Dear Blake,
My daughter is married with two kids. They live a few hours away. I love seeing them, but I have just one issue. She constantly corrects the way I pronounce words. No one ever mentioned it before she did. A lot of the pronunciations are how my family members and people in my state pronounce them.
She started criticizing me after she lived in three different states. It has reached a point where I dread seeing her. I feel self-conscious, and my self-esteem gets shot down every time I do. When I tell her it hurts me, she says I’m being “too sensitive.” I don’t know what I should do.
Signed, Linda
From Mobile, Alabama
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Dear Linda,
What your daughter is doing is extremely disrespectful. But, since you’re her mother, you should have some insight on her character flaws, and now it’s time to exploit/highlight them. Here is some advice. Question her parenting skills, and tell her kids may be better off in a Catholic orphanage, than left with likes of her. Or, tell her start improving her appearance, unless she believes that her husband feels that homely, is sexy. Or this idea. If she ever texts you, correct all of her grammatical mistakes and sentence structure. If you don’t see any errors, rewrite the whole text for her, and tell her you did it to make her sound more interesting, because the original text was boring and made you drowsy. But if you don’t want to do all that, start pronouncing all words to her satisfaction, focusing on calling her some very vile names. If she is in shock and deeply offended, tell her you’re sorry, and ask her if she prefers you call her those names using a southern drawl. I hope this helps.
Blake