baby was not gaining weight fast enough for her.  At three months, DD was at the pudgy baby stage, I was still a bad mother because breastfeeding was making the baby fat.