Lack of Empathy
I just realized last year just how many of my mother’s “funny childhood stories” about me involve me crying. Like 90% of them. I don’t think she understands just how bad it makes her look, either.
For reference, a “funny” story from someone’s childhood doesn’t normally include that person crying from actual pain, serious injury, distress, or betrayal of their trust.
It certainly shouldn’t include you laughing at them while they cry about those things instead of comforting them or getting them help.
An actually funny story from my childhood: At around eight or nine, I had somehow come to the conclusion that “gluteus maximus” (a term my gym teacher often used instead of “butts”) was actually “bootius maximus,” and this is where the word “booty” came from.
This made such complete sense to me that it was somehow a major part of my worldview…Until one day in gym when I fell on my butt doing gymnastics. The teacher asked if I was alright. I said the dumbest thing ever. I said, “Yeah, I just fell on my bootius maximus.” She went, “What?”
I replied, “My bootius maximus. You know, my butt?” My gym teacher, valiantly choking back laughter, probably to spare my feelings, said, “Um. It’s gluteus maximus. With a G.” I was indignant. “No, it’s not! It’s bootius maximus! As in booty!” “No, I promise you, it’s gluteus.”
I felt like nothing in the world made sense anymore. Outraged, I howled, “BUT WHERE DOES THE WORD BOOTY COME FROM THEN?!” This teacher, who was normally no-nonsense, started laughing uproariously.
She had to call over another teacher to cover for her while she left for a few minutes to compose herself. She kept bursting into giggles every time she looked at me for the rest of the period. I think I probably made her semester. But my mother’s idea of a funny story from my childhood was much different.
When I was about 11 or 12, we had two large, wonderful dogs. Both were mutts. The female, about three years old at the time, was beautiful, with thick black fur, incredibly patient, and smart as a whip. She was honestly smarter than most people I’ve known.
The male was about a year old, golden-red fur, also beautiful, very protective of me, and dumb as a bag of bricks. He was a good boy, he just didn’t have a lot going on upstairs. So my mom would sometimes give the dogs ham bones after most of the meat was off it, but they could only have them outside.
We lived in a place that gets very hot in the summer, so Female Dog would often try to sneak in with the bones (remember, thick black fur) to chew them in the air conditioning, where all the family was.
We were sitting in the living room watching a movie one day, and my brother let the dogs in. Female Dog settles down by me on the floor and slowly starts chewing the bone she snuck in, hoping no one will notice. It took a couple of minutes, but mom finally noticed.
Instead of telling me to make the dog go back outside, my mom said, “Hey, go take that bone out of her mouth and throw it outside.” Now, I was 11 or 12, and I had never, ever seen this dog be aggressive to people, and I was raised to be unquestioningly obedient and trusting of my mother.
So I just said, “Ok!” and stuck my fingers into my dog’s mouth to pry the bone out from between her teeth. Now, I want to reiterate that this was an awesome dog. She was sweet and patient and smart, and willing to put up with a lot of her human’s nonsense.
But every dog has their limit, and this was hers. She didn’t snap or even break the skin much. She got my thumb between the bone and her tooth, and bit down just enough to teach me a lesson and make sure I wouldn’t be doing anything that stupid again, and then released it. The skin was just barely broken.
But I, being a kid, still screamed and started crying. My mother’s reaction shocked me. She immediately started laughing. The male dog shoved his way between the other dog and me, alternating between glaring at her, trying to check me over to see where I was hurt, and looking confused at my mother.
All while my mother laughed so hard she nearly peed herself. My dad came in and asked what happened. I told him, still crying, that mom said to take the bone away from Female Dog, and I tried, and she bit my thumb.
He gave my mother a “what the heck?” look, and she immediately said, “It was a joke. I didn’t think you’d actually do it. Why did you do that?! That was incredibly stupid.” She started laughing again. “But you said—”
“You should know not to stick your fingers in dogs’ mouths when they have a bone or food!” Completely ignoring the way I would always get yelled at if I didn’t instantly jump to do anything she said, whether it made any sense to me or not.
My dad sighed and asked to see my thumb. It had already stopped the tiny amount of bleeding. He got it cleaned and put a band-aid on it, and told me that I shouldn’t put my fingers in a dog’s mouth to take a bone, no matter who tells me to.
For years, my mom loved to tell the story of how I was too dumb to know she was joking when she said to take a bone out of the dog’s mouth, and I got bit as a result, which is still so funny to her. Shows an incredible lack of empathy. Both for her daughter’s pain, and how her part in it makes her look.