honestly tho like people who aren’t…raised by alcoholics don’t really…understand roses distaste for the moments when mom lalonde is affectionate and Trying. theres something sickening and horrible about the way emotionally absent parents try to suddenly make up for years of neglect in short bursts but you really dont have any idea who this person loving you is, not really, so its empty, even if genuine. its hard to explain to someone who comes in thinking “oh but mom loves rose” the gut wrenching disgust and horror that comes with the territory of “this person loves me but i know this moment of affection won’t last” like. people who write off rose as just being 13 really just. they dont get it
also, a similar feeling in how like…. Fun mom lalonde is. people always loved/love my mother bc she’s fun as fuck and affectionate and has a great sense of humor and is a great cook. she’s also been drunk every night since i’ve been born, so i always felt like… bad and weird when people would be like “your mom is so cool!” bc i couldn’t mirror or appreciate their enthusiasm
i’d just be uncomfortably be like “yeah, i know”
cuz they just didn’t get it. how when you’re around it every night instead of maybe once or twice in your life, you see the dysfunction; the pedantic speech; the drunken misunderstandings; loudness and “fun” until 2am when you, a kid, have school the next morning. when communication and high moods break down and she gets into uneccesary fights with your dad for just as long, just as loudly, and you’re just enduring the abuse as a third party. you’re just tense and sleepless, almost every night.
you can’t make those friends or peers understand it, so they’re just confused about you resenting these qualities in your parent.
I’m gonna add another angle and it is the: “They only love me when they’re drunk” angle.
Even if they do show affection they only show it when they are not in their right state of mind. So can that affection that live ever be true? Or is it just a passing fancy by someone who can’t even live in the world around them without having their mental state changed through an addictive substance.
Especially if it’s a pattern, you learn that love is false and everything they say is a lie.
Also, also, even if they’re nice it’s still terrifying especially as a child. The adult that normally doesn’t care for you has all its attention on you now. You have no idea what they’re gonna do and the spotlight is on you.
Lastly, you don’t just get used to having an alcoholic parent. It’s not something that normalizes. It is a constant state of what are they gonna do this time? And how do I (as a child) mitigate the damage?
I love Rose as a character and it makes sense why she had the relationship she had with her Mom both the distaste and the love for her.
I also think her struggles with alcoholism are an unintentionally beautiful remark about how so many of us are afraid of becoming alcoholics like our parents.
