I'm refusing to immediately obey my parents and it is causing waves. I don't want to be ungrateful or unhelpful but I will not drop what I'm doing to obey every beck and call from my parents. Dad is getting better. He asked me to wash the front windows before he popped the screens in and told me I could do it whenever. He's trying to respect me as an adult with my own schedule. Mom is still stuck in her ways. This morning, I was eating brunch before my shift at the library and mom came home with groceries. My mom doesn't know how to be specific, I don't think she's ever given an explicit direction or request in her life. But I'm used to this.
"There's more in the car," she said over her shoulder before walking back out of the house. I have had two glorious years of uninterrupted morning routines and now that I'm home, I can't have them anymore. She fully expected me to put my toast down, close my laptop, and fetch most of everything from the car as appreciation for her shopping. And I decided not to. Firstly, she didn't even ask anything of me. Secondly, I had thirty minutes until I needed to leave and that thirty minutes is mine.
But she tried again. "There's stuff in the car for you to get when you are done." Again. No request. Although more direct than her usual comments. I put my toast down and got the items from the car, grabbed my toast and laptop, and retreated to my room. They wonder why I hole up in here. I felt guilty for not helping her put everything away. But I forced myself to continue eating at the speed I wanted to go.
My parents didn't follow the abusive "To Train up A Child" book but they did believe in authoritarian parenting. Immediate obedience. No questioning of authority (whatever the fuck that actually means). I was so obedient I didn't tell them I was struggling to breath because they were busy. They got mad at me for not telling them when they noticed my heaving and we went off to the doctor's but, I'm not supposed to interrupt them. And I was supposed to put my shoes on, not explain these new asthmatic symptoms. They weren't super strict on the authoritarian parenting and punishing for hesitations, they did a lot of grace/forgiving... but this grace upset me more than anything else as I had no idea when my "sins" would lead to a long ass, loud lecture or if they would let is slide.
For the first time in my life I'm respecting myself and my priorities. I'm self-advocating. I'm actually taking care of myself. I am grateful for everything my parents do for me and I don't have to show that gratitude the ways they want. If mom asked me to go shopping with her, and I wasn't busy with school or had other plans, I would go and help unload the cart and the car and load up the fridge. I didn't refuse her to be petulant (although I'm sure she thinks I'm an awful millennial ungrateful brat). I live here too. I matter, too.
9.4.17 Update-
I tried again, I stuck my heels in. It didn't go well. Our washer is broken again (this is my curse of Cane, every washing machine I'm near breaks) and mom had to lug stuff to the laundry mat. She was flustered and made a comment under her breath about how I wasn't doing anything (I was checking my school email and had just finished deep cleaning the bathroom and scrubbing the tub but all she saw was a selfish millennial on social media). "You could help," she added. I told her yes I could but I need to be asked, I can't read your mind.
I don't want her to feel like a bad mom for not communicating. I want her to communicate. But instead she felt like a bad mom over me expressing a REASONABLE boundary. She did list off a few things she wanted me to do, though, so I did "win." My ENTIRE childhood and adolescence, I thought it was me. I thought I wasn't obedient and respectful. It never even dawned on me that my parents, mom in particular, do not COMMUNICATE their expectations. I had to study their body language and tone, evaluate what their schedules were to deduce when they probably wanted stuff to be completed. I did not feel safe enough to ask their expectations for fear of another lecture.
Yesterday I was with a friend, and she made an off-color comment. I racked my brain for twenty minutes searching for what social faux pas I had broken before asking her what she meant. I had interpreted her comment totally out of context and she didn't mean to sound pointed at me. I do this all the time and it's exhausting. I re-evaluate what I say to cashiers and their responses for fear I did something wrong and could "earn" being yelled at. I tried so hard as a child to avoid and suppress and make myself as small as possible, all for not. Now I'm embracing myself, my tone, my bluntness, and I'm actually getting somewhere and feeling like I deserve to be wherever it is that I am. I won't apologize (unless mom tells me X made her feel Y, none of this I'ma apologize whenever I think that's what she wants).