It’s Thanksgiving here in Canada today, so I have my mother visiting for an extra day; normally she only spends Saturday night at my house. There are many changes going on with her, in her advancing age, though for an octogenarian she’s not doing too bad. Her memory is going, she has a harder time getting around, and her skin is thin, so she tends to cut herself quite easily. But the change I see in her that bothers me, personally, the most is her increase in being judgmental. It affects the way I feel I must do things, even in my own home.

Take last night for example. After the kids go to bed I must sit in the room with her while she watches TV. If I don’t, I don’t hear the end of it. If I decide to stay up, she stays up. If I go to bed, no matter how early, so does she. So last night I wanted to get some homework done for my course. I couldn’t concentrate on the story I was reading from my textbook with the TV going, so I thought I’d read in bed. With a glass of wine. I know that this is unacceptable behaviour, in her eyes, so I waited until she was brushing her teeth and I snuck upstairs with my glass of wine and my book and pretended I was going to sleep.

I’m almost 50 years old, and I’m still sneaking booze – just like when I was a teenager, except now it’s in my own house. Why don’t I just put my foot down? It’s not worth the aggravation of having to explain to her over and over that just because I have a glass of wine before bed doesn’t mean I’m an alcoholic, nor does staying up for an extra half an hour mean I’m going to be tired all day.

Just one of the many reasons my mother won’t be living with me any time soon.