Here is where things stand in my life

[tulloch]

My mother never liked my beard. She likes my kilt but fears being seen by friends if I am wearing my tam. Needless to say I never could have married her!

[ForresterModern]

My dear grandmother, god rest her soul, just had to give me some sort of criticism every time I would go to visit (need a haircut or a shave, jeans have a hole in them---very unbecoming a man of means, etc..), just to kind of get it out of the way, she said it was her way of trying to improve me. As a teen and young adult I shrugged it off to just being one of those old lady things grandmothers do to their grandchildren when they are young. But when I started raising my family it continued, only it shifted over onto how I was running my life and raising my children, which really started to cause me some personal emotional distress, because I wanted to tell her that she had raised her kids her way and that these were my kids to raise, not hers. But then it hit me, she just needed to get her dig in early in our meeting so she felt like she was making her effort to improve me as a person, then things were fine and dandy thereafter. So I started throwing her a bone---wearing torn jeans and then going with her to buy a new pair, not shaving for a couple days then shaving for her the next morning like a good boy, showing up with long hair then getting a haircut while I was there---basically giving her something else to focus on "improving" me, something I did not really care that much about, instead of how I raised my kids or ran my life otherwise. It worked, and for the last 20 years of her life we were good buddies and got along well every time we spent time together, although I always had to throw her some kind of bone early in the meeting to get things out of the way.

jeff

[morrison]

Yo, FM, {tongue-in-cheek}I kinda wonder if you weren't being pressed a bit too much in your life in those years. It seems a measurable amount of your attention was diverted to digging for someone else's bones rather than letting her find her own little treasures to gnaw on! Bless her soul. May your heart always beat in fond memories.

in the meantime, on the thread start,
While wearing the kilt we sometimes become the lightning rod for untoward commentary, lashing out from the uninformed, belittlement by the "I'm up here" sort, and just plain rudeness from others.

I am not thick skinned, nor am I too quick to react unnecessarily.
I am here to live my life and hope others in their lives can respect that.

It's what helps me to be less affected by non-positive words that are sent my way when the remarks are audible.

Ultimately, I have the power to be a conduit for positive conveyance in response to the poor judgment of others or to be reactionary in a knee jerk manner toward insults and such.

I sure would like to bust a head or two when the ignorance flies in a fury. But, these days that only gets us a stay in the holding cell for battery.

What a piss-off, on top off being pissed-off about the defensible slandering. If only they'd physically assault.

"Ahhh, the relief in a justifiable pounding"

"Yes, your Honor, It was "Self defense.""

[ABG0819]

Even in the last stages of her life my mother talked to me like I was 8 years old. It never ends for mothers. Sons do become adults and if we remind ourselves how old we are and what year it currently is then those motherly put downs seem silly.

Kilt up proudly. Confront Kilt Shame!

There is no shame in me wearing a kilt...I am actually quite proud of it. My comment about my mother never seeing me in it is actually my way of saying that while I disagree with opinion, she is still my mother and I respect her enough not to do it. At least not in front of her. No need to exacerbate the argument by thumbing my nose at her.

Graham

[wildrover]

There are two kinds of negative attention.

The first...well, is it really negative, or do you just need a better set of comebacks, and know where their weak spot is so you can poke it? It doesn't matter what it is, just pick something and give them constant hell about it, the same way they do about your kilt. Some people are like that. I met a few of them, years ago...they were good people, and they would do this. You just have to give back the same or better than they're giving! Keep in mind that if it wasn't your kilt they were giving you hell about, that it would be something else, so go getcher game on, son!!

Also, laughing comments from you about your "murse" and your "man-skirt" defuses a lot of nonsense before it even happens. If you're all stuffy and sensitive about how it's a "kilt not a skirt" and shouldn't invite laughter, then you're gonna have a bad day.

Then, there are the bad ones. Find a way to assert your dominance, because if you don't, they'll keep on being an ass, and while you may try to ignore it, consider the old warning not to wrestle with a pig: You'll only get dirty, and the pig will enjoy it. By the same token, if you're standing around in a pig sty and a pig is trying to wrestle with you, you can try to ignore it but you're still getting dirty and the pig is still enjoying it. Get out of the sty, or get to making bacon.

Back on the clean side of things, as I innocently walked around an event the other day in my kilt, one of the people working the event pulled a perfect wiseguy act ...he says, "yeah, we're even having a haggis tasting at noon!" Well, it was early, I was all wide-eyed and not on my game...TOTALLY got me . I was grumbling to myself, had to "ha ha" a little over it, and then proceeded to bark "hey, where's my haggis?" at the guy every time I saw him . By the end of the event, he was telling me all about his own Scottish ancestry .

To the OP, you're her son, and that speaks volumes for how she may view you, but it doesn't mean you're the little kid she used to dress funny for grade school.

Now, you're old enough to dress funny on your own!

It may take a few "quiet conversations" with your sainted mother before she accepts that you're gonna do whatever you bloody well please, and she can either accept what she raised, or not, but your well-being is not contingent on her acceptance, so she may as well put a sock in it.

Incidentally, that bit of heartfelt advice goes far beyond kilts, and my relationship with my own sainted mother is quite a bit better for having overcome those little "you certainly didn't learn that in my house" hurdles.

-Sean