I see this as a great achievement.
I am so glad I do not talk about strangers really loudly whilst they are sitting next to me, critcise characters on TV who are not even real, and gossip about the marriages of relatives of friends of cousins who I have never met and will never meet.
There are only ever two topics of conversation for my mother. Religion and marriage. I ring her up to see how she is, and all I hear is, “Aunty so and so’s daughter’s husband’s sisters niece is getting married to Uncle Mike’s sister’s son in Washington. Why are you not married? What is wrong with you? Even lesbians are getting married now.
I wanted to tell her about all the countries I’d been to lately, how my tour had just come to an end and how I had a great show in Essex last week. Then I realise, she won’t be interested, she doesn’t care, she can’t even comprehend the world that I live in. She just wants some grandchildren that she will never see, is too old to look after, but needs to compete with her friends who have at least 22 each.
I see pictures in celebrity magazines of grown ups going on holiday with their parents, and I think, ‘They look like they’re having a great time. I wonder what on earth they’re talking about?’
I heard some girls at the train station the other day talking and one of them said, “What are you doing at the weekend?”
“My mum and I going shopping and then we’re going for a meal”
People are hanging out with their mums!
I have a few things in common with my dad, but he’s very good at being formal. He can turn having a cup of tea into a boardroom event.
It’s always very serious. Even when were watching The Kardashians on TV, he watched it as though it was CNN.
I look back and realise, that from the age of about 17 I probably didn’t have much to say to my mother. Just because they’re you’re parents it doesn’t mean you have to share interests or even like each other!
I do like them, but we really have nothing in common. I see this as an evolution; as a development. I no longer inherit their views, opinions, and values on life. I see this as me being totally my own person, and that is very liberating.
Thankfully I am not holding onto medieval views that are totally irrelevant in this day. I have moved on to be interested in the useless, which is what is relevant. Celebrities, gallivanting round the world having fun with people I don’t know and have no attachment to, and earning enough money to buy another pair of shoes.
Sometimes it’s a generational thing. Whether they are your parents or not, a 70 year old man or woman may not have much to talk about to someone of 35 – whether in a shop, a bus stop or a sauna.
Although recently, I met a couple of 60 on holiday who were more fun than anyone I’ve ever been out with and I forgot about their age and just had a great time. They had some ‘parent type views’ but they really had moved with the times. So they knew all about reality TV and Fifty Shades of Grey and they both still slept in the same room.
The realisation that I have nothing in common with my parents is a great moment. I am now finally free. I no longer spout rubbish to people on planes, about how no one has any morals, and why women must never wear mini skirts.
Each to their own. In fact I think I’ve gone too far the other way. I don’t care what anyone does, what anyone says, and everybody should do as they please.
My children will probably end up being terrorists.