Dear Care and Feeding,
How do I get my mom to stop using my family as support for her political beliefs? My husband and I launched our careers during the Great Recession, and then had major career path redirection during COVID and the launch of artificial intelligence, respectively. We have two kids, and our son has a fairly expensive disability. We get practical support from friends. Our kids’ school has a hard-working special education team. Our son is eligible for some limited state programs. Still, without the financial help we’ve gotten from my in-laws during tough years in the past, we would’ve lost our home and had to make impossible choices about caring for our kids. We’re so lucky my husband’s parents are able and willing to help us.
My parents and I are not close, and they’re not involved grandparents. So, all they see is that we don’t rent, both our kids are in school, and we’ve both had periods of unemployment, but neither of us appears to be having a breakdown. My mom sees this as demonstrating that “it’s easy and not expensive to raise a special needs kid, and even two people who can’t stay employed can do it thanks to all that government assistance.” She believes support programs should be cut to lower taxes, and that we’re an example of why. She’s been using her account of our lives as a baseline for her posts on Nextdoor, in disability parent groups, and even in public letters of support she wrote for a state candidate during the last election. I had no idea of any of this until someone sent me one of her “stories.” I’m incredibly hurt and angry, for like six different reasons. How do I shut this down? I can’t claim it’s libel or anything, legally.
—Maybe It Looks Easy?