I Don't Think My Mother is Stupid

I don't think my mother is stupid.

But I do think she is against learning new things. If something doesn't fit into her framework of how the world was in the 1950s, it couldn't possibly be true or valid or good. And of course her vision of what life was like when she was young is not necessarily reflective of how other people experienced that time period. What I'm trying to say is that she lives in a world of her own making, and chooses not to allow reality to change the way she acts. Or the way she expects me to act.

For example, at some point yesterday I told her and my dad that my husband and I and our son would be going to see a movie on the beach on Sunday night, if they were interested in joining us. (I did not actually want them to come, I was just being polite. However, I did not ask it in a way that it was obvious I was just being polite.) She gave me her typical noncommittal answer which always makes me feel like she doesn't want to accept because something better come along. Or alternatively she won't be satisfied until I BEG her to accompany me by letting her know how I couldn't possibly enjoy it without her there with me. Neither of these makes me feel good.

Then this afternoon when she asked me why I wasn't having dinner at my sister's house (which is none of her business, by the way), and I told her because we were going to the movie on the beach, she said "I thought that was last night." Well if it was, we missed it. She treats me like I'm an idiot becasue didn't I know the movie was last night? But I never said it was last night. She just heard it that way.

Then she told me it would be alright if I want to leave my son with her if he didn't want to go to the movies. I was completely puzzled, we'd gone to the movies at the beach last year as a family and enjoy it, and I couldn't understand why she would think I would want to go see a kids' movie by myself with my son didn't want to go. The whole point of going to the movie was that it was a family thing and it was a kids' movie. She acted as if she had no idea what movies on the beach were. I told her "Well I told you yesterday it was movies on the beach." She said "yes I know it's movies on the beach" So why did she not know that movies on the beach meant movies on the beach?

This is one talking about. I don't know how to communicate with her.