Revisiting a classic

I hope this is not the first time I direct your attention to Amy Sutherland's piece on reacting to people, with the purpose of changing their behavior, as you would to exotic animals.

I should point out, before I go into how I should apply this approach to dealing with my mother, that I have a terrible time training my cat. She absorbed some lessons quickly, i.e. waking mommy up means getting sprayed. She's had a harder time accepting that pooping outside the litter box means getting waterboarded*. I've tried Sutherland's approach, i.e. ignore bad behavior, reward good behavior; it's only led to more poop.

*Do not take this too literally. Gracie's so fat that I doubt she has strong lungs, and I have no intention of actually harming her. She does get water poured on her head, though. I doubt it's less pleasant for her than cleaning up her poop is for me.

Anyway, enough about Gracie. This is, after all, a mom blog.

In theory, ignoring mom should work well; I've learned that she's very much after a response, and getting one, in her mind, is a victory. Since much of the time she's out to pick a fight, responding would be giving her what she wants, i.e. reinforcing the behavior. To think that I used to approach her fight-picking from an angle of rationality-- if I could just reason with her, we could come to an agreement, no fighting necessary. This doesn't work because my mother thrives on fighting; starting an argument, to her, is winning, no matter how in the wrong she is. Conversely, she stands to lose from listening to reason, and escalating the volume and acrimony at the expense of dialog is a shrewd, if perhaps subconscious, way to avoid reason. It should follow, then, that ignoring her deprives her of a reaction which she could then escalate into a fight.

But you underestimate my mother.

When ignored, she persists. Recall two episodes from China in which I tried to ignore her. The first was on the way over, when I was watching a movie, headphones on, when she decided to launch into one of her favorite topics: how I've never really been good at anything. It went something like this:

Mom: We took you to the museum for art classes. There were dance classes... HEY! Are you listening to me?? I'm talking to you.
A.: No. I'm watching a movie.
Mom: It's the credits.
A.: I'm listening to the music.

I put my headphones back on.

Mom poked me.

A.: What??
Mom: I'm talking to you! We tried tennis...

The second time, I didn't have the benefit of headphones, nor of an already less-than-idyllic environment that I didn't mind spoiled by mom's ranting. We had just disembarked from a ferry on the Shennong Stream and gotten on a rowboat. All around, everything was beautiful.

Mom: That woman's head is huge! How am I supposed to see anything?

I didn't say, um, look to the sides. We're not in a theatre; the landscape is everywhere.

Mom: I can't believe this! She's ruining this whole experience!

Mom: How can she have such a big head!

Mom: It's just not right. Her head is huge.

This went on for a whole minute or more before I said anything.

A.: Could you please stop?
Mom: Her head is huge!
A.: So what? Look around.
Mom: How dare you tell me how to behave?
A.: You're very close to ruining this.
Dad: She has a point.
Mom: Of course you come to her defense!

And so on.

Paying attention to mom reinforces whatever she's doing. I can hardly positively reinforce more agreeable behavior:

"Thank you for going a whole month without reminding me what a failure I am."

"Thank you for not finding something to complain about in every situation. Have some herring."

"Thank you for not sending me any inflammatory, ignorant forwarded e-mails today, just like I've asked numerous times. Would you like some lox?"

***
Seriously, though... what am I supposed to do? Almost a year ago I took an excellent conflict resolution course that inspired me to be smarter and more strategic in my interactions with my mother. I planned to practice my newly-acquired skills when I visited after the trip to the Canadian Rockies. I don't recall having gotten very far.