My Parents: The Most Feared Critic
Hi, Mom. I know you’re reading this.
Last week my mom told me she finally figured out how to use her Smartphone and read this blog. It’s not like she hasn’t had this Smartphone for two years. She’s also been trying to get the hang of Facebook for three years, but “do my friends have to be able to see my profile? Why can’t I just see theirs and they can’t see mine?”
Because that’s selfish, Mom.
Anyway, I have to decide if my mom reading ATOB is going to affect my writing. (Don’t worry; it isn’t. My mom is just going to have realize I’m a 24-year-old adult.) At the very least, I’m going to have to answer a lot more texts.
Upon finding the blog, she read my piece on impersonating a secret society on Twitter. Her first reaction:
“U didn’t really give out their new password did u”
Then,
“maybe these spooky people will remember u and mistreat u in future for giving out password over the blog”
Finally, an actual review:
“It was an interesting g blog but rough as a parent”
And then,
“Who is this secret Soceity? Are they related to skull and bones”
Me: “I’ll call you later to talk about it.”
This is at least an improvement from last year. My parents know I write. I’ve been writing stories since fifth grade – when I attended an art school and spent more time narrating my drawings versus drawing. However, as is common with us writers, I’m secretive. I’m always working on something, but I can never say what because I can never give the idea justice.
With parents, this feeling intensifies. Your writing, whether it be fiction or not, is part of you - and not every part of you is the angel your parent raised. The characters you build or talk about are not always savory. Not every step I have taken is Dean's List. Like, why do I know so much about drinking? Why are the characters getting high? What is fornication?
Both my parents thought I put writing on the back burner during grad school - which I had until this blog came along. But I never told them I had rekindled my hobby. Well, I did mention it over Christmas.
Mom: "What is a blog?"
I decided I'd revisit this conversation after Sara and I get ATOB turned into a sitcom. Then I got published on Elite Daily last January. Obviously that was a big deal, so I shared it with all my friends and posted it on Facebook. And while my mom is my Facebook friend, I knew she wouldn't see it since she doesn’t know how to use Facebook - and I wasn't going to tell her.
While the article is not 50 Shades of Grey, neither is it content you want to share with your once-upon-a-time Sunday school teacher mother and former-chairman-of-the-deacons father. (Yes, your son did indeed consider breaking up a couple.)
And then my cousin told my mom.
In a conversation that would never ordinarily happen and any other day would have been fine happening, my mom saw Tide Pods while grocery shopping and recalled a recent news story where babies get into these pods and die. She urgently needed to call my cousin who is a "new" mother and share this PSA. In doing so, my cousin brought up the article. *Face palm.*
Mom: "What article?"
My cousin immediately warned me. I called my mom, and she played coy; she didn't bring it up until the next day: "What is this article your cousin mentioned?"
Me: "Oh, I wanted to tell you in person. I'll send it to you, but you have to promise, you can't read too much into it."
Incidentally, on this day, I had also finished editing a novella I wrote about a year ago. Essentially my book was done, ready for the light of day, ready for - dare I say it - my parents' eyes. Not that it will ever be ready.
The quick and dirty synopsis: An actress's husband is murdered. She has to spread his ashes at their mountain chalet. She brings her lover along - and there, and they discover that either she or her lover killed her husband.
TL;DR: There's an affair in the book. Sex! The scandal! And a bit of cursing, too.
But I was high on a flat white, so I sent both the Elite Daily article and the novella off to Mom@AOL.com (jk, she uses Gmail finally).
And what did I hear back?
"Who is she?"
(In reference to the girl whose relationship I considered ejecting myself into.)
Me: "No one. She's no one."
Every entanglement in my life is no one.
This is especially true when I talk to my parents. I have never been candid about my crushes. I still blush when I think about that time my mom asked if I liked my middle school crush (gah!). To this day I wonder how I will introduce a future girlfriend to my parents - or when. Maybe at the rehearsal dinner?
But for some reason I’m more comfortable sharing my life’s intimate details with, for the most part, Internet strangers than my own flesh and blood. But isn’t that how shrinks work, too? But if my mom is going to read my online journal (who remembers LiveJournal, lolol), will this influence my confessions?
*thinks back on all the things I would never say at the dinner table, like Snapchatting my pee, legal weed shops, and getting kicked off dance floors*
A week after that conversation with my mother, a TV reporter contacted Sara and I about doing a story on online dating. She wanted to interview us based on some ATOB posts. I cringed when I eventually disclosed to my mom that, yeah, we're being interviewed about online dating (not that I do that!). But Mom was happy for us.
I never asked if she watched the interview.
And about that book I sent her? She’s never never brought it up. And I'm not about to ask.
But, Mom, what did you think about this post? Readers, I’ll let you know what she texts.
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