Extended Family

Do you have any problems with your extended family, such as your mother's siblings? I don't understand why my mother has to force me to forgive and make things up with her brothers and sisters. In the past she used to force me through threats and lectures, but now she finds every single opportunity to either persuade (when she is in a good mood) or rebuke me.


I have always been blamed for whatever wrongdoings that their (i.e., my mother's younger brothers and sisters) children did, simply because I'm the eldest!! I was guilty either by actually doing what was forbidden or by "teaching" their children (i.e., my cousins) to behave badly! Another thing that they loved to do was belittling me and critizing me non-stop! My mother admitted that they were wrong and RUDE!! But she has NEVER stood to my defence. She simply kept quiet and did not even clarify that I was not to be blamed. Her reason was because there was no point in defending me and that she did not like to stand up for her own kid, otherwise people would think that she was just being biased. She told me that she knew I did not do what the others had accused me of doing and this should be enough.


I have stopped seeing my uncles and aunties (the younger siblings) since 18. But I saw them again last year at my grandmother's funeral. The moment I saw them, all the hurts and terrible childhood memories came back to haunt me. So after we had settled my grandmother's funeral, I stopped seeing them again. My mother got very angry and again rebuked me for not forgiving her siblings and for bearing grudges for so long.


But my biggest problem is the matter has never really been solved because my mother has always refused to face it! Even now when I am almost 30 years old, her siblings are still behaving like their old selves! Last year, I needed a surgery in the town where two of my mother's elder sisters lived (they are not living in the same town as the rest of us and we seldom interacted because they live so far away from us so the "avoiding the extended family" doesn't apply to them). But she "reported" me to my mother whenever I refused to listen to her (e.g., going to the washroom when I didn't feel like peeing, wearing a jacket when I was sweating, telling the doctor the exact date of my last month's period when I truly and honestly couldn't remember, etc.). Not only did she not tell my mom the whole story of why I did not listen to her, but she also tended to exaggerate.

GOSH!!! I WAS 26 YEARS OLD THEN, NOT 2 YEARS AND HALF!!!!


GOD!! With an extended family like them, why should I see them?

Is this a Chinese thing? Why must we be with our extended family if we are not happy with them? My mother refuses to understand and always forces me to make up with her siblings. She may even make this her last wish and I'll probably feel guilty all my life about refusing to fulfil her last wish.

Some people allow their relatives to treat them in ways which would cause the best of friends to fall out.


I don't come from a culture which advocates filial piety as strongly as, say, the Chinese culture does. Therefore, what I might suggest a person from culture to do may not be adviseable for you.


I would say though is to drop the guilt. It's easily to guilty when it comes to mothers. They can do it well because they installed the 'buttons'. You should not feel guilty because you do not do what your mother tells you. You are an adult - a 30 year old adult - with your own life to follow. If she asked to you shave your head and tattoo her face on it, you wouldn't. Because it's not what you want. Ok, an extreme example. But it's about boundaries and it's time you drew some of your own.


No one - not even family - has a 'right' to make you feel bad about yourself. Start thinking about the boundaries you want to introduce. How about only X, Y and Z may visit you in hospital? Or not attending family functions if A, B or C will be there?


Build your own family, one of a few very good close friends (think a Sex in the City girl group) who will like you for you are.

See...I see a clear difference in how Westeners (including you both and my Western friends) and my mother's side/people grown up in HK react to the situation. My mother has always criticized me for being too "Westernized" and showing no respect for her and her siblings, but what she means by "respect" is "total submission".

I'm a bit like that with my mother's family as well. Just as well I now live in Shanghai and I don't need to see them anymore.


While I was growing up, I felt sorry for my cousins as anything they did or didn't do, they had to answer to my mother's entire family. I'm lucky in that my dad never stood for that. Now that I have a son, my mother seems to think that my son as to answer to her entire family as well, I soon put a stop to that.

Turtle1, are you Chinese? I'd like to know if only Chinese mothers/family are like that? Very unreasonable, I would say.

Yes, I'm Chinese. My mother is a very traditional Chinese woman whereas my dad is more western.

I think my mother is already less traditional than most of the other mothers, including my aunties. She is very open about new ideas in the sense that she will not forbid me to do something even though she may not agree with what I am doing, except for the "avoiding the extended family" decision. She also respect my decision and my privacy and will not force me to tell her things that I do not want to disclose, unlike her sister (the one who forced me to go pee when I didn't want to, etc.) who forced me to tell her things that I thought were very personal!!! Of course, I refused to tell her and guess what happened then? She reported me to my mother, telling her that I was being very disobedient!!! And I was TWENTY-SIX YEARS OLD AT THAT TIME!!! My mom only kept quiet and later on when we had the time to discuss the issue, both my mother and myself found it unbelievable (read we both found her "abnormal") that she would force me to tell her everything.


Why is it so difficult to BE a Chinese?