Happy Mother's Day, everyone! And to all the Millennials out there: Happy Landlord's Day!
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) May 10, 2015
As our British friends are wont to call it. For some of us, well, I’ve always said that perhaps the best gift my mother gave her kids was the honest confession that she was not, despite her best efforts, a woman meant for motherhood. Nice Catholic girls of her generation didn’t have other options, but her hapless candor gave me (and all five of my younger siblings) the freedom to choose childlessness.
Every year Jezebel helpfully publishes a post like “A Toast to All the Brave Kids Who Broke Up with Their Toxic Moms“, or last year’s “Happy Mother’s Day From the Moms on Whisper Who Hate Their Kids“. Despite Tolstoy, not every unhappy family is unhappy in a unique way, but the odds are that we’ve got more entertaining anecdotes!
Schlemazel
Jezabel also informs me that Jameis Winston has filed a civil suit against the woman he raped for having the gall of accusing him of rape. Truly a man among men,
Keith G
Despite 1950s era (and more recent) propaganda, there are no perfect families and no perfect individuals. We are all damaged to one extent or another. The trick is to find out the extent of the trouble and what the work arounds are.
And to be generous in forgiving others and ourselves.
Major Major Major Major
Called my mom, of course. Poor dear has to fly to L.A. tonight.
We’re wrapping up at the Stupid Shit & Terrible Ideas Nobody Needs Hackathon right now. Our contribution was Moan, which is like Twitter except it has to be either at least 140 words, or a haiku.
Keith G
@Schlemazel:
I would have expected that. Upon signing his rookie contract, Winston is now the CEO of a private company. A rather well financed company at that. He now has the ability to hire a legal team to aggressive “protect” his prime corporate asset.
TS
The main joy of motherhood is grandchildren – shame the parenting has to come first.
Corner Stone
@Schlemazel: Just like Wal-Mart suing Tracy Morgan.
Winston has a lot to pre-emptively protect.
different-church-lady
[sigh]
It would be so much better if we lived in a world were people who really want to have children could have them and people who really don’t want to have them could stop being pressured and find support in their desires.
Too often it breaks down into a kids-are-the-greatest/kids-suck false dichotomy. But that’s not what it should be about. People who find joy in children should have them and people who don’t ought to have their feelings respected. Because there’s really nothing more unfair to a child than a parent who feels bitter about being a parent.
We ought to go, “You have kids and you like it? That’s great!” and we ought to go, “You don’t want to have kids and you know it? That’s great!”
Fortunately I think things are very slowly changing for the better. As little as ten years ago we were going through a very ugly children-as-precious-status-items phase. Today people are much more likely to meet a person who’s child-free-by-choice with indifference at worse.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@different-church-lady:
It’s not quite a dichotomy anyway — I like kids and enjoy hanging around with them, but I prefer not to raise them. Luckily, since I have siblings and friends with kids, I can enjoy being around children without having to do the hard work of parenting them.
Corner Stone
@different-church-lady:
My ex was told from about middle school that her highest calling was to be a mom. She bought into it (no real choice there, granted) and we discussed it at length for quite a while before having a child.
The reality was something quite different for her.
SiubhanDuinne
My mother was much the same, Anne Laurie. She was always pretty clear that, given her druthers, she wouldn’t have had children — but, as you say, that option wasn’t particularly viable in her time. As it was, she had five kids, four of whom lived, and at least two miscarriages that I know of. In other words, she was pregnant or postpartum more or less nonstop throughout her relatively brief marriage.
At any rate, she never encouraged me to have kids, and I never did. But I didn’t for a second feel unloved or unwanted. I’m not sure exactly how she conveyed that complicated message, but she did it, and did it well. And I miss her.
raven
My mom is gone. She had parts of her that were great and parts that were not. Just like everyone else.
Corner Stone
@efgoldman:
He’s defending a brand. She’s trying a civil action since legal charges fell through so not sure he has much choice.
To be clear, I don’t know what happened there and IMO he’s fucking scum. But this is completely predictable in the course of things as she has proven she isn’t going away otherwise.
gogol's wife
@different-church-lady:
If I hear one more person (as in church this morning) say, “I didn’t know what unconditional love was until I had a child,” I’m going to . . . well, I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I wish they realized how offensive it is to those of us who have never had children and are never going to do so.
Corner Stone
@raven:
It took a long time before we had an adult discussion about things. Growing up broke as fuck in a single mom household and too much pain to get a clear account made shit rough a lot of the times.
I’m lucky to still have both of them with me, even though accuracy hasn’t exactly improved over the years.
JPL
My sons came over to help me outdoor chores that are beyond my skill level. I am replacing the plants in front of the house because they were large and out of control. The project was actually started last week and finished today. A few cars went by and I mentioned that they probably thought, it would be easier if you guys took her out for brunch. My son laughed but then said we aren’t really the mother’s day brunch type are we. We grilled steak and shrimp for tacos, after our work was done.
It was a good day.
.
Corner Stone
Holy Beejeebers, Batman! They are doing an interview segment on TV for the Rockets fans from midtown and they have some be-boobed young ladies all in the background. Goodness, me.
Corner Stone
@efgoldman: He’s freaking scum, IMO. but he’s beaten her claims about elebenty times in court so far. He wants to make it as costly and painful for her to keep alleging damage against his brand as he possibly can.
Listen, I’d just as soon someone from Sons of Anarchy accidentally run over his knees for about an episode’s worth, but this isn’t unexpected IMO.
Corner Stone
And personally, I am not in the target pool to ever consider buying a Buick, but having the elderly lady keynote the commercial by proclaiming, “Thasss what I toled himmm!”
Only serves to reinforce that Buick is an old person’s car and I no want.
Exurban Mom
It’s interesting to read the comments on the ‘I wish I was never a parent’ thread. I think a lot of the public (if anonymous) anger/sadness about parenthood comes from the fact that, several decades after the development of the Pill and legalization of abortion, parenthood truly is a choice rather than an inevitability of marriage. There’s tons of research about how people are much more unhappy when presented with more choices. There have been times I have regretted the losses in my life due to parenthood, but on the whole I am grateful that I have the chance…just hope I’m not screwing up too badly.
raven
@Corner Stone: My folks split up when I was 10 and my old man “kidnapped” me from LA to Chicago. I stayed there until I was old enough to legally decide who I wanted to be with and then spent the summers in LA with her and my sis and brother. It was not a great arrangement and it took a long time to get it back together with both of them. I did before they both died and I’m glad I did but it’s one of the reasons I never had kids.
Keith G
@efgoldman: Since good lawyering is expensive I guess Winston’s team wants to show her, and anyone else, that her “day in court” is going to be exorbitantly expensive. Erica Kinsman’s legal team will be putting in a whole lot more work. This seems to be a type of intimidation common in SLAPP suits.
raven
@Exurban Mom: I love kids an get along famously with most those that I know. It’ll have to do.
Corner Stone
@efgoldman:
Opel sounds like the name of someone’s elderly spinster aunt.
JPL
@raven: But who helps you dig out old crepe myrtle trees and hedges?
Arthur
RE: the daveweigel tweet:
Was that supposed to be a joke? The guy was born in 1981.
JCT
Funny coincidence, my daughter sent me a link to that toxic mom article on Jezebel with a nice note. I haven’t spoken to my mother in 9 years and never will. She was the prototypical toxic mother, walking away was the smartest thing I ever did. Too bad it took me 40 years. I took her example as a “how not to be a mother” lesson (as did my younger sister) – that worked well for both of us.
Corner Stone
@Exurban Mom:
I think physically, in some respects, it is a choice in life for some categories of people. My ex and I didn’t physically have to have children. She had an implant that largely physically prevented conception when we were dating and first married.
But the mental and psychological pain is something else far and away different when considering whether to have a child or not. At least in our case (her case as I always believed I wanted children).
geg6
My mother was sadly disappointed in her daughters. Oldest daughter has Crohn’s disease and couldn’t have kids. But she did adopt my niece (a family adoption through ne’er to do cousins). My next oldest sister and I had no desire to have kids (we won’t discuss my teenage mistake and why I hate the Catholic Church). The two idiot brothers never married and never had kids. Youngest sister is the only one who has a child the usual way and she couldn’t have another due to complications discovered during her only pregnancy. My poor mom had six kids and only got two grandchildren out of the deal, only one of whom was actually born when she passed. At least she knew youngest sis was pregnant. We’re all happy with how it turned out, but it’s a little sad for my mom. I know this isn’t what she had planned.
MomSense
The other thing we do is tell expectant and new moms that this will be the most joyful, wonderful, fulfilling thing that will ever happen to them. Then you become a parent and you soon discover that some things are exhausting, frustrating, and maddening. I’ve met so many moms who feel guilty for feeling less than the fairy tale. I always try to tell a story or two about times when I’ve felt exhausted or upset or terrible and encourage moms to not believe the hype.
sharl
@Arthur:
Yeah, it’s part of his “Ban Millenials” shtick (just like the Waukesha thing – #3 here).
Occasionally a twitter follower will call him on his own age, and if he responds, it’s usually along the lines of Hey, quiet you!
Tenar Darell
@efgoldman: So it looks like I will actively root against Tampa Bay for as long as that guy’s on the team. I don’t usually do that.
Glidwrith
@Exurban Mom: With the wholesale assault of the Rethugs on reproductive rights and the inaccessibility to birth control amongst our least prosperous citizenry for the last several decades, how is it exactly that becoming a parent really is a choice?
And how is it, for those of us that did have the choice of married/not married, kids/no kid that this is a huge number of choices that somehow results in anger/unhappiness?
I think a good amount of the anger is that too many folks have Mom as the unpaid servant, with most of society ignoring the amount of work that is put into parenting. If so many people think it is just awesome to raise a family, then show me the damned money and societal support that shows kids are worth raising.
How about money for schools instead of blaming teachers? How about generous allowances for food for kids, instead of districts with 70% of the kids living in poverty? How about the equivalent of Social Security for all those folks that raise those kids, but will never see a dime because they were never paid for that work? They were just the little homemaker, after all.
Our society spends most of its money on the military and prisons. We don’t, as a society, value other peoples’ kids./end of rant
BillinGlendaleCA
@efgoldman: He also opens himself up for discovery, that’s what got Bill Clinton in trouble.
shell
@gogol’s wife: ” unconditional love”
Unconditional love? Get a dog!
Steve
Best job in the world is as a mom. And if youre a chic and you can’t handle that you’ve let the world down.
Exurban Mom
@Glidwrith: I agree with much of what you say…maybe it’s more a case of perceived choice that actual choice. One does hear rude people occasionally say to a parent complaining about their lot that “you didn’t have to become a parent”.
Ruckus
@Glidwrith:
A very good rant.
Like @raven: mom is gone. She had good parts and bad parts. I was luckier than my sisters, I recognized what the bad parts were early and how to minimize them as much as possible, put as much distance between without recriminations. Sisters got the full brunt without the understanding and it hounded them. But that’s life. Had it much better than some I’ve known and worse than a few. How much better does it really get?
eemom
@raven:
Well put. Moms are human beings.
I dislike this, like I dislike all bullshit holidays….and especially that it causes pain to people whose lives don’t fit the format of a Hallmark greeting card.
However, it seems from the links on this thread that this year’s prompted some good discussions, at least.
Glidwrith
@Exurban Mom: True. Perception can be everything. How one looks at a problem can result in misery, resignation or as a learning experience or even a chance to change something you didn’t think could be changed. I also think that at this point in history many of our choices have been stripped away, because too much money has been stripped away by the aristocrats.
After all, the ability to control ones’ fate, to make choices, has always been the option of the privileged classes, unlike the peasantry that had to suck up whatever our betters’ chose to dish out.
I think that is enough anger expressed for one day. Time to hit the garden with my own wonderful loving kids.
Uh, that means go have some fun, not throw my kids at the garden.
Ruckus
@Steve:
You have proven time and again that you are a useless fuck. Maybe you could take what few working brain cells that may be rolling around in that melon you call a head and use them to find a clue. I know that’s asking a lot but give it a try. You might like not being such a putz all the time.
gogol's wife
@Steve:
Go home and make dinner for Adam.
gogol's wife
LAST EPISODE OF WOLF HALL TONIGHT! What are we going to do now?
Get to work, Hilary!
Major Major Major Major
@gogol’s wife: that a gay joke? (Not trying to defend Steve.)
SiubhanDuinne
Here are some adorable baby animals and their moms.
https://www.thedodo.com/animals-mothers-video-1133243098.html
Now isn’t that better than flowers, candy, and breakfast in bed?
Brachiator
@gogol’s wife: Well, there is “Bring up the Bodies,” the continuation of “Wolf Hall.” And there will be a third book, “The Mirror and the Light.”
debbie
@Brachiator:
The televised version of Wolf Hall includes Bring Up the Bodies.
MomSense
@Glidwrith:
Co – signed!
gogol's wife
@Major Major Major Major:
I’m not making fun of gay people, I’m trying to make fun of Steve (his gender stereotypes). But I should have remembered the rule of not feeding.
gogol's wife
@debbie:
Right, and we can’t have any more of Rylance’s Cromwell until she writes it. ETA: writes the third novel
BillinGlendaleCA
@efgoldman:
Wait, does that work?
SiubhanDuinne
@eemom:
NPR had a good feature on Anna Jarvis, the “founder” of Mothers’ Day, who lived to regret its commercialization. This was from a few years ago, on the 100th anniversary, but still relevant. They re-ran it a day or two ago.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90354929
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
I always forget how much being a parent is until today. I just went to Kroger and no fewer than 8 random men wished me a happy mother’s day, along with the deli folks when I got M. Q.’s sandwich fixings and a cashier who knows me as a regular and asked if I’d had a nice mother’s day. I just smile and say “thanks” – or in Linda the cashier’s case I told her I did and asked her if she did as well.
I’m genuinely touched that so many people make that wish with apparent sincerity, and always surprised that I look like a mother. You’d think I’d be used to it after 30 years.
SiubhanDuinne
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Well, you gotta click your heels together as you say the magic words. But you knew that.
SiubhanDuinne
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
I had lunch at a place I often go on weekends for a treat, so I’m a regular and pretty well known to the staff. They know I’m not a parent, yet they insisted I accept the little gift they were giving to all the MOMS who came in today. I protested, but once I learned it was chocolate I decided to be gracious and just accept it.
MomSense
Speaking of moms, the show Outlander had a mom nursing and expressing milk. I’ve never seen those things on the boob tube before.
John Revolta
Mothering Sunday was in March, y’all.
I tried not to say anything but my Inner Pedant won again.
JPL
@SiubhanDuinne: Definitely a smart move.
SiubhanDuinne
@MomSense:
Uh huh
rikyrah
@efgoldman:
Jezabel also informs me that Jameis Winston has filed a civil suit against the woman he raped for having the gall of accusing him of rape.
I don’t believe anyone is GIVING HIM this advice.
there have been a number of experienced people, who have attempted to give him good advice. folks who have ‘ been there, done that’, and he seems to just not pay them any mind.
Nobody will convince me that someone GAVE him this advice.
No. I believe this is ALL HIM.
And, he his on a course to crash and burn.
Cervantes
Are you the oldest, then?
Brachiator
Coming late to part of this thread, and found the comments very interesting. I would not say that all of my upbringing was unicorns and candy, but my mother’s love for me and my siblings was more than “unconditional,” she has always been our greatest champions, and this has been a tremendous gift. But I can also throw in the support of aunts and uncles, especially a great aunt and uncle who never had kids. The great aunt was a feisty and sometimes unpleasant woman who had to fight against her worst instincts and yet could be tremendously supportive when things got tough. The great uncle, on the other hand, was one of the kindest and most gentle men I ever knew, and a role model precisely because he had no need for macho preening.
My mother will still call and start a voicemail message with an encouraging or loving opening. Again, I note that there have been all kinds of challenges, but in this I have been extremely fortunate.
Aleta
@gogol’s wife:
could be translated into “forced unconditional love” ? It’s such a transgression for a mother to say in public that she feels anything other than unconditional love.
Ruckus
@BillinGlendaleCA:
I think it does but only if we do this as a group shout.
Ready……
One
Two
Three
BEGONE TROLL!
Ruckus
@efgoldman:
I imagine it’s pretty tough to say that with a tongue so firmly pressed into cheek.
jl
I’ll pass on Jezebel. I mean, so what? Life happens and we have to deal with it, No reason not to make the best of Mothering Day.
I looked up simnel cakes and they look and sound good to me. But then, I am one of the small minority that likes fruit cake and mince meat pie. Add some extra strong trifle and over wined syllabub (which seems to be an English take on zabaglione) and it would be a better holiday. Booze up mom or the kids, or both, and hope things go a little more smoothly.
Ruckus
@SiubhanDuinne:
That’s what I forgot. Damn I’m slow some days.
Woodrowfan
@eemom:
THIS! ! MANY, MANY, MANY TIMES THIS!!!!!!
jl
My mom is resolute in indicating no wants or needs for Mothers Day. “Oh, I don’t need anything. Just be a nice is son, is all.”
“yeah yeah yeah, waddaya want for Mother’s Day… mother dearest?”
” Aww, I have too much crap around here anyway.”
Then she goes shopping before Mother’s Day, like she is doing a preemptive strike or something.
So, flowers.
redshirt
It’s saddening that there’s so much sadness in this world.
Ruckus
@efgoldman:
Been thinking of a new cleaning product, of course you could guess the name, Troll Be Gone. Got the recipe down, it’s the delivery system that’s the hold up.
Micheline
Has any one seen this new piece by Seymour Hersh claiming that Obama lied about capturing Osama Bin Laden. It’s all over Facebook.
SiubhanDuinne
@Ruckus:
That’s what us Good Witches are for.
Micheline
Has any one seen this new piece by Seymour Hersh claiming that Obama lied about capturing Osama Bin Laden.
raven
Call the Midwife was wrenching.
Mike J
@Micheline: Why would anybody care that we let Pakistan tell their citizens they didn’t know?
Really, who gives a shit?
Corner Stone
@Micheline: Everyone lied about the killing of OBL. The ISI sold him to us.
Who gives a shit? He’s dead. Fuck him.
Brachiator
@eemom:
All holidays are bullshit and nobody’s life has ever fit the format of a Hallmark greeting card.
And we still dismiss as Grinch or Scrooge or crank people who wind themselves up into knots over other people’s apparent happiness.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@Steve:
Are you a douchebag professionally?
Ruckus
@SiubhanDuinne:
LOL
Debbie
@raven:
Yes it was, for the nuns as much as for the mothers.
JPL
@raven: Yup.
Brachiator
@Micheline: Is bin Laden any less dead? And it’s odd to see it noted that a story is “all over Facebook” as a guarantee of interest or significance.
Germy Shoemangler
@gogol’s wife: A plate of delicious ribs?
Ruckus
@GHayduke (formerly lojasmo):
He’s not that good at it and his output is too low for a professional. And in the douchebag olympics he’d have to luck into bronze, given the competition.
sharl
@Micheline: I’ve been interested in the responses to Sy Hersh’s from reporters I respect, such as Adrian Chen:
I’m a bit taken aback by Chen’s unbridled enthusiasm. Going on the basis of one anonymous source is certainly gutsy, but I prefer more substantial evidence – I’m old-fashioned that way.
On the other hand, any reporter with limited time and budget (e.g., freelancer Adrian Chen) who is trying to do a good job and not be just a glorified stenographer for “unnamed military, intelligence, and/or Administration sources” (*cough*Eli Lake*cough*) will be very hard put to come up with satisfactorily thorough sourcing on a huge story of international intrigue like this. To the extent that Hersh shines new light on unresolved questions and the shaky official explanations offered at the time, it’s maybe not such a bad thing.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I’m at my limit for links, but Hersh did something like this in a story he did in December 2013 where he alleged a link between the Turkish government and the use of sarin on Syrian rebels in August of that year. At the time the U.S. Administration blamed that attack on Bashir al-Assad. Critics lashed Hersh back then – legitimately IMO – and they’re already coming at him on this story. Then as now, his writing is worth a read, and a critical assessment.
Major Major Major Major
I generally trust Hersh. He’s got history after all.
And, y’know, any story that makes for an intriguing movie is probably not true. Thanks for the link.
jl
@Micheline:
” Has any one seen this new piece by Seymour Hersh claiming that Obama lied about capturing Osama Bin Laden. ”
Hersh has been running around yelling that the OBL raid was ‘one big lie’ for over two years now, and that is what he has come up with?
It would be interesting to know who first started spreading the word about the raid almost immediately which explains why the Obama administration felt it had to rush out and make an announcement. If that was done purposefully by administration officials, Hersh would have something. But I don’t see that Hersh uncovered that.
Kind of odd that at one point in the story, am anonymous Seal commander is portrayed as discussing some kind of command mindset that was troubled over ‘assassinating’ a target in a country where that was against the law. But later we are told the Seals shot the body into little pieces. They didn’t seem troubled at all by the moral ambiguities of the situation.
The parts about how the Seal’s were debriefed afterwards, and what the two who talked said about the raid doesn’t really add up either.
I’ll wait for something more reliable, which may take a while, I realize.
Germy Shoemangler
@jl:
Does Seymour Hersh still report for the New Yorker? Did they have a falling out?
jl
@Germy Shoemangler: I have no idea. I think, from the piece, that Hersh oversold what the prospects were for his investigation and he lost perspective on it. I think sharl’s comment on it are interesting. I didn’t see where the story depended on one sole anonymous source, but I may have missed something. But I was in a rush looking for the aspects of the story that have interested me (and I didn’t get those answered in this piece). Different pieces of the story don’t add up, IMHO..
Micheline
@Mike J: Agree.
Suzanne
I lived with my other and her parents from the time my parents split up and my “dad” skipped out, right after my first birthday, to my grandparents’ deaths in 1995 and 1997. My grandmother was mentally ill, ended up in hospitals a couple of times, but due to shame and hostility, lived just taking her craziness out on everyone around her. I recognize that she had some good elements to her personality, but she essentially died to me when I was almost 13, and my mom was choking, and I screamed for help for 28 minutes and my grandmother heard me, and wouldn’t come to my aid because she didn’t give a fuck. My grandmother was the quintessential woman who, had she been born at a different time, would probably have been able to have a happy life—mental health services, more options for self-expression, and probably no children. That is the extent of the generosity that I can extend to her.
It’s weird. I lived with her for 15 years, and yet I think of her almost never. Probably a good thing.
Anne Laurie
@Brachiator:
It’s a big world. Some people had great childhoods; they deserve to celebrate the people who made that possible for them. Others, not so much; they (we) deserve the chance to share war stories.
It only gets nasty if everyone decides we need to “pick a team” and defend our situation as the Only Correct Response.
Corner Stone
Some of the sloppiest three minutes of basketball I have seen at the professional level.
MazeDancer
We know there are evil RWNJ’s in this world. Who pass themselves off as solid citizens. They have lots of money. They have the church. They are crazy, crazy people. And they perpetrate their crazy on their children.
Abusive parents are commonplace. Horrible, mind-boggling abuse by preachers, cops, lawyers, judges, seeming pillars of the community.
Yet, days like today are commercial inventions to pretend that all parents are good. Or maybe “just human”. Everyone is human. But using children as emotional pawns or physical toys is not “just human”. And terrible, corrosive abuse is so common. And so many people act like it’s threatening their own good mother to recognize that. Just like we should ignore the statistics of why people use drugs or are in prison.
If you had a great mother, how wonderful for you. Many blessings upon her. But many, many people did not have your lucky experience.
So thanks, Anne Laurie, for a little pushback on the Hallmark Halo of reproduction. The Jezebel post was interesting. Especially the quote from the Susan Griffin poem “Bad Mother”: “
scav
@Anne Laurie: And in between the Hallmark perfection and the war stories, there’s a lot of luffly muddled reality to explore. I lucked out in that I was raised by a woman who is a decent human being in general but in no way put her children at the center of her life. It’s actually a remarkably comfortable place to be if you’re the right sort and don’t need to polish your lifestyle to fit the latest preconceptions for public viewing. My sibling could have done with a little more Hallmark in theory at least. Not a fault on either side, just a bit of a mismatch of emotional styles. Bound to happen.
JPL
@jl: The problem that I had with the article was whether or not Obama should wait before making the announcement. Thanks to the www, a son called and told me he was playing a game and something was going on in Pakistan.
Brachiator
@Anne Laurie: We don’t disagree. I tire of people who claim that they are oppressed by the existence of holidays or the phony happiness of Hallmark cards. This really has nothing to do with their actual lives or the lives of others. These people need to grow up as get on with it. That Ozzie and Harriet is not real should not be a surprise to anyone.
You noted that your mother admitted that she was not cut out for motherhood. I wondered how this affected your relationship with her or how this affected her life, but did not want to pry. I have a couple of friends whose mothers made similar announcements and then abandoned their families, leaving a great deal of pain in their wake.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@scav:
My muddled reality is that my mother died of cancer when I was 8, and the woman I currently call “Mom” married my dad when I was 10. She’s been my mother for almost 40 years now and has done her best even when we did not understand each other.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@sharl:
I guess the various conspiracy theories confuse me. If Bin Laden isn’t really dead, why did his various taped announcements abruptly stop after his death was announced?
jl
@Mnemosyne (tablet): Hersh admits bin Laden was killed in the raid. Hersh is breaking the news (if you can call it news) that the Obama administration did not tell the whole truth about the raid, made shit up, took political credit, and was mean and ungrateful towards Pakistan (for finally admitting before the raid that they had been harboring him for quite some time, after a Pakistani informant gave him up, if I understand the story right).
Edit: Also, apparently someone in the Seal command knew somehow beforehand that it would amount to a simple assassination, and was deeply troubled about it, it being against Pakistani law. Then the Seal troops are supposed to have shot the dead body into fragments, showing that they had similar moral qualms about the business.
Steeplejack (phone)
@efgoldman:
You trust those spooks in the Lollipop Guild?
Mike J
@efgoldman:
If he wasn’t dead before they put him in a weighted bag and dropped him off a ship, he would have had to hold his breath for a long, long time.
BillinGlendaleCA
@efgoldman: I’m glad you trust me. That Randy Newman song haunted me my senior year of high school.
Lolipop? I’m running it on 3 of my phones/tablets.
sharl
@Mnemosyne (tablet): Yeah, basically what jl at 112 said.
One of the big things being claimed by Hersh is that the Pakistani government was in on the Navy Seal “raid” all along – e.g., how could U.S. choppers go so far into the PK interior undetected…unless they were expected and secretly welcomed? – which is something a lot of Pakistani citizens have suspected, even after you subtract out all those many who fall for any and every conspiracy theory that paints that government in a bad light. So this story might make things really, really unpleasant for the PK government’s standing with its domestic critics in the coming days, if their official story that they were victims of a surprise intrusion by the Big Bad U.S. Death Machine falls apart. Remember that a lot of PK citizens think that their government is also secretly green-lighting the drone attacks in the Northwest Territories there. That is also hugely unpopular in PK, so there is that context, and USG’s ongoing undeclared war on Al-Qaeda in those territories could in turn be threatened, depending on how PK domestic politics plays out as a result of this story.
Ruckus
@efgoldman:
Was going to ask, didn’t the seals go there to kill him? It was an assassination op to start with, not a capture op. If they were successful he would be dead. They supposedly were successful so, he’s dead. And what has that got to do with Pakistan’s feelings? Or the announcement? Or anything, really? Isn’t this a story to either rag on President Obama, or to get page clicks for Hersh? Or both.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: She sounds like she was a wonderful lady. Since this is an unhappy family, thread (and the happy family family seems dead), I’ll just say that I had great weekend with my mother and the rest of my family and leave it at that.
KS in MA
@rikyrah:
“And, he his on a course to crash and burn.”
Amen, may it be so!
OldDave
@efgoldman:
Thank you for posting it – I enjoyed the read and her story. A long life, well lived.
Brachiator
@jl: The Hershey story is giving me a headache. It suggests that spies exist only to keep info away from the dopey citizens, and that all governments know everything and are in cahoots together. The idea that the mission was simply to kill bin Laden, and that some were queasy about it because this was against Pakistani law is an odd claim. Odder still is Hersh’s assertion that bin Laden was no longer operationally important. If bin Laden was responsible for the 911 attacks, then his capture would be important. If Pakistan had easily captured him, why would they not give him to the U.S.? But if Pakistan were holding him and the Saudis were paying his hotel bills, and everyone knew about it and let wars and attacks go on endlessly, then this shut is all a pointless foreign policy game dumber than the dumbest conspiracy theory. That Hershey dribbles into stuff about torture does not add anything.
Omnes Omnibus
@Brachiator: Hershey? Barbara or chocolate?
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Omnes Omnibus:
I sense autocorrect.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne (tablet): Of course, but sometimes one must respond.
Brachiator
@Omnes Omnibus: Damn spell checker. And I love Barbara Hershey.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@gogol’s wife: ,
I’m going to go out on a limb with the Juicitariat here and say that I didn’t know what unconditional love was until I had a dog. And it wasn’t from me to the dog.
One does one’s best with the kids as a parent, and for me, things turned out well but I’m absolutely not convinced it was anything we did as parents.
Omnes Omnibus
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason: I didn’t know unconditional love until I had a family. Everyone in my immediate-ish family has faults – so what? I love them unconditionally.
redshirt
@efgoldman: Your Mom sounds like an awesome lady!
Brachiator
@efgoldman: Great story. Thanks very much for sharing it.
David Koch
1. Ooops.
2. Feet of Clay.
3. Obama Derangement Syndrome.
4. HOOOOCOOODNAONE!
David Koch
Well, if TWO government agents are telling NBC News that Obama was a CIA time traveler, who traveled to Mars, then it must be true.
I’m surprised Hersh didn’t dig this out first, given his government contacts.
Paul in KY
@efgoldman: Sounds like one hell of a mother (in a good way)! Best wishes.
lol
@Brachiator:
I’ve always took it as a given that the more extremist elements of the Pakistani government knew Bin Laden was there all along while other elements wanted him gone and looked the other way when we went in to kill him.
Is it a story that ME governments scream bloody murder in public about the US to placate domestic extremists even as they assist us behind the scenes to eliminate them? Isn’t it open knowledge?