Need help with my mom

[Nudetypist]

Hi all, I am a Chinese American and currently in a situation that requires your help.

 

My mother is a very gullible person. She believes everything she reads, as long as it's in a Chinese newspaper. Often times she confuses information and still believes in it because of her limited education.

 

My problem is I have 2 cats at home and my mom is convinced they are infected with germs, bacteria, viruses, ebola, etc. They never leave the house except for the yearly doctor visit, so they are very healthy. No matter how many times I try to tell her this, she says the same thing to me every time she visits me. EVERY TIME! She read one article about some celebrity who gave up their cat after she had a baby, so if a celebrity did it, then all cats must be dirty creatures out to steal our souls. That is my mom's uneducated way of thinking.

 

So I am asking for help in finding Chinese articles that explain how clean cats are. I cannot read Chinese and can only speak it. Please help!

 

Thank you!

[anonymoose]

猫是爱干净的动物吗？

 

It's more about how cats love cleanliness, rather than being clean, but it's a start.

[eddyf]

Wow, what a funny/annoying situation.

 

Here's another link for you: 养猫会被猫传染疾病吗？

[Lu]

I think that while cats are fine and won't make you sick, cats and pregnant women/babies can in fact be a bad combination. Basically you shouldn't let a pregnant woman clean the litterbox, because of toxoplasmosis. I am neither a cat-owner nor (to my knowledge) pregnant, so have never looked into the details, but that celebrity might not have been totally paranoid.

 

Anyway, if Chinese-language articles fail to convince your mom, perhaps just stop trying. Every time she visits and complains about the cats, thank her for her kind advice and her care for your health & general well-being, maybe put the cats in the other room for the duration of her visit, and change the subject to something she likes to talk about. Then just keep the cats, of course, and repeat next time she visits. If this is the biggest problem you have with your mom, you two are doing pretty well.

 

I can see it can grate on you though, so good luck with this issue.

[889]

As we age, we tend to become very set in our views.

 

Do you really think that waving a newspaper article or two on the joy of cats is going to change your mother's mind?

 

Of course not. Instead, it'll focus the two of you on cats, and the atmosphere will go from bad to worse.

 

So just move on whenever she raises the issue; there's not much else you can do.

 

Unless, as suggested, you want to hide the cats before her next visit. You can serve her a nice meal, and then when she asks about the cats you can just mention that they're no longer around, and that she has nothing to fret about any more.

 

"And oh, by the way, how was the soup?"

[Shelley]

I have to agree with Lu and 889. I don't think a mountain of articles in any language is going to convince her.

 

Just side step the issue when ever it is mentioned and get on with the things you do like to do together.

 

I have 5 cats, never had any problems, this is is only my personal experience, but I have also heard from my many friends who also have cats that they have no problems. As long as you maintain a good hygiene regime i.e. washing hands after every time you handle the litter there should be no problems.

[陳德聰]

Your mother sounds just like my grandmother. She would not let my sister eat lamb while pregnant. It didn't matter that I told her there was only an issue if my sister actually handled a sheep, or that she could not even remember who told her pregnant women can't eat lamb. It still doesn't matter haha, but really... My sister just had to be okay with not eating lamb when my grandmother was around, because the argument simply isn't worth it. Perhaps your mother visits often, so this is not as easy to brush off, but yeah it's unlikely that she will be moved by factual information if this is a personality trait of hers.

I like Lu's suggestion. I also usually offer an additional suggestion which I have found goes a very long way: Simply agree and then still do what you want. In this case, your mother says cats are bad for you, and you say "oh yeah I know, I have really been meaning to get rid of them, maybe next week" and then just go about your life until the next time you get to use the exact same line. In Canada, I like to call this "Asian teenage rebellion", but it works well beyond the teens.

[Nudetypist]

Hi,

 

Thank you for the responses. Unfortunately, ignoring the problem won't help much because she will soon be babysitting my new child everyday. Which is why she is bringing up the issue so often, cause she thinks the cats are a danger to my child. My biggest fear is that she will "accidentally" let the cats out the apartment when I'm at work and she's alone. Knowing my mother, she is capable of that sort of thing. She did it once before when I was a kid and had a cat, she just threw the cat out on the streets one day.

 

I'll just say it, my mother is not bright. She grew up in a small village and only had elementary education. Her biggest weakness is that she believes in anything as long as she reads it in Chinese. Which is why I believe these articles will help. It doesn't even need to be scientific, it could be a blogger writing about it. It just needs to be written in Chinese.

 

Oh, and she also believed in the no eating lamb while my wife was pregnant.

[Shelley]

If it was me with all that you have said about your mother, (no insult or harm intended) I wouldn't let her look after my child.

 

This is of course only my opinion and you can and probably will just ignore me.

[陳德聰]

Oh snap. K well here is a blogger who tries to pick apart some myths, though I didn't find it terribly convincing.

http://m.qbaobei.com/a/407971.html

[Lu]

I see the problem. If the blog doesn't help, is it possible to lock the cats in a room when you're at work? So that the cats can't get to the baby (or your mom) and your mom can't get to the cats? I realise this isn't very nice (or fair) to the cats, so it's perhaps a last-resort solution.

[li3wei1]

Or could Mom look after baby at her place?

 

I think I would second Shelley's opinion. Someone who has been known to throw someone else's pet out on the street is not someone I would trust to look after my child.

[Lu]

Not everyone has a range of childcare options to choose from. I think we can safely assume the OP & his wife considered all the pros and cons of the options they had and this was the best one.

[Shelley]

Or could Mom look after baby at her place?

 

 

 

Best idea so far.

[eddyf]

Everyone here is so pessimistic. Who knows, maybe OP's mom will really change her mind when she reads the right blog post in Chinese. Wouldn't that just be perfect?

 

People saying that OP's mom should not be allowed to babysit her own grandchild at all, isn't that a little drastic? OP seemed to survive her childcare just fine 

[Angelina]

I like 陳德聰's advice and the name "Asian teenage rebellion" ☺️

[Nudetypist]

Thanks for the help, the blog especially is very helpful and looks authentic. I'll be sure to print out a copy for my mom.

 

Just to clarify a few things, despite my mom's lack of education, she can still be an efficient mother to babysit my child. She's not a crazy women, just very gullible when it comes to the information she reads. But she learned the new age information on childcare from years of babysitting my sister's children. If I could afford a full time nanny, I would go that route but it's not in the budget at the moment. Plus, I would like my baby to learn chinese by being around my mother.

 

And bringing my baby to my mother's place wouldn't help because her point is that just having cats in general is not clean. The magical cat bacteria will be all over our furniture, crib, food, etc. So she wants me to get rid of the cats so their killer bacteria won't spread, not just lock them in a room. Believe me, I tried telling her that cats are clean and I have sources from the NY Times, scientific research, Cornell University, and all these other respected sources. But she never heard of those things and cites her local chinese newspaper and celebrity tabloid as more validating scientific research than my sources. It's a lost cause unless I have chinese written proof. In her words, "What good is American science?"

 

And in an unrelated topic but just to show the extent of her misinformation. During the baseball steroid scandal a few years back, she wanted to throw away all my whey protein because she thought I was taking steroids. She read that steroids are bad. I tried informing her it's for muscle building but it's not a steroid, but she didn't understand. Luckily, when I told her how much it cost, she did not throw it away because being wasteful is a sin.

[Lu]

And bringing my baby to my mother's place wouldn't help because her point is that just having cats in general is not clean.

I think it was meant more along the lines of when your mom is not alone at your place for extended periods of time, she won't have as much opportunity to get rid of the cats.

 

Luckily, when I told her how much it cost, she did not throw it away because being wasteful is a sin.

I'm suddenly quite sure your cats are invaluable purebreds...

[Nudetypist]

An Update:

 

I found out the infamous celebrity which she is getting all her cat science from is: Aimee Chan

 

http://www.jaynestars.com/news/aimee-chan-angers-netizens-with-cat-abandonment/

 

That is the article about her giving up her cats. So it sounds like a lot of people are criticizing Aimee Chan for abandoning her long time pets. Can someone find me articles in chinese with this criticism?

 

I also found this article: http://orientaldaily.on.cc/cnt/entertainment/20140721/00282_016.html

 

Which according to Google translate (last paragraph) sort of mentions Aimee only gave up the cats because she can't take allergy medication and breastfeed at the same time. If that is true then that is the ace card I'm looking for! That would disprove her that a celebrity gave up the cats because of bacteria, but actually due to breastfeeding and medication conflict. Can someone please confirm if this is what it's saying?

 

Thanks.

[eddyf]

If you can speak Chinese why don't you just pass the article through a screen reader to see what it says??