I wish I could visit her just once and it not just be a bitch fest from her. And now, she's adding racially disparaging comments to the mix. Which she knows is wrong because she lowers her voice while she says the specifically racial comments, then raises it back once those couple of words are spoken. This is how I know this is not just the dementia talking. Where I do think the dementia comes into play with these racist comments is that she forgets that I am the natural mother of 3 men of color. Which she thinks I adopted. Staff and residents have made complaints about her rude and nasty attitude towards them. I guess my question today is do I just ignore her comments about race and pretend she didn't say them, like I do with her fake whimpering and heavy breathing that she doesn't do with other people? Or do I do as I did, and tell her I will not tolerate such language and leave?
My mother does the breathing and whimpering also. That performance usually only for me since I was a child. No one can hyperventilate and be unable to breathe for more than forty years and still be alive. It's a performance. Until I just started ignoring it. You're doing the right thing there. If she doesn't put that particular show on for others, then that's what it is. A show. Blow that nonsense off.
As for the racial slurs and nasty language. It may be possible that your mother enjoys seeing you angry. If she's lowering her voice to make nasty racial comments to you, she's aware of what she is saying. So here's how you handle it.
If she says very quietly to you that she can't stand that (racial slur) you ask her plainly and more importantly LOUDLY to speak up. Tell to not lower her voice. That if she's not ashamed to call people a (racial slur) she shouldn't be ashamed if everyone hears her say it.
I was a caregiver for 25 years to more vicious, nasty, verbally abusive, racist elders than I can remember. I will tell you that in these situations causing a little bit of embarrassment for the person works like a slap in the face.
Years back I was a supervisor at a very nice AL facility. We had one resident who every time I would walk past her she would say, 'There goes that fat b*tch'. I listened to this several times a day for some time and just ignored her. Until one day I didn't. That day when she said it again, I stopped dead in my tracks, rounded on her, got right in her face and said 'What did you call me?' My intent was to stand there with her backed against the wall and make her repeat it. She did not. She got all flustered and started stuttering a bit that she didn't say anything. I told her that I better not ever hear that again from her and I never did. She never said it again and I worked there for about another two years until the place closed.
You call your mother out when she lowers her voice and says racial slurs to you. Don't get angry. Get loud and clear. Embarrass her a little.
I think the black rappers had the right idea by making a mockery of this language using it as ebonics in the rap songs.
At my age and coming up during the Civil Rights Movement, old habits of this sort die hard.
I'm trying to be politically correct here. LOL
All jokes aside, this is dementia. Most of us ignore the comments.
My parents kicked me out of the house w/o money as a young woman for falling in love with a POC. I rented a room in someone's house and held down 2 jobs to pay the $200 monthly rent. This was the 70s, when there was little tolerance for interracial couples. We were spit at, cursed and shunned. In our mother's minds, it's still the 70s and we are embarrassments to the family.
I never had a good relationship with my mother (especially) after that, until the day she died at 95. Being ugly and totally unsupportive of one's children due to racial beliefs is unacceptable imo. And they reap what they sow. Little contact with their daughters who they cannot muster up an ounce of respect for, no matter what.
My mother took her ugliness with her to the grave. Which is when I no longer had to listen to ANY MORE of her nonsense. That's when it stops hurting.
You are being hurt by your own expectations, and to me, that's what holidays are all about, whether Christmas or Mom's day. They are ways to show the world that we don't measure up, our KIDS don't measure up, our parents don't measure up, our world is imperfect.
Do as you please, because WHATEVER you do, it will make little difference.
You can say any of these things:
1. "Mom, that is very racist and unpleasant, and that you said it our loud shows that you are no longer well enough to know better"
2. "Geez, Mom, I can't take you ANYWHERE"
3. "Mom, you once knew better than to say every unpleasant thing you think; too bad you don't anymore."
4. "Do you really think so Mom?"
What does it matter WHAT you say to her; it's unlikely she will have a clue what you said tomorrow.
As to her racism I will repeat what an old Irish nurse said to me when I was crying in the hall after seeing someone say something cruel to a fellow nurse who was African American: "Things change one coffin at a time". It is true. Whether or racism, homophobia, or anything else, things change one coffin at a time, and Mom's (like mine) will be popping up any day now.
The fact that the mother lowers her voice so no one else will hear shows that she still possesses enough self-awareness to know it's wrong. That's when a little embarassment and calling her out on it comes in.
Her generation had no filter, or at least that is what I have been exposed to.
Me, I stopped taking her out she was not going to change, I had to change my way of dealing with her.
Anyways, personally, demented or not , I think many are smarter than they let on. If you feel you need to say something, say it, see how it goes , how she reacts, but if you feel she truly can't help herself then let it go. I know for a fact my mom can, help herself. So I think you need to do whatever is best for you in your circumstances. I'd never think poorly of anyone stick up after someone says something racist.