My mom is in her late 40s and got really into tarot and “mediumship” over the pandemic and she’s trying to turn the whole thing into a business but for now is just streaming on tiktok. She went through single motherhood with me, and is doing it again now with my much younger brothers (though their father is a bit more involved than mine was).
I just spent the first half of the year in unemployment after blowing most of my liquid savings on a down payment for a home. I’m in a stable enough job now and trying to get my life back on track, but I had a really difficult week last week and I was already feeling pretty shitty when she called. She spent some time trying to offer help but this is what it devolved into. So there’s greater context here but I’m gonna just cut to the part I’m stuck on and paraphrase a lot.
I tell her that after the hour I spend getting ready for work, another hour driving in each direction to work, and 8 hours at work, I only have 4-5 hours to take care of myself and my home, and I’m additionally stressed out because I haven’t been able to get there as early as they want me and I don’t have the support I need for the job I’m doing.
Mom: Yeah, it sucks, but you have to focus on yourself so that you can do it (she’s referring to the fact that I spend some time as a political organizer. Sometimes she acts supportive, other times she holds it against me like this, and I had already made the mistake of mentioning my responsibilities with the org as a source of stress.)
Me: I know it sucks, and I have to do it, but it’s not right. I don’t think anyone should have to live this way, which is why I care so much about politics. We don’t all need to be-
Mom: You can’t change that, you can only change your own life. You need to stop caring so much about other people and care more about yourself.
Me: But Mom, things are only going to get worse for us the more we disengage and-
Mom: There’s nothing we can do about it. Would you stop trying to preach to me? The whole world is just energy and reality isn’t real (she said this verbatim). I think spirituality would really help you, but I don’t force you to talk about it. You always get mad that I’m not doing anything but I can’t do anything and I already know everything you’re telling me. What’s the point in talking about this?
Me: I don’t get mad at you, you always assume I’m mad at you or arguing when I’m just trying to have a conversation. There’s always more things to know, nobody knows everything. I’m not asking you to do anything, I’m just asking you to engage in conversation with me because this is what I like to talk about. Things can and have-
Mom: Well there’s nothing I can do except maybe go to one of your rallies, and I’m not doing that.
Me: (having never invited her to any of my political stuff, because I already knew she wouldn’t show up) I’m not asking you to go anywhere, there are ways you can engage from home-
Mom: I don’t want to engage at all!
Me: Then how am I supposed to connect with you?
Mom: You don’t want to talk to me if it’s not about politics? You know I do everything for you, and you never call or offer to help me with the house or the boys (my two vastly younger brothers) or their good-for-nothing father (who moved out years ago but she is sharing custody with), even when you were making all that money at your last job. I don’t ask for help from anyone, because I know that no one is coming to save me. I’m just trying to make my life more comfortable for me.
Me: Yes, everyone has their own shit going on! Nothing is easy for anyone in this country and it’s only getting harder! You and I are both miserable and have nobody, just because I didn’t make the same mistakes you did doesn’t mean my life is any easier than yours or that I have anything more to spare!
Mom: I’m not miserable, I’m perfectly happy focusing on my own life. That’s just a mindset you have that you need to get rid of.
idk maybe this just comes off as an unhinged entitled rant but I needed to put this somewhere. I genuinely don’t know how to reach any sort of understanding or middle ground with my mother when she has unironically declared herself to be detached from reality and immediately jumps into a defensive posture at the first hint of a disagreement or feeling inadequate. (I suppose this defensiveness has been the one consistent thing about her, it’s why we don’t have much of a relationship in the first place. Any engagement from me that isn’t completely blowing smoke is generally taken as hostile; I guess that’s why she finds chatGPT so helpful in developing her “spirituality”).
I’m so deeply envious of folks with a stable and emotionally mature adult in their lives. Those of us that don’t, wanna talk about it? 
Yeah, I wasn’t trying to moralize about the comment or say you need to intervene in a situation where there’s almost certainly not much you can do.
Maybe your younger siblings, when they get a little older, will be able to help her? Because they’re presumably going to school, they interact with lots of people and that should hopefully at least partially inoculate them from this advanced AI psychosis. Maybe she’ll just dismiss them as ungrateful and ignorant children, but clinging to attitudes like that is harder the more the people surrounding you contradict it.
No worries, I know what you meant.
I’m more worried about them falling into the online manosphere gamergate pipeline, especially the older one who I swear gets into it with my mom just to feel something. They’re both around 10yo and all they’re interested in doing, at least when I’m around, is playing fortnite and other online games like roblox. When we visit with family they’re glued to their phones. There’s always a fight at bedtime, and probably in the morning before school just like there was with me. They already cuss like sailors in their game chats, repeating misogynist catchphrases and bullshit talking points about immigrants probably fed to them by some nazi chud they were playing with online.
They’re completely fueled by high-octane, short-term bursts of dopamine and the only discipline they have is whatever they’ve learned to cope with my mom’s outbursts; her parenting style is very much “bend and snap”, to the point that they don’t really respond to anything other than the “snap” part of that equation.
They’re good kids and they deserve a better childhood. My mom seems to think that means going on trips and having things, but that’s not at all what it means.
I’m sure that once they’re at an accessible age for it, if the whole LLM salt pillar doesn’t collapse by then, there won’t be many forces resisting their assimilation into the AI hivemind.
Maybe I’m being overly cynical and hyperbolic. To some extent yeah I get it, they’re kids, their frontal lobes aren’t fully developed and one way or another they are gonna find their way under your skin, but there has to be an adult in the situation that can see past a few hours from now and it can’t be them. It can’t be me either, god forbid I try to “mom” my mother’s children.
Idk. Maybe I’ll finally understand when I have kids of my own /s
Not that you asked. Sorry for the rant and thanks for reading.
No need to apologize, we’re just talking to each other. You’re right that my interpretation was over-optimistic and the more likely consequence of a lone parent being disconnected from reality is the kids going and being socialized only by other sources without anyone dedicated to being in their corner who actually has much authority to guide them constructively, meaning they’ll fall into lowest-common-denominator bullshit like you describe. They might grow out of it, but then what? All three aren’t left in a great place regardless.