He's Obviously Not A Mother

Yes, I wrote that right. The person I'm referring to is my brother. He just called to whine, vent, and complain (what else is new?) about his girlfriend and how she's too nice to people. He said that she worries too much about people and feels too personally responsible for them. He even went as far to say that she nor anyone else with this kind of mentality can progress as a human being. That's right, he claimed that his girlfriend of three years can't progress as a human. I wonder if he used these exact words when speaking to her or if it was just with me and the other guys. He continued to vent by saying that it's Psychology 101 (he's never taken a psychology course) that those who put effort into being nice to others and helping them out with problems obviously have problems of their own that they're afraid to deal with. They're replacing that effort of dealing with their own problems and using it to deal with others. This comes from a guy who constantly worries about his girlfriend and himself.

All the fuss surrounds the fact that his girlfriend takes responsibility for friends of her's who've had too much to drink in an evening by driving them home. He claims that she never focuses on herself, her needs, her wants, and can't ever be happy unless she does. While he was saying this, let me just say, he sounded like the happiest guy in the world (note on the sarcasm). He also changes his mind about what he wants in life more quickly than Bush changes his story about why we're in Iraq.

I didn't feel like getting into a heated debate at the time, because I had just woken up and needed to collect my thoughts before diving into such a discussion. But, as the blog title suggests, "Obviously, he's not a mother." He doesn't have the greatest memory in the world, but even he could remember what our parents told us if we ever were out with someone who had been drinking and was to be driving or if we had a bit too much that night and had driven to our destination. They said to call, regardless of where we were or what time it was and they'd (probably our mother) would come to pick us up. Why? Well, as my brother's girlfriend said, "I feel better knowing that she's home safe as opposed to driving home drunk." Personally, I feel my brother is just being selfish on this one. He's not sick of his girlfriend being nice and responsible so much as he's sick of her helping her drunk friend get home safely over paying attention to him.

His Psych 101 may be true in some circumstances, but he mustn't generalize so much. If it were the case, his "logic" would be true for every counselor and psychologist in the world. It'd be true for the likes of Mother Theresa, Gandhi, and Jesus. If his "logic" were true, then most mothers obviously have some issues that they're afraid to deal with.

All I can say is, while she's actually playing "mother" of her group of friends, taking responsibility for her friends' drunken habits and caring for others outside her boyfriend and herself, all he's concerned about his himself and while she may need to balance her focus a bit more between others and herself, perhaps he should do the same thing.