Daughter yearns for closer relationship
DEAR ABBY: My mother is extremely self-centered. Ever since I can remember, everything has always been about her. That’s probably why she and Dad split. You can’t have a conversation with her without her turning it around and making it about her.
I’m 25. I just want to have a regular conversation with my mom without her somehow bringing the mood down by saying she has demons to deal with on her own and she can’t be positive or happy for others.
Abby, there’s nothing wrong with her! She’s healthy, fit, has a wonderful job she claims to love, and friends she goes out with often and seems to have fun with. She’s out literally every weekend. I just don’t get why she never makes time for me or any of my siblings.
I’m afraid I’ll never have that mother/ daughter relationship. Maybe I wouldn’t care so much if I had another role model to confide in, but unfortunately, I have neither a mother nor a father figure in my life. My siblings and I have been cheated in the parent department
— a father who left us and a mother who thinks only of herself. Advice? — LOST SOUL IN OHIO
DEAR LOST SOUL: This may be of small comfort to you, but other readers over the years have described situations like your own. I’ll share with you what I have advised them.
Because your mother apparently feels her parenting job is finished, it’s time to build a “family” of your own.
Because you crave the wisdom an older woman can provide, consider doing some volunteer work for seniors, perhaps at a senior citizen center. Your efforts will be valued, and in a short time you may begin building relationships with more than one person who can assuage your emptiness while you fill a need in their lives, too.
DEAR ABBY: I have noticed a trend at children’s birthday parties. The children aren’t opening their presents at the party. Instead, the parents collect the gifts and take them home for the child to open later. To me, this seems rude and inconsiderate to the children who are attending the party. Part of the enjoyment of giving a gift is seeing the recipient’s response.
Please let me know the rule of etiquette in this matter. Am I correct in thinking that presents should be opened at children’s birthday parties in front of their guests? — GIFT ETIQUETTE
DEAR G.E.: No rule of etiquette decrees that gifts “must” be opened at the birthday party.
Because this trend bothers you, ask the parent of the birthday child why she or he has chosen to have the gifts opened afterward, because there may be more than one reason for it.
One that occurs to me might be that it’s a way of preventing embarrassment on the part of children who might not be able to afford a gift as expensive as some of the other children’s.