Hi All,
I would like to start by saying thank you to Mick for all he does in the CT arena. It is much appreciated.
My name is Stefan, I am 41 years old and live in Heidelberg, Germany. I fly business jets for a living for a very large international employer. I have friends and colleagues in the U.S. and in Europe. I consider myself a critical thinker. My mother has recently (last few years) developed many very worrying views. These are not isolated conspiracies but almost all encompassing. Just a few examples: She believes that virtually all mainstream media cannot be trusted (are government controlled), that Muslims l are taking over Germany/Europe and that this is actually planned and wanted by the government, even by the UN (resettlement). She believes in chemtrails (even though I am a pilot and should be the first to know...), doesn't believe in vaccination (any more, even though my brother and I were vaccinated with no negative effects), believes that Hitler wasn't really to blame for starting WW2 (was left no choice), follows right wing nationalists/populists in Germany and kind of seem to admire both Putin and Trump..., believes 9/11 was a government job etc, buys silver coins and hides them in her apartment as she believes the collapse of the finical system is just around the corner, believes in very questionable alternative medicine etc, etc. I think you get the idea. She gets most of her ideas from youtube videos. Hello "filter bubble" :-(
Basically it has become nearly impossible to have any kind of conversation with her without touching one ore more of the above topics. In fact, she has a tendency to want to speak about them.
My wife and I have a little son and we would like for him to have a normal relationship with his grandmother but at the same time I don't want her to have a lot of influence on him. I would not currently consider letting our son sleep at her place for example, even though my wife and I would love to do something on our owns sometimes. I just fear that our son will be exposed to her views and he is way too young to test them.
This has developed into a major problem for me and my brother and of course our mother, too. I am more the analytical, rational person, and my brother a little more the emotional type, but very smart and educated at the same time. I would need to see some progress on the factual side of things before being able or willing to continue to invest time on the emotional relationship with her. My brother is more prepared to continue to have a relationship with her and take it from there.
It bothers me greatly that she trusts and believess her "sources" on chemtrails more than me. I have been in aviation (cargo, passengers, VIP) for 20 years and personally know hundreds of pilots, engineers, mechanics, meteorologists, former air force pilots from air forces all over Europe and the U.S. etc. If there was large scale chemtrail activity of any kind, I would know about it. So my mother must think that I am either stupid or part of the conspiracy. This hurts me tremendously. When confronted she says the understands that it must be difficult for me but she avoids answering any concrete questions.
My brother has suggested that she should chose one theory she believes in and that he would sit down with her to analyze it. She chose chematrails. It's a slap in the face for me. However, it's an easy one to debunk so I have a bit of hope. They haven't sat down yet, though.
I realize this is a long winded intro but the story is important to understand what motivated me to sign up.
I guess it will be best to discuss my mother's views and how to best deal with them in a separate thread, not here in the welcomes. I will start a new topic in General Discussions. I would very much appreciate everyone's advise there.
Stefan