I am taking your article very seriously and pondering on how I can reverse engineer managing the patriarchal norms of my elderly mother, who gives great respect to her neglectful son, while behaving in belittling, demeaning ways to me, that show her lack of appreciation for me leaving my own home for a week at a time, juggling work, so that I'm cooking, cleaning, bringing her nutritional supplements, planting flowers for her garden, reading to her, endlessly explaining TV programmes in English, getting my brother's sons to be more sensitive to her needs etc etc.... etc!!!

The sharpening knives story about the bullied wife, made me laugh but obviously that wouldn't work. My mother knows I'd rather stab myself than scratch her!!!