Barb's Over-Protectiveness -

[duckduckgoose]

I was thinking about this the other day, how Barb was so over-protective of Chris even when he was an older teenager, like, going to his prom with him and chaperoning him everywhere. But when it really came down to it, she should have been protecting him when he was on the internet.

Maybe that was too much work for her to sit side by side with Chris when he was on the internet or password protect it when she and Bob were not around, but if she was over-protecting him so much physically, then her supervising his internet time would have prevented so much of the inappropriate uploads (ie. sex with the blow-up doll) and he certainly would not have been trolled so much.

 

[CatParty]

it's probably because she's from a completely different era and generation. the computer and internet are hard for her to figure out. to her, it was probably just another video game system for him. and by the time she came around to realize that it was actually hurting him, nothing could be done to fix the situation.

 

[ChurchOfGodBear]

What CatParty said, plus remember Barbs over protectiveness was for mostly selfish reasons. She wanted to keep Chris nearby, not Sheild him from harm per se. On the Internet, Chris was screwing over himself and his future, but he was still in the house and keeping Barb company, and that's all that mattered to her.

 

[Donald Duck]

What CatParty said, plus remember Barbs over protectiveness was for mostly selfish reasons. She wanted to keep Chris nearby, not Sheild him from harm per se. On the Internet, Chris was screwing over himself and his future, but he was still in the house and keeping Barb company, and that's all that mattered to her.

Yeah... that's what made me wonder if "over-protectiveness" is the right way to describe it. Just based on what I can read of her on the cwcki and her relationship with her son, I get the impression that she treats Chris more like a how a pet owner would a beloved fat cat.

 

[Alec Benson Leary]

Chris being on the internet? Sounds more like Chris spending time in the house where mommy can reach him and pet him at any time. Barb probably approved of his sitting at the computer for a long time before even getting a glimmer of what he was actually doing.

 

[Seahorses]

Maybe she was being over-protective due to the reactions he got as a youth. By that I mean the events that happened to him at the elementary school that forced a transfer, etc. She didn't want him to suffer from any of that again.

 

[DJAndyMD]

I don't see Barb as over-protective, she has an unhealthy obsession over Chris and I can pinpoint the cause. Think about it, her other son Cole refuses to have anything to do with her and Chris is the only other child she has that will be there for her at her old age. Maybe she thinks Chris can fill in the void that Cole refuses to be a part of her life.

 

[snowkitten91]

Chris is the most treasured piece of Barb's hoarded collection.

 

[pickleniggo]

Maybe she was being over-protective due to the reactions he got as a youth. By that I mean the events that Borb had imagined happened to him at the elementary school that forced a Borb transferred him from, etc. She didn't want him to suffer from any of that again.

Fixed that for you.

 

[MysticMisty]

Barb isn't being overly protective, she's actively preventing Chris from having a life outside the house. The Ohio incident especially scared her into the potential that Chris could leave the nest and attempt to be independent.

 

[The Joker]

Chris being on the internet? Sounds more like Chris spending time in the house where mommy can reach him and pet him at any time. Barb probably approved of his sitting at the computer for a long time before even getting a glimmer of what he was actually doing.

At the beginning of his childhood, Chris was her poor little mute baby she had to raise and cuddle to make him better. When he was diagnosed with "high functioning" autism, he beame her special litte baby that will never leave her. Most mothers will have to deal with their teenagers going with their "I hate you Mom!" stage, but not Chris. He still says "I love you Mommy" and cuddles with her... Thirty years later.

 

[BALLZ-BROKEN]

Chris is the most treasured piece of Barb's hoarded collection.

I think Chris is the second most treasured piece. Her first piece was the swingin' hep plastic funnel-inventing electrical engineer.

It makes a sick sorta sense. Bob was her first prize. She "put him on the shelf", to use the parlance of professional wrestling. Chris was just second fiddle. Sure, they moved to avoid to avoid the Greene County School board but after that Chris just did whatever he wanted. He could say "Hey Ma, I'm gonna masturbate in front of the middle school" and all she'd hear was "Hey Ma, I'm going to my attraction location.

That all changed after Bob died. The October incident happened, and she crashed, not into slumber, she realized her grip on her life was slipping, like a A4LD automatic transmission. She has nothing in her life to be proud of, so she clings to whatever refuse she can grab.

 

[BillRiley]

Maybe she was being over-protective due to the reactions he got as a youth. By that I mean the events that happened to him at the elementary school that forced a transfer, etc. She didn't want him to suffer from any of that again.

The event in question was Chris-Cha­n's classroom 'tard rage, (probably not the first episode of it's kind) which was so violent it took several adults to hold him down. The school recommended he be enrolled at the Grafton school in Winchester, VA - at the time one of the leading schools in the treatment of autism. Bob either balked at the expense or couldn't be arsed to care and pulled Barb's special snowflake out of the school for a year of homeschooling while (allegedly) trying to sue the school district for homosexually molesting Chris. Who knows how much of it Barb believed.

 

[Henry Bemis]

Chris is the most treasured piece of Barb's hoarded collection.

I think Chris is the second most treasured piece. Her first piece was the swingin' hep plastic funnel-inventing electrical engineer.

It makes a sick sorta sense. Bob was her first prize.

You seem to forget her previous relationships.

 

[homerbeoulve]

CWC is another "furniture" for Barb. She needs to protect "him" at all costs.

 

[GFYS]

Chris being on the internet? Sounds more like Chris spending time in the house where mommy can reach him and pet him at any time. Barb probably approved of his sitting at the computer for a long time before even getting a glimmer of what he was actually doing.

At the beginning of his childhood, Chris was her poor little mute baby she had to raise and cuddle to make him better. When he was diagnosed with "high functioning" autism, he beame her special litte baby that will never leave her. Most mothers will have to deal with their teenagers going with their "I hate you Mom!" stage, but not Chris. He still says "I love you Mommy" and cuddles with her... Thirty years later.

I dunno... Her locking him in a room filled with toys and the occasional babysitter, while her and Bob regularly got shitfaced at bars, suggests her maternal instincts are a little fucked. Even when Barb was more involved in Chris' developmental years, it seems like she would regularly just drop him off at a toy store, so she could go shopping. The few times we see photos or video of her at places WITH Chris, she is often more involved with the McDonald's sandwich in her hand. Some of the times where it seems like she was parading him around, I suspect it was just facilitating her Münchausen syndrome-by-proxy "look at how brave I am, raising with my fat striped retard child" wallowing.

Yeah, I know I'm assuming the worst of her... Honestly, from what we do know about Barb, does anyone really believe I'm that far off from reality? While Cole's hipster-douche opinion usually means nothing to me, I do think their strained relationship does support the working theory of Barb being a pretty shitty human being for more than just the last few years.

 

[Fuzzy Wuzzy]

Chris being on the internet? Sounds more like Chris spending time in the house where mommy can reach him and pet him at any time. Barb probably approved of his sitting at the computer for a long time before even getting a glimmer of what he was actually doing.

At the beginning of his childhood, Chris was her poor little mute baby she had to raise and cuddle to make him better. When he was diagnosed with "high functioning" autism, he beame her special litte baby that will never leave her. Most mothers will have to deal with their teenagers going with their "I hate you Mom!" stage, but not Chris. He still says "I love you Mommy" and cuddles with her... Thirty years later.

Some kids who said "I hate you Mom!" end up growing up to be successful adults because they realized that their parents were strict on them so they can be productive in society. Some kids who said that regretted that because say something happens to their mother, they get worried and frantic and feel like it's their fault. But in Chris's case, understand his mom grew up when psychiatry was still in its infancy stage so she might have clinged on to the belief that autism equals mental retardation and therefore autistic children need plenty of soft love to make life easier. But if someone has other theories, well feel free to tell me or even correct me.

 

[BigAltheGreat921]

Mothers are always protective of their children to a certain extent, but rarely to this extreme like Barb. I wonder if there's a psychological condition for that?

 

[Fuzzy Wuzzy]

Mothers are always protective of their children to a certain extent, but rarely to this extreme like Barb. I wonder if there's a psychological condition for that?

Wished I know... According to the CWCki, she was abused by her alcoholic father so that could contribute to her coddling of Chris where she does that to compensate her traumatic past. I could be wrong or there might be more to this though.

 

[Henry Bemis]

But in Chris's case, understand his mom grew up when psychiatry was still in its infancy stage so she might have clinged on to the belief that autism equals mental retardation and therefore autistic children need plenty of soft love to make life easier. But if someone has other theories, well feel free to tell me or even correct me.

Worse, autism was cause to stick you in a mental ward. This doesn't include the horror of the the inevitable embarrassment it would cause if someone was so gauche as to mention your warded family in public.

Mothers are always protective of their children to a certain extent, but rarely to this extreme like Barb. I wonder if there's a psychological condition for that?

Wished I know... According to the CWCki, she was abused by her alcoholic father so that could contribute to her coddling of Chris where she does that to compensate her traumatic past. I could be wrong or there might be more to this though.

The Weston family has a history with moonshinin', but Joseph Weston was only notable for dying when Barb was barely a teenager; no mention of abuse.