Why I can’t stand my extended family

A friend on Medium said that I should write stories about my extended family. Here is background and the first example of a fucked-up extended family.

I am an only child of two wonderful, loving parents. I wish the story ended there, but everything goes downhill.

First, a but of background. My Dad was born in 1908, the youngest of eleven children by several years. Most of his siblings were dead when I was born in 1964. There is only one cousin I stay in with, and she is the exception to this story. I have always felt close to her. Actually, Dad’s extended family has never been unkind to me at all, it is just the vast age difference that separates us.

Mom’s family is another thing entirely. Mom was born in 1925, the youngest of thirteen children. I’m an only child, I wonder why?

To muddy the water even further, Mom’s parents were killed in a car wreck when she was less than a year old. This is where the dysfunction starts. Several older siblings were legal adults when my grandparents died. Why didn’t any of them take Mom in? I don’t know the answer, and because everyone involved is dead, I just don’t fucking care.

So Mom went to an orphanage and wasn’t adopted until she was eight. Her siblings tracked her but never tried to bring her back into the family. I don’t know why she wasn’t adopted while still an infant, but when the Depression hit, I understood that times were tough for everyone. Eventually a loving family did adopt Mom, and she had, from her account, a happy childhood from then on.

Mom’s foster parents were always open with her about her past. Apparently the laws were different then, but once Mom became an adult, her family started looking for her.

That sounds like the start of a beautiful reconciliation story, doesn’t it? Sadly, that was never the case. Mom married Dad and they ended up in the same town as one of her sisters. The sister reached out and established contact with Mom. This all happened before I was born. Mom became a housewife because she wanted to be one. Then she spread her wings and got a job and was independent because Dad never tried to control her life. Mom and Dad were a well-oiled machine and got along famously.

Mom’s sister Gladys was a nasty piece of work. She wanted to control everyone and everything around her. Gladys went through three husbands, had several kids, but never even learned to drive. She depended on her offspring to take care of her. As her kids grew up and had families of their own, Gladys controlled her grandchildren as well.

Gladys resented Mom because Mom was independent. Gladys hated Dad because he encouraged Mom to be independent. Dad told Mom that Gladys and her other older siblings weren’t the family that Mom wanted them to be. Sadly, Mim continually tried to make the dysfunctional extended family thing work.

My first memorable interaction with my Aunt Gladys was seared into my memory. I was 7 years old, and Mom finally convinced Dad to take me to meet Gladys. Until then, Mom had made the trip on her own because Dad refused to go, and he kept me at home when Mon went to visit.

We were in the living room of Gladys’ house and I remember Gladys and Mom sitting side by side on the sofa with a long coffee table in front of them. I was sitting on the floor in front of the coffee table, and my Dad was in a chair to one side, and my uncle was on my other side. I finally had to visit the bathroom, and I politely asked Gladys if I could. Gladys said that the bathroom in the hall was a mess so I should use the one off the master bedroom.

Mom and Dad weren’t rich. I had never been in a house with more than one bathroom before. I took care of business, and made sure that everything was clean and proper before I returned to the living room. Because I was raised to be polite, I said that Gladys has a very nice home because I had seen parts of it I normally wouldn’t have seen.

Gladys looked at me, and without missing a beat, said that if my parents ever amounted to anything that we could have a nice house someday too. What kind of evil bitch says something like that to a 7 year old who had just paid her a compliment?

I remember the shocked and hurt expression on Mom’s face right before I launched myself over the coffee table at Gladys. I remember her look of terror as I was inbound with harm on my mind.

Fortunately, or not, Dad saw me preparing to pounce and grabbed me as I was airborne. Dad carried me out of the house and into the yard. He never scolded or said anything negative about my behavior. Dad simply said that now I understood why he hated Gladys. From that moment, I hated her as well.

That’s just one of the insane examples of a dysfunctional extended family. I’ll put together my next episode soon. There are three more that will amaze you.