I’m home visiting my family when my mum tells me she wants a Fitbit, so we walk to the small-town electronics store. We ask the man behind the counter to help us pick out the best Fitbit for my Mum’s needs. He and I start batting stats and needs back and forth, the conversation slipping quickly to an almost shorthand, friendly conversation. At one point he laments that he only has the Apple Watch two generations from the current one himself and I squeal, “Me, too!” and then we immediately share a quick, exuberant high-five.

A Fitbit choice is made and we pay, 15% off the listed price. As we leave, Mum asks:

Mum: “How do you know that guy?”

Me: “I don’t.”

Mum: “Did you go to school with him or something?”

Me: “No, Mum, I don’t know that guy.”

Mum: “But you guys are friends.”

Me: “Nope. It just seemed that way.”

Mum: “But I don’t understand. You were best friends back there.”

Me: “Nah, I just like getting discounts on bigger ticket items.”

Mum: “What?”

Me: “Yeah. Why not? Make someone’s day and get some money off a purchase? Win-win!”

Mum: “That’s stealing.”

Me: “What? No, it isn’t. He offered the discount; I didn’t ask for it.”

Mum: “You knew he’d discount the sale.”

Me: *Shrugging* “Well, I figured.”

Mum: “That big city has made you dishonest.”

I don’t know; I enjoyed the conversation and the man behind the counter saw us off with a huge smile on his face. I do use this tactic often, but I saw no harm in it until this conversation.

I have an entitled parent story to share with you and it gives me no pleasure to say that the Karen in this story is my own mother. I have so many stories about her entitlement when I was growing up but this one is by far the most embarrassing for me. I hope you enjoy.

This happens in 2004 when I am fourteen. We’ve just moved to another country and are living in a small town of around 12,000 people. I should mention that my mother is extremely homophobic, and although there aren’t many gay people — that I know of — around town, there is one couple who doesn’t hide their relationship.

I am nothing like my mother, so although I grew up with her pushing her homophobia onto me, I’ve never shared her views on the topic. I’m actually bisexual, but at the time, I never told her because I knew what her reaction would be.

One afternoon, we go for lunch at a small cafe that serves meals. Apart from a fish and chip shop, it is the only place my choosing beggar mother ever goes to. We sit down and order our food, and while we are waiting, a gay couple comes in and sits at a table near the back. Out of the few known gay couples in the town, these two are the most out and proud of all of them — as they should be, without ridicule — much to my mother’s displeasure. She doesn’t notice them at first, but when she does, the poop storm hits the fan.

She doesn’t say anything at first. She just stares daggers at them, hoping that they will leave on their own. As unsettling as my mother is when she’s giving her infamous death glare, it has a lot less power over others than she thinks it does or should; imagine an angry and red face giving an “I’m going to murder you in your sleep” staring match.

The couple doesn’t even notice her and goes on to order and chat while they wait for their meals. There are no groping or makeout sessions going on, just two grown men sitting side by side, holding hands. No big deal, right? Wrong.

When the server comes to deliver our food, my mum takes the opportunity to say something.

Mum: “Um, excuse me. Can you ask those two to leave? Or at least sit them somewhere else. I don’t want to watch them and their disgusting behavior.”

Server: “They’re not doing anything wrong, ma’am. But there’s a table outside you can sit at if you would like to move.”

Mum: “No, I’m not moving. I’m not doing anything wrong, unlike them. Make those [slurs] move.”

Server: “Ma’am, if you are going to speak like that, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

Mum: “What? What did I do?”

She is getting loud and I can tell that the couple can hear what is going on but are pretending not to hear her.

Server: “Ma’am, you have three options: stay here and be quiet, or I can put your food in takeaway containers for you and you can leave. I don’t think you’ll like option three.”

Mum: *Angry and defeated* “Fine, then. I’ll stay. But I’m never coming back here after this horrible service.”

We ate our food while I desperately wanted to leave or sink into my chair out of embarrassment. Mother Dearest was glaring at them the entire time, even though they’d turned their chairs so all we could see was the back of their heads. And much to the dismay of the staff there, Mum came back many other times after that.

A few weeks after this, I ran into the couple in town and apologized to them about my mother. I made sure they knew that I didn’t think the same way as her and they were fine about it. I lived in that town for about a year after this happened and went to live with my dad. My life was much better after I escaped her entitlement and Karen-ness, and I haven’t spoken to her in over seven years. The world is better without toxic people in it.

I am the author of So Much For No Child Left Behind. I thought I would let the readers know that despite everything, I turned out okay and don’t hold grudges.

My dad and step-mom separated when I was fourteen and were legally divorced a year later. Right after they separated, his mother died rather traumatically. My mom decided that without my step-mom around, my dad may become unpredictable, and she suspended my visits with him.

About six months later, I started visiting him after school on Fridays and he dropped me off at home by the time my mom left for her third-shift job at nine. Things were going well, and he was acting like a dad, though I figured it was a phase.

Everything is fine for a while. He has a string of girlfriends that are okay, but most don’t really want to date a man who has his issues. I start staying all weekend with him and teach him basic domestic tasks he was never taught. Then, his new girlfriend shows up.

She seems nice, but she has three grown children and five grandchildren. They immediately begin spending their weekends with him, and before I know what’s happened, the oldest and her boyfriend have moved in with my dad and take over the tiny bedroom that belongs to me.

I get fed up and stop going over because her family is taking over the household and suddenly I’m not allowed to listen to heavy metal because it’s “got too many messages her grandchildren can’t hear.” Mind you, I always wear headphones anyway. Eventually, he moves with her two hours away without telling me. I don’t hear from him except once at Christmas wanting to know what I want. I forget about it and move on.

Years later, I am married and in college, and I have a brand-new baby. I’m starting college belatedly due to lots of issues regarding money and general family things, but I’m rocking it.

My world falls apart. I get a call from my dad’s sister saying she just found out that my dad is in the local hospital, possibly dying. The reality ends up being far worse. He has cirrhosis of the liver and there may be neurological issues. I find out that, because of improper medical and dental care, an abscess has formed on his brain, and if he lives, he will be nearly helpless.

Because we have not seen one another or spoken to one another in years, a patient advocate has to mediate. He agrees to let me handle everything and signs forms, and they have to test him to make certain he is capable of making the decision.

I spend time with him as often as I can, but at each visit, he is worse and worse. He knows me but he sometimes talks about me like I am someone else he is speaking to about me. Once, he begins to cry and beg for forgiveness. I can’t not forgive him, but I am still hurting from a lifetime of rejection and broken promises.

One day, he simply lapses into a coma and doesn’t wake up. I arrange as much as I can and deal with it. If you want to know where the girlfriend was, she’s the one who ditched him at the hospital and contacted friends who set out to find me through various people.  

Before he died, I asked him if he remembered leaving me behind to go to Mexico. He told me he does and that it was really stupid for him to leave me since it ended up making our relationship worse.  

I looked at him and said, “You remember how you told Grandma you knew it was a ‘hassle’ to keep me? Well, apparently, your girlfriend thought it was a hassle to keep you, so she dropped you off here.”

He looked at me with his mouth open and said, “SHE DID!”

Petty of me? Sure. Correct? Absolutely. Did I do the right thing in showing up and making the calls? Yes. Do I regret it? Nope. Do I take my kids on all of my vacations? Yep.

Related:
So Much For No Child Left Behind

I’m talking on the phone with my mom, who is overprotective.

Mom: “What’s your son doing?”

Me: “He’s outside.”

Mom: “Aren’t you afraid someone will take him?”

Me: “He’s fifteen, Ma.”

When I was a stroppy teenager, still not financially independent of my parents, my mother used to accompany me on my shopping trips for clothes. This was consistently one of the most acutely embarrassing experiences of my life because she never understood men, particularly teenage boys.

It was bad enough that every time we were buying trousers for me, she would announce in a strident voice that “he’s rather big in the bot,” but the stupidest ever was shoe shopping.

My mother found one of the ugliest shoes I’d ever seen and decided she was going to buy it for me. She thrust it at a young man who was not much older than me — this was a Saturday, and in those days, practically the entire staff of a shop in our town was school students earning their pocket money — demanding that he find the other one.

The poor guy was already overwhelmed by being one of a very few people in a heaving shop, he was being run ragged, and he was not having a good time of it. He rushed off to find the matching shoe, and when he came back I could see that, while similar in shape and colour, the details were different; the trim was different, the treads were different, etc.

Me: “It’s the wrong shoe.”

Mother: “It’s perfectly adequate; stop fussing.” *To the worker* “We’ll have these, then.”

Me: “But they don’t match; they’re not the same shoe!”

Mother: “They’re close enough, you silly boy. Stop making a fuss and upsetting the staff.”

By this time, the shop worker has noticed that yes, indeed, perhaps the shoes don’t actually match, so he really shouldn’t be selling them as a pair. Overwhelmed as he is, he thrusts the shoes in the direction of a colleague, who happens to be female.

My mother crows in her posh, overbearing Karen voice.

Mother: “Oh, don’t go giving them to a silly girl. Just sell me the shoes!”

Fortunately, the girl is on top of her game and competent, and she asks ME which is the shoe I want.

Me: “I don’t really like either of them, but this one was the one we were getting.”

Female Worker: “Don’t worry; it gets better.”

And she twirled off to go and get the proper mate for the shoe.

I wondered at the time what she meant when she said, “It gets better,” but I got my head round it a few years later, when I finally was able to do my own shopping.