WIBTAH If I was honest with my mom about her pursuing her dreams?
My [30F] mom [50F] has decided to run for a statewide political office in our home state. She is entering very late, does not have the personal funds to support her own campaign, and does not have the experience (didn’t graduate high school, works a job completely unrelated to the role) to do the job. The current incumbent is very qualified and is basically guaranteed to win. She has never so little as volunteered for a campaign prior to doing this.
That might sound like my gripe with this situation, and while I do worry about those factors, that’s not really my issue. If you ask my mom about how she sees herself, she very openly admits she is very vain and likes attention (wild, but that’s her). She’s tried to start a “career” on TT to fill that desire but it’s not panning out. She’s posted many videos talking about how people will know her name. She’s always been like this. This decision to very last minute enter a race she’s wholly unqualified for is to service her ego, not to help people or because she is passionate about it. She’s never volunteered for anything and hasn’t been involved in politics at all except to rant on TT (incorrectly understanding governance every time). That’s also not my main issue, though I do side eye it.
My issue that has me raging beyond belief is that when I was in my early twenties, I worked my ass off in politics back home while finishing my masters degree in policy. At 22 I became comms director for a US senate campaign. At 23 I was the comms director for a state senate caucus. I worked up and down the state making a name for myself while getting my degree in public policy. Right out of grad school, I was hired to help start an organization to try and fix some issues in our state and took over as executive director, all at 23. We’re from a small state so the impact was big, and my name was pretty well known on both sides of the aisle. This is when my mom started (for the first time ever) to express an interest in politics. 100% she saw what she thought was an “easy” way to be known and recognized. She had never spoken about it before but it magically became her lifelong dream she had to do (my whole childhood her lifelong dream was to be a meteorologist, but of course getting pregnant with me at 18 is the one thing that held her back /s). I never really thought she’d actually do it, because to be frank, she’s done nothing at all to take the leap. She’s attended no meetings, volunteered on no campaigns, nothing. She didn’t even try to run for school board before running for a statewide office.
When she called to tell me, my heart sank. She walked right up to the candidate I had worked for and someone else I had worked with to beg them to help her run. They told her to try this. And while I know it sounds like ego on my part, they wouldn’t have offered it to any random crying lady but because they both know she’s my mom and I kicked ass… yeah. My mom constantly posts online about really inappropriate stuff or “clapping back” to random comments for her desire for notoriety. Anyone who knows her knows she’s a little off her rocker (with love!). So her blatantly riding my coattails of the work I did to boost her own ego feels really icky to me.
I want my mom to be happy. I’ve tried to steer her towards local offices as a start (again, she knows nothing about it and has no experience, doesn’t leave the house, hates people) so she can figure out what she really wants to be happy. But instead she waltzed right up to my old boss with a hand out. But she’s not me. We could not be more different. So her trying to utilize my work and my connections will only tarnish what I did (I may be the AH here but this is genuinely how I feel). Letting my very openly narcissistic, borderline mother try to achieve some pipe dream on the back of my accomplishments has me so angry with her. To me, what kind of mother would even think this is ok?
And I know for a fact that was her plan, to use all of my prior work and connections to do it because 1) she asked my former boss to get her started 2) asked me to send her my connections and every event she needs to be at and 3) when my one request was that she not mention my name AT ALL during the campaign (bc she’s nutty), she was immediately deflated and asked why not, in what ways she could, how can I help her then.
If my mom’s “lifelong dream” of 6 years didn’t come at the price of my hard work and reputation, I would gladly help. But I’m so put off by this for so many reasons, I don’t even want to speak to her. I can’t tell her (you can’t tell a narcissist you don’t agree with them) and I basically have to let it happen. But this has pushed me over the edge (I was already close to no contact many times for said narcissism and nuttiness).
WIBTAH if when this is over, and I’ve let her have her shot at her dream (to the detriment of my reputation and hard work), I sat her down and told her how I feel, even though I know it will go very badly? I just can’t keep tip toeing around her nonsense any longer. Piggybacking on your child’s work is beyond to me.
Edit: typos