Context: My dad (M55) has been quite depressed recently and my mom (F57) is extremely unsympathetic when solving the issue involves herself. My dad works alot and appears to earn a relatively high salary based on where we live. For awhile, my mom quit working to raise me and my sisters when we were younger, however, when she financially was no longer required to continue work, about 2 years ago, she decided to pursue her dream of painting and selling her art to make some extra money. Initially, she seemed to enjoy it, however, she continuously overly relies on my dad to do all her social media amd marketing over tiktok/instagram and also relies on him for even more basic tasks, such as just texting other people she works with and driving her around. Recently however, all she does is complain about it and say she doesn’t make enough money and how much she hates what she does and we’re always broke and she only makes around €1200 a year, however whenever anyone else in my family asks her to get another job she simply complains that she doesn’t want to talk to people and comes up with other feeble excuses to get a job.
About a week ago, my mom was complaining to the entire family about how tired she always is and how her life is so difficult nowadays and that she needs to reserve my dad to work on her social media later and releasing more of her art, however around this time we had a new internet provider placed in, and whoever did the work failed and has broken the wifi to the extent I’m (18M) unable to use it in my room to do any schoolwork or anything else. I went to ask her whether we can call the router people about getting a replacement because I don’t have much mobile data and I am completely incapable of working in my room with the poor wifi, and she responded with "Your dad is very stressed right now because things keep going wrong can you please be more sympathetic about this and not give him another thing to do.".
At this I just couldn’t put up with it anymore, I told her if we’re so stressed all the time and I can’t even get the wifi to work, whilst I’m still full time studying and am incapable of getting a job, why can’t she either do her ‘painting’ on her own allowing my dad more time to relax or get a real job and to stop complaining all the time like everyone else, she isn’t helping and needs to stop only thinking about herself when those around her are clearly struggling.
NTA. Pursuing your passion shouldn’t directly cause your loved one’s hardships. Many artists pursue art as well as work full time to make ends meet, so your mother is just being lazy in an over saturated market.
You ROCK!
NTA Unfortunately, I would be surprised if this gets through to her. In one way, your dad has to own his own choices and their consequences here. He has chosen to enable all of this, including her basically playing at working while doing her hobby, her relying on him as he acts as her assistant after his day job, and him listening to her complain as if her privileged life is that of the one hardest done by in the house — with him (presumably) not saying anything remotely like what you told her. If he doesn’t back you up here then I can easily imagine she will be back to the same thing in no time, with you painted as the bad guy somehow.
Of course she should wake up to herself, but your dad is making that harder, not easier, by setting up and enabling all that she is doing, normalizing her lifestyle and his role in it. She has gotten so used to it she doesn’t see anything wrong with the situation, even though she recognizes that your dad is too busy and stressed out.
NTA
Free advice: actual narcissists, from a clinical standpoint, can’t change. Even when they want to. This is a lost cause. You’re only going to make it worse by calling her out.
Grey Rock is pretty much my go to for them.
NTA It’s her job to deal with social media and clients. If she was a famous artist she could employ someone to do it, but she’s not. Did she complain like that when she was raising kids? She sounds like someone who’s going to be miserable no matter what she does.