![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Spending time around Ben's family always reminds me how working class I am. I hate it.
I see pictures of the 2-week trip to Hawaii they took when Ben was about 13 and his brother was 6, where his mom talked to their teachers to let them be taken out of school for an extra week and they had to keep a diary of what they did and what they learned. And the trip to Australia before Ben's brother was born.
I hear stories about various summer educational experiences they had, what they learned at camp, how they were encouraged in pursuit of knowledge. Everything with her is educational. His parents critiqued a ride at Disney World because it wasn't "accurate." THAT WASN'T THE POINT ffs.
All it does is remind me that I had a shitty life as a working class piece of shit, whose only encouragement toward education came from her teachers; whose own fucking mother refused to allow her into the gifted & talented program (with the explanation, when I asked her later why, that "you would be made fun of in G&T." I wish I were joking.); whose mother didn't understand why she wanted to go to college; who never received support for building a career or even fucking KNEW that support was available.
I honestly believed that you had to do everything on your own, without asking for help--because no one ever told me you COULD ask for help. Mentoring was as foreign an idea as living on Pluto.
Now that I'm working to become a teacher, she tells me "go out and make contacts" as if it's some magical incantation, or something that you ~just know~ how to do.
She asked about the friends Ben and I are staying with in Berlin for 2 days before everyone else shows up, how I knew them, and whether they were "good, upstanding, employed" types of people; you know, trustworthy. (Also she said "my mother would be nervous" about staying with "strangers" from the internet; I think that's her roundabout way of saying that *she's* nervous.) So I had to justify to her why one of them doesn't work but is regardless trustworthy. I didn't mention that they're both women and are dating/engaged.
Equating trustworthy with employed is seriously bullshit. I'm not gainfully employed. I said that later, and she said, "But you have a plan." My "plan" is to keep writing and maybe someday someone will like something I write enough to give me money for it. Then she said about the teaching, which isn't really a good plan, because there's not really much call for it around here.
(This is where "build a network of contacts" came in, you see.) She said I should "just" contact people at the university to ask if there are students who need tutoring. (College students get tutors? Seriously? Also, that's what grad students are for, not some Jane Shmoe.) I should also "just" ask around and make contacts.
I get more frustrated every time I interact with his parents (though I've gotten to the point with his father that I just roll my eyes and swear a lot when he starts being "every statement you make in a discussion over the dinner table must be 100% accurate and I will pick at the points that aren't 100% accurate and attack your statements" ffs dinner table discussions aren't peer-reviewed papers; they're off the cuff).
I try talking about this with Ben, but he just sits there and sort of grunts. Or says nothing while I wait for him to hold up his side of the conversation. Which is doubly frustrating.
But he doesn't understand at all the point I'm trying to make, which is that class markers are learned culture, and you can't lose them. I tried analogizing it to moving to another country and being able to adapt to the local customs and manners but still being an American* at heart, but even that didn't work. He didn't seem to grasp the difference between internal and external.
*The analogy I flailed to, at midnight when thoroughly exhausted yet unable to sleep, used Workingclass Land and Middleclass Land.
*flail* Argh. All I can do at this point is just get up and leave when discussions of things that bring out my inner ragemonster happen.
I see pictures of the 2-week trip to Hawaii they took when Ben was about 13 and his brother was 6, where his mom talked to their teachers to let them be taken out of school for an extra week and they had to keep a diary of what they did and what they learned. And the trip to Australia before Ben's brother was born.
I hear stories about various summer educational experiences they had, what they learned at camp, how they were encouraged in pursuit of knowledge. Everything with her is educational. His parents critiqued a ride at Disney World because it wasn't "accurate." THAT WASN'T THE POINT ffs.
All it does is remind me that I had a shitty life as a working class piece of shit, whose only encouragement toward education came from her teachers; whose own fucking mother refused to allow her into the gifted & talented program (with the explanation, when I asked her later why, that "you would be made fun of in G&T." I wish I were joking.); whose mother didn't understand why she wanted to go to college; who never received support for building a career or even fucking KNEW that support was available.
I honestly believed that you had to do everything on your own, without asking for help--because no one ever told me you COULD ask for help. Mentoring was as foreign an idea as living on Pluto.
Now that I'm working to become a teacher, she tells me "go out and make contacts" as if it's some magical incantation, or something that you ~just know~ how to do.
She asked about the friends Ben and I are staying with in Berlin for 2 days before everyone else shows up, how I knew them, and whether they were "good, upstanding, employed" types of people; you know, trustworthy. (Also she said "my mother would be nervous" about staying with "strangers" from the internet; I think that's her roundabout way of saying that *she's* nervous.) So I had to justify to her why one of them doesn't work but is regardless trustworthy. I didn't mention that they're both women and are dating/engaged.
Equating trustworthy with employed is seriously bullshit. I'm not gainfully employed. I said that later, and she said, "But you have a plan." My "plan" is to keep writing and maybe someday someone will like something I write enough to give me money for it. Then she said about the teaching, which isn't really a good plan, because there's not really much call for it around here.
(This is where "build a network of contacts" came in, you see.) She said I should "just" contact people at the university to ask if there are students who need tutoring. (College students get tutors? Seriously? Also, that's what grad students are for, not some Jane Shmoe.) I should also "just" ask around and make contacts.
I get more frustrated every time I interact with his parents (though I've gotten to the point with his father that I just roll my eyes and swear a lot when he starts being "every statement you make in a discussion over the dinner table must be 100% accurate and I will pick at the points that aren't 100% accurate and attack your statements" ffs dinner table discussions aren't peer-reviewed papers; they're off the cuff).
I try talking about this with Ben, but he just sits there and sort of grunts. Or says nothing while I wait for him to hold up his side of the conversation. Which is doubly frustrating.
But he doesn't understand at all the point I'm trying to make, which is that class markers are learned culture, and you can't lose them. I tried analogizing it to moving to another country and being able to adapt to the local customs and manners but still being an American* at heart, but even that didn't work. He didn't seem to grasp the difference between internal and external.
*The analogy I flailed to, at midnight when thoroughly exhausted yet unable to sleep, used Workingclass Land and Middleclass Land.
*flail* Argh. All I can do at this point is just get up and leave when discussions of things that bring out my inner ragemonster happen.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2013-12-27 02:38 am (UTC)From:Now that I'm working to become a teacher, she tells me "go out and make contacts" as if it's some magical incantation, or something that you ~just know~ how to do.
Ahaha ha ha ha. This is my mother's favourite piece of 'advice', and yep, it is singularly useless! Akin to telling someone that winning a marathon is easy, because all you need to do is "go out and run" - ignoring that nobody can run a marathon without a lot of training, and understanding of structure and pacing, et cetera. *sighs deeply*
Best of luck in either gritting your teeth or finding a very simple way of communicating!
no subject
Date: 2013-12-27 02:32 pm (UTC)From:I just remembered upon reading this that my MIL doesn't understand the point of LinkedIn and refuses to join. !!!!! IT'S HOW YOU MAKE CONTACTS WTF She says "well people can just google me." But that's not the point of LinkedIn *flail*
no subject
Date: 2013-12-26 09:07 pm (UTC)From:...long winded way of saying I totally feel your pain, and for lack of good advice, *hugs*
no subject
Date: 2013-12-26 09:17 pm (UTC)From:I can't imagine having to schmooze with anyone, let alone upper class people. I'd freeze in terror, not knowing how I'm supposed to go about it. I'm imagining some Mitt Romney clone talking about his second house in the Poconos or wherever the trendy rich people place is. And he calls it a "cottage" or a "bungalow." Gah.