A horrifying prospect
Dec. 21st, 2018 09:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
breathedoutAs I am preparing for my parents' upcoming visit (after our actual Christmas, which will be spent elsewhere), I keep remembering this exchange I had with my mother when I was six or seven.
Me: "Why are you cleaning more than usual? Don't you want Tutu and Grandad to get a picture of how we normally live?"
My mother, RIGHTFULLY AGHAST: "Honey. No. No!!"
Poor Mom.
This is not to imply that we normally lived in a horrible shambles, just that I now understand that the goal of this behavior is not to open one's habitat to anthropological field research, but to present one's life in its best light so that one's parents will (pick all that apply) (a) not worry, (b) be impressed with one's functional lifestyle, (c) get off one's back.
Me: "Why are you cleaning more than usual? Don't you want Tutu and Grandad to get a picture of how we normally live?"
My mother, RIGHTFULLY AGHAST: "Honey. No. No!!"
Poor Mom.
This is not to imply that we normally lived in a horrible shambles, just that I now understand that the goal of this behavior is not to open one's habitat to anthropological field research, but to present one's life in its best light so that one's parents will (pick all that apply) (a) not worry, (b) be impressed with one's functional lifestyle, (c) get off one's back.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-23 10:05 pm (UTC)