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<p>zoosermom, your MIL sounds similar to my mother. Thing is, I wish that my mother had been rather less wed to those “principles” of hers, and more willing to accept or at least tolerate those of other faiths, ideas, and life plans.</p>
<p>Thank you. I have to give credit to my own mother. She was always adamant that as my husband’s mother, my MIL was deserving of certain courtesies and mom would have been disappointed had I not conducted myself as I was raised. I won’t say there weren’t difficult times. My SIL and I had babies not too far apart and MIL barely acknowledged mine. Her completely honest answer to that was that the only grandchildren you can be sure of are your daughter’s children. That hurt. I was always aware of the fact that my kids were watching and someday they might know the value of doing the right thing. In retrospect, I’ve come to understand my MIL and have great sympathy for her. She was a woman who was completely uneducated, but wasn’t personally suited for life as an Italian mother and grandmother. All the other women in her family fit the stereotype, but she didn’t. She was not a homebody and loved to travel and experience things, but her life didn’t allow for much of that. She just had the wrong life for her personality, if that makes any sense. It was for me to learn to see past the stereotype and get to know the person and I’m not sure I was as successful as I could have been before she got sick. We might have enjoyed each other’s company if there wasn’t the matter of the lack of family meals and holidays between us. On both sides. I hope she’s at peace, though, and I know that in her way she was proud of the grandchildren. She wasn’t cut out to be the little old Nanny in the kitchen, but it’s a shame that she and my kids missed out on what grandmother she might have been if she felt free to do so.</p>
<p>Back to the OP: I don’t think you need to do anything with your mother’s racism. What I do think is that you need to live your life as you see fit with the people you choose. Bring them into your mother’s sphere on an as-needed basis with the understanding that she will conduct herself with courtesy and respect and your guests will do the same. It’s how she treats the people in your life that matters, not the thoughts that she holds. If she conducts herself appropriately, you have no cause to complain, and as she gets to know people that you value, she will see them as individuals not groups. Leave it alone until it actually comes up. Then politely but firmly tell her that you’re bringing John Doe for a visit and you expect her to treat him with respect.</p>
<p>Children always want their parents to be perfect. Generally, it’s out of love, and out of a desire to return to that wonderful original childhood state where, for all intents and purposes, their parents were perfect. Generally, however, it’s not a reasonable goal to achieve.</p>
<p>My family and friendship circle are full of poignant stories that are essentially the same as the stories others relate here. Sometimes things work out really well, pretty quickly. Sometimes they work out pretty well over a long time. Sometimes they never quite work, and it’s sad all around. We rarely get to pick the lessons we want to learn from life, and when life comes around with the lessons it wants to teach us, some people are quicker students than others.</p>
<p>OP, you are at a normal, but very transient stage of life. You are used to thinking of yourself as relatively powerless, and your parents as relatively powerful. You have always had to ask them for things, get their permission, get their agreement. So when they are being unreasonable, it’s upsetting and threatening. In a few years, however – maybe 5, maybe a few more – all of that will be flipped upside down. You will have all the emotional power, and they will be begging for attention and favors from you. It takes awhile for both sides to adjust to that, and sometimes they never do. But it puts a whole different cast on the problem you’re facing now. It won’t be you worrying about your mother’s racism, it will be your mother trying to figure out what she has to do to get access to her grandchildren and to get you to visit with whomever you choose.</p>
<p>OP, you haven’t come back, but I hope you are reading and see the take-away from this is that you can’t change your mom, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be true to yourself. </p>
<p>I can remember being your age and talking to my mom about entering family therapy because of the dysfunction surrounding some members of the family. She laughed in my face. She was not ready to deal with any of the obvious issues. </p>
<p>We parents are human and can’t always be everything you want us to be, but I truly believe that 99% of us are handling things the best way we know how. You can’t change your mom’s upbringing that made her the way she is now; you just have to go on and take what you’ve learned and try to do better (and then your kids will be on here complaining about you!) :)</p>
<p>zoosermom, your post #22 is profound in its depth of understanding and compassion.</p>
<p>Thanks Adad. I’ve thought about this a great deal for many years. I was the person asked to write her obituary (believe it or not!) and I wanted to present her truthfully, rather than just the usual “loving mother and grandmother.” I was going to add those in and then realized that she wasn’t really a loving mother and grandmother – not a maternal woman – and that sounded awful, but she wasn’t awful at all. She just didn’t fit the mold, so after a lot of consideration, I came up with an obituary that I think was honest and flattering. The family thought so too, because several relatives thanked me for making mention of things that might have seemed less important than “loving mother and grandmother” but were much more personal. That all got me to thinking that my expectation of a warm, loving Italian woman who gathered her family around might have stood between us as well.</p>
<p>All of you, thank you so much for your wonderful advice and stories!!
Luckily, the discussion about race doesn’t come up that often so it doesn’t create tension in my life or in the house or anything like that.</p>
<p>She doesn’t approve of me hanging around with friends who are not white or Indian, except for a few close Chinese friends. My mom is also very homophobic and she yells at me if I watch anything on TV with any sort of homosexual overtone. I’m not even allowed to watch any TV shows where the majority of the characters are black because she thinks it will negatively influence me.</p>
<p>Surprisingly, her rules never really bothered me until I went to college. After coming back from college after first semester, I just got this strange feeling after staying at home during Winter Break that this wasn’t really my “home” anymore and I don’t belong here. In college, I interacted with people that had all different types of views, sexual orientations, racial backgrounds, etc. and all that just seemed insignificant to me in comparison to other qualities they had like wittiness and intelligence. Coming back home, I felt stifled in the sense that I knew I couldn’t really talk about the friendships I made in college with my mom, who I am admittedly close with.</p>
<p>Friendly advice to all parents from the POV of a 19-year old: Once teenagers reach a certain age(18-21), we’re not convinced anymore that our parents know more than us and can offer us meaningful advice anymore. Young adults just don’t buy into the suggestions that parents have after a certain point because all the “words of wisdom” seem to be outdated and inapplicable to the current era. You can’t be expected to be taken seriously just by saying, “Because I’m your mom/dad and I say so and that’s final!!”. There has to be clear reason and logic behind whatever you advise.</p>
<p>Once again, thank you for all your meaningful advice!!</p>
<p>I’m sure you’ve heard the old joke, though: “When I was 15, I thought my parents knew everything. By the time I was 20, I had figured out that they really didn’t know much of anything at all. Then, when I was 30, I was amazed at how much the old coots had learned in the past 10 years.”</p>
<p>zoosermom (and barrons): I am often with families who are dealing with estranged family members, and struggle with these relationships. I am always grateful for more such stories to add to my bag of tricks, that people will or won’t change, but it’s how those who are left behind deal with the weaknesses of those who have died. You two have shown extraordinary grace in times that many people would choose to walk away from. I am constantly reminded of the continuum of human response in my job (and on CC).</p>
<p>Teri, my new theory on relationships is that expectations can be very harmful things. I propose that if one deals with a person as he/she is, not as we expect them to be, then a relationship is possible. I know for me, I tend to have specific expectations for people and need to work on communicating them when appropriate and ditching them and finding acceptance when not.</p>
<p>Ignore her. BTW- Asian Indians (ie, not the native americans) are Asian. I once asked my Brahmin (as in Asian Indian, not Boston) H where my European peasant stock placed me in the scheme of things - apparently being white trumped any caste in India. Go figure- generations of college educated Indians were not as elite as peasant farm/factory workers? Don’t worry, you have a life at college where you can be the person you want to be. Don’t worry about bringing friends home, most people don’t. And don’t worry about your eventual spouse, I had no special interest in India but the right guy happened to be from there. The big shock to my father was when I told him it wouldn’t be a Catholic wedding (H-to-be was willing, I wasn’t, especially since I hadn’t gone to church except when with parents for many years- too bad my mother was deceased, I can imagine her interest…).</p>
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<p>Just tell her that, according to Russel Peters (a Canadian-desi comic), the Indians are the ones who are “cheap”.</p>
<p>And tell her that she’s mistaken, and that it’s not all “Orientals” who are “cheap”, just the Chinese.</p>
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<p>But seriously, this “white worship” is common among many immigrant groups and it seems that she has a big dose of it.</p>
<p>Based on your description, I’ll bet that your mother doesn’t only want you to marry a desi girl, but also, a certain type of desi - one who has lighter-skin and comes from a higher caste.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, there’s probably not much you can do to change her, but it wouldn’t hurt in continuing to bring over friends who dispel those stereotypes.</p>
<p>Furthermore, (I’m sure you haven’t been immune to this) I would maybe bring up instances where you and your desi friends have encountered remarks about negative desi stereotypes.</p>
<p>See what your mother’s reaction to them is and then follow up w/ something along the lines of "how is it any different from how they view ‘Orientals’ or blacks?</p>