Thread by @nyeogmi, "family" was a bad idea it's like a permanent game of Monopoly [...]

"family" was a bad idea

it's like a permanent game of Monopoly that you're never allowed to leave

and if you return to the table five years later, they'll say "we took your hotels off Boardwalk, I hope you don't mind" and "you owe us $4,000 in rent."

so much of the stuff family does is transactional

you're expected to pay for it by honoring whatever the agreed-upon myth is supposed to be

if you don't, those costs become explicit, sometimes even monetary

there's always a couch open, provided you say mom's apple pie _is_ the best and friendship _does_ transcend politics

if you, a twenty-four-year-old, can fit into your old twelve-year-old clothing and speak in your old twelve-year-old voice, we might just smile and laugh when you say things we can't account for

we'll literally tip our heads backwards so we can look down our noses at you when you voice opinions we can't account for in our limited backwards system

it's kindly requested that you refrain from talking about the outside world while you're in this one

the only window in the house is in mom's room and she will tell you what she sees

i don't have any interest in trying to compete in a board game the parents learned from TV which they've been playing their entire life ever since

i get that this is just what the family does, and part of the fiction of the family and conservatism as a whole is that there aren't any other games

and if you went anywhere else the game would be something unfamiliar and you'd owe them even more in rent

and it's causally treated as absurd that for real adults there's not this purely fictional monolith at the center of all events, called "the family"

like what the fuck are you asking me to step into my old pajamas for

you're still wearing yours for Dad

(i'm likely to get up from this and go back to having a pretty good evening, but right now on this specific issue I'm having a pretty bad one)

uh to clarify the thing i'm metaphoring about:

i think the whole "family" thing is super juvenile the same way Santa Claus is, and you're encourage to act in an age-regressed way to make the shitty mythology work, and so is Mom

i'm trying to be eloquent about this because it doesn't feel good to confront this head-on and i like imagining there's some smart, terse way of putting this, because just writing my earnest feelings makes me feel like they're stupid

i think an incredible amount of family mythology stuff is about the idea that nothing outside the family can ever be the same as it is when it happens inside the family

grandma's cookies are the best; so's grandma's sweater, grandma's clothing

like the subtext of this shit is that anything you're seeing now is stuff you're not allowed to compare to anything that happens outside

you're not supposed to have words for this and you're not supposed to account for this with your adult brain and your adult concepts

it's the type of uncritical magical thinking you're supposed to have learned an alternative to by age 7

maybe I'll play Family for an evening or two as an adult

the idea that I'm expected to play it for the rest of my life? absolutely fucking infuriating

i get that the draw of this fucked up, oppressive institution is that maybe someday you won't be at the bottom of the hierarchy

maybe someone will have to respect you because you knocked up their mom or their dad knocked you up

nobody should have to participate in a hierarchy

to the extent that your kid has to, realize they didn't fucking choose this and the only reason you're on top and they're not is because you got a twenty-year head start

you should be lucky if your kid sees you as more than a literal prison warden because if you can't respect their autonomy that's what you fucking are

the coda of this is that i don't hate my parents (although there are a lot of things they did which i disapprove of)

i think the institution of parenting is pretty fucked and the cultural concepts that entitle parents to special standing are fucked too

i've got a deep level of suspicion for anyone who's over twenty and buys into that pyramid scheme

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