Photo: TikTok
Imagine speaking to your child this way...
By John Sundholm — Written on May 16, 2023
For most people, Mother's Day is a heartfelt holiday honoring the mother-child relationship, but for all too many, the day underlines the difficulty of those relationships, especially in today's incredibly divisive political climate. One woman's Mother's Day conversation with her mom puts these divisions into stark relief.
A woman's mom made a cruel and impossible demand for her Mother's Day gift.
Most moms ask for a family outing or a special memento for the holiday—if they ask for anything at all, that is. But while brunch and roses suffice for most moms, TikToker @femcel1836's mom had a far more specific, not to mention impossible and downright cruel, request. She wanted her daughter to change her entire identity and personality for Mother's Day.
The TikToker's mom asked her to stop being gay for Mother's Day.
If you wanted a more cliché example of all too many politically conservative parents, you'd be hard-pressed to find a better one than this mom, whom her daughter describes as an adherent of far-right conspiracy theories like the dangerously absurd QAnon movement. As is often the case with such people, her mother is also homophobic.
As soon as the TikToker asks her mom what she wants for Mother's Day, she doesn't even hesitate to be as cruelly blunt as possible. "Tell me you're straight and you're gonna have kids. That's all I want," she says. Her daughter responds flatly, "Okay, I'm straight and I'm gonna have kids."
"Are you telling me the truth?" she demands. But of course the TikToker is just playing with her, trying to point out the absurdity of her demand by sarcastically placating her. "You can never know if it's real," she tells her mom. "If you told it to me, it better be true," her mom responds, before going on to say even more cruel things about her child.
Her mom then accused her of being a 'godless socialist' who can't be trusted.
Many right-wing movements and the QAnon conspiracy theory that the TikToker's mom follows in particular cast political differences in explicitly spiritual terms—they believe people who vote and live their lives in more "liberal" ways are in league with Satan himself, and they consider politics a battle of "spiritual warfare" against these forces.
Taking a page from these movements' playbook, the mom referred to her daughter in precisely these terms. "I mean, can you, like, swear on God or are you, like, a godless socialist?" the mom says to her child, regurgitating a popular right-wing buzzphrase used to describe liberals, Democrats, LGBTQ people and many other groups they have identified as political enemies.
"I can't believe what you're saying because you're not afraid of God," the TikToker's mom goes on to say. She then takes her Mother's Day demands a step further. "Tomorrow, call me and tell me you're straight and you're going to have children with a guy that I would approve of." She then twists the knife by adding, "Also, shave your armpits, that would help."
Studies have shown that right-wing politics, conspiracy theories, and homophobia are tearing families apart at shocking rates.
If you're lucky, the woman's video may seem shocking. How can a mother possibly think such things about her own child, let alone say them out loud to her? But parent-child relationships like this have become incredibly common as our politics have become more divisive and right-wing conspiracy theories have proliferated online—if those relationships have even survived at all, that is.
A 2020 study by Cornell University sociologist Karl Pillemer found that a shocking 27% of Americans 18 and older had cut off contact with a family member, and for LGBTQ people, the case is even bleaker. LGBTQ charity Just Like Us found in 2022 that nearly half of LGBTQ people are estranged from at least one family member.
Researchers as well as therapists say that across the board, political differences are one of the major reasons for skyrocketing estrangements. A 2022 poll by Siena College and The New York Times found that 1 in 5 people report having had a friend or family relationship damaged by political differences since the 2016 election.
And while hard data on the impacts of QAnon is sparse so far, with roughly 22% of Americans believing in the conspiracy theory, the impact has been heartbreaking and disastrous according to family members and loved ones of those who've been sucked into the movement, as seen in the video below.
Many people urged the TikToker to sever ties with her mom over their Mother's Day conversation.
Some were in total disbelief at the TikToker's mom's comments. "Is this real?!" one commenter wrote, while another commented, "my jaw is on the floor."
But for many others, the conversation was sadly relatable. "'Just change everything about yourself and then I'll be happy,'" one person wrote, "my parents, too, man." Another commenter lamented that the TikToker "deserve[s] love that is not conditional."
The devastating impact of parental rejection and estrangement on LGBTQ people is well documented, of course. For that reason, many urged the TikToker to sever ties with her mom. "There is nothing wrong with cutting ties from family," one commenter wrote. "You can find new family who'll actually love you for who you are." Another user commented, "In case it's helpful to hear: it's okay to cut off contact with people who hurt us."
Going no contact is an incredibly difficult decision, and issues like this can't be solved in the comments of a TikTok video. But one thing is for certain—if Mother's Day brought you more heartbreak than celebration, you are absolutely not alone. Here's hoping moms like the one in this TikTok video can someday learn that their children are more than avatars for their political and religious beliefs. Life is too short to spend it this way.
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice and human interest topics.