Familial Loyalty (Part II)

This is the second part of my posts on Familial Loyalty. For the first part, go here.


K, on the other hand, is completely insane. I'm no psychologist or psychiatrist, so I can't give a clinical diagnosis. But I definitely think there's something wrong with her in mental terms. First, some background information.

K recently lost her job. By recently, I mean about a year and a half ago. Before that, she was living in a nice house in a nice neighborhood. She has two children (boys, entering sixth and fourth grades), and they absolutely loved the neighborhood and the house. She continued living at that location for several months after losing her job, but eventually her water and power was shut off for non-payment. At that point, she moved back into my house with us.

(By "my house" I mean my grandmother's house. My father and I live in the basement apartment; there's two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a kitchen/living room combo. On the ground level, there are three normal sized bedrooms and a larger, "master-sized" bedroom. Also, a kitchen, a dining room, a living room, and a bathroom. Currently, the three smaller bedrooms are taken up by my grandmother, her sister, and my father's older sister. The larger bedroom is being occupied by K and her two children. Needless to say that space is at a premium in this house!)

This isn't a big deal. Whenever any of my father's siblings are down on their luck, the offer exists for them (if there's room) to move back in here. It's how the family works.

It is, however, a big deal that K is (understandably) angry with the world. You see, she is angry with the economic situation (and other aspects) that forced how out of the job field. She is angry with life because she has to grow up and be responsible (perhaps for the first time in her life). I assume that she is angry that she didn't follow her dreams and play college softball. She is angry at her husband (separated, not divorced) because he turned out to be a loser. She is angry with men in general because she seems to be unable to pick a non-loser man to share her life.

Oh! And she's angry with the school system. The local school system, the national system, the collegiate system.... All of them! Some things happened with her children and the particular school she was at wouldn't listen to her side of the story. That's wrong. It really is. The school system (or at least a few individuals within it) failed to do its job properly. That's a problem. But she has irrationally blamed the entire school system in our area and pulled her children from school. She is going to homeschool her children. This (in my opinion) is not an option. For several reasons (I see another blog post coming up!).

Regardless, she is so angry and upset with the world that she takes it out on anyone who will listen. Almost every conversation with her turns towards one of those subjects.

Although I haven't mentioned it yet, I aspire to teach high school English in a few, short years. I'm also male. That's two strikes against me (in her book). We came to verbal blows on the matter of the school system one day, but I left with the moral high ground (I walked away after we both started yelling).

The point I'm making is, we simply don't get along. And I think it's okay to stay that way.

To answer the question posited in my previous post, no. No, I don't owe this aunt anything. Not in terms of loyalty or respect. Nothing is owed to her that isn't owed to the average person. That is, I'll treat her with the dignity befitting a human, but no more than that.

I don't even give her the respect due to one's elders because she doesn't act her age. Hardly! (I can, of course, provide more information if it is requested.)