Nice People

[eredien]

My dad and I got into a fight today because he didn't respect my opinion about something and then later tried to shush me loudly and rudely when I tried talking to him about why I was upset, and my mother has a totally racist 'funny' work forward printed out and sitting on our kitchen table that I am trying to figure out how to confront her about, but those are not the only things that have me thinking, "something's badly wrong here, in this place."

My mom and I just came back from the Muppet movie--I'd been wanting to go, so she took me. It was pretty fun (I am really looking forward to the Studio Ghibli adaptation of the Borrowers, which was like my favorite book in 3rd grade!) until we got to the parking lot after the movie, at which point a panhandler walked up to our car. My mom rolled down the window a crack, and the woman asked, "look, are you nice people?" My mom repeated the question sarcastically--"are we nice people?"--rolled the window up, said, "I guess not," and drove away.

I sat in absolute stunned silence all the way home while my mom made the following comments:
- "See, those other people next to us didn't help her either."
- "There was this guy in front of my office who used the 'I need help' spiel on me and my coworkers without realizing he'd said it before, and when he'd used it before we'd given him help and places to go and he went there for a while and then was back in the same spot using the same old story a month later."

We paused in the parking lot of my parents' home:
- "I want you to know, [Eredien], that if she had really needed help I would have helped her."

I interjected at that point, saying, "how do you know what she needed? You didn't even listen to her."

My mother: "If you really need help you don't go up to people and ask if they're 'nice people.' You go up to people and say, 'I need help.'"

I don't always give to panhandlers. I didn't tonight because I didn't have my wallet on me, and I haven't been giving lately because I'm deep in debt and need to save my money to get out of the spot I'm in. But there's a difference, a big one, between listening for a few moments and going, "sorry, I can't help you today," and meaning it, and saying, "well, I'm not a nice person!" But I wish I had my wallet tonight.

I am baffled, and hurt, and angry, and shocked, and deeply saddened. I am also angry that I'm angry, and baffled that I'm baffled--what the hell else did I expect? Must I truly grow a tougher skin again and pretend like everything that offends or upsets me doesn't matter just so I can live in this place without daily screaming fights?

Comments

[gaudior.livejournal.com]

"If you really need help you don't go up to people and ask if they're 'nice people.' You go up to people and say, 'I need help.'"

Um, that is a piece of batshittery, right there. It's either a transparently self-justifying lie, or it's a striking lack of any ability of picturing how someone else might think, or understand someone else's reasons or actions. Either way... feh.

[eredien]

I think it's not a lie or a lack of any ability to picture how someone else might think, but I think it's a lack of ability to recognize that when people need help so badly they are asking for dollar bills in a parking lot at midnight, they are often already past some points of interacting with society in a generally-socially-approved way, or they probably wouldn't be standing on the street asking for money.

I don't know if that woman knew she was asking a manipulative-seeming question or not, but in my mind the fact that she didn't know any other way to ask for help speaks to her desperation and help in the first place.

[csbermack.livejournal.com]

I bristle at the approach "You look like nice people..." myself, because it's a manipulative challenge to me to *prove* that I am nice by doing what they want. "You look like a nice person!" -> "Why yes, I am nice." -> "Give me money (it's the nice thing to do)"

When I worked in Kendall, during petition season you couldn't go anywhere without being accosted by petitioners and money-raisers, whose organizations are exploitative and punitive. I won't support those organizations. I have told them point blank that no I do not want to save the trees and the earth can burn for all I care, just to make them leave me alone.

What's more interesting is your mother's convolutions intended to reassure herself, and convince you, that in fact she really is a nice person. She really is a good person, she has to demonstrate, even though she harshly rejected this manipulative request. Also interesting is how she seemed to need your validation of her goodness.

A thing for you to consider about yourself: You resent how your mother has declared the Correct Way to ask for help ("I need help") and if you don't ask in the right way, then you don't really need the help after all. But at the same time, you have established the Correct Way to respond to someone trying to get money from you.

It's better to be polite instead of mocking. But I don't owe anyone a few moments of listening to them. Especially when they attack with a manipulative hook like "you look like a nice person." I am perfectly comfortable with rejecting the whole manipulative thread by saying "Nope, I'm not nice at all."

All that said, you don't have to grow a tougher skin, you just have to figure out what is About You and what is Not. That's the boundary that matters. What your mother does or says about a beggar is not about you. Even when she wants you to buy into her justifications and validate her, it's still not about you. You can't change it, you can't fix it, because it's not yours.

Find yourself, center yourself, and keep yourself yours. Open your hands and let the rest go.

[rigel.livejournal.com]

I bristle at the approach "You look like nice people..." myself, because it's a manipulative challenge to me to *prove* that I am nice by doing what they want. "You look like a nice person!" -> "Why yes, I am nice." -> "Give me money (it's the nice thing to do)"

Yes. This.

I can't speak to Mom or her impressions in this situation. I can say, however, that I might have felt irritated and resentful at the panhandler's approach, subsequently guilty about that irritation/resentment, and made comparable (though by no means the same) comments to reassure myself and convince you that I'm a 'nice person' despite having to respond to a question that effectively claims, "Do what I'd like you to do or prove yourself a not nice person!"

[(Anonymous)]

All that said, you don't have to grow a tougher skin, you just have to figure out what is About You and what is Not. That's the boundary that matters. What your mother does or says about a beggar is not about you. Even when she wants you to buy into her justifications and validate her, it's still not about you. You can't change it, you can't fix it, because it's not yours.

I think this is true. Thank you.

I have to think more about what you said about the correct way of responding to somebody--I still think it's just really weird to claim that you're not a nice person explicitly in order to avoid somebody's pitch for money *and then* spend a ten minute car trip claiming that you are a nice person in order to avoid feeling guilty about avoiding the pitch. It's not even the avoiding so much as the justification that bothers me.

It's been harder for me to ignore stuff like this since I've come home, I am basically living here on my parent's sufferance. Incidents like this leave me with a feeling they'd actually be really mean to me when I needed help if I wasn't their daughter, or unless I ask for help in the 'right' way (which has in fact been the case in the past when I've asked for help), and I don't know what to do about that.

[eredien]

Oops, that was me!

[foleyartist1.livejournal.com]

Here's my totally outsider perspective, if it's useful (and if isn't, disregard it):

1. Someone asked your mother for help in a way that seemed manipulative. Since we don't know this person's circumstances or her character, we don't know whether (a) it was unintentional, (b) it was intentional and intended as a scam, or (c) it was intentional because she desperately needed money and calculated that this approach was her best bet.

2. Your mother did not like feeling manipulated, and responded by making a sarcastic comment and driving away.

3. Your mother later felt uncomfortable with what she'd done, and possibly also with the fact that you'd seen her.

4. In order to make herself feel more comfortable, she attempted to reassure herself of her basic goodness and convince you of same by assigning a reality to the situation that would make her actions perfectly excusable.

5. You felt baffled, angry, etc.


There are a lot of things about that situation that are pretty fuzzy and a lot of different reasons you could have felt the way you did. But to me just looking at it from the outside, I see all parties and the whole situation as understandable. Understandable, but there is just one point where it breaks down. And that is the point where your mother assigns a reality.

That isn't a problem in the sense that your mother is wrong about the panhandler. It's a problem in the sense that--as you pointed out to her--there's no way she can know whether she's right or wrong. She basically decided that 1(b) above is reality, whereas neither she nor you have any information about whether reality was (a), (b), (c), or something else. All you know about the situation is what you saw, and what you saw is only enough information to form opinions, not declare facts. But your mother felt so uncomfortable in herself that the only way she could reconcile her conflicting feelings was to decide that the feeling of guilt was not necessary by deciding on one option as the correct one.

I'm actually reading a book right now on unintentional unethical decisions (link here). According to the authors, one of the most common ways that humans behave unethically is by a mechanism called "ethical fading," where they unconsciously choose to view the situation in a way that fades the ethical dimension of their decision out of sight. It also talks about how even though we're used to thinking about moral reasoning as a process like this:

I have a choice to make --> I go through some moral reasoning --> I make a moral decision

When we're stressed or under time pressure, the process goes more like this:

I have a choice to make --> I make a moral decision based on my emotions in the moment --> I construct some moral reasoning that supports the decision I made

I think that's really true. And I think as humans, we're bound to have those cognitive errors sometimes, where we make a decision that isn't aligned with what we would have done if we'd actually thought more about it first. And since we're humans, I think we have to forgive ourselves for that--but in order to really repent and be forgiven (to use Christian terminology), we have to genuinely understand the sin. So if your mother had said, "I acted this way because I thought she didn't need help/was manipulating me," that's totally fine.

But the fact that she said "I acted this way because she didn't need help"--assigning her opinions as facts--means she did not or could not look at her actions and understand/own the fact that she did make a snap decision.

And although I don't know, it seems to me like that may very well be why you were angry. Not because she acted in a way you found uncool, but because instead of acknowledging that she did something based on her opinions that might or might not be right, she hypnotized herself into believing one of several possibilities as reality so that she wouldn't have to live with the discomfort of knowing that she might or might not have handled it the way she would've wanted to with all the facts, and she'll never know.

This self-hypnosis doesn't make her "good" or "bad," but it is dishonest. And from my experience of you, dishonesty really freaks you out. Which I like about you. :)

[eredien]

Side-thought: I probably would not be as angry about this if my parents hadn't gone to church with my family for a decade-plus, where I learned that there was a correct way to respond to someone trying to get money from you, and it was:
a.) inflexible
b.) laid down by god
c.) to respond to that person with unstinting generosity

I don't actually think a or b is true, and I don't always think c is possible, but there is such a huge discrepancy here; it's depressing as hell that it's there, and it's depressing as hell that I've come to expect it from most Christians as a matter of course.

[thoughtsdriftby.livejournal.com]

My father was more the: Me eldest male, my house so I'm right(even when he was dead wrong). It's a basic testosterone poisoning problem amplified by male-think propaganda.

As for the many years of past comments, it does seem it was to be expected. Likely you had hopes it wouldn't be in your face so quickly. It is ok to feel offended, but it would serve you better to not feel such obligation at fixing who and what they are. I do know it is difficult at drawing the line at disappointment and not be baited into a screaming match. Knowing each other enough to know exactly how to push for maximum disaster. Them winning in their minds with the "see how unreasonable our daughter is" moments, turning the clock back mentally to teenager.

I can only suggest to not play their game or by their rules, knowing no true solution to the overall problem that would be ideal. Just thinking how best for your to protect yourself without feeling a need for fighting them. It's not a tougher skin but a realization that only you can disturb your inner peace. Just that they know how to help you hurt that peace.

Meanwhile: seek work, save money, and then start seeking employment elsewhere (or at the very least different housing). Fixing them is in no way your primary goal.

[delcan.livejournal.com]

There's three things at work here:

1. The panhandler was using a pretty jackassish means of soliciting charity.
2. Your mom responded in a pretty jackassish manner.
3. It's not the panhandler you have to live with for the foreseeable future.

In the meantime... survive, at least. I remember living with my mom and stepdad for a long long while, and then with my wife's mom and dad for a while, before I was able to move out and be self-sufficient. It's not a matter of trying to bring them over to your side of things, or of even getting them to treat you okay - it's just about picking your battles, and remembering that it's a non-permanent situation.

It's an extremely sucky situation you're in, to be dependent on unpleasant people. A little like being a hostage, sometimes. You have to go along with what the hosts do and say, because you're dependent on them to help you get by. It can be even more upsetting to not act on the fact that you're upset with them. It might help to find someone outside the house you can talk with, or just vent to.

If your dad doesn't respect your opinions, and won't listen to discussion about them, then don't share them with him. It's his choice to be closed. That's not something you can change; it's a matter of his choice to do so or not.

As far as the chain-letter racism goes, I'd ignore it. It's not something that you're going to be able to argue someone into not liking. The best way around that is to just live the example - don't bother with it. If asked about it, tell them you don't appreciate that sort of humor, and leave it at that. Sometimes no argument at all can be much more powerful than rhetoric.