Diary of a Daughter with a Discompassionate Mother

a.m. Derbyshire 01 May 2024

I have just been speaking to GB News fan, armchair critic, socio phobic, anti vaxxer and prize bigot; my mother.

I had telephoned mother only last night to inform her there has been Covid in our house this past week and that I (we) were on the mend. Early in that call she had managed to convey false sincerity and knock my Covid convo on the head pretty quickly. So, yesterday, she spoke in length about her health, about Professor Fraser and the fact he had rang her personally about her overdue scan at the hospital and how she does not want to attend because she is nearly ninety and wants to be left alone. She told me yesterday too, that the amount of pills she takes now amounts to four a day, but she does not know what they are prescribed for.

During telephone calls like this Mum often sighs and says she does not know what has happened to the world, but she's a people hater generally, mostly mysogynistic I'd say, though she hero workshipped a few women from the old films and she always 'admired' the late queen.

Mum never blames the country for the state of things (the establishment in other words) it is always the world that she talks about, but Mum's world is so, so, small. It is difficult to know how personal tragedy impacted on her; she has experienced loss and from a tender age, yet, her opinions have been formed on what she seen and heard from TV broadcasts and the loose small talk and the bias of friends and neighbours; this is her default rather than choosing to dig deep about the meaning of life.

Mum goes on to mention two national breaking news stories, almost in the same breath, relating to knife crime, child abuse and murder. This is not a normal topical exchange between mother and daughter who are simply chatting on the phone to catch up. Mum does this because she thinks it makes her sound empathic; whereas she has empathy for no one. She often tries to debate LGBTQ in our calls and I'm thinking as we speak that neither of us are able to discuss this topic with any real understanding, she often ends by questioning what my Dad would have thought about it all...

we also talked about the weather during yesterday's call.

So today, I answer the call with a croaky “Hello!” Then follow with a more sure-fired “Hello Mum!” Her reply is more a confirmation that I (we) have recovered, rather than a request for update. However, she cannot ignore my strained vocals, so reluctantly we talk symptoms briefly and she admits to not knowing what having Covid feels like; this a truth, in a sense, because she has never been tested for confirmation.

Therefore, in her mind the viral infections she and my brother (who lives with her) have contracted over the past three years (and both have been ill with terrible coughs) have been nothing more than a common cold. Mother does not do reality so in her mind any brush with Covid she may have had will never be acknowledged as a potential and any brush her family members have experienced or are having, or will have, well, we must be lying or putting it on.

I hear the story again about the call she received from the concerned Professor and how she sent him off. I hear for the millionth time how she hates pills and says she doesn’t take as many as she did "it’s now four-a-day" she says.

We tell a few anecdotes that we’ve both shared numerous times before about local GP services, I quip about the receptionist routine and she compares to it to decades past when the doctors were great and a new story today about how the staff at the surgery visited her at home after Dad died.

Talking about Dad, she presents the man and his suffering as if she’s writing a novel, a play script or something and that she is educating me of the brutal truth of his cancer journey as if I was unaware of it! In fact, she never retells a story about anything with any heart and joy unless its designed to embarrass a person or hold someone to account, unless it is about her of course. Mum did not compile a decent eulogy for Dad - all those living years: courtship, marriage, house, home, skilled work, hobbies, family, three children; no, she had nothing to say about any of that. Today, I was not going to allow her to self indulge by allowing her to deliver the speech which includes the quote from Dad when he said he did not want to die! Or as mum says it: "he dint wan t'die".

We acknowledge that it is cloudy this morning in Norfolk and in Derbyshire and we agree that the health service isn’t what it was and we make sweeping comments about everything being awful and she states, as she always does, that all was better in the good ole days. The conversation takes a turn when I put it out there that the country is a disgrace and dare to question the need for the Royal Family, she shuts me right back up returning to the subject of hospitals and health because somewhere there we are able to find some common ground without me having to disagree.

Mum is an English nationalist in her views and rather lucky really, that despite her grand age, she has little to worry about. It is only matters to do with routine health and hospital checks that is out of her control she finds bothersome and impacts negatively on her small world. I took umbrage when, toward the end of our phone call, she announces that she is refusing invitations for Covid booster vaccination appointments. Ironically, she’s saying this to me, her daughter, who felt completely dreadful over the weekend with a respiratory system compromised, though temporarily, by Covid infection. I was actually thinking (while in bed and feeling poorly) how horrid it would be for an elderly, inactive individual like my mother and my mother in law for example, to suffer this horrible virus without vaccinated protection. I stopped mother in mid sentence, said the conversation had turned political and ended the call abruptly.

I do not watch GB News I know it through reputation and the people attached to the outlet. My mother watches GB News and is influenced by the contributors and commentators who channel arguments that suit the mantra of people like her.

GB News, Do you recognise your biased coverage representing itself through the opinions held by my mother?

The thing that angers me most is that J and I are the parents of two grown-up children whose freedoms (ours too) have diminished; opportunities to travel to and from Europe and to live and work abroad has been made more complicated. Their chances of buying a property, running a decent car, heating the house, accessing clean water outside and in, putting food on the table is not anywhere near as straightforward as it was.

Society is pretty broken, so when my mother moans and groans from her armchair about everything being better in her day, I cannot help but think: well you voted for this, you voted Tory for all of your working class life, you hold prejudices against people. What do you care, Mum about young people not getting a quality education and having to face uncertain futures? Why, as someone who has never had a passport, do you care about travel, other cultures, the business world, the environment, climate change etc.? In fact, your marks made on ballot papers and the people who share your views have impacted on the lives of your own children and grandchildren. Mother dear, you are hard to love and I'll not soften again, I have had a lifetime of your disconnect.

Trouble is, politics aside, ignorant, ill-advised, narcissistic individuals do not know that they possess these traits because they believe that they are better than others, entitled and so bloody perfect!