My mother, everyone

Every year, when we went out to the homeland during the summer, my mother would take me to the huuuuuuuge bookstore in the capital and tell me to pick out the equivalent of ~$60 worth of books.

One year, I was absolutely delighted to find this giant book of Eastern European fairy tales. I brought it to my mother and said "that's it, that's the only thing I want this year"... and she refused to buy it for me.

Her reasoning? "You already know all the Eastern European fairy tales. You don't need a book of them." And she bought me a book of Western European fairy tales instead.

Typical, really

I found a fairy tale anthology that matches my memory: about the right size and color, and published in time.

Turns out that my memory was faulty though. It wasn't a book of Eastern European fairy tales. It was a book of Eastern Bloc fairy tales: Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Central Asia, Siberia, and the RFE.

So basically, she denied me access to a part of our heritage because the same book might make me empathize with those people. Guess she hates People of Color more than she loves our ancestors.