Since when...

[ravan]

... does the fact that's it's a family member that I disagree with mean that I mustn't make it public?
... does the fact that I have a different religion and lifestyle mean I must be silent about it, and not object when it is attacked?
... does the fact that I am in a minority mean that I must be humble and quiet about it, while a different strident minority of a majority religion is allowed to spend milllions pushing their views into the public sphere?
... is wanting equal treatment under the law "special rights"?
... does objecting to false and ignorant assertions by someone constitute a "vicious personal attack"?

Get this: If my kinsman can blog about the "evils" of homosexuality, gay marriage, abortion, anti-war sentiment, removing "under god" from the pledge, ad nauseum, I can (and will) blog about what I find wrong with his spew, and how disappointed I am that he advocates such hurtful and mean spirited views.

I don't ask anyone to bless it. After all, he did not ask my permission to write his screeds against me and my friends. Why should I forbear in writing against it? Since when do I owe him any more (or less) courtesy and tolerance in my writings than he shows for me and mine? After all, doesn't everyone like to be labelled as mentally ill by their own kin? (Yes, he's one of those.) Would you be "tolerant" of someone who wanted to treat you like you were insane because you have a different worldview and lifestyle? I think not.

Gods, I am disappointed and disgusted. Happy holidays. My own family supports institutionalized hatred and subjugation of me and mine, and then viciously criticizes me and tries to guilt trip me for objecting. Can't you feel the love??

Comments

[redsonja.livejournal.com]

You're an adult. You're sane, intelligent, productive, abide by the law, and left to your own belief and value system you are generally happy.

That isn't good enough for some people? That really is their problem.

The sheer level of hypocrisy is stunning. It's like they're doing you a favor by "tolerating your difference", but you are not allowed to even feel angry and hurt about being treated like some sort of a mentally deficient freak in the name of "love".

"Love" like this is like candy coating on a road apple. It's still a road apple.

Rock on, girl. You do have friends who understand.

[jemyl.livejournal.com]

You're an adult. You're sane, intelligent, productive, abide by the law, and left to your own belief and value system you are generally happy.

That isn't good enough for some people? Is IS good enough for her family and always has been. NO ONE has said it wasn't except Ravan.

NO ONE is telling her how to feel. She is telling us that we cannot love her because we are christian and because some of us are against gay marriage. (not I) That is elephantshit! I love Ravan unconditionally, even when she is being bratty, always have and always will. Ravan refuses to accept that. Her problem, not mine, but it still hurts like hell.

[redsonja.livejournal.com]

She is not a bratty child. She is an adult, and if you were treating her like an adult and an equal there'd be a lot less problems. Stop trying to beat her over the head with your motherhood, because that's the way to get cut out of someone's life and be referred to henceforth as "my DNA donor".

If you were related to me and were posting this crap in my journal at my friends I would have banned you from it by now. You have no right to pass judgement on her in her own journal no matter who you are. A person's online journal is like their house. In another way it's even more sacrosanct - it's where people express their hopes, their dreams, their thoughts, ideas and feelings.

This one is hers, and she has the right to say what she damn well pleases in it.

Being related to someone does not give you the automatic right to try and play "control freak" in their own personal space. What I am seeing here is a total lack of respect for your daughter as an adult, and that isn't love no matter how many times you try and tell her, me, and anyone else that it is.

[jemyl.livejournal.com]

"She is not a bratty child. She is an adult, and if you were treating her like an adult and an equal there'd be a lot less problems."
1. She is acting like a bratty child to me. I have tried treating her as an equal and she gave me some junk about wanting her to produce grandchildren. I have never said that nor do I care about anyone producing grandchildren.

I am her mother. She prefers to deny that and has since she was sixteen. I do not try to control her. I will respond to attacks on her public journal. She and you, have attacked me. Just as she can respond in her BiL's blog, and was right so to do, I have the right to defend myself here. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. I am not on her friends list so only reply on the public side. Should she choose to ban me, then she will be the loser, not I. She asked for opinions on taking her partner to a family gathering. I think she should and tried to reassure her that it was not only right so to do, but that the family would not be shocked and would accept her partner. I am not trying to control Ravan. I happen to agree with her completely on her right to defend her lifestyle. I also agree with her on the rights of homosexuals and think that the fundamentalists and evangelicals should not legislate against gay marriage, gay rights or abortion.

Ravan has the right to express herself any way she chooses here. When she attacks me or me as part of her family or as being a christian. I will, as is my right as a person, reply and defend myself. You, by the way, have no right to tell me that I do not love my child. Stop trying to tell me what I feel and think. Believe me, you do not know. Ask me. Don't tell me.

Ravan, in my opinion, also doesn't need her friends to defend her or attack me. She can defend herself quite eloquently and knows all of my buttons to push as she did at the age of three.

[hephaestos.livejournal.com]

Well said. I think I may be getting some insight on where she gets her eloquence.

Man I love this season, don't you? ;)

[dubhain.livejournal.com]

Ravan, in my opinion, also doesn't need her friends to defend her or attack me. She can defend herself quite eloquently and knows all of my buttons to push as she did at the age of three.

I doubt any of us think it's necessary. Anyone who knows ravan is well aware of her capacity for verbal (and textual) combat.

If you'll reveiew the comments to this post, you'll notice that your "attackers" initially posted in response to ravan, not yourself. Once you started lecturing them, hey responded, giving their opinion of your behavior and the petty sniping you do at ravan while you're lecturing.

If you can't stand to read people telling you you're being a flaming asshole, you might want to reconsider responding to public posts on LiveJerbil.

[redsonja.livejournal.com]

I see a total lack of respect for your daughter, and I am telling it like it is. Don't tell ME what to say or think.

Of course, if you're so hypersensitive that a 3 year old is capable of pushing your buttons, you've already all but admitted that the problem is you...

"Oh help me, I've been abused and manipulated all my life by my daughter, starting when she was three!" WHO do you think you're kidding, lady!?!?

[jemyl.livejournal.com]

Wrong! Ravan tried to push the buttons all her life beginning at age three when she called me a bitch for not giving her all the ice cream she wanted. She got told that was not proper language for her age and not given more ice cream. I don't feel abused or manipulated by Ravan.

Who do you think taught her to think outside the box? Who do you think encouraged her to find her own path? Who do you think taught her to consider the consequences of her actions? Who do you think taught her to speak and to write using decent grammar and English? Who do you think taught her to question the status quo and politicians? Ravan's values are pretty much the same as mine and that is not some quirk of fate. She was taught and encouraged to think and to question at a very young age. I have always been proud of Ravan. She has always fought for what she thought she should have. She couldn't always be allowed to have it, but I damned sure applauded her effort to get it.

Ravan is her own person. What that means is that I have done my job. That she and I can fight and still know that we love each other also means that I have done my job. Motherhood is not making little yes-people. Motherhood is preparing a child to be able to stand alone and to think and to fight for their beliefs and also to find their own path. Both of my girls have done that. Neither of them has chosen my exact path. Each has taken from my value system what fit for them.

A total lack of respect for Ravan? I think you are projecting there. Ravan knows I respect her and her views. I am a little sensitive right now though. I am in a point of change in my life. My mother died last week. She was one of my best friends. My other most best friend, my husband of thirteen years, is on hospice and not expected to make it very far into next year, if he even lives to see the new year. So, yes, I'm just a little more sensitive than usual right now as is Ravan because she loved her grandmother very much.

[redsonja.livejournal.com]

If this is the way you deal with stress and tragedy, and this is consistently the way you purport to "love" your daughter, then I feel sorry for my friend. You are a screaming neon sign that says "codependent control freak".

You don't give ravan herself or any of her schoolteachers credit for the person she is. You sit there crowing "I made her what she is today!", and yet oddly enough it's not quite what YOU wanted, is it? You seem to have a real problem with that for all that you claim otherwise... seen it before; nothing she does will ever be good enough unless she's doing EXACTLY what you want. The rest of your family can be as cruel, ignorant and abusive as they want and ravan is just expected to suck it up and be nice. Screw that.

I know that you are going to have something else to say on this because obviously if you are the sort of person who tries to micromanage your daughter so much that you attempt to get this involved with her LJ friendships, that's the kind of person you are. Well, you want the last word? Have it, because I am so done with you, lady. I wasn't talking to you in the first place, and you've already taken up too much of my time. I'd say "have a nice life", except that'd mean you'd have to get one first - one that wasn't being vicariously lived through your daughter.

[jemyl.livejournal.com]

There is so much elephantshit and projection in your post that I will not even comment on it. Ravan has always been good enough for me. If she says otherwise, it is her idea and one she has not checked out with me.

I only see Ravan about once every ten years. We communicate little. I like it that way and so does she. I believe it is counterproductive to have to listen to what a terrible parent I was and how I want grandchildren and how Ravan can't satisfy me when I have actually asked nothing of her except to attempt to get along with her sister and family for one day in ten years. I actually ask the rest of the family to suck it up and not rile Ravan a whole lot more because she is the one who has had a hard knock or two these past few years.

May you have a peaceful yule.

[dubhain.livejournal.com]

::Applause.::