Mama's Family

[Anonymous]

That's been a running joke with my husband and I for years.  That crazy Carol Burnett spoof of an insanely dysfunctional family hits closer to home for me personally than I care to admit.  And I ,of course, am Eunice and my Nmom...well, "mama".  I'm the kid kid she loves to hate, belittle and whose sacrifices and accomplishments are to be minimized or even better, ignored.  And like Eunice, for so much of my life, I have catered to her and just wanted her love.  What a mistake!

Anyone else relate to that silly but somehow realistic and sad skit?  Or there any other Eunices' out there?

For the last 10 years or so, i've been fighting to get away from my mother.  I've tried "retraining" her to not look to me or depend on me as she used to and it continues to be one hell of a battle.  She's fought me every step of the way.  I have kept as much distance as possible , merely trying to achieve some sense of peace as I wait for her to die.  I know it sonds awful but it's true.  She's been so harmful to me.

I am so happy to find this site.  How validating to know that there's a name to her "condition" and that I am not alone.

[Anastasia]

I, too, loved that skit as so many of their bits reminded me of my mother or her family.
One of the skits centered on Eunice's brother coming to visit after winning the Pulitzer Prize.  Eunice had just bought a little puppy, and the entire family went on and on about the puppy--totally ignoring the brother who had just won this huge award.  His award was met with a "that's nice" kind of fluff-off attitude.
Eunice's husband started talking in that slow, ignorant way he had and suggested that the brother maybe--if he were lucky--could get a job down at the newspaper in their little hick town.  Suggesting this--when the brother had just won the Pulitzer Prize--was just so out-of-touch with reality it was hysterical; but it did just point out how ignorant Eunice and her family are, how their little world was comprised of only what was happening in their little hick town.  They had no knowledge--and it would never occur to them--that there was anything else outside where they lived.  There was nothing else outside of their lives, their town, their needs
and their little uptight world, and--if it didn't involve them or their needs personally--well, they just didn't get an interest in the subject.
This was just hysterically brilliant to me as it was so realistic.  Surely, the writers were brilliant on that show; but, more, someone there came from the same type of family that most of us do.  And their insight made it all the more funny.  But some of those writers had to come from this type of family themself or they wouldn't have been so spot-on.
Since this situation reminded me of how my Nmother reacted when I got an extremely prestigious job (as in, "That's nice...but when are you going to come and visit your mother?")--and how I saw her family react to anything outside their realm--it was all the more hysterical to me.  There is so much truth in humor which, of course, is what makes it funny.  
What a pity--now that we have this Board--that that show is not on still.  So many of us would really relate to the situations they had with Eunice's family, and you guys probably would have loved it.

[Discounted Girl]

I've thought the same thing about writers and story lines; that someone involved had direct knowledge and experience of that situation. Some stuff just cannot be made up.   There was a Carol Burnett show marathon on 2 weeks ago -- hours and hours of the old stuff. I laughed myself silly. Remember the green curtains she wore spoofing Rhett and Scarlett -- and Tim Conway's alien from Close Encounter? NOTHING is better than humor and wit, not even sex.