vacationing abroad with "parent": emotional surviv

[Dawning]

Wildflower asked, in another thread, about my backpacking experience.  It got me thinking that I should like to reply by sharing a story relevant to what we talk about on this board.  

I have travelled both alone and with friends...50/50.  Some people I have met while traveling and we hooked up for awhile.  I have loads of wonderful memories and adventures and slides.

But once my mother met me while I was on a journey in the middle east several years ago.  I originally went to a desert oasis with a scandinavian fellow, went back to the capital alone and met a friend from here for a week and then mother came and we (friend included) got on a ship and did a "tour."  It was my first time to do an organized tour for so long where someone else is telling you what to do and what to see and when but I was looking forward to sharing a travelling experience with mom.
In the end, it was an exercise in patience and a valuable lesson.

After several days, I got antsy and wanted to leave the ship for a few hours.  Mother and friend came along.  I was happy to be walking along the market streets in a semi-big town and eating the local food.  Mother was aghast that I would eat the local food and criticized me - told me how stupid and careless I was.  I looked at friend (who travelled w/ me before as a backpacker) and saw a smirk on her face.  Shortly thereafter, mother and friend decide to go shopping together.  We would go into any store mother wanted to enter and that was it.  Any store that I wanted to enter, was "taking up too much time...and hurry up."  Since her arrival, she had been telling me to "hurry up."  I felt like I was meant to follow her.  I hung back telling them to go ahead of me, that I would catch up and not to worry.  Tears welled in my eyes and I aimlessly walked into a shop.  The shopkeeper saw my tears and gestered for me to sit down.  He called for his wife to come and bring me some tea.  He gestured that I could stay as long as I liked and his wife sat next to me as I choked up repeatedly.  Total strangers, so understanding to me.  Didn't expect me to buy anything either as I left thanking them for their kindess.  Wiped away my tears and met mother and friend with a smile on my face.

Several days later, I asked to be let off the bus for a few hours to explore some ruins on my own.  Mom got off with me.  I knew a small crowd would gather and that someone would want to be our "guide."  I was prepared for that and set about bargaining a price with him.  Mother said all kinds of things...could we trust him?  could we trust these people?  Of course, they understood her and, obviously, became angry.  I calmed down the store owner.   I can't remember the details except that the man - who eventually turned out to be our guide - took me aside and said,  "is your mother always like this, always so difficult?"  I said it was hard sometimes and that I am an only child.  Father disappeared.  He then said, "oh my god...well, you know..this is life."  Support.  Validation from a galabeyya (sp?) wearing local village guide - who saw right into my mother's disposition.  It was the first time EVER in my life to get validation.  Who would have thought it would be at the tombs of the nobles..

And. finally, one evening a few of the ship's crew and mother and I went into town.  I ordered something off the local menus and my mother didn't like that.  The crew members said to her, "do you have a problem with your daughter doing what she wants at this age?"  Mother: "no, no she is perfectly entitled to do whatever she wants."  Crew: "then would you please be quiet?"

A happy travel story in a sense.  Validation of my feelings from nice people in a country that most vacationers are probably hesitant to visit now.  What I still remember to this day is that when I was sad and being thumbscrewed by mom, all the locals could see it plain as day and I felt "protected" by them.  I only hope they are all doing okay now as their tourist-based economy has undoubtedly suffered because of the current conflict.  

It was my dream to visit that country.  I have not travelled abroad with my mother since and am still wary of doing so.  She didn't break me but I also know that, without the support of the locals, I would have felt stressed to the breaking point.

Sometimes the people we can trust are the same people we are indirectly told not to trust (by society, media, etc) and the ones we should be able to trust, we cannot.

I am much stronger now.   I have learned to be open to receiving help when you need it from all those willing to give it as these people did.

Dawning

"travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness."

[Portia]

Dawning, thank you so much for your post.

[Anonymous]

Hi Dawning,

Thanks for the mini-tour you just took me on. I fantasised I was in Mexico. I've never been there but it's one place I'd love to go to.

The picture I get of your mother's effect on you sems to me to be why you get overcome with inertia when you think of making plans and of going home. It sounds like the thought of her brings on a bout of emotional fatigue in you. I know mine does, plus a very sexy (all flushed and pulse racing) little panic attack to boot.

I've noticed that about some of our mothers. We're like 'private property' to them. And the 'keep out' part is actually directed at us. ""Don't tamper with or dare to be anything other than what I permit."

They've stamped their brand on us. They don't see us as individuals WITH EVEN A RIGHT TO HAVE different tastes and views and our own rights.    I know mine doesn't.    

Or they twist it and accuse us of not being genuine. We are only being different, being like this to get back at them or emabarrasss them. Now that one really makes me fume.            It couldn't possibly be for the real reason, could it mother???? It couldn't be that I like who I am and I'm like this for me!!

She sees me as some extension of herself, so it makes sense in that light that I'd be wasting my time if I go into a shop she doesn't like.

Wildflower mentioned visiting one of her mum's friends with her mum. The friend asked Wildflower would she like some milk. Wildflower asked what type it was, was it whole milk or non-fat? Her mum nagged her all the way home for being rude, inconsiderate, impolite or insulting. One of those.

And I think it's so hard when we've had to fight with this 'ownership and extension of them' mentality our whole childhood, hell our whole lives.

And in trying to define (& hopefully eventually defining) 'WHO WE ARE', we find your parents or family reject  and/ or resist it vehemently. I think N spouses do this too. We have to think, speak, act, eat, damn well bloody be just like them if we want to avoid ripples or cyclones.

These people who've tried to cripple us IF WE DARE TO BE DIFFERENT are so frickin' mentally fragile and weak, that they can only stand to see themselves and their preferences when they look at us. Otherwise (aghast emoticon) they have failed themselves in the task of genetically reproducing themselves.

It's such a completely preposterous, narrow-minded, shallow, superficial, arrogant, nonsense, ignorant  destructive way of thinking. And I can't believe that it happens.

I love the differences in my children. I don't want them to be like me, eat like me, dress like me, think like me. I use your example of the joy of travel and going to interesting places with history, and meeting experiencing different cultures, tasting and enjoying local cuisine.

Why can't some parents embrace the differences in their children and learn and grow themselves from watching their children develop. All children, I believe, are gifted with their own unique personality from conception. What a tragic loss if it's not cultivated and encouraged!!!!!  
 
My mother's rejection or resistance of me now as an adult isn't what bothers me. I am who I am, and I'm working to become who I want to be, and not her or anyone else is going to get in my way. It's my RIGHT Damn It! But what I really resent is the momentary loss of energy and enthusiasm that I find I'm robbed of when I get trapped in an 'I find you unacceptable' (Dan Akroyd in 'Coneheads') scenario.

It's frustrating, like being 'detoured' all the time. I feel like  my journey gets set back all the time. Aaaahhhh. Good vent, good vent!! Thanks Dawning. Thanks for posting.

CG

[Tokyojim]

Dawning,

I, too, have traveled in the Middle East and found the people to be incredibly hospitable.

It seems that what those people had in common toward your mother is to stand up to her.  After decades of being conditioned by her, I cannot even imagine how difficult that must be for you.

This reminds me of an incident with my N "friend" of 40 years.  When we were teenagers, I instinctively knew his mother was bad news.  We were enjoying the beach during the summer vacation.  A friend came with a boat and wanted to take us waterskiing.  My then pre-N friend (no symptoms then) said he couldn't because he had to go home and mow the lawn.  It would take only 30 minutes, I said, call your mother and say you would be a bit late.  (I was baiting him, pushing him to stand up to her.)  He declined but I pushed.  I will call her, I said.  It is only 30 minutes, you always do all the chores, I said.  Finally, he clenched his fists and (uncharacteristically) screamed, out of control, "YOU DON'T KNOW MY MOTHER!!!"  He turned and walked off.

I was only 16, but that confirmed my suspicions.  I never really pressed him, but continued to encourage him to go away to college, get his own apt later, etc.  He stayed with her until she died at 83.....

[Wildflower]

Hi Dawning,

Can I just say, even though this is really a story about your mother, I can almost taste the wonderful freedom that comes with backpacking when I read this thread?  I only did this for about ten days in Europe before starting a foreign study program, and I was with someone who must have been a younger version of your mother because she complained about the food all the time and whined endlessly wherever we went.    But wow was it freeing.  And sometimes the best part was running into folks like you who’d been wandering for a while.  There was just a different air to them.  Like they knew what really mattered in life.  Do you miss it at all?

And the people who helped you out and validated your experience with your mother.  That’s just amazing. And beautiful.  I think it’s encounters and stories like that that make me a humanist, because when you get down to it "oh my god...well, you know..this is life."

Thanks so much for sharing this.

Wildflower

[Dawning]

Big thanks to the responses to this thread.  I think I must have told this story outloud before but this is the first time I have written it down.  And to receive support from Arab locals - who the mainstream media now suspects - makes me think of that quote by Muhammad Ali when they asked him why he wasn't going to Vietnam and he, answered, "Aint no Vietnamese ever called me nigger."  

Portia, your mother wanted you to sleep with the locals like her, eh?  Just like her.  If she does it , then you should do it too.    How maddening.   I hope she didn't expect you to also buy the condoms for her.  

Lonely Planet...hmmm...that is a thought.  I've bought alot of their guidebooks.  Thanks for the insight.  

CG, Venting is okay here, right?  It puts into words my thoughts - that's for sure.  I had never thought of the need to genetically reproduce themselves before.  Thanks for that observation.  

tokyojim, thanks for observation about the locals standing up to my mother.  I tried standing up to her when I was little but I recall being told that I should be ashamed of myself.  I'm doing something to reverse that now.

Wildflower, you asked if I miss travelling?  Not at the moment.  Maybe I miss the aimless walking around and forgetting what time it is and what day (and sometimes month.)  But I think, right now, what I need to focus on is a new goal.  Thanks for asking.  For anyone with the travel bug, I say do it once in your lifetime for at least a month, longer if possible.  I saw first-hand how many families in the world stick together and help each other out.  And open their doors to strangers.  That seems *normal* to me.  They seem to have a security and knowing of their place in the world.  I confess to a little jealousy there.  

~Dawning.