Autoethography. Entry 10 — a conversation with my mum that upset me so much

I am feeling very angry, sad, and frustrated. Yesterday I talked to my mum (just to give some context: she is 68 and lives in a provincial Russian town) on Skype, and this hour and a half conversation quite unexpectedly turned into some sort of a fight, although naturally, she is a pretty peaceful person. She started to talk about aggressive attacks that other countries implement towards Russia, blaming the country for everything. That Russia is basically surrounded by enemies who wish her bad. She was also talking about nationalism that is a bad thing but right away started to condemn Ukraine, America and European countries for their aggression towards Russia. So to her, nationalism is bad when it is anti-Russian, but when it is anti-Western, it is ok. Very interesting. I tried to ask her about what Russia means for her, and her response included the political authorities to a large extent. So broadly speaking, the Russia of hers is embodied in the president whom she respects, agrees with, and admires (whatever for). She also said that it is bad to criticise the country (which means the political regime and the president) since, in her opinion, it does not do good for the country. So when I do that (criticise the regime), I do harm to the country, from her perspective. Hmm…

Somehow the conversation turned towards the law against the propaganda of ‘non-traditional sexual relations’ that exists in Russia and that she — attention! — has never actually read but — more attention! — completely agrees with. She said that these relationships are not prohibited, but their propaganda of them is. Illustratively, she could not explain what propaganda is except for mentioning pride parades which are allegedly so inherently bad. When I asked why propaganda is bad, she said it affects children who might follow the trend and decide to go and change their sex. The fact that minors are not legally allowed to do that in Russia anyway does not touch her, as did not the fact that a heterosexual person does not become gay by seeing a gay person. I also asked whether she is ok with the fact that I am a lesbian, which she has known about from the very start of my relationship with my partner (which is nine years). She said yes, but also that I am different. That my relationship with my partner is different. It is not a family, as she said, it is a union. At the same time, she referred to a family as a union of a man and a woman, which was fixed in the Russian Constitution last year (this is not correct, by the way, it is not a family that is defined in there, but a marriage, but who cares, really). And when I asked whether she knew why we left Russia, she responded, perhaps it was something about persecution. I said no, we were not persecuted, but it was very uncomfortable for us to live there. She said she was happy we moved, and she believed it was better for us in New Zealand. So basically, in her opinion, there is no place in this Russia of hers for us to live happily. And she repeated many times that she loved me. She also started telling something about biological continuity, reproduction, blood but at the same time agreed that it is not blood but love that makes people a family. So illogical and so poorly reasoned. I don’t really understand why I am feeling so bad after that conversation. Perhaps, I still hope she would be smarter than that, she would be able to realise how brainwashed she has been, that opinion she conveys is not one of hers but what she has been fed for many years by the state-affiliated TV and newspapers. Also, she mentioned something that I believe is so inherently wrong. That she is a small person but those with power are big people so because of that they should make important decisions on the country level by themselves. She sincerely believes that politics is something that is done above ‘ordinary’, ‘small’ people, who should not interfere in the process. If these ‘big’ people say propaganda is wrong, it is. No any attempt to think for herself. Such a Soviet thing. And she is so upset that the USSR collapsed. I was also dumbfounded by so much groundless aggression and hate towards imagined enemies that she displays. It is so upsetting to see it from her, given that she is naturally not prone to conflicts or anger at all. She thinks she understands a lot about the world while actually, she understands nearly nothing. She has poor ideologically imbued Soviet education (and keeps consuming ideologically imbued information today), has never been abroad, has few friends and hobbies and mostly stays home. Which is the era of covid-19 reasonable but narrows her horizons even more. So freakily upsetting.