Okay, I know that I'm not a HUGE environmentalist but I'm slowly getting
there again. And I'd probably be pretty extreme to a very mainstream
person. I try not to use chemicals, pesticides and believe in
protecting endangered species even if they are in the way of human
development. I also believe in simplifying our lives to help bring
about some of these changes. Okay there's my bit of background....

Well living with FIL has been a real challenge in keeping my mouth closed. We have been living with him since October of last year and have been really greatful that he opened his home to us when we needed a place to stay after we sold our previous home and until we could find a new one. But living with him has reinforced many of the above beliefs tenfold. This man will grab a bottle of spray for anything. Even though I've repeatedly told him that Gavin and I are sensitive (finally had to use the word allergic so he would stop). I've even done my best to tell him about alternatives, the man should invest in Dow though. Now I know this is his house so I've tried to keep my mouth shut but its becoming increasingly more difficult. Last night I think he was intentionally saying things to upset me and try to get me into a fight. It started out innocently enough but then he started talking about spraying all kinds of crap to kill things. No big deal so far, lets change subjects. So I changed it to can you believe some people keep hissing roaches as pets (since we were mainly talking about roaches). Then he goes off in another tangent about shooting prarie dogs and about how they are pests too. I told him that some prairie dogs are endangered species and that its the humans
that are encroaching on the prairie dogs home and that the humans are the
pests in this situation. He starts going on and on about how he'd still like to go hunt prairie dogs (now this man is the laziest person I know and I can't even imagine the man hunting anything ever, it would require effort on his part) but it really upset me. He didn't care that he was upsetting me. I told him that prairie dogs weren't pests again and tried to leave but he kept on and on about it. Finally I escaped upstairs only to hear him say in an undertone, "I'd still like to go do it". He was under the impression that there are prarie dog hunting groups you can join and kill prairie dogs. Now while I know many hunters and don't have a problem with that, why in the heck would anyone kill prarie dogs for pleasure. <sigh> I guess its like anything else, because people think they are the only species on the planet. And yes I've killed a few pest animals myself but I wouldn't go out and try to eradicate an entire species because it was a pest. And the only reason I've killed a few
pest animals was because they were either a) killing some of my domesticated animals and that was my only option at the time to protect my animal or b) I couldn't catch the dang things to get rid of them. Heck I've even live caught field mice and put them back outside when I catch them in the house/building.

I really hope this didn't offend anyone, because that's not my intent. Heck I've never even thought twice about prarie dogs until last night and it wasn't even really about prairie dogs for me, it was his attitude. He just doesn't have a clue. <sigh> I don't know why I let him get to me. He's so closed minded. It also seems like he does and says these things only when we are alone. Dh had taken the boys to his mother's house last night because I had a meeting at 8:30 online last night. He NEVER does these things when dh or anyone else is around or could come in and interrupt of contradict him. Why on h&ll does he do this to me. Brian says he never does these things to him, but he does believe me that they occur. I could go on and on about the many things that he's done, I'm just frustrated.

:big hug:
Sorry you have to live with someone who treats you that way. Some people take the fact that you do things differently to mean that you think they're wrong (which, in my case is sometimes true) and feel they have to go out of thier way to try to prove that they are right, no matter who they hurt to do it. I hope you find a HOME soon.

{{{{{{{HUGS}}}}}}
That sounds very stressful.

I would say become the master at avoiding conversation with him.

Thanks for listening guys. I'm not usually home alone with him. I usually avoid topics that we disagree on or I'll ignore his mindless dribble, but he had me cornered in the kitchen and I couldn't get away. It won't be long now and we won't be living here anymore. Most of his conversations are about work or stuff that happened to him 40 years ago when he had friends, so they are easy to ignore. I just let him get to me this time. <sigh>

I really think it is more stressful to live with family than it is to live with strangers. Especially when you live with them and not vice versa. I think the older generation is purposely disrespectful towards environmentalist due to the what they feel is the "hippie/druggy" mentality. They confuse the free-love movement they saw on black and white news cast to serious environmentalist.

The older generation is much more black and white than our generation. There were "tree hugging hippies" and them. No in-between, no middle ground. Our generation (and even more so with today's under-twenties) have many different levels of environmentally-minded folks. Some of us are very green, some of us recycle but drive a SUV. I am leaning towards very green but live with a husband who believes it's too much of a bother too rinse a can and put it in the recycle bin...

Our children will be even more varied...some driving Hummers and others riding bikes. Some eating nothing but Taco Bell and (gritting my teeth here) McDonald's and others working on CSA sites. Hopefully, each generation will bring us closer to a greener, more Mother friendly human.

My advice? Grin and bear it, avoid confrontation and find a new house (or intentional community!) as soon as you can...just keep the peace.

Namaste'

I really think it is more stressful to live with family than it is to live with strangers. Especially when you live with them and not vice versa. I think the older generation is purposely disrespectful towards environmentalist due to the what they feel is the "hippie/druggy" mentality. They confuse the free-love movement they saw on black and white news cast to serious environmentalist.

The older generation is much more black and white than our generation. There were "tree hugging hippies" and them. No in-between, no middle ground. Our generation (and even more so with today's under-twenties) have many different levels of environmentally-minded folks. Some of us are very green, some of us recycle but drive a SUV. I am leaning towards very green but live with a husband who believes it's too much of a bother too rinse a can and put it in the recycle bin...

Our children will be even more varied...some driving Hummers and others riding bikes. Some eating nothing but Taco Bell and (gritting my teeth here) McDonald's and others working on CSA sites. Hopefully, each generation will bring us closer to a greener, more Mother friendly human.

My advice? Grin and bear it, avoid confrontation and find a new house (or intentional community!) as soon as you can...just keep the peace.

Namaste'


I agree with everything you wrote. We've been living here for far too long already. We bought a HUD foreclosure and have been fixing it up (it was a bit more work than we estimated). We are moving into a house with a smaller squarefootage, 2 acres and a much smaller house payment. We should be out of here in 2 weeks. We've decided that none of us should be here any longer. I've found my 4 year old copying some of my FIL's sayings and that just bother's me. So we won't have a main bathroom (we will have the master bathroom) and there are some things that will still need to be fixed. It is a mobile home which was not our ideal but in the price range we set for ourselves. We completely ticked off our mortgage broker when buying this place because we could afford over twice as much but we were trying to pay off our more materalistic phase in life and start over. Its funny that you mentioned intentional community because the online meeting I had that night was a reading club. We are reading "Creating a Life Together: Practical Tools to Grow Ecovillages and Intentional Communities" by Dianan Leafe Christian.