And now I am angry with my mother (again)

Hi guys, I'm writing this despite the fact that I have already prepared another piece but there are times when I have to get something off my chest. My mother said something really awful to me today, often I let her get away with her bullshit because I know she's both stupid and completely uneducated, so when she says something really ignorant I just let it go. But allow me to share with you the story I told her today. I'm afraid I cannot give you the full context for this story as I need to protect the victim involved in this story. Jiayi (obviously not her real name but she is my friend) is a young lady from China who studied at one of the UK's top universities and upon graduation, she managed to find a job in a prestigious company in the financial services sector which happens to deal with the Chinese market, hence it seemed like the perfect job for her. She worked in marketing, dealing with their marketing campaigns in both English and Mandarin - Jiayi enjoyed her job very much. Late last year, she was invited to a client event in London. Jiayi knew that this client was very important to her company so she tried her best to be as friendly as possible with everyone there, knowing that she was representing her company at the event. So this creepy old man whom we shall call Mr Fat (since he is very fat and I can't use his real name) got very frisky with Jiayi - this placed her in a very difficult position. She found Mr Fat totally repulsive but felt obliged to be friendly with him. At the event, Mr Fat got very drunk - he cornered her against the wall and forcefully kissed her, pressing his body against her. Luckily for her, one of Mr Fat's colleagues saw what happened and stepped in to stop Mr Fat, Jiayi took the chance to slip away; she is still traumatized by the incident. 

Jiayi didn't dare tell her boss what had happened because she felt scared that it may upset her boss that something like that happened at the event. Mr Fat was so drunk he had really no recollection of what happened - I found out that Mr Fat had a reputation of getting very drunk and then doing stupid things like that, other allegations have been made about Mr Fat before by others. So I told my mother what happened and my mother's reaction was, "well he (Mr Fat) couldn't have been that drunk - he still could pick out the most pretty girl to attack and he wasn't just attacking any ugly old bitch." I was so totally mortified at what my mother said, I told her that she should be totally ashamed of herself for coming up with words like that. My mother has two daughters, how would she feel if it had been her daughter who had been sexually assaulted at work like that? My mother then said that Jiayi was probably 'asking for it', that women like that probably dress like sluts and flirt with men because they want attention but this will only lead to them being raped. This couldn't be further from the truth in the case of Jiayi - on the day in question, Jiayi's attire was very modest and formal, she was dressed for business at the event. I never suggested that Jiayi's attire was inappropriate but that was something my mother had assumed. The concept of 'victim blaming' when it comes to sexual assault is totally abhorrent to me but my mother seemed to be only too keen to place the blame on Jiayi for what happened. There was no compassion, no empathy - my mother is not capable of any of that. I didn't give my mother any information that suggested that Jiayi was in any way at all responsible for what happened that day, but those were the conclusions my mother jumped to anyway. 

I criticize my mother a lot on my blog and often I wonder if it makes me look like a monster to be that critical of my mother when my mother is totally uneducated and thus does stupid shit very often. I wonder if people think that children should be unconditionally forgiving when it comes to their parents' flaws and mistakes But if anyone had that little empathy and compassion towards Jiayi after what happened to her, I would say, "you're dead to me, I don't need someone as selfish and heartless as you in my life. I never wanna see you again and I never want to talk to you again." But what do I do if that person was my own mother? I have standards when it comes to picking my friends - I expect them to have basic decency and be capable of compassion, sympathy and kindness. My mother lacks all of that and falls way below the standards I set for my own friends. She only irks me once in a while via Skype when I speak to my sister and I have no idea how my sister puts up with my mother. What made my mother react in this manner towards Jiayi then? Is it straightforward jealousy? Jiayi is young, pretty, highly educated and has a good job. My mother is old enough to be Jiayi's grandmother for crying out aloud, can she actually be jealous of someone that much younger despite never having met Jiayi before? Or is this my mother having this old-fashioned misconception that decent girls never get sexually assaulted, only immoral women who behave inappropriately end up in such situations. Even if she believed that theory, couldn't she discern that Jiayi was sexually assaulted at work and her employers do have a duty of care to prevent this?!

One thing I have learnt over the years is that I can't change my mother, I can't cure her stupidity and in this case, I can't cure her wicked, unkind nature. I'm struggling to figure out how she ended up like that, devoid of any compassion. I suppose a theory is that she had a really terrible childhood - she suffered so much poverty as a child, her family was so poor. When my mother was around seven years old, she watched both her sister and father die of pneumonia and the family was just too freaking poor to afford the medical care necessary to save them. My mother spent most of her childhood starving, unable to study because she was so hungry. She really resented and hated the other children whose parents were able to feed and clothe them properly; she got no birthday gifts, there were no celebrations at Chinese new year and yeah - if you wanna talk about a fucking miserable childhood, oh goodness me, the amount of suffering she went through was just off the scale. I suppose that could account for her selfishness - when you lived in that kind of extreme abject poverty, you learn not to share. If you came across a piece of bread, you took it to a quiet place where no one can see you, then you ate it really quickly. If you're dumb enough to let others know you have bread, then they will snatch it out of your hands because they're equally hungry and you'll be left with nothing. Thus learning to be selfish is a means of survival when you're that poor - you simply don't have the luxury to share and be generous when you have everything to lose and nothing to gain by sharing what little you have. Thus being very selfish served her well in those days and it has become second nature to her; in that kind of harsh environment, you were forced to be selfish to survive. 

But then again, I wasn't asking my mother to part with any of her money in the case of Jiayi - I was asking her to show compassion to Jiayi. It wasn't even as if my mother was ever going to meet Jiayi, as my mother is in Singapore and Jiayi lives in London. It wouldn't cost my mother a penny just to say something nice like, "do you know if Jiayi is okay? If she needs to speak to someone about it, perhaps you could find an older female friend who could speak to Jiayi?" That's why I always point out that it often costs you nothing to react in such a situation in a nice way, to be compassionate and kind - saying such words are for free. If anything, Jiayi doesn't need money right now: no, in fact what she needs are friends to make sure she is okay and to give her the kind of emotional support she needs to get through this traumatic episode. So even if my mother is by nature very selfish when it comes to sharing her money, this still doesn't explain why she simply jumped to the conclusion that Jiayi was 'asking for it'. And as for that other comment that Mr Fat was not that drunk and was still able to attack the prettiest girl and not some ugly bitch - I had to share that just to demonstrate how incredibly stupid my mother is. Even if that awful thought did cross her mind, I swear anyone with even a little bit of common sense would censor themselves instead of blurting out the first thing that came to mind. She didn't think, "ah but my son would be very offended if I said something like that about his friend, so I had better not say that." No, she has verbal diarrhea, there's no self-control at all and she says the most offensive things without once thinking of the consequences. Can she play the stupidity card in this case, or is this another case of awful social skills or a reflection of my mother's upbringing? 

I really care about the people in my life. Whilst I don't know Jiayi all that well, when I found out about what happened to her, I was both shocked and concerned. There is one precious lesson that I have learn through my gymnastics - I accept that I will never be the best gymnast around, but I can always be the most helpful, most supportive and kindest person in the gymnastics club. My regular readers will know that I am an unpaid volunteer at my gymnastics club and that's where I strive to be the most helpful, most support and kindest volunteer there - actually I'm the only unpaid volunteer there. The other coaches who are there are paid, they teach gymnastics to pay the bills, to put food on the table whilst I'm doing it because I love gymnastics, But I get so much in return because the gymnasts in my class really give me so much love and appreciation when they realize I'm doing all that as a volunteer, expecting absolutely nothing in return. I don't want to be the man to die with the most money, but I want to be the man to die with the most friends and over the years, I've figured out how to make friends and make people like you. I'm 45 now and it has taken me many, many years to learn the art of making friends but thankfully, after a lot of practice I'm pretty good at it and thus showing that you care about others (as in the case of Jiayi) is a very basic requirement to get people to know that you're a kind and caring person. Conversely, when you show a certain selfishness by ignoring the plight of others like Jiayi, it can make you come across as a really nasty and wicked person - even within the context of a gymnastics club, it can become evident pretty quickly. 

I remember an incident when one of my gymnasts broke her arm. Not only did she break two bones between her elbow and her wrist, she had also dislocated the elbow. I could only imagine the amount of pain she was in and so immediately, I moved her away from the apparatus onto a mat away from where everyone else was training. When something like that happened, you could clearly see that she was injured, in a lot of pain and crying. I had one gymnast Nadine who just stopped training and she stayed with the injured gymnast until the ambulance arrived two hours later, keeping her calm. She didn't have to do that but Nadine is such a kind and caring person, she has a heart of gold. Then there's this other young guy who was totally oblivious to what had happened and he just went up to the injured gymnast, ignored the fact that she was in so much pain and said, "can you move? I want to use the mat you're sitting on." Oh I totally lost my temper with him - I rarely ever raise my voice in the gym but on that occasion, I shouted at him because he was only thinking about himself, he chose to ignore the fact that someone else was injured and that's when I thought, okay that's the kind of person you are, you're dead to me. When it then finally dawned on him that I wasn't going to let him have the mat that the injured gymnast was sitting on, he was like, okay I'll just go get another mat then. He was completely incapable of showing any kind of compassion towards the injured gymnast and that's a really ugly manifestation of selfishness. I like people like Nadine but my mother is a selfish person like that young guy who simply couldn't be bothered about the injured gymnast. I want to care about my mother, however she's not making it easy for me to do that. 

I don't like making excuses for my mother's selfish behaviour but I do have a theory. Basically, I have found it a lot easier for me to offer compassion to others before because I owe so many strangers a debt of gratitude over the years. Many people have been extremely kind to me in the past and I know the difference it has made in my life - I owe them all a huge debt of gratitude of course. I can never ever repay all of these incredibly kind people so I feel obliged to always show compassion to others and that's my way of repaying this debt of kindness. I was a working class kid from a very messed up family and without all the help I received along the way, I would not be where I am today if I was reliant entirely on my own efforts. My mother however, was not so lucky. She had a terribly difficult childhood and got no help, no charity, no kindness - she got nothing and thus by that token, it is harder for her to be compassionate because she would simply turn around and say, "did anyone show me any sympathy or compassion when my father died? I was only seven years old then, who felt sorry for me? Was anybody there for me when I was crying? Nobody cared about me, I had to take care of myself. So if I didn't get any help, why should I offer help to others?" The price she pays for not showing compassion to others is a very high one - she comes across as wicked and selfish, or whatever the opposite of compassionate is. She may feel justified in not being compassionate to those less fortunate than her but at what cost? My mother is a very old woman today, I know I can't change her, I can't make her a better person but I can neither condone nor accept her total lack of compassion. So then, I'm asking you - what would you do if you were in my shoes? 

So there you go, that's it from me on this issue and what do you think? What would you do if Jiayi was your friend and you found out what happened to her then? And what would you have said to me if I told you that very same story? How do we even begin to account for my mother's uncaring response? What would you do if a family member came up with such a response? Why is it necessary to get people to believe we're caring and nice? If compassion is 100% free, if it costs absolutely nothing to say something nice, why do some people choose to be so stingy with their compassion then and have you ever met anyone like my mother before? Please do leave a comment below and many thanks for reading.