Posted by Dinah on May 24, 2009, at 12:54:25
In reply to My Mom is weird about sex, posted by Deneb on May 23, 2009, at 22:49:58
My mom told me how she did it.
Believe me, too open is just as bad as too repressed. I still have major issues with intrusive images of my mother...
Your mom believes what her experiences have taught her to believe. But she doesn't have a lock on the "truth" and I think you know that.
It might be respectful of you to not talk about sex to her if it makes her uncomfortable. She doesn't need to see the world through your eyes any more than you need to see the world through hers.
But being respectful merely means showing her respect and feeling respect for the fact that she is who she is, and she has valid reasons for being that way. It doesn't mean adopting her world view.
Your mother seems to have a rigid view of what being a young woman means. It may or may not have been adaptive to her situation when she was growing up. Certainly she does not seem happy with your father, and it seems odd to me that she would urge you to take the path she took.
But this doesn't mean that everything she says is wrong, any more than it means that everything she says is right. If you do find yourself discussing something with her, where you don't agree, would it be possible to focus on the areas where you do agree? Or where you see the sense in what she is saying, even if you see a different way to achieve the same goal?
Or do what I do with my mother. Change the topic to something that she hates talking about, and she'll find an excuse to get off the phone. Although that's probably not terribly respectful of me.
poster:Dinah
thread:897349
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20090513/msgs/897418.html