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This morning I went for my usual morning run and when I get home, my mother - who is staying here til June - had thrown out most of my 40k miniatures including a couple commissioned conversions claiming that it is too immature of a game for someone of my age (nigh 23) to be playing and frankly didn't give a gak about the commissioned pieces. Not sure what to do, and not sure if this is the right forum, but yeah, any advice would be helpful.

Brutal.

First recover the mini's from the trash. Second remind her nicely that she is in YOUR home. Third inform her if she does not like your hobbies, you are sorry, but they are YOUR hobbies. If she attempts to do the same thing again, politely tell her she has to leave. NOW.

While you discuss the fact that its your hobby with her, try to bring one of her hobbies into it. Ask her how she would like it if you went into her house and threw away all of her baking dishes (fill in correct items).

If she still wants them gone, find a friend to hold them until she leaves.

First of all, I'm sorry. Take time to dealwith the anger and frustration you're feeling right now. When you have purged all the negative emotions (because negative emotions and communication where you want to seek understanding don't go hand in hand), explain to her your hobby.

And make her read this:

“Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”


― C.S. Lewis

40k is expensive as hell.

Going by your morning run statement your physically active, and she is staying with you as in your own house?

If that's all true you need to explain to her you are not a child anymore, this isn't ancient China and filial piety doesn't exist she has no more right to throw out your material possessions than a random stranger. Obviously you aren't some hiding in the basement guy since you have a house and are active, so she has absolutely no justification in this.

make sure you retrive the figures. then explain to your mother that if she can't respect your property she can go stay in a Hotel

Kick
Her
OUT!

 Eldarain wrote:
Brutal.

To be honest, Without knowing you or her or your relationship, I wouldnt know what to tell you to do beyond this,
Try to salvage your stuff and get it away from he. I'm sorry this happened to you because I know it can be heartbreaking.
Ihad n entire undead rmy, I had spent years collecting and painting and had em proudly on displa in he apartment I was reting with a roomate. He had decided he wantd to use shelf an swept y entire armyinto a cardboard box breaking and ruining paint jobs. Icouldnt ev ep the army after that and gave it away.

Mod edit > Reds8n The only thing you can really do, after coming to grips that your 40k hobby is probably on hold, while at home, until June, is ask yourself "why would my mother do this?"

If there's been a long history of your mom doing things like this (tossing your blankie when you were 5, flushing your goldfish when you were 12, bar-b-qing your G.I.Joes when you were 15, etc...) then I guess this kind of behavior is to be expected out of the old gal. If, however, she's a typical mom who's basically just looking out for the boy she loves, maybe she sees your 40k hobby as a problem.

For example, if you don't have a job or a woman in your life and spend all of your free time hanging out with 30-45 year old hobbyists talking about how broken the Tau are, then maybe she's onto something (I'm not saying she went about it the right way...but it's important to look into the mirror every once in awhile...). Considering you said you went out on your "usual morning run," you don't sound like the prototypical Fatty McNerdblaster wargamer, so this probably isn't the case.

Regardless, you only get to have one mother, so your best course of action, after recovering your thrown away minis and moving them to your friends house for awhile, is to explain how THIS particular hobby, unlike 90% of the things most kids are doing nowadays, actually forces one to interact with other humans in a face to face manner. It can lead to friendships and possibly even true joy (that GW will stamp out with it's next release).

Good luck...You're in a PICKLE!

Family or not, respect is something that can be expected from everybody in your personal life. If the only reason behind this was truly because she personally thinks it to be immature, and took this as justification to throw out your entire hardbuilt collection, there is really no way about this. My mother would retrieve every single miniature, or replace the GW value of every miniature to the dollar, and accompany it with a sincere apology so that I didn't have to worry about her doing it again, either this or she would be on the next train back to her own house where she can disrespect other people's prized possessions. The fact that you have commission conversions tells me you love the modelling side as much as the game, I imagine you lost years of hard work from love and painting, not something easily replaced by a grey tide of miniatures so even this would not quite put us at even.

 Voidwraith wrote:

For example, if you don't have a job or a woman in your life and spend all of your free time hanging out with 30-45 year old hobbyists talking about how broken the Tau are, then maybe she's onto something (I'm not saying she went about it the right way...but it's important to look into the mirror every once in awhile...). Considering you said you went out on your "usual morning run," you don't sound like the prototypical Fatty McNerdblaster wargamer, so this probably isn't the case.

This is coming from someone who is also 23, works a steady fulltime job, and lives with his beautiful fiancée (who also enjoys painting up her Space Wolf army) - I would actually have to disagree with this quote. While I see the value of such statements, at this stage, you are only 23... I think by 25 you should be definitely be somewhere doing something, and by 30 your mother should definitely start drawing lines, but we are still young and the fact that you have independent accommodation and can afford this hobby including custom made commissions which is quite a luxury, suggests to me that you are doing ok, likely do have a job, and worked hard off your own back to build your collection. The having a woman in your life part is just silly, you are 23, I have a lot of friends who are still sleeping around and not wanting to settle down yet, its normal at our age, although I doubt somehow that this is relevant to her decision.



Of course, if you are just coasting off all the money she provides and your entire army was built under her paychecks, then well - please do disregard everything I just said. In which case you should be doing as your mother tells you, boy.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
You should have her read this thread, if she is the type to even somewhat bend to overwhelming reason and sensibility. Enjoying gaming is not something holding you back in life, I personally (and off the top of my head) have a range of gamer friends, fully qualified for their occupations (and most of them extremely GOOD at them, think it comes with the competitive mindstate), including but not limited to:



Two Police officers (one local but one recently acquired a position as a Baltimore cop)
A Doctor
Two ambulance drivers (fully trained medics)
Head of construction and maintenence of a large construction firm (he's 26 years old for the record !!)
3 ex Marines
ALOT of military people (from an assortment of different roles)
Also a lot in I.T. work (well, we are nerds after all )



A bunch of other things that I can't be bothered listing off. These are all people I personally know, between MTG and 40k I've met bouncers, chefs, professional DJ''s at high profile clubs, the list goes on in fact I think the only unemployed TT gamers I can think of are the younger ones playing out of their parents pocket. It's not a cheap hobby.

Vin Diesel recently stated his lifelong Dungeons and Dragons addiction. This pretty much confirms that being a nerd is not going to hold you back in any way shape or form unless you let it.

I am in my mid 30's and play. In my home (that I own), either with my son or with him as my camera man. Just because you are in the middle of your life span, doesnt mean this is a bad hobby. Expensive, yes, either way, but not "bad".

Do you have a shovel?

that's horrible omg....im so sorry that happened,

SBG wrote:
Do you have a shovel?

I like it.

Thanks guys! Yeah, I still need some time to cool off but hopefully I'll be able to have a discussion with her in a calm and rational manner... then again, she is sort of a tiger mom so it probably won't work.

I'll definitely look into getting a friend to hold my stuff. If not, probably going with the shovel.

Dude that is rough, I know people your age that would kill to be able to afford there own place (myself included), so the fact you can provide for yourself and keep yourself in shape, means you can have any damn hobby you want. And war gaming is good for a lot of things. The painting is great from hand/eye coordination (as is the building), it helps remind us to be pasent, face to face interaction, and it helps keep the brain sharp.

Your best bet is to let yourself cool off and move your stuff to a friends. Then sit her don't down and find out why she finds it immature and go from there. Hopefully she will see that it isn't a big deal and the two of you can move on.

Hope it works out

Wow.
Had something similar with the fiancee once... she just boxed the stuff... but it broke quite a few.

Good luck. Take some of the advice here

I'd inform her of the money involved. Make her pay you back, full MSRP, for all the stuff she threw out and make her write an apology to the people who commissioned you. Basically, be the adult in the situation and treat her like an adolescent.

The commission stuff especially, inform her you make money on the side with the hobby. It's a legitimate enterprise, as well, rather than drugs or something. If she has an issue with that, tell her she should feel free to pay your rent and utilities in full while staying with you.

wow. I'm only 14, and my mum is fine with my hobby. I am over weight (by a few kilos) and we are working on it but my mum would never do some thing like this. harsh.
make sure to try and recover the mini's
storing them with a friend may be nessacery.
I would go with a 5 try thing
1. talk about how you are a grown man.
2. bring her hobbies into it.
3. tell her it is your life
4. kick her out.
5. shovel.

 SRSFACE wrote:
I'd inform her of the money involved. Make her pay you back, full MSRP, for all the stuff she threw out and make her write an apology to the people who commissioned you. Basically, be the adult in the situation and treat her like an adolescent.

The commission stuff especially, inform her you make money on the side with the hobby. It's a legitimate enterprise, as well, rather than drugs or something. If she has an issue with that, tell her she should feel free to pay your rent and utilities in full while staying with you.

Unfortunately, she knows the money involved (both in modeling and commissions) and she really doesn't give a damn. I do hope that the "this is my place and you're technically a guest," argument works out. As much I would love to kick her out, I also know there's no place for her to go as of yet and maybe it's how I've been raised but I can't kick my mother out. Ugh.

But yeah, thanks once again for the advice guys!

As a parent myself I can understand the thoughts she might have about her grown son collecting expensive plastic space men. My son enjoys collecting and building Lego kits. I think he is too old for them, but, and this is a big but, it is not my place to tell him what to like. If he wants to collect Legos until he is in his mid forties with his own family, as long as it does not affect his life in a bad way it is really none of my business.

Your mother should show some respect for your interests no matter what she thinks about them personally. She does not have to talk to you about them, or support them in any way, but she for sure should not be throwing them out in an attempt to make you "grow up" or what ever the motivation was. She should really apologize for throwing your stuff out a replace what might have been lost.

I sympathise. My mum threw out my ted (which I'd left at her house after I'd left home) and I still bear the psychological scars.

At some point in your life, you'll find that roles swap, that you become the reasonable one and that you have to look after your parents, a bit like children.

This is one step on that journey; you don't have to justify yourself, it's your house, your rules, and if your mum taught you good manners, then she should practise them herself.

put her to work as a slave to paint all your miniatures. let her feel like an asian child

@OP: Did you manage to recover the miniatures? In any case, your mother's behaviour is massively inappropriate. It is one thing to express an opinion that she doesn't appreciate your hobby, and quite another to throw away your property (when being a guest at your place, even!) Does she meddle in your life otherwise? Maybe it is a time to have a serious talk with her; you indeed are an adult and that means you, not her, decide what you do with your life (and if that includes toy soldiers, so be it.)

Take her to a small claims court, or charge her for the full cost of the lost product, and the time and materials you put into it.

She a guest, threw out, your things.

A guest.

Threw away your things.

If you have to think about it as family, think that a person who loves you really really much, gak on what you did with your life, and money.

You don't throw someone elses things away. Period. Especially if you're both adults.

Potentially you'll want to go to the police and file vandalism charges.

Its a given that you kick her out. You want to be respected in your relationship with her, and want to continue pursuing the things you like in life? You HAVE to kick her out.

She can afford to throw away a couple grand of YOUR things, the least you can do is make her understand that you aren't her whipping boy.

WoW here parents can do stuff like that and no one in their right mind would even think about doing something about it. But on the other hand it is almost impossible to have your own flat here for a normal person , people live with their parents till their late 20s , offten longer if they lose their job. More or less you either do what your parents want you to do or you have to go to UK or Holland or Germany and live there.


I keep my stuff at a friends house , partly because I have no free space to keep it at home , but also because I don't want to show my parents how much stuff I already have.

Trying to word this so its not offensive....

Kick her out, and after a few nights homeless in the cold, maybe she'll respect your stuff and realize she doesn't have a say in what you do. Otherwise if you let her get away with it, she'll do it again with something else.

What you allow, is what will continue.

Criss cross?

Yeah, I'd just store them somewhere else, and charge a modest rent until damage done is paid off.

Just curious, how much damage was done?

My group is in their 30-40's and a lot of the gamers around here are older.

This story is tough to read and comprehend ...sorry dude.