My Mother is a Karen :( - AskReddit

my mother is screaming at parking lot attendants because she parked in the wrong lot children of a Karen what is it like my mom is a reformed Karen when I was a kid she used to treat people in customer service like trash when I was a teenager and in customer service positions it finally dawned on her what a terrible human being she was being she's turned around and been great ever since I'm proud of her to recognize her faults and fix them I know every restaurant has messed with our food and for good reason I'm in my 30s now and I won't go out with my mom in public she doesn't want to either because I'll give her poop for whatever she did to some poor teenaged cashier until she cries two can play this game and no one wins it's exhausting I can't do anything normal with her or even have a normal conversation sometimes I'd like to call and ask how my sister is instead I get a list of people who have wronged her in the last week it's the most petty BS - Oh some child was running around at McDonald's today if that was my child I'd have warmed her bottom I know mom I was that child same with the entitlement she'll give me a list of things that should have been done for her it makes it so hard to even contact her because I have to mentally prepare myself for hours of ranting on the phone if we ever go out together like even to get lunch I'm going to be embarrassed by her behavior not to mention she'll try to embarrass me somehow my sister is a Karen in recovery and her teenage kids are mortified by her they had a care an intervention with her a few months ago and pointed out that about one out of every three visits to a restaurant results in a meal or a drink sent back and about 1 in 10 results in a conversation with the manager unresolved complaints over the phone practically have a pre-written script this is unacceptable poor customer service etc she's trying to be more self aware because she now recognizes that not only can her behavior be embarrassing but she's a Karen caricature if someone described the typical Karen by Lux age race tone of voice social standing they would be describing her to a tee sure it's Karen shaming but we're living in a society here frankly it's embarrassing you have to sit there while they shriek at a manager and cause a big scene if you try to chime in you get yelled at then they are in a bad mood the rest of the day I've sat through our long debates with managers over $0.11 disparity on a bill everyone is looking at you and you are just kind of trapped there not my mom but my grandmother it's really terrible and it messes with your perception of reality there is a very obvious hierarchy in her mind which she never veers away from so whoever in a discussion is higher in the hierarchy is automatically right it usually goes herself her children well respected people in her local community plus television personalities she likes like dr. Phil her other grandchildren me and my brother everybody else for example when me and my cousins would fight she would always side with them but anytime I got a bad grade she would insult my teacher and say that they were probably stupid for not seeing how smart I am it was very confusing and really messed with my self-esteem Caryn's are typically narcissists who can't handle being challenged on their beliefs and the only way they can bring people up is by tearing other people down I recently moved far away from home and haven't seen much of her and I feel like I'm much more stable now my parents are lovely people on the whole but they are unbelievably entitled when they go to restaurants I spoke up about it every time and they brush it off such behaviors include when there is a clear wait to be seated situation they'll just walk in and sit down at any table even if it's Sun bust they will get multiple drinks beer soda water with lemon coffee really anything refillable tip orally ask questions a normal waiter doesn't have the answers to like what's the rent here or what's the history of the building I stopped going to restaurants with him a couple years ago even a free meal isn't worth of frustration my aunt is a Karen quite frankly both our family's flat out ignore her she has no relationship with her kids we didn't realize how much it impacted our lives until we grew up and saw that kind of behavior just makes everyone hate you the only people that put up with her is Karen's husband and my mom her sister even the marriage is basically done the number of times I heard the squeaky wheel gets the grease just makes me cringe to look back on she was so proud of it every time - then I grew up and got a service job and it immediately sunk in the squeaky wheel gets replaced the bare minimum - just get them to shut up and get out the door and you remembered from that point on as a problem so in the end everyone hates her including her own children I have no idea who is worse between my father my mother my oldest sister and my older sister dad will belittle anyone who crosses him demanding to speak to managers threatening litigation calls to authorities etc he is always concerned that somebody is out to get him and is extremely cautious of scammers door-to-door solicitors or people calling are in for a treat if they are sorry enough to get him customer representatives over the phone have no idea how to manage them he is surprisingly very nice when things are going smooth though mom is a textbook restaurant Karen she is fortunately nice about it but will request changes comments on everything etc but she is impossible to please I get it when I do anything for her oldest sister has my dad's temper and my mom's demands without either of their niceness plus she is well married so she is insanely entitled older sister is just temper will just yell at people they are my family and I love them but I hate it when I see any of their awful ways in me hopefully Karen's shaming will get them soon and they understand the wrong of their ways it was humiliating my mother treated everyone in the service industry as if they were idiot peasants placed there to serve her exclusively however she usually never brought her children out in public so I was spared the majority of her behavior she has always looked shockingly young for her age and it always seemed like she had kids really young so that was a part of it the other part was that she hated how I looked we're an Asian family and I was always overweight a complete taboo for women she would comment about my appearance to every single stranger she could doctors target employees other kids etc whenever she was forced to buy me clothing she would comment to every worker how nothing looked good on me because I was ugly and fat then she would proceed to insult the workers I always felt so ashamed by both actions that I could never look anyone in the eye I could feel their pity radiating out and it was humiliating I didn't want anyone to feel bad for me I didn't want their damn sympathy I didn't want to be a major point of ridicule it has led to a lifetime of having too much pride it's hard to laugh at myself now and I take myself way too seriously I struggled to act less serious but I spent so much time being laughed at I can't take it and I hate it when anyone talks bad about anyone even if they deserve it I have openly refused to trash-talk a non public figure for a long time it's always toxic especially if you wouldn't say it to their face my mother would also use her first language to openly insult people all the time she bled entitlement it was horrific my mom was slowly treading down the path to Karen hood I would just hang my head and be embarrassed but I didn't really know why it was so wrong well a few years in retail fix that right the mess up so when that started up again I calmly explained that she's getting pissy at the wrong person and has to follow the same rules everyone else does she shouldn't expect special treatment just because she's angry fortunately she took the road less traveled and made an effort to be more understanding and calm my mom is a Karen to service people sometimes she can range from mildly route to a total monster at times I used to make excuses like one time when she worked as a realtor and in the middle of buying something retail stepped away a bit to take a phone call the lady had this obvious are you kidding that couldn't wait another minute to finish this kind of expression I tried to smooth it over like oh sorry she's at work always even when she's not at work kind of thing lady responded it's still rude and to be honest that was the first moment I realized yeah my mom is rude now if she's unreasonable I straight-up tell her off usually ends in the two of us fighting and me apologizing to whoever just got yelled at the worst was after my grandma died she took her feelings out on everyone after her being rude to a waitress for no reason my brother told me to ease up since she just lost her mom I replied every one of us here just lost a person we love but they gives her no right to treat others like crap especially for no reason my dad is a Karin KFC once forgot to put barbecue sauce in our order and he spent a full half-hour writing an angry email next time I went in with him to get KFC he had a printout to scan for store credit he also enjoys yelling at CS reps on the phone especially when they're in a foreign call center to be fair to him he yells on the phone even when he's being happy I can hear him from outside the house but even if it's not malicious there's no way it doesn't come across that way on the other end terrible she would yell at any person trying to help her if they said anything she just didn't like or agree with not only do I have anxiety from all that horse poop but I also now go out of my way to be nice to anyone providing me a service as much as I can I also make it my mission to make them laugh so they can be comfortable my husband and I'd like to trade stories of when we can get people to smile or laugh one time that sticks with me is when my couch was being delivered by Macy's I was just in the living room doing my usual thing of saying funny things and just being my weird self trying to make the two guys comfortable in my home one of the guys stopped as he was cleaning up all the plastic that the couch was wrapped in and said to me thank you for being so nice most people don't even look at us I was floored not for the compliment but that people would treat another human being that way just terrible also shout-out to my dad for always teaching me to be kind my husband and I once took him out to Outback Steakhouse for his birthday and when the waiter came to take our order my dad insisted he sit down in the booth next to him because he didn't think he should have to stand to wait on us I know that's where I get my kookiness from but I love it being con takes no effort my mom will always want to see the manager for whatever slight thing once she waited in line at the Service Desk for something like half an hour because she thought she was overcharged a few cents for two bottles of dish liquid that was on sale then she gets up there to complain and she discovers that she was actually under charged quite a bit so she complained about not paying enough and the manager said he would have to write up the cashier for the under charge but she can have the items like who wastes that much of their life on this stuff she picked me up from the airport when I was coming back from a trip to apply to grad at school and she accidentally parked in the overnight line when she went through the gate the attendant said $20 she blew up and threw an unholy fit the entire car was shaking she was going to get them fired somehow I was just trying not make eye contact as I was really embarrassed by this I am bound for graduate school in my white trash mother is screaming at parking lot attendants because she parked in the wrong lot the attendants finally just raised the gate and she gunned it out of the lot and to this day she brings up this story as if it was a win my mom was actually named Karen her hair is the cut of actual meme Karen living with her was hell she is no longer in my life I have so many crazy horror stories I doubt many would believe me she was a radiologist so she is fu money to top it all off it was awful so bad my sister and I convinced my very Catholic father to divorce her he was an attorney and she managed to get her doctor pals to label her disabled so my father whom earned much less than her had to pay her two hundred seventy thousand dollars for the privilege the final straw for me was she only paid any attention to my daughter when we had my son she wanted nothing to do with him lots of nodding along and desperately searching for an opportunity to make a joke that lightens the mood or changes the subject very rarely am i asked outright for my thoughts and when I am I make an absurd joke to make it clear I have no interest in discussing it she asked me how I voted once so I said I was confused by the ballot so I just checked everything off that's what I was supposed to do right I also don't make a lot of eye contact during those topics and especially if I'm not the only one there I kind of distanced myself a little engage with my nieces or the dog or something until I hear the topic has changed infuriating both my mom and dad are awful to shop assistants despite the fact that I worked in the sector for 20 years neither of my parents read shelf signage properly but if there's a price discrepancy it's always the fault of the cashier and they're very fond of that you're not doing your job properly argument even if it's a penny difference they'll kick off I've seen my mum reduced people to tears before mum also uses her disability to her advantage and will scream for the manager throw the it's because I'm disabled cart around and will then be nice as anything when the manager appears they both shoplift too and see nothing wrong with it I'm more than happy to help my parents with their shopping but I have to walk away once they go to pay because it's so exhausting when my siblings and I were younger she was great but she's become more insufferable as she's gotten older she has two voices talking to his voice and talking to other people voice her other people voice is very serial-killer like she tells us not to shop at certain stores or stay at certain types of hotels when we travel because they are ghetto she is never ever wrong for anything even when I tear an argument of hers to shreds she makes me apologize I've never received an apology from her in my life even when she screamed in my face for absolutely no reason she's not exactly the let me speak to your manager type but she will leave places crappy reviews on Google or Facebook if she doesn't like the service speaking of which she is the queen of Facebook the first couple months of the pandemic she wouldn't stop posting about how we all need to go back to living now that the protests have started she's been ranting about how she didn't sit in the house for two months for it to be ruined by protesters I've had to learn to just ignore it and be thankfull I don't live with her anymore it may also be worth mentioning my mom is a second-generation Karen my grandma is the little textbook definition of Karen she's almost 80 years old and I still can't go to restaurants with her because I never know what she's going to say or do my generations Karen seems to be my brother however my fiancee already knows that if I ever start showing any traits of Karen then he is to immediately put me out of my misery when I was a child everything was someone else's fault we'd speak to managers and stores and restaurants when I came of age I joined the military and moved away as fast as possible as an adult my relationship with her was terrible I was so frustrated by her asking me to come back to visit her area every time we talked that I just stopped talking to her something particularly interesting had happened this past year I went home to see my grandma and dad's side as she was passing I called my mom and told her I was taking an emergency trip and would be in the area but wouldn't have time to see her her response that's fine I understand your family needs you I was beside myself I had known that she was working on herself for a while but living so far away and speaking so little I hadn't witnessed it five years ago she would have demanded that I leave my dying grandma to come see her I came back to the area the next month and we discussed it more she said that she realized that a lot of problems in her life and a lot of the unhappiness stems from selfishness I am incredibly proud of the changes she's made in her life and it has forced me to reevaluate my own actions pertaining to our strained relationship in my life as a whole and I've come to a conclusion I'm just like her thanks for listening to radio TTS hit the subscribe button and activate the notification bell for more videos click the right box for the current playlist let us know in the comments what you think about Karen behavior

Channel: Radio TTS

Views: 75,293

Rating: 4.9357638 out of 5

Keywords: reddit, reddit stories, best of reddit, askreddit, reddit story, ask reddit, reddit cringe, askreddit funny, reddit funny, r/askreddit, top posts, reddit best, r/, reddit top posts, askreddit top posts, reddit top post, radio tts Karen, reddit karen moments, karen reddit meme, karen on reddit, askreddit karen stories, r/askreddit karen, karen funny, Karen reddit, Karen, Karens, Mum is a Karen, Karen meme

Id: gbbEV2isGk4

Length: 16min 29sec (989 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 11 2020