Let’s talk about my mother.

Hiya, lovely peeps.

So the other day, my Pa, my little brother and I were playing Ludo in our living room. We were having fun and then Pa said in a lighthearted teasing manner, “Oh, man! I rolled a one! I always get ones!” (His dice usually rolls one by the way.) And my Ma, who was outside in the garden, focused her ears towards us and groaned, “There you go again! Always complaining!” Pa, irritated and mad, declared the game over and retreated to his room. My brother and I sat there, stunned. Ma followed him and shut the door.

Cue an argument between my parents.

What you’ve just read, lovely peeps, is what a typical fight between my parents look like. Now, it is important to note that Ma rarely, if ever, plays board games with her children and husband. It’s usually just the three of us while Ma does her own thing somewhere else. Yet, she stills feels the need to butt in and make comments about the way we play, despite it being none of her business.

My room is right across my parents’, so I listened in on their Ludo conversation. Somewhere along their fight, Ma said this: “I don’t want you to feel you that way when you play!” Take a closer look at her wording. She doesn’t want Pa feeling a certain way. Turns out this argument had nothing to do with Pa at all, rather it was because Ma wanted to control my father’s emotions. And she dared blame him for the fall out.

I know children aren’t supposed to butt in their parents’ private arguments, but by that point, I had had enough. My brain was like, ‘No, self, you deserve to have a say in this. This concerns you, too. Butt in.’ So I did. I stormed in their room and told my Ma off. I told her exactly how controlling she was being, to all of us in the house. Prior to that, I had kindly requested that she stop speaking on my behalf and putting words in my mouth. She used to say things like, “Uz probably won’t like that”, “She doesn’t want that” and “She’s feeling X right now.” Sometimes it was true, sometimes it wasn’t, but that doesn’t give her the right to speak for me and dictate my feelings.

But on the night of the Ludo incident, I told Ma, to her face, that she needs to stop. Period. She does the same thing for Pa and for Bro. And listen to the crazy part. Whenever we don’t listen to her, she’ll hit us with: “Nobody ever listens to me,” “Nobody cares about my opinions” and “Nobody respects me.” Doesn’t that strangely sound like guilt-tripping to you?

I’m no expert, so I can’t say for certain whether she’s being manipulative or not. I used to think that she has deep insecurities and genuinely believes that we don’t care about her if we aren’t doing what she wants us to do 24/7. But what I do know is that Ma’s behavior is harmful, hurtful and that if she doesn’t stop, it’s going to create a rift in our family.

Assuming it hasn’t already.

I’m a 19-year old young woman, Bro is 16 and Pa is a full-grown adult. We can make our own decisions, Ma, and we don’t need (or want) you controlling our lives all the time. 90% of the fights that occur within our household is because Ma said something insensitive and Pa got mad. I’ve been dealing with this for as long as I can remember. There’ll come a day when I’ll move out and cut my connections with Ma.

I’m praying I won’t ever have to do that.