Is that it?!

The cafe courtyard is busy.  Every table is occupied with groups of West End yuppies, new to the area now that developers have flexed muscle to move most of the region’s hippies.

Behind me sit a group of four – two men, two women.  Young, early 20′s, well dressed and articulate.  Their conversation is animated, fueled by each of them desperate to air their complaint.  I can’t help but over hear.

The Greek boy starts it.  He regaled to them how he went to dinner at his mother’s the night before; how, as a Greek boy, there is great expectations regarding his behaviour.  He whines about how his mother cooks dinner for the family and then whines about slaving away for them all.  He gets heated and complains that his mother just shouldn’t cook and how dare she make them all feel so guilty.

The tone is set for the rest of the table.  Next in line is the Chinese girl.  She talks of how her mother doesn’t accept her life and insists she should have a more traditional Chinese life, marry a Chinese man, study a more traditional course.  Her mother stifles her.  Her mother expects her come over every week on Sunday for a family meal.

The others cluck in agreeance.  Their mothers are overbearing, demanding.  The second boy talks about how his mother phoned him to ask him to come over to fix something and how this is most unfair when there are other siblings who live closer.  Why couldn’t his mother have just waited until he was coming over for something more significant like dinner at her place?  She shouldn’t have asked him to come all the way out there for the sole purpose of fixing something. 

The others cluck in agreeance.  Apparently all their mothers do that – call them and ask them to do some trivial thing that could wait for another time, date, and place.  How dare they?!

I manage to keep my cool.  I try to stop listening but their whining tones pierce my conversation and thoughts.  With no other tables to move to, I’m stuck. 

Latino girl is having her turn now.  Her mother doesn’t even know what subjects she is doing this semester.  Her mother comes over and cleans her house and complains about doing so.  She nags about when she is going to settle down with a nice man. 

The others cluck in agreeance.  They understand each other’s pain of having a…  a what?  A mother?

I manage to hold my tongue, instead choosing to leave the cafe as quick as feasible.   I avoid bursting at my seams to shout at them.  My hand twitches with the thought of slapping sense into each of them.

I just want to shout “Is that it?  Is your adult angst hinging on your mother’s love?  Are you honestly amplifying her acts of motherly kindness into mole hills of Mumageddon!?  Glorifying how much you don’t need her any longer and exemplifying how much of an ungrateful arse you can be?!”

Or maybe I just want to rotate my chair and partake in their round table.  I can be poor little caucasian girl.  I would swivel chair around and begin talking in the same spoilt kid tone.  Caucasian girl would say,
“My mum is such a bitch.  She usually only calls when she wants something from me.   All my life I’ve grown up with her telling to play on the road, or how she wishes she had terminated me when she had the chance.  I’m glad that she doesn’t hold a weekly family dinner – she’d only ruin it by telling me that all children are the devil’s sporn. ”

Perhaps I’d play sage, swivel my chair around and very wisely let them know that
“The problem with parenthood is that it is not the sole role you play yet it is the only one your children judge you for.”

In reality I do none of these.  Rather, I finish my coffee that not even the full teaspoon of sugar helps it to leave a sweet taste in my mouth, and I make my exit.   I eye them off as a leave, glare at them with a look that says “omg shut the fuck up you spoilt middle class brats and go back to your river front apartment at West End!”

They were oblivious to my glare.

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