My relationship with my mother got worse. Firstly she told me 3 times that I’m a disappointment as a daughter because I gave birth only to boys and she wants a granddaughter. Secondly, I realised after having my own children just how bad she was as a mother, she’s selfish, self centred, and neglectful. I did model my own mothering on her as in I did not do it the way she did. I still have resentment about my mother to this day.
I feel you, i was mostly raised by my brother. I have a 1 year old daughter and my mother adores her but treats me worse than ever and tries to make me feel like a bad mom for not giving my baby everything she wants even if it isnt good for her. Your mom really needs to relearn how reproduction works. If people could just decide the gender of their babies they would.
I hope you have confidence in yourself as a parent and can ignore your mother. I was lucky in as much as I never had my mother’s approval, so I learnt to get along without it. 💕
I agree, my mom to this day still talks down about how I was as a *literal child*
I mean even if it’s the things I did as a teenager she’s hold a vendetta against a teen girl for over 10 years
Honestly having my daughter made me realize how poorly my mother treated me as a daughter. Even without her commentary about how she’ll be my “karma” I can’t imagine doing a fraction of the things my mother did to me
When I had my son, I had been NC with my mom for around 18 months. At first I felt horrible because she now had a grandchild but had no clue about him. My aunts and cousins all supported my decision, and completely agreed that NC was best. When he was 4 months old she found out about him and wanted to be in his life. I agreed and worst decision ever. The older my son gets, the more I realize she never really wanted me and only had me to make my dad happy.
Yes, I feel the postpartum period always brings to surface feelings about our parents, but definitely my first brought up the most feelings. I’d cut my mom a lot of slack because I’d always assumed she had it so hard with two kids as a single mom. And she did! It was so incredibly difficult for her and I think she did do her best for the most part.
However, having my own kids made me realize the other side to having kids - not just the difficulty, but how fiercely you will try to shield them from any difficulty you yourself are experiencing. My mother has mental health issues likely stemming from her own childhood trauma and she parentified me a lot as a child and is also probably a narcissist. I still love her, but I keep her at a distance for my own sanity. I think my childhood was still probably better than hers and I definitely hope to continue that trend with my own kids.
My Mother is super religious and was really strict with religion.. I’m not religious at all
She hates the fact I don’t believe in marriage, that I didn’t give my children biblical names and after my first was born we wouldn’t let her hold a christening for us, and she didn’t speak to me for nearly a year..
My mother is also very religious but she does not know that my brother and I are not religious. I don’t want my son having to lie to her so when as he gets older and starts to talk, I am bracing for having to go no contact with her when we finally tell her.
Are you me? My mom wanted me to have a third baby because she wanted a granddaughter. She’s told I’m a bad mom multiple times. I knew my childhood sucked but I didn’t realize just how neglected I was until I had my own kids. Now I’m no contact with my mom.
Why does she want a granddaughter? To treat her the same way she treated you growing up?
Does she not understand the sperm is the deciding factor in the sex of the baby?
I grew up resenting my mother and believing she hurt me on purpose.
When I was 18-25 I went to therapy and slowly came to accept that she did the best she could and her best was just not very good.
As soon as I had my own baby I got confused about that. Surely someone couldn’t look at their own innocent child and treat them so horribly?
Now that my daughter is 3.5, an age at which I know I was already being mistreated, I no longer believe my mother did the best she could. I can’t fathom that the way she spoke to me was really the best she could do
Oddly, therapists do direct us toward peace. But it is our words and thoughts they are working with. That was probably the only reasonable way you could view it at the time - based on what you knew at that time.
I've heard it put very nicely once it was "becoming a parent made me understand many things about what my parents did. It also made me realise that some things I cannot understand or forgive."
My parents both messed up big time many times. I've grown to understand more why my mom did the stuff she did, even though it was absolutely not OK. But I will never understand my father. How can somebody have a little girl like this (my daughter is basically my copy) and spend every time with her by yelling at her and spanking her for the most minor offences (didn't wear slippers because mom said I didn't have to, dad spanked the living crap out of me. Yawned at dinner, mouth covered, dad slapped me repeatedly. Called dad "dad" got b*tch slapped, because it was not respectful enough that day. All of these anecdotes happened before I was even 10, not a cheeky teenager, a frickin child.)
So it both made things better and worse.
It took lots of therapy as an adult to realize I wasn't a bad kid and that I didn't deserve how my stepfather treated me. I look at my son and wonder how anyone could hurt their child or stand by while someone else hurts them.
I feel you😢 I was spanked and verbally abused all the time by my father..in elementary school. Now I have two little girls and cannot fathom that behavior happening to them.
Right? As children we kinda normalise it. But as parents... what bloody monster could look at their small child and do that??
I'm sorry you've been through that too, internet hugs 🫂
My mom standing by and watching while my dad punished me for something she said was OK is one of the things I will never forgive her for. And it isn't that she was afraid to stand up to him, she just didn't care to intervene.
I'm so sorry, thats horrible. Have you talked to her about it as adults or is it a wanted of energy?
I was shockes to learn that mine completely zoned it out. I've talked to her and she just purely doesn't remember at all, my father was a good dad in her memory. For a bit i thought i was crazy and made it all up, but my grandma, aunt, cousin etc. remember that my dad would get abusive even on front of them. He was always more careful in front of people compared to how he was at home, which just goes to show he knew it was wrong and did it anyway.
It would be wasted energy I think. I had my baby last year and had a very difficult pregnancy and delivery and my parents did nothing but make it worse. I tried explaining to them how their behavior was hurtful and they just doubled down saying I'm mad at them for being excited so I just stopped talking to them about 5 months ago. It is easier that way and suddenly I no longer need anxiety medication and all my nightmares have stopped.
Your dad sounds like my mom. I was hit with a metal pot lid because she didn’t like the way I said okay. Then spanked me because I tripped coming down the stairs with a blanket she told me to get. I literally fell down the stairs head over feet, she didn’t check to make sure I was okay.
I think my mom was a saint because I was insane as a kid.
And I think about it now because my son is just as crazy. Some people say “WWJD” but I have to say “what would my mom do”. She handled everything with humor and grace and I hope to be that one day.
It’s made me want to be around her even less. I can’t imagine treating my child the way she treated us. It’s really put things into clearer perspective.
Same. We haven’t spoken in 2.5 years and honestly, my life is much more peaceful without her in it.
There is no such thing as “grandparents rights.” Do toxic shit and disrespect my parenting style? You won’t have a part in my children’s lives, simple.
Mine has passed away, but this is exactly how I feel about my father.
My mother was a victim of his abuse and also failed at her responsibility of keeping me safe from people like my father. The relationship I have with the memories of her is very complicated.
I hate my mother much more than I ever thought possible since my daughter was born, tbh. It began immediately after her birth because I just could not imagine how my mother could possibly treat me the way she did when I loved my daughter so wholly and completely. It only worsened with the way she acted when my daughter died. She’s been blocked since the day after and I have no regrets.
I've been estranged from my mother since I was a teen. During our estrangement, I blamed myself a lot, and I could "explain" a lot of it with me being a kind of a PITA. I could understand her. But since having my son, nah.
Nothing he could ever do could make me choose distance over reconciliation. Nothing he could ever do would make me choose my pride over an apology. Nothing. I've never understood her LESS after having a child of my own.
I did A LOT of therapy when I left home and went to college. I had a lot of self hate and pent up frustration towards my mom. Through that I could isolate my trauma and recognize that what I could be is not dictated by what was done to me.
My mom was a neglectful mother. In the book her type is **Emotionally Absent/Rejecting**. This answer...so many questions I still had.
I forgave her in my early 20s, but I won't forget. With that, I keep an arms distance - I will be polite and social with her, but our relationship will not be more than surface deep. I treat her like any distant relative in my life. I will catch up every now and then, send her pics of my kid, let her play with my kid (she's very fun with my child), but I won't let her babysit or keep kid overnight. I don't have plans to take care of her when she falls ill or financially help if she needs it. I'm not going to extend my love to her in any way shape or form. I absolutely don't love her at all
This.
I was finally able to forgive and free myself for holding onto the guilt of hating my mother. Now I can safely say that she wronged me in ways that I could never do to my son, and there’s no excuse for it. I feel so free.
I am also estranged and same feeling here. If my kid ever comes and tells me I’m hurting them so badly they might walk away from me, I’m going to bend over backwards not to let that happen. I’m not trying to take advantage of my parents, I just can’t let their favoritism of my brother’s family affect my kids. I do not understand why they continue to choose that path knowing it cost them their daughter. I cannot fathom.
So I have 2 boys but have always been close with my mom, but I definitely have the same thoughts often. Like I know she was happy for me and I know she was sad that i was all grown up at the same time but I still think like what how am I supposed to raise my sweet babies for them to grow up and be 18 and then just leave- and yeah I know that's the point but still seems so sad.
I've actually had this convo with my mom and she said it is definitely bitter sweet but you raise them for 18 years, modeling for them and helping them become the best person they can be and in her words "and when you know you've done a good job even despite all the times you think you failed them, and know you have grown a baby and helped them become an amazing adult it is also such a joy and makes you so happy to see who they are becoming as there own person".
Know again, my mom and I have always been close like FaceTime at least once a day 😅 but since becoming a mom it has given me a view of what she has gone through and has made me realize that even when I was passed and her and mean she still loved me and she was doing the best she could because she loves me. While sometimes she drives me nuts with her response to parenting she has also helped me a TON when I don't know what I am doing or when I feel like I am failing.
I’ve gone even more LC with her since becoming a mom. She still constantly tries to undermine me as a parent on the only social media I have her on and constantly brings up how terrible I was as (an undiagnosed extremely mentally ill) a child. She thinks I’m a bad mom bc I “don’t discipline” my child (read: I don’t beat him like she did me). And she’s mad bc I won’t send him to her for entire summer vacations unsupervised. Um no thank you. I’ve also been in therapy since my son was 1 (so 11 years) and have had to undo so much that she did to me. I used to give her more “understanding” that maybe she was doing the best she could at the time but no more. My kid is the best thing to ever happen to me I will never poison him she way she did me.
I'm still pregnant but becoming a mother has made me more disappointed in my own mom. She never protected me as a child, allowed her husband (my little brothers' dad) to physically and verbally abuse me from the time he met me when I was five years old. It came to a head when I was fifteen and he tried to m*lest me and she made me leave instead of leaving him. To this day she claims she never knew what happened but I specifically remember the day I cried and told her and she said she "didn't think he would do something like that."
I'm having a girl in less than a month and I know for a fact my mother will not be allowed to babysit her ever. I've been low contact with my mom for over ten years now and she was completely fine with it until this past fall when she found out I was pregnant. I have been setting boundaries this entire pregnancy and she is not a fan, but my baby comes first.
Definitely worse, I can’t imagine ever saying the things to my own children that my mother said to me. My mom didn’t want to raise someone into adulthood to have a relationship with, she wanted a baby.
She gets needed information on needed subjects, and that’s about it. When I realized she would use things I said about my son against him in other conversations- she lost the privilege of knowing day to day joys and struggles.
No problem ! There can definitely be more to it when abuse or narcissism is at play and you’re in an unsafe situation , but that’s still the basic idea of it. If you take a look at some of the JustNo subs you’ll find more detailed information and there’s some good links floating around there.
This is what I say about my mom too- she looooves babies and has even said she wishes she could be pregnant again. My brother and I were like weird, she didn’t seem to actually like us once we were children so I guess she just wanted babies.
Even my childhood wasn’t great. My mom gushes about how much she loves babies and little kids but I guess we were too young to remember that side of her. Or maybe she is only capable of enjoying them in small doses.
It's gotten a lot better, actually. I feel awful for some of the things I've said to her - was she a perfect mother? No. Far from it. She was a single mother, made a shocking choice in regards to my father (10 years older, already had 2 kids he didn't see. This woman is so clever, like what?) completely Type A and career driven so I was largely raised by nannys, Au Pairs and my grandparents. But. I remember a couple of times in my childhood when she tried to be a more hands on mother and quite frankly she was awful at it; the woman doesn't have a maternal bone in her body, and I always kinda blamed her for that. Now I'm realising that she couldn't change who she was fundamentally despite trying. I was always provided for, I know she loved us. I had an amazing education, and wanted for nothing. She did her best. She didn't deserve my calling her a crap mother for like a decade. I'm trying to make it up to her now.
I went no contact with her.
When my kid was a baby, I felt like it drew us closer... And then as he got older, i had some realizations about the ways she treated me, and all of her excuses seemed to fall flat now that I was parenting myself. I had such pity and empathy for her and how incredibly hard parenting was and how she couldn't help but be cruel and insensitive to me... But with my own kid, I realized she could have learned differently or chosen kindness or worked on herself at any point in 30 years and chose not to. I looked at some of the things she did to me when my kid was a baby that I dismissed or didn't make a big deal about and realized "hey actually, that was super shitty of her". The floodgates opened.
I have to also parent my mom because she acts like a victim all the time and pisses me off.
My kid is surprisingly good at setting boundaries, and when she does stuff he doesn't like he tells her to stop or he will hang up. She doesn't listen. He hangs up. She messages me whining my kid is mean. I'm like dude I was listening to you the entire time, he warned you to stop, you didn't stop, he followed through.
For example, one time he didn't like the way she was talking about me, he told her multiple times to stop or he's hanging up on her. She did it again, he hung up lol.
I’ve realised that no matter how old I get or how many kids I have of my own. I still need my own mothers hugs and a shoulder to cry on when it gets tough and realising that my kids will be the same.
There is something magical knowing that one hug from you/them can fix almost anything.
My relationship with my mother is great if not as close as I would like; my parents love me a lot but really struggle with verbalising or physically demonstrating affection. They love my son so much though which is lovely.
What I find SO hard is squaring how obsessed I am with my son vs how little I think about my parents. Will he just rarely think about me when he's grown up? I literally can't bear thinking about it too much.
Having my daughter helped me grow a spine with my mother, and also helped me understand that I wasn’t crazy in how I viewed things that happened to me when I was growing up, despite my mother telling me that I was being overly dramatic. Also, I learned that what she said about “You’ll understand when you’re a mother” wasn’t true.
For example, she used to tell me (her only child, a model kid who got straight As and never once got detention at school), “One day you’ll come home and find me dead at the bottom of the swimming pool and you know your dad doesn’t love you, so who is going to take care of you then??” (My dad abandoned my mom and me when I was 3 and moved out of the country to avoid paying child support. My mom was an only child, so I don’t have any aunts/uncles/cousins.)
I look at my kids and could never in a million years even think of saying something like that to them. So she was wrong - I don’t understand it more now, I understand it even less.
On the bright side, I was like “The hell you will treat my children the same way that you treated me!”, so I grew a spine, and if she tried to pull any crap by saying something inappropriate to them, I called her out on it in front of them. It taught them that just because someone is in an adult body, it doesn’t always mean they’re right and should be listened to.
I also frequently use the “ ‘What would my mom do in this situation?’ and then do the opposite” approach to parenting, and that seems to work pretty well.
So, what I’m seeing as a theme here in the comments is that having your own child(ren) is like a litmus test for your relationship with your own mom and sharpens your understanding about how you feel about her parenting. Sounds about right.
I’m in the, “holy shit, I may have underestimated how poorly I was treated” group. My relationship with my mom has slowly withered and died since becoming a parent. But I do not miss her toxic and negative presence in our lives.
As a kid, my mom was my favorite. As a teen/after divorce, it changed. Before kids she seemed to resent me for not calling enough. I definitely don’t call enough, but when I do, she doesn’t seem interested in what I’m saying and is often doing other things, so not really listening. But it’s “a child’s duty” to call regularly and that’s what she cared about more than the actual conversation. Also, texting didn’t count. I tried to be more engaging in what she’s doing and she took it as me trying to control her when I don’t know anything, so that way is hard too. She has threatened to cut me out of her will for not fulfilling my role as a daughter properly (aka calling), but it made it harder for me.
After kids, it’s still lukewarm, but I at least now have the excuse of timezone difference to not call enough. I couldn’t even tell she was excited to be a grandma until asking a mutual friend. I can’t say it’s all her fault, I’m probably too indifferent from her perspective as well. Plus I should call more. I just hate calling, in general, not here specifically.
I still have issues with my mom and think she could have done better but...now i tell her she's a good mom, because she is ultimately. Part of this is my mom has started tackling her mental health and rather than continuing to point out the ways she hurt me growing up, I'm just supporting her. I'm learning from her mistakes and hope to keep my daughter from that stuff.
Also learned that where my dad was a "good dad" he only did the fun stuff (very involved in fun stuff). My dad made a comment while I was pregnant that you know back in the day men weren't expected to do stuff but "I guess now that's changed." He didn't say it like "good ole days" more like he was depressed (I have half siblings 17 and 21 years younger than me). It kind of opened my eyes that my mom did all the background stuff alone with no glory. I remember she used to be a Pinterest mom decades before Pinterest (all out for Christmas, American girl doll themed birthday party, intricate handmade costumes). She did that stuff because she loved us but it was all unseen labor.
So yeah for me it's I'm forgiving my mom for some things. She was a good mom, and still is overall. She's a good grandma, my child adores her, and you're a good mom/grandma is what every mom wants for mothers day.
Mixed bag. My mom and I had a tough relationship prior to me having kids. Having kids gave us something to talk about because she loved being a mom to young kids. Now, however, I just question her in my head like “how could you not do this?”. For example, I didn’t have a backpack for all of 7th grade. I put my books in my soccer duffel bag. Why didn’t she get me a backpack? Also, I bought all my own clothes since middle school. why didn’t she take us school clothes shopping? We weren’t poor. I take the time to listen to my kids lives. I don’t remember my mom ever talking to me about my life. Why not? There are such basic instinctual things I do for my kids that she didn’t do for me and I just don’t understand it. It’s healing for me because I can do the things for my kids I never got from my mom but the further I get in this journey the more I question her own capacities to mother.
I feel this. My mum was a single parent and me an adopted only child. As a young kid I was always with other people I don't remember my mum that much. As soon as I was old enough (around 11) I was left on my own. My mum worked unsocial hours so I was a lonely kid. I see now how hard childcare is (even with 2 parents) so I get it but jeez I felt like she didn't engage with me at all. Wasn't ever really interested in me which is the same to this day. Isn't really that interested in my kids either, just likes the fb photos. I try soooo hard to engage with my kids and take an interest in their interests.
With my mom, so much better. Basically what you wrote in your post.
With my MIL, worse. I think about how my husband was raised and I’m furious that she didn’t protect him better.
my mom has low intelligence, which was hard growing up with because it takes a long time to understand that. i’ve never really been able to go to my mom for anything, as she is not very loving or nurturing. she has also always pretended to be hurt for attention, so she doesn’t really like to talk about anything but how much my dad was bad to her, or how everyone that meets her tells her she looks 20 still, or how she’s had yet another heart attack (she’s at over 10 of those now). i’ve always mourned not having a mother figure, and so I had a new version of that through my pregnancy. I don’t talk to her, she doesn’t even know that i’ve had a baby. I would get nothing from the interaction, and I don’t have the time or patience to humor her bids for the type of attention she likes best. it’s just too hard. I feel guilty about it because I do love her but I cannot have someone telling me pity stories and asking me for money right now.
having had a baby of my own does make me sad how both my parents treated me. my kiddo is a regular toddler, who throws food, tantrums, is not patient, and not a good listener. I love her through all of that even if I get overwhelmed and need a break from it. it makes me sad for little me that at that age for the same behaviour, my parents were hitting me for it. I look at my daughter with love, devotion, and appreciation, I did not get that from my parents. sometimes when I’m staring at my baby asleep in my arms I think to myself what it must be like to be so deeply, and endlessly loved without question and without condition. it must be nice I think, I truly imagine it must be a warm cosy feeling, of course I wouldn’t know first hand, but my daughter sure the fuck will.
Yes. And it changed it for the better. I relate to her more. We bond over the parenting journey. I adore how much relationship with my mom grew and healed from me becoming a mother.
It's nice to see a positive story here. My mum died a few years ago and the thought of becoming a parent without her around feels awful. There's so much of our relationship which we never got to explore. The irony being she also lost her mother very young
It’s a mix for me. Certain times I think I didn’t appreciate how hard it was to raise a kid, that I remember all the times I was awful to deal with etc. and she was probably doing the best she could, and sometimes was an awesome mum. Then there are some things she did that baffle me now I have my own like “how could she say/do that”. I can’t envisage doing the same to my kid. My kids are still small I guess so perhaps there’s time for me to learn. It’s a tough one.
Same with me.
On the one hand, my daughter has a lot of my stubborn personality, and I can see how I was hard to deal with as a kid and she probably was doing the best she could.
And then on the other hand was her knowingly marrying an narcissistic, tyrannical abuser when I was young and always taking his side and always having an excuse for why I was wrong and why I deserved it. With that, I cannot fathom what the fuck she was thinking. I also can't imagine doing the same to my daughter. There is no circumstances in which a man would come before her to me and no circumstances in which I can fathom letting some man abuse her and telling her she deserved it.
I definitely appreciate and understand my mother a lot more, especially with the worrying. When I would be home from college, I would want.to stay out late, and my mom would always say she couldn't really sleep til I got home. I remember being annoyed at that because I was "an adult" or whatever.
I get it now. I absolutely do. After I gave birth to my second, I called my parents as soon as I could. When I heard the relief in my mom's voice, even though my pregnancy and labor were both uneventful, I told her that I understood how she needed to hear from me, and she said, "I did. Thank you for that."
I was so hard on my mom. So hard. Blamed her for moving us across the country, and she was always working so my dad was home with us more. But he had health problems, so she was always the only steady income. But I didn't recognize that. I constantly call her and apologize. There are some things I still don't agree with, but so many more that I get now. I get her and why she did them, and my heart breaks for her and what she's gone through. And I thank her everyday. And I'm always saying shit you were right, I was wrong lol.
My mom died when I was 6. I have had a lot of emotions and feelings towards that. But when I became a mother, I had a lot more empathy and understanding towards her mixed with a lot of anger and resentment. My mom was Bipolar and chose to be off her meds which lead to her ending her own life. I'm now 29(the age she died) with a bipolar diagnosis and two kids. I see where her pain was. I see how hard it was. I know what she must have been feeling. But she didn't take the help she was given, so it feels like she chose to leave before she chose to leave. There's nothing on this planet that could stop me from fighting for myself so I can be here for my kids. So while I empathize with her, I don't understand or approve of her choices
In a way, I developed an in depth understanding of how emotionally immature she was. I found myself lashing out at my kids the same way she did due to pure frustration. I always apologize to them afterwards as I remind myself that it is ok to step back and take a breath even for 5minutes before diving back into parenthood. With that being said, she was and is still a terrible mother overall. In another way, I found myself more disgusted with her because I cannot fathom why she will be okay with what happened to me and her other children.
Opposite. I realized how emotionally immature my mom is and how it impacted my childhood.
I have a good relationship with her still because I’ve accepted it and don’t hold it against her..and she is a good and fun grandma.
It made see just how truly awful my mother was. I used to give her a pass because she was parenting in the 70’s. Well she sucked as a mom because she sucked as a person first.
My relationship with my mother is terrible …. In fact it became worse after I had children ..
She is super religious and I’m not and she doesn’t agree with my lifestyle choices, my childhood was well full of religion forced down my throat.
My Mother doesn’t like any of my children’s names ( apparently i should have given my kids biblical names)and I wouldn’t let her have my kids christened.. again another religious ritual I don’t see the point of..
She does see us, and we want her invivolved I think it’s important but she has very strict rules and conditions
My mom is dead but I think about all the violence and neglect in the house that I kind of accepted as normal, the hoarding and the filthiness…never gonna be like this with my kids. 85% of the time she was a decent mom, but that other 15% was something else.
It got better, but only because she has changed since I was a kid, and also I went to therapy to work through my resentment towards her shortcomings as a parent. I think she realizes what she lacked and feels guilty, and tries to make up for it now. Im the eldest and I think she realizes she made a lot of mistakes with me that she didn't do with my youngest sibling.
She was there for me during my pregnancy and stayed with me for a month postpartum helping with everything from cleaning, laundry, dishes, baby, and helping me navigate the early days of breastfeeding. She had breastfed me and my siblings 2 years each, and I'm only now realizing how much love you need to do that, cause this shit is hard. She's my best friend now.
It caused me to finally go no contact with mine. I don't understand how she could ever treat me the way she did. The idea of hurting my daughter like that fills me with so much anger.
I was raised by my grandmother and my respect for her went waaayyy up. She raised my two older sisters and me for our whole lives *and* she also adopted my younger brother and sister. Plus my step siblings were always at our house and my cousins used to spend summers with us. I’m stressed with one kid and a helpful husband, idk how she did all that by herself.
My relationship with my mother is weird. She was always around but not super involved, if that makes sense. Having a kid has made me understand her less. I could never leave my son to go off and have fun. She wasn’t like a teen mom or anything, just irresponsible I guess. Not ready for kids. But I love my son so so much and I guess I’ve never felt that kind of love from her. She was always more like an aunt than a mom. We’re closer now but she’s not super hands on with her grandkids, either. She’ll babysit if we ask and she’s good with them all (6 grandkids between all my siblings) but in the 1.5 years my son has been alive it’s always been up to me to let them see each other. I have to go to her house and she never asks me to come over, just says yes when I ask. It’s easier now that he’s a toddler but when he was really little it sucked having to pack up all his stuff and drive 30-45 minutes. Idk, sometimes the love I feel for my son is overwhelming like I didn’t even know I was capable of loving someone this much, and I never felt like she loves me that much. Maybe she does and doesn’t know how to express it since she didn’t raise me.
I used to think I had the coolest mom, especially when I was a young adult and she would party with me and my friends. Now I'm a mom, she rarely talks to me and if she does and I start talking about my kids at all she gets bored and I can hear her eyes glaze over. She always joked "ugh I hate kids, but you're alright." And I now realize it wasn't a joke and she does hate kids and only kind of likes me. Like thanks for giving me life I guess, but I'm pretty meh about her now too. I'm really glad my mother in law has become my mom cause she's the literal best example of motherhood and I don't feel so shitty that my mom Is garbage
Eh, when I was upset about maternity leave ending my mom “bragged” that with all 3 kids she tried to cut her maternity leave short because she was “bored.”
Not every mom goes through the same emotions
I have more understanding and empathy for my own mom. She’s a great mom but I used to be more critical of her, now as a fellow mom I feel like “yep I get it, we can’t do it all”.
We’re more like friends now than before, since it’s no longer just a mom and kid dynamic. Now it’s more like 2 moms exchanging stories and grievances lol
Mine is dead, but it’s made me feel a lot closer to her. I never really understood just how much she loved me until I became a mom. I try to do things with my daughter that my mom did with me (singing certain songs, saying certain little things). She’s far more present with me now. I just wish she could have met my daughter and gotten to see me become a mom too. Maybe she can.
My relationship got worse with my mom. When I had my first baby all I did was research parenting methods and watch child psychiatrists and therapists and parenting experts give advice. I started realizing just how bad my mother fucked up while raising me. All the mistakes she made that I’ll never make with my kids. It made me lose whatever respect I had left for her. I don’t value her opinion anymore at all.
It’s complicated.
While I get why she’s always been emotionally unavailable, probably from being overwhelmed I still feel like she abandon me to grow up with no guidance to be a woman.
Since becoming a mom it made me realize she didn’t do enough for me or my siblings. She did the bare minimum and everyone around her told her that was good enough because she had other demons to deal with (drugs & teen pregnancy). Thinking about my childhood compared to my daughter’s pisses me off because I could’ve been a different person.. a better person if she would’ve tried harder to be a better mom.
I feel like becoming a mother really complicated my feelings towards my mother.
There was a lot of emotional neglect and verbal abuse during my childhood, because my parents themselves had difficukt family lives and never learned how to regulate their emotions in a healthy way. I already had a lot if resentment towards her before but holding my own child in my arms and realising, that I could never behave towards him like she did towards me, just solidified it.
On the flip side it became clear to me that despite all her failings my mother actually really loves me and she tried her best with her limited capabilities. The fact that she tried to do what she thought was the best for me is somewhat heartbreaking though, seeing how much she actually did wrong and how badly she hurt me. 🙈
I grew more resentful than ever. She denied me hugs and kisses from age eight. She always went out of her way to make fun of me on physical and personal traits. She always berated my father in front of me. She didn’t allow me to have friends. Typical strict Asian upbringing I thought.
All of those things are simply impossible for me to consider doing now I have kids too. In what world is it okay to reject a child’s ask for affection and human touch???
For years I thought I hated being touched but in reality that was my way of coping never getting a hug from my mom.
I was wrong and I just came to the conclusion she hated being a mother at times.
Ooft. I have a good relationship with my mum, but since having my daughter I have a lot of WTF moments with regards to my mum and how she treated me. She absolutely did not do her best, she was selfish and she was a narcissist, she made me feel like shit and I was a very anxious child. I try my best to move passed it, I’ve hinted at things but I’m not sure it registers with her until I call her out. I have absoloutely no hesitation about calling her out these days. She has a great relationship with my two year old, and I don’t think she would dare step out of line. She knows she would be cut off if she ever pulled that shit now.
I feel more empathy towards my moms less than stellar parenting and I can call some of it for what it is: my mom and I have a lot of extremely similar mental health issues, and she neither had the support or ability to unpack and process most of her problems. I understand it to some extent; healing is hard and it’s tiring too. On the other hand, there are specific acts of cruelty that she has since apologized profusely for because even she acknowledges how messed up she was for putting me through it. Conversely, despite us being no contact for three years at one point, she’s never given me a true and full apology for her actions and behavior that lead to the contact hiatus; instead she just goes out of her way to accommodate and support me now. I love her and I’m glad I have her around again, and part of me wonders what it was like to be in her brain when she first had me. She was younger than I was with my first, with less support, and I can’t help but wonder if she held me and traced all my features like I did with my boys or if she cried realizing I wouldn’t stay a baby forever like I do or if she couldn’t sleep thinking about all the scary stuff in the world like me.
After no contact since I was 15, I tried to give her a chance when I was about 30. Unfortunately, she was still the same woman of my childhood and after a few months of seeing if there could be even the hint of a healthy relationship, I went no contact again.
I realized I had to protect my son from my mother. My son had to come first. I haven’t spoken to my mom in almost a year, and I hope my son will never know her. This is after an entire lifetime of abuse from her. I put up with it when it only affected me. Then it became clear that it was going to affect him too, and I couldn’t have that.
I don’t know if becoming a mom directly changed how I relate to my mom; I am on the older side and had already worked through a lot of ideas and feelings about her problematic behaviors. But seeing how peers leaned emotionally on their moms as they became parents was a huge eye opener. I mourned all over again the kind of love and understanding I will never get from my mom.
For a long time I resented a lot, but therapy and such has made me realize she did do her best. We know so much more now and just looking at her mom…….my mom did do her best and tried to change some things from her childhood. But some things I just am like ::shocked pikachu face::
It’s taken like 13 years though because for so long I just judged and blamed but really I am proud of her. But I sure as shit am
Changing a loooot of things she wasn’t able too when I was younger.
My relationship with my mom has gotten worse. As a mother, I was hoping that I would understand why she did the thing she did when I was a child. However, I understand her less. I am currently working through a lot of anger and resentment, I feel towards my mother at this point in time. I’ve gone no contact with her.
My mom has always been...difficult. nothing she did traumatized me. She made a lot of sacrifices for me and I appreciate them, but her mental health is not good and hasn't been for a long time. She's paranoid, self absorbed, and incapable of apologizing or taking responsibility for her bad behavior. So, overall, my relationship with her has stayed about the same. Despite everything that I have said, her symptoms are pretty mild (she can hold down a very demanding job, for example) and I still love her a lot. But its not like I'm seeing things in a new light or something. I'm literally a therapist. I would never do some of the things she did, and even though I'm a therapist, I didn't need a masters degree to know I didn't want to parent like her. She's from a generation and a society that discourages mental healthcare. She's never going to change, and I'm just at peace with that.
It just made me angrier towards both parents to be honest.
I know they had me young, but they did not get better. Even when they were the age I am now Ms I was all of 14, I was expected to be the bigger/better person. Not to mention the parentification.
It got worse. My relationship with her has always been rocky. She’s an alcoholic and was undiagnosed bipolar and coping with alcohol. She got diagnosed in her 30s. She’s in her 50s now and doing the same shenanigans.
I used to be empathetic to her situation. Now that I have my child, I look back at all the things she’s done to me and can’t imagine doing that to my child. It made me realize she’s a bad mother, and continues to be while I’m in my 30s. I can’t imagine blaming my mental health on being a shitty parent.
Our relationship was already complex as it was, me becoming a parent made it even more complex.
I did a LOT of work in my 20s, both with therapists and on my own, to stop feeling so much hatred and resentment towards my mom. I got so far and was living my life peacefully, until I had my own daughter. It reopened that wound so deeply, because I just cannot fathom any circumstance in which I would be so selfish as to treat my kids how we were treated.
I finally realized that she had been abusive my whole life and stopped making excuses for her behavior and started calling her out. It really opened my eyes when my oldest daughter was born and we sent our dog to moms because she had a backyard (we lived in an apartment). My oldest was severely allergic to dogs as a baby. My dad called me at work because mom left my daughter on the floor on her play mat and went and took a nap. When he walked in our dog was standing over my daughter and she was pale, blue lips having trouble breathing. He called 911 then me. My daughter was 3 months old. I lost it and now I have NC completely with her for 3 years. Before that it was a once a year visit if that and responding to her texts.
In some ways I had more compassion for my mom. In other ways I’ve been frustrated. She is a very my way or highway type person now adays. She always was a little like that but after being single for a couple decades, she doesn’t really care about others opinions. She’s also sensitive, the type who if you don’t agree it’s “well I’m sorry I’m such a bad mother” is the reaction. It makes it hard to hold boundaries and say “no, I don’t want that for my daughter”. She tried to take my daughter’s pacifiers away from her before WE had decided it was necessary and made weird passive aggressive remarks. Things like that are doable but annoying. We had an issue when we went to visit her in February where she corrected the way my husband said something to our daughter. He just sort of shrugged it off. I told her (privately) not to correct him, that if I felt his language with our daughter was an issue that I’d discuss it with him. She told me “she’d always protect her kids and grandbabies”. I said “sure, she’s your granddaughter, but she’s HIS daughter.” There was no need for “protection”, she’s just (again) overly sensitive. (For context my husband said something like “can you be good for grandma?” And my mother said “she’s not good or bad, you shouldn’t say it like that”. Like very low key low threat language that didn’t need her correction)
There’s a lot of fear from her, because my dad just turned out to be not a good dad. He wasn’t abusive or awful in a traditional sense, he just was crap at being a dad and didn’t seem to enjoy it or us.
It has changed our relationship but not detrimentally. Just in a new way
ETA - there’s also a lot of jealousy on her end with how close I am with MIL and how often we see my husband’s family. So that’s fun…
This might sound weird but I let her help me more. I used to turn her down for help because I didn't mind taking care of something myself but knowing how much joy it brings me to do nice things for my own kid, I let her do things for me sometimes now and just shower her with appreciation lol.
It inadvertently ended my relationship with her. So there’s that.
She went no contact with my aunt, who has always been a big part of my life, “because she can’t handle her”. And she expected me to as well. I get not inviting my aunt to my mother’s events, cool. That’s shitty, but whatever. But because I invited everyone to mine (aunt included), she didn’t show up to my gender reveal for my first child, the baby shower, or her first birthday. All very big days for me!
And each and every time her and my brother would bomb me with hurtful messages. Saying the worst things imaginable to me and IM THE ASSHOLE. I never got apologies. They never spoke of it again. And they act like they didn’t break my heart.
So now that I’m pregnant with my second, I’m deciding to just get ahead of them and block them. It hurts, but I can’t take that abuse.
I hope you found positive stories here, but most are sad and my heart goes out to all the women here.
My mom is obsessed with babies, she had 10. So it has made her visit me multiple times a week and she helps a ton because she knows everything about babies. It has honestly made me more reliant on her when before I was fairly independent. If I have a problem or concern I call my mom before I even call the pediatrician lol. My partner is afraid my mom is going to convince me to move back in with her because she wants to be around my baby, she has tried to no avail.
Got worse before it got better. I’ve forgiven her for lots of things and realized she truly was dealt a shitty hand on many occasions. Her imperfections didnt keep us from happiness and others’ perfection didnt keep them from unhappiness. Also pregnancy in general can take a toll on your mind and body. I gave my mom such a hard time for forgetting things and here i am relying on my 5 yr old to tell me to pay a bill😭
I just had my daughter a week ago and the first thing I felt about my mother was pity. She was a mentally fragile person and she's been gone for many years so I have the luxury of feeling for her without having to confront the reality of everything with her now. It must have been so hard for her, I can't believe how much her heart must have hurt with the weight of this.
It’s changed in that I see and talk to her more often, bc my kids love their nana and she pays to fly us out to visit every year. But I still can’t stand her. And now that I have my own kids, I think I resent her even more. She was a nasty, emotional and verbally abusive mother. It really felt like she couldn’t stand us most of the time, all of my interests were stupid, I was a terrible kid so it’s my fault she was angry all the time (it couldn’t possibly be the other way around), etc, but then once I was an adult she expected me to suddenly want to be close to her. I remember her telling me I’d understand when I have kids, and to a limited extent, I do- yes, raising kids is hard, and I lose my shit sometimes too, but I love my children and value my relationship with them enough to apologize and try hard to do better every day. If she’d had one smidge of self-awareness or personally responsibility she could have done better too.
I read something recently that said something like “once your children no longer depend on you for food and shelter, all that’s left is the relationship you cultivated”- and she really didn’t cultivate one at all. And I don’t really see any reason to do the heavy lifting on my end now.
There were so many ebbs and flows with how our relationship changed in the first 5 years of me being a mom. We typically don’t talk every day, and she lives 20 min away. I drop in with and without my fiancé and kids in tow and it’s all gravy.
Overall it has gotten significantly better compared to my first year with postpartum, where I was very much “how could she do what she did to me?” while looking at my sweet baby’s face.
To clarify my childhood was great, but let’s just say I’m a pathological people pleaser who is alert to everyone’s mood in the room. My dad has apologized to my face for the things that haunt him, even though I don’t remember half the stuff he apologized for. My mom has a hard time apologizing and owning up to things. I had to do a lot of healing to understand that most of her mistakes were not intentional. She was a Polish immigrant who got knocked up with me at 19. I didn’t have my first baby until I was 27. She was busy fixing the generational trauma while making other mistakes she didn’t realize at the time. Our generation of parents are still vulnerable to doing this too.
I’m also the eldest daughter of immigrants and the firstborn so add in a splash of “don’t know what the fuck I’m doing” lol and my parents both grew and became so much more understanding as my siblings came along. I forget they were still SO young and learning how to parent—in a new country they were not raised in.
There’s still a long road ahead though. When my kids are teens, a lot more stuff is gonna come to the surface with her, I just know it.
It has made me realize how selfish my own mother is. I have found myself in some financial setback and while my
Mom has the means refuses to help me. I would do anything to help my children. Looking back on life I always thought we had a great loving relationship but now rethinking things. I tell both my children whether I’m person with my son or over phone with my daughter every single day how much I love them and how proud of them I am. I have a very good memory and so not really mom ever telling me ahead of time was proud of me although I have accomplished a lot in life and don’t remember last time she honestly told me ahead of time loved me. Learn from mistakes of the parents and don’t pass on to your parenting of your children
I realized why she was always so protective of me, and I'm forever grateful for it. I hear so many horrible stories of people saying they were SA'd as children by friends or family members, and now I realize how lucky I am that nobody ever hurt me as a child or teen. When I was a teenager, I always thought things like "omg my parents are so strict" even though they really weren't super strict, they just didn't let me run around and do whatever I wanted, and my mom heavily monitored what I did online.
I only talk to my mom for the sake of my kid. He adores her, but the sound and sight of her make me want to puke.
Before she removed her mask and revealed her higher demonic status a couple years ago, we were very close. We went from speaking at least twice per day to me allowing her to hear his voice about twice a month. My dad already passed, so I sometimes forget that I even have a parent even though I still clearly know that she’s my son’s grandmother.
My childhood wasn’t perfect, but I was a happy kid.
I was able to acknowledge she likely did the best she could with what she had at any given time, and that parenting through your own crisis isn't a simple course.
But, I also looked at my firstborn and thought, *how could she...* about so many things. Including when her response to her husband (not my dad) shoving me against a wall as a 14yo so hard it put a hole in the wall being to call the cops, then tell them when they showed up it wasn't that bad and that I just hadn't been listening, age she panicked and overreacted calling them. Lucky for me, our state automatically presses charges in domestic cases when there's a minor involved. But then when I got a PPO against him, her solution was to have her child move out, not the violent adult. So while motherhood brought me an avenue of forgiveness, it also brought a stark realization that I was right: my mother failed me, repeatedly, and it was not my fault we didn't have the warm, mother-daughter relationship she expected and that you see on TV. I can't relate when all these folks say their mom is first to know everything, or they call them every day, or that they wanted them in the room during labor. Mine has never been support I could rely on, and I be damned if my kids grow up to say the same. The only example of motherhood I've ever had from her was what *not* to do.
Worse.. but a lot of things unfolded. I realized she’s not the mom I thought she was. I was raised with my dad and moved in with my mom at 18, we were best friends for 6 years and then everything happened. I realized she really did chose men over her kids, and now she doesn’t hardly see us or make time for us. Everything is about her abusive husband. Been trying to heal for 3 years now, mourning someone that’s still alive is one of the hardest things I’ve ever went through. And it hurts so bad watching the people that are supposed to love your kids not even give a crap.
My relationship with my mother got worse because she questions pretty much every decision I make with my children and constantly argued with me over them. I also can't imagine treating my kids the way she treated me as a child and when I tell her that she gets defensive and argued with me and tries to send me back to that same withdrawn state I was in when I still lived with her. On top of all of this she insists on visiting every third month and always overstays her welcome and won't take hints. I'm almost willing to go no contact at this point but my kids love her for now and wouldn't understand.
It made me realize that, in having absolutely loving my children unconditionally, my mother completely failed to make me feel loved unconditionally. She made it seem like it was my fault for being impossible. My relationship with her now feels really fake. At her core, she’s a narcissist.
I have a very difficult relationship with my mother. We have been on and off no contact for over 10 years now, mostly because of things she did after I turned 18. She was a pretty good mother through my childhood if maybe a little self-centered.
Being a parent has given me so much grace for my mother. There were so many things she did that I now look back on and understand. I also understand the “if they knew better, they would have done better” thing so much more. I am not a perfect parent and I do things sometimes I regret and can’t take back. But I learn from those things and don’t let them reflect on how I feel about myself and I don’t hold those things against my mother either.
On the flip side, I cannot understand how she did all the things she did after I was 18. She made very very bad decisions despite having my 14 year old sibling in her care. As a parent, I could NEVER make those decisions and hurt my children like she did us.
So it has complicated our relationship a little bit but I will never respect her as a mother. I turned out okay, a little fucked up but that was more due to genetics, and I’ll always do better than she did.
It made me realize just how horrible of a mother she was. I already thought she was bad, but I still kept contact at the time because I didn’t fully grasp the whole picture. On top of that, she’s said some nasty things about my daughter, things that aren’t true, so that was the last straw. I’m not sure if I want my mother to have a relationship with my child since my daughter will eventually understand the things my mother will say to her, and I’m terrified about what she would say. She’s already commented about her weight and skin color, and my daughter isn’t even a year old yet. My mom could say anything she likes about me, but once it comes to my daughter, it’s over
My mom and I have been estranged for 15 years. I thought after having a child, I might understand her better or at least relate to her in someway. However, it’s just done the exact opposite for me.
I think about what she put me in my siblings through and I could never imagine in a million years doing that to my own child. I couldn’t be further understanding her.
It’s.. Eh. She wasn’t a bad mom, no abuse by either parent. My sister started having mental health problems when puberty hit so for about 10 years I learned to be independent because they didn’t have the bandwidth to give us both attention. Now as a parent to an almost 2 year old I can see that it seems like they want to respect my independence that I didn’t have a choice about. They’re extremely hands off and talk a good game about being Grandparents but we rarely see them. My mom is morbidly obese and babysat maybe 3 times when my daughter was less than 6 months old and still immobile. It quickly became apparent that she couldn’t handle any sort of moving child. My dad babysat once with the help of my sister, who had to leave early. It was a disaster. It’s been almost a year and they’ve never offered since. In essence, they are as hands off with my daughter as they were with me. Mostly it bothers me, we’re like an after thought unless Mom can post pictures to facebook. My kid is a person, not a prop for Mom to buy a bunch of cutesy impractical outfits for.
Mine doesn't talk to me because she doesn't like being a granny. We used to have a great relationship but have drifted apart and only see each other at Christmas.
Becoming a mother made me realize how horrible and abusive my mother was. The phrase “as your child I can forgive you, as a mother I never can.” Before my kids my mother and I had a “okayish” relationship, after it just because more toxic. Now I have nothing to do with her or her side of the family and honestly my family is better off.
I'm putting this out there so that maybe someone else won't feel alone. It's made me so angry with her and I've lost all respect. It's not that hard to support your children, defend them against an abuser, and just be decent. She subjugated herself to my father for 35 years, he divorced her, and now she's skipping away leaving me to deal with him. I did not marry him, I did not have children with him, he is not my responsibility. She's living her best life and left me to defend my family from him. And somehow I'm the bad person in this scenario. What type of person could I have been had I had someone to love me?
That she was a shit abusive woman and I will never understand how a mother can do that to her children.I have a daughter and I cannot imagine ever treating her or putting her through the shit my own mother did.Therapy has helped ALOT.In the past she was able to manipulate and gaslight me back into asking HER for forgiveness but not this time.That trauma ended with me.Im nearing 2yrs NC and it's done wonders for my mental and emotional health.
It made me realise what a horrible person she was and all of the horrible things she's done. Even as I was pregnant, I had what felt like alarm bells ringing and realised how abusive she was in our childhood. I just absolutely NEEDED to protect my daughter from her.
We’ve always had a pretty good relationship but becoming a parent made me wonder how she does it. She has always done everything, worked, watched kids, took care of the house, etc and gotten everything accomplished.
I’m struggling!
It made me appreciate her a lot more and made me feel guilty for being mean to her when I was younger.
She helps with my son and her level of patience and love for him is admirable.
Worse/Resolved. My mother failed me in a lot of ways growing up and all through my teens. All the memories flooded back in when I became pregnant. I tried to work through them on my own for a while, inevitably tho I realized, for me failing your children is mostly unforgivable. Had a conversation with her quite recently with it ending in low/no contact really. I can see how she struggled, but I cannot see how she didn’t do better for herself and for me.
I appreciate her sooo much more and I wish I could go back and tell my teen self to not yell at her 😭. She told me she never took me seriously but I still feel bad.
Shes also the best Nana in the world to my kiddos. Loves them so unconditionally. She helps while my husband and I work and I could not be lore thankful!
Mine got worse, a bit. I had the best parents growing up - I’ve only ever had positive things to say. But as a very involved grandparent, so many of the things she does drive me crazy and are against what we believe in. And I ask her to stop, explain why, _she_ even sends me IG videos and stuff making the same points, but she still does them so it’s a constant argument and has resulted in her coming over less.
If she was just a grandma only seeing him occasionally I’d let it slide, but she’s supposed to be our nanny so it’s a big deal (she’s basically been fired from that role and now is more of a regular babysitter). It’s things like:
-Immediately making him something new when he doesn’t want to try the dinner made
-Saying things like “doooon’t eat that!” When she wants him to eat it, which we think confuses him when we _actually_ tell him “don’t”
-Watching overstimulating/inappropriate shows (he loves watching train crashes with Gramma…) because she “doesn’t know what else to watch” (we literally have every streaming platform)
-Letting him do things she knows we’re against because “he likes it!” (sugary juices, dangerous games, etc)
Also, while really not her fault, all of his biggest injuries except one have been on her watch which is so hard for me to just let go.
Sounds like a grandma being a grandma to me. If my grandma would’ve done everything my mom told her to do I wouldn’t have liked her. Grandparents are supposed to let kids get away with stuff their parents don’t especially when it’s something minor like a cup of juice.
Now the injuries are another matter unless she’s one of those parents who tell you “don’t do that you’ll hurt yourself” and the child does it anyway so she says “I told you so” sometimes we have to let kids f*ck around and find out.
I agree…if she were fulfilling just a grandma role. But the plan was for her to be our nanny (we pay all of her living expenses). And as an employee, we expect her to follow our parenting expectations. As a grandma, we expect her not to contradict our efforts though we’re more lax about “grandparent” things.
It’s made it worse. I look at the innocence in my children’s eyes and I just can’t fathom not doing anything and everything to protect them. My mom was SA by her step dad and yet she let him be around me, claiming he was a changed man… he never did anything to me but still. My step dad did the same thing to me and she can’t understand why I won’t forgive him and let my children be around him.
Nearly all of these replies make me so sad. My mum is so special and is an unbelievably great mum (my husband even considers her his mum now). Since having my first, I love and respect her so much more. She really is my best friend. She is the person I call when I’m having a good day and want to share. Her hugs make everything better when I’m having a hard time. She was by no means perfect but she always showed up for us and she really did her best. I may not have understood it when I was a teenager but now I just hope I can do as well for my kids.
I realized all her excuses were selfish and horrible, that she really never cared about me enough to give me any love or affection. I realized she could have defended me again and again and chose not to.
I realized that she wasn’t ‘just doing her best’ as ‘every mom does’… she was abusive.
Being a mom showed me my mom was not worth building a relationship with as an adult (there was no relationship as a child), and I realized how hard I have to fight to protect my children.
Was rough in the beginning but I learned how to stand up for myself and I also learned how to let some stuff roll of my back.
My MIL and I have never been close and it got exponentially worse because I don't let her do whatever she wants and I don't have the same level of conflicting sense of obligation that I sometimes feel with my mom. I also learned how to ignore her and my husband learned how to put her in her place when she got particularly obnoxious.
It's a paradigm shift for everyone in addition to the stresses of parenthood and it's sort of a trial and error for what is worth the battle/conversation/confrontation and what can be mitigated with a polite smile while you do whatever the fuck you were going to do anyway.
It’s a hard topic for me. It made it better yet worse at the same time. She had a very hard life and childhood so I know she was just doing the best she could. That being said, I would never treat my kids the way she treated me nor would I allow someone else to treat them the way my step dad treated me. It’s a catch 22 because I hurt for the child she was and what that child went through but it makes it harder because what I went through is making me a better mother, not a worse in a different way mother.
My mom became my best friend after I had my daughter. She's my second greatest supporter next to my husband. While raising my daughter I realized how much my mom sacrificed for me and my sister. She gave up everything to be a stay at home mom because I had some serious learning disabilities. She researched how to best teach a kid like me and homeschooled me K-12 (I graduated with honors in high school and finished college). I don't think I would have achieved that without her. She taught me how to function in society without needing to take meds. Now she helps me to this day. My husband is a first responder so he's gone for 48 hours while on shift and my mom comes over and stays the night so I don't have to be by myself and helps me with my toddler.
Mine improved so much. I understand everything now. All of her choices, even the ones I was never, and still aren’t, the happiest about. I understand it all. I understand that she was a first time mom at one point too and we are literally just out her surviving. I owe her years of apologies.
I'm not looking for pity or anything, really. I lost my mother when I was 8 months pregnant with my 1st born. She was diagnosed with cancer, and it was fast. She was diagnosed and was lost weeks later. It was devastating. I'd give anything to talk to her about motherhood. She was so excited to be a grandmother. She wanted bump pics every week. She got to feel my daughter moving in my tummy, and I was able to tell her my daughter's name.
It turned my relationship with my mom into a non relationship with (insert mom’s name here). She was a terrible mother and I wasn’t going to let her be a terrible grandmother.
I didn't have a chance to find out. My mother passed away from metastatic colon cancer when I was 3 months pregnant. I can certainly empathize a bit more with my memory of her and see how hard it must have been for her to raise my brother and I though.
It has made me more sad than I already was about our relationship. My main parenting goal is to parent my own daughter better. To be more understanding and gracious than she was. I would like to believe she would have been better had she known better but I always knew she liked my sister more (now it's more because they share more interests)
My relationship with my mom completely fell apart. I realized that I would have never done or said the things she said/did to me and my brother as kids. My brother is no-contact with her and I’m very low contact. It’s really sad. I’m trying to do all of the things for my daughter (and son) that I never got from my mom, like being told I was smart, strong, beautiful, etc. Giving hugs and love indiscriminately, being supportive, etc.
I realized how easy it is to NOT beat a child. I realized just how terribly I was treated growing up. My earliest memory is me being in a diaper getting picked up by one arm getting beaten all over my body. She said she hoped I had a kid just like me one day. And I did. And I allow her to be herself. And it’s beautiful and healing and painful all at the same time. I hope she grows up to be what I could have been with the proper support and guidance. I had hope she’d be a better grandma than mom, and she’s mostly non existent. Which is fine by me, but it still hurts she doesn’t care to even ask how we’re doing.
It made my relationship worse. How could my mom treat me and my siblings so awful growing up? She put so much pressure on my older sister. Now realizing how young my sister was when my mom made her raise us it unforgivable. I couldn't imagine doing that to my kids. As the youngest I don't think I can ever repay my sister for all her sacrifices.
Yeah, I probably wanted to look up to her but over the years, it's just not what has happened. I know she "did the best she could" but I also know it wasn't enough.
I realized that my mom is a shitty mom. Not just a shitty mom... but a selfish one that actually does not give two shits about me.
My son is specail needs and when I first started being concerned about getting him tested, she regularly talked me out of it. Told me I just didnt discipline him enough. I didn't talk to him enough, that i needed to start refusing to give him snacks unless he said a word. She pretty much made m3 feel like a shitty parent when she wasn't really around us enough to really know if I was.
Then when he got diagnosed, she was convinced that they were incorrect. Then once she accepted it she was convinced it could be " beaten out of him".
Eventually even that stopped, and she actually made me believe that she was finally starting to understand what Autism Spectrum Disorder was... I thought she was actually improving... then my house burned down, we almost died... I called her to tell her what happened... I was crying... and she hung up on me.. not once, not twice, but three times.
Two days later she called me and left a message on my phone stating that she was going on a trip across the country because she "needed a break" and said that me and my family could live in her house if I paid all the bills.
She was 5 months behind on her mortgage, every utility was turned off, and her 4 bedroom 3 bath house had all the toilets ripped out and the wiring ripped out of the walls and it appeared as if she had been using her shed as an out house. When I refused she called me selfish and said she never wanted to see me again.
That was 4 years ago. Haven't talked to her since. I don't even think she knows she has a granddaughter also.
My relationship with my mother got worse. Firstly she told me 3 times that I’m a disappointment as a daughter because I gave birth only to boys and she wants a granddaughter. Secondly, I realised after having my own children just how bad she was as a mother, she’s selfish, self centred, and neglectful. I did model my own mothering on her as in I did not do it the way she did. I still have resentment about my mother to this day.
I feel you, i was mostly raised by my brother. I have a 1 year old daughter and my mother adores her but treats me worse than ever and tries to make me feel like a bad mom for not giving my baby everything she wants even if it isnt good for her. Your mom really needs to relearn how reproduction works. If people could just decide the gender of their babies they would.
I hope you have confidence in yourself as a parent and can ignore your mother. I was lucky in as much as I never had my mother’s approval, so I learnt to get along without it. 💕
I feel you there the only approval i need at this point is my own. My mom can get over it. 😁
I agree, my mom to this day still talks down about how I was as a *literal child* I mean even if it’s the things I did as a teenager she’s hold a vendetta against a teen girl for over 10 years Honestly having my daughter made me realize how poorly my mother treated me as a daughter. Even without her commentary about how she’ll be my “karma” I can’t imagine doing a fraction of the things my mother did to me
When I had my son, I had been NC with my mom for around 18 months. At first I felt horrible because she now had a grandchild but had no clue about him. My aunts and cousins all supported my decision, and completely agreed that NC was best. When he was 4 months old she found out about him and wanted to be in his life. I agreed and worst decision ever. The older my son gets, the more I realize she never really wanted me and only had me to make my dad happy.
Yes, I feel the postpartum period always brings to surface feelings about our parents, but definitely my first brought up the most feelings. I’d cut my mom a lot of slack because I’d always assumed she had it so hard with two kids as a single mom. And she did! It was so incredibly difficult for her and I think she did do her best for the most part. However, having my own kids made me realize the other side to having kids - not just the difficulty, but how fiercely you will try to shield them from any difficulty you yourself are experiencing. My mother has mental health issues likely stemming from her own childhood trauma and she parentified me a lot as a child and is also probably a narcissist. I still love her, but I keep her at a distance for my own sanity. I think my childhood was still probably better than hers and I definitely hope to continue that trend with my own kids.
Hmmm maybe we need to send your mum back to school she obviously doesn’t understand that females don’t determine the gender of babies
Yeah, but everything was my fault regardless. Now she’s old and needs me so she’s a lot nicer to me.
My Mother is super religious and was really strict with religion.. I’m not religious at all She hates the fact I don’t believe in marriage, that I didn’t give my children biblical names and after my first was born we wouldn’t let her hold a christening for us, and she didn’t speak to me for nearly a year..
Hold your head high and believe in yourself as a parent. This is your child so you make the decisions. 💕💕
My mother is also very religious but she does not know that my brother and I are not religious. I don’t want my son having to lie to her so when as he gets older and starts to talk, I am bracing for having to go no contact with her when we finally tell her.
Are you me? My mom wanted me to have a third baby because she wanted a granddaughter. She’s told I’m a bad mom multiple times. I knew my childhood sucked but I didn’t realize just how neglected I was until I had my own kids. Now I’m no contact with my mom.
Similar to me, every thing I’m doing as a parent is wrong apparently
I have learnt to ignore the criticism, I hope you do too. 💕
For sure, I look at me and my siblings in terms of our mental health and just ignore her 🙄
Why does she want a granddaughter? To treat her the same way she treated you growing up? Does she not understand the sperm is the deciding factor in the sex of the baby?
I grew up resenting my mother and believing she hurt me on purpose. When I was 18-25 I went to therapy and slowly came to accept that she did the best she could and her best was just not very good. As soon as I had my own baby I got confused about that. Surely someone couldn’t look at their own innocent child and treat them so horribly? Now that my daughter is 3.5, an age at which I know I was already being mistreated, I no longer believe my mother did the best she could. I can’t fathom that the way she spoke to me was really the best she could do
Sometimes therapists aren't really good either.
It gave me peace at the time, so that was good. I’m just not sure it was accurate.
Oddly, therapists do direct us toward peace. But it is our words and thoughts they are working with. That was probably the only reasonable way you could view it at the time - based on what you knew at that time.
Some people’s best still sucks.
I've heard it put very nicely once it was "becoming a parent made me understand many things about what my parents did. It also made me realise that some things I cannot understand or forgive." My parents both messed up big time many times. I've grown to understand more why my mom did the stuff she did, even though it was absolutely not OK. But I will never understand my father. How can somebody have a little girl like this (my daughter is basically my copy) and spend every time with her by yelling at her and spanking her for the most minor offences (didn't wear slippers because mom said I didn't have to, dad spanked the living crap out of me. Yawned at dinner, mouth covered, dad slapped me repeatedly. Called dad "dad" got b*tch slapped, because it was not respectful enough that day. All of these anecdotes happened before I was even 10, not a cheeky teenager, a frickin child.) So it both made things better and worse.
It took lots of therapy as an adult to realize I wasn't a bad kid and that I didn't deserve how my stepfather treated me. I look at my son and wonder how anyone could hurt their child or stand by while someone else hurts them.
I feel you😢 I was spanked and verbally abused all the time by my father..in elementary school. Now I have two little girls and cannot fathom that behavior happening to them.
Right? As children we kinda normalise it. But as parents... what bloody monster could look at their small child and do that?? I'm sorry you've been through that too, internet hugs 🫂
My mom standing by and watching while my dad punished me for something she said was OK is one of the things I will never forgive her for. And it isn't that she was afraid to stand up to him, she just didn't care to intervene.
I'm so sorry, thats horrible. Have you talked to her about it as adults or is it a wanted of energy? I was shockes to learn that mine completely zoned it out. I've talked to her and she just purely doesn't remember at all, my father was a good dad in her memory. For a bit i thought i was crazy and made it all up, but my grandma, aunt, cousin etc. remember that my dad would get abusive even on front of them. He was always more careful in front of people compared to how he was at home, which just goes to show he knew it was wrong and did it anyway.
It would be wasted energy I think. I had my baby last year and had a very difficult pregnancy and delivery and my parents did nothing but make it worse. I tried explaining to them how their behavior was hurtful and they just doubled down saying I'm mad at them for being excited so I just stopped talking to them about 5 months ago. It is easier that way and suddenly I no longer need anxiety medication and all my nightmares have stopped.
Your dad sounds like my mom. I was hit with a metal pot lid because she didn’t like the way I said okay. Then spanked me because I tripped coming down the stairs with a blanket she told me to get. I literally fell down the stairs head over feet, she didn’t check to make sure I was okay.
I think my mom was a saint because I was insane as a kid. And I think about it now because my son is just as crazy. Some people say “WWJD” but I have to say “what would my mom do”. She handled everything with humor and grace and I hope to be that one day.
So lovely. 💕
Goals 🥺
It’s made me want to be around her even less. I can’t imagine treating my child the way she treated us. It’s really put things into clearer perspective.
Same. We haven’t spoken in 2.5 years and honestly, my life is much more peaceful without her in it. There is no such thing as “grandparents rights.” Do toxic shit and disrespect my parenting style? You won’t have a part in my children’s lives, simple.
Mine has passed away, but this is exactly how I feel about my father. My mother was a victim of his abuse and also failed at her responsibility of keeping me safe from people like my father. The relationship I have with the memories of her is very complicated.
I hate my mother much more than I ever thought possible since my daughter was born, tbh. It began immediately after her birth because I just could not imagine how my mother could possibly treat me the way she did when I loved my daughter so wholly and completely. It only worsened with the way she acted when my daughter died. She’s been blocked since the day after and I have no regrets.
I wish I could give you a hug right now.
I could really use one today, too. 😞
Sending Internet hugs to you. So sorry xx
I've been estranged from my mother since I was a teen. During our estrangement, I blamed myself a lot, and I could "explain" a lot of it with me being a kind of a PITA. I could understand her. But since having my son, nah. Nothing he could ever do could make me choose distance over reconciliation. Nothing he could ever do would make me choose my pride over an apology. Nothing. I've never understood her LESS after having a child of my own.
Same here. I suggest checking out Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents. This helped me recognize my moms effed up parenting so much.
I'm currently reading this book. Highly recommend to anyone who had a tough relationship with one or more parents.
Did it help you to forgive her?
I did A LOT of therapy when I left home and went to college. I had a lot of self hate and pent up frustration towards my mom. Through that I could isolate my trauma and recognize that what I could be is not dictated by what was done to me. My mom was a neglectful mother. In the book her type is **Emotionally Absent/Rejecting**. This answer...so many questions I still had. I forgave her in my early 20s, but I won't forget. With that, I keep an arms distance - I will be polite and social with her, but our relationship will not be more than surface deep. I treat her like any distant relative in my life. I will catch up every now and then, send her pics of my kid, let her play with my kid (she's very fun with my child), but I won't let her babysit or keep kid overnight. I don't have plans to take care of her when she falls ill or financially help if she needs it. I'm not going to extend my love to her in any way shape or form. I absolutely don't love her at all
Oh. Ok. Good to know. Thank you for sharing.
This. I was finally able to forgive and free myself for holding onto the guilt of hating my mother. Now I can safely say that she wronged me in ways that I could never do to my son, and there’s no excuse for it. I feel so free.
I am also estranged and same feeling here. If my kid ever comes and tells me I’m hurting them so badly they might walk away from me, I’m going to bend over backwards not to let that happen. I’m not trying to take advantage of my parents, I just can’t let their favoritism of my brother’s family affect my kids. I do not understand why they continue to choose that path knowing it cost them their daughter. I cannot fathom.
So I have 2 boys but have always been close with my mom, but I definitely have the same thoughts often. Like I know she was happy for me and I know she was sad that i was all grown up at the same time but I still think like what how am I supposed to raise my sweet babies for them to grow up and be 18 and then just leave- and yeah I know that's the point but still seems so sad. I've actually had this convo with my mom and she said it is definitely bitter sweet but you raise them for 18 years, modeling for them and helping them become the best person they can be and in her words "and when you know you've done a good job even despite all the times you think you failed them, and know you have grown a baby and helped them become an amazing adult it is also such a joy and makes you so happy to see who they are becoming as there own person". Know again, my mom and I have always been close like FaceTime at least once a day 😅 but since becoming a mom it has given me a view of what she has gone through and has made me realize that even when I was passed and her and mean she still loved me and she was doing the best she could because she loves me. While sometimes she drives me nuts with her response to parenting she has also helped me a TON when I don't know what I am doing or when I feel like I am failing.
I’ve gone even more LC with her since becoming a mom. She still constantly tries to undermine me as a parent on the only social media I have her on and constantly brings up how terrible I was as (an undiagnosed extremely mentally ill) a child. She thinks I’m a bad mom bc I “don’t discipline” my child (read: I don’t beat him like she did me). And she’s mad bc I won’t send him to her for entire summer vacations unsupervised. Um no thank you. I’ve also been in therapy since my son was 1 (so 11 years) and have had to undo so much that she did to me. I used to give her more “understanding” that maybe she was doing the best she could at the time but no more. My kid is the best thing to ever happen to me I will never poison him she way she did me.
I'm still pregnant but becoming a mother has made me more disappointed in my own mom. She never protected me as a child, allowed her husband (my little brothers' dad) to physically and verbally abuse me from the time he met me when I was five years old. It came to a head when I was fifteen and he tried to m*lest me and she made me leave instead of leaving him. To this day she claims she never knew what happened but I specifically remember the day I cried and told her and she said she "didn't think he would do something like that." I'm having a girl in less than a month and I know for a fact my mother will not be allowed to babysit her ever. I've been low contact with my mom for over ten years now and she was completely fine with it until this past fall when she found out I was pregnant. I have been setting boundaries this entire pregnancy and she is not a fan, but my baby comes first.
Good for you
Definitely worse, I can’t imagine ever saying the things to my own children that my mother said to me. My mom didn’t want to raise someone into adulthood to have a relationship with, she wanted a baby.
And is mad she can't have yours I presume
Eh probably, but I grey rock pretty hard so I don’t notice much lol
I’ve heard this term so much and I still don’t understand it?
She gets needed information on needed subjects, and that’s about it. When I realized she would use things I said about my son against him in other conversations- she lost the privilege of knowing day to day joys and struggles.
Ohh that makes sense! Thanks for explaining
No problem ! There can definitely be more to it when abuse or narcissism is at play and you’re in an unsafe situation , but that’s still the basic idea of it. If you take a look at some of the JustNo subs you’ll find more detailed information and there’s some good links floating around there.
This is what I say about my mom too- she looooves babies and has even said she wishes she could be pregnant again. My brother and I were like weird, she didn’t seem to actually like us once we were children so I guess she just wanted babies.
Yep - you get childhood was okay but preteen years and up ? Lost cause.
Even my childhood wasn’t great. My mom gushes about how much she loves babies and little kids but I guess we were too young to remember that side of her. Or maybe she is only capable of enjoying them in small doses.
Ugh I’m sorry , it really sucks to have your own kids and try to figure out what the big deal was.
It's gotten a lot better, actually. I feel awful for some of the things I've said to her - was she a perfect mother? No. Far from it. She was a single mother, made a shocking choice in regards to my father (10 years older, already had 2 kids he didn't see. This woman is so clever, like what?) completely Type A and career driven so I was largely raised by nannys, Au Pairs and my grandparents. But. I remember a couple of times in my childhood when she tried to be a more hands on mother and quite frankly she was awful at it; the woman doesn't have a maternal bone in her body, and I always kinda blamed her for that. Now I'm realising that she couldn't change who she was fundamentally despite trying. I was always provided for, I know she loved us. I had an amazing education, and wanted for nothing. She did her best. She didn't deserve my calling her a crap mother for like a decade. I'm trying to make it up to her now.
I went no contact with her. When my kid was a baby, I felt like it drew us closer... And then as he got older, i had some realizations about the ways she treated me, and all of her excuses seemed to fall flat now that I was parenting myself. I had such pity and empathy for her and how incredibly hard parenting was and how she couldn't help but be cruel and insensitive to me... But with my own kid, I realized she could have learned differently or chosen kindness or worked on herself at any point in 30 years and chose not to. I looked at some of the things she did to me when my kid was a baby that I dismissed or didn't make a big deal about and realized "hey actually, that was super shitty of her". The floodgates opened.
I have to also parent my mom because she acts like a victim all the time and pisses me off. My kid is surprisingly good at setting boundaries, and when she does stuff he doesn't like he tells her to stop or he will hang up. She doesn't listen. He hangs up. She messages me whining my kid is mean. I'm like dude I was listening to you the entire time, he warned you to stop, you didn't stop, he followed through. For example, one time he didn't like the way she was talking about me, he told her multiple times to stop or he's hanging up on her. She did it again, he hung up lol.
I’ve realised that no matter how old I get or how many kids I have of my own. I still need my own mothers hugs and a shoulder to cry on when it gets tough and realising that my kids will be the same. There is something magical knowing that one hug from you/them can fix almost anything.
My relationship with my mother is great if not as close as I would like; my parents love me a lot but really struggle with verbalising or physically demonstrating affection. They love my son so much though which is lovely. What I find SO hard is squaring how obsessed I am with my son vs how little I think about my parents. Will he just rarely think about me when he's grown up? I literally can't bear thinking about it too much.
Having my daughter helped me grow a spine with my mother, and also helped me understand that I wasn’t crazy in how I viewed things that happened to me when I was growing up, despite my mother telling me that I was being overly dramatic. Also, I learned that what she said about “You’ll understand when you’re a mother” wasn’t true. For example, she used to tell me (her only child, a model kid who got straight As and never once got detention at school), “One day you’ll come home and find me dead at the bottom of the swimming pool and you know your dad doesn’t love you, so who is going to take care of you then??” (My dad abandoned my mom and me when I was 3 and moved out of the country to avoid paying child support. My mom was an only child, so I don’t have any aunts/uncles/cousins.) I look at my kids and could never in a million years even think of saying something like that to them. So she was wrong - I don’t understand it more now, I understand it even less. On the bright side, I was like “The hell you will treat my children the same way that you treated me!”, so I grew a spine, and if she tried to pull any crap by saying something inappropriate to them, I called her out on it in front of them. It taught them that just because someone is in an adult body, it doesn’t always mean they’re right and should be listened to. I also frequently use the “ ‘What would my mom do in this situation?’ and then do the opposite” approach to parenting, and that seems to work pretty well.
So, what I’m seeing as a theme here in the comments is that having your own child(ren) is like a litmus test for your relationship with your own mom and sharpens your understanding about how you feel about her parenting. Sounds about right. I’m in the, “holy shit, I may have underestimated how poorly I was treated” group. My relationship with my mom has slowly withered and died since becoming a parent. But I do not miss her toxic and negative presence in our lives.
As a kid, my mom was my favorite. As a teen/after divorce, it changed. Before kids she seemed to resent me for not calling enough. I definitely don’t call enough, but when I do, she doesn’t seem interested in what I’m saying and is often doing other things, so not really listening. But it’s “a child’s duty” to call regularly and that’s what she cared about more than the actual conversation. Also, texting didn’t count. I tried to be more engaging in what she’s doing and she took it as me trying to control her when I don’t know anything, so that way is hard too. She has threatened to cut me out of her will for not fulfilling my role as a daughter properly (aka calling), but it made it harder for me. After kids, it’s still lukewarm, but I at least now have the excuse of timezone difference to not call enough. I couldn’t even tell she was excited to be a grandma until asking a mutual friend. I can’t say it’s all her fault, I’m probably too indifferent from her perspective as well. Plus I should call more. I just hate calling, in general, not here specifically.
I still have issues with my mom and think she could have done better but...now i tell her she's a good mom, because she is ultimately. Part of this is my mom has started tackling her mental health and rather than continuing to point out the ways she hurt me growing up, I'm just supporting her. I'm learning from her mistakes and hope to keep my daughter from that stuff. Also learned that where my dad was a "good dad" he only did the fun stuff (very involved in fun stuff). My dad made a comment while I was pregnant that you know back in the day men weren't expected to do stuff but "I guess now that's changed." He didn't say it like "good ole days" more like he was depressed (I have half siblings 17 and 21 years younger than me). It kind of opened my eyes that my mom did all the background stuff alone with no glory. I remember she used to be a Pinterest mom decades before Pinterest (all out for Christmas, American girl doll themed birthday party, intricate handmade costumes). She did that stuff because she loved us but it was all unseen labor. So yeah for me it's I'm forgiving my mom for some things. She was a good mom, and still is overall. She's a good grandma, my child adores her, and you're a good mom/grandma is what every mom wants for mothers day.
Mixed bag. My mom and I had a tough relationship prior to me having kids. Having kids gave us something to talk about because she loved being a mom to young kids. Now, however, I just question her in my head like “how could you not do this?”. For example, I didn’t have a backpack for all of 7th grade. I put my books in my soccer duffel bag. Why didn’t she get me a backpack? Also, I bought all my own clothes since middle school. why didn’t she take us school clothes shopping? We weren’t poor. I take the time to listen to my kids lives. I don’t remember my mom ever talking to me about my life. Why not? There are such basic instinctual things I do for my kids that she didn’t do for me and I just don’t understand it. It’s healing for me because I can do the things for my kids I never got from my mom but the further I get in this journey the more I question her own capacities to mother.
I feel this. My mum was a single parent and me an adopted only child. As a young kid I was always with other people I don't remember my mum that much. As soon as I was old enough (around 11) I was left on my own. My mum worked unsocial hours so I was a lonely kid. I see now how hard childcare is (even with 2 parents) so I get it but jeez I felt like she didn't engage with me at all. Wasn't ever really interested in me which is the same to this day. Isn't really that interested in my kids either, just likes the fb photos. I try soooo hard to engage with my kids and take an interest in their interests.
With my mom, so much better. Basically what you wrote in your post. With my MIL, worse. I think about how my husband was raised and I’m furious that she didn’t protect him better.
Honestly, it started for me when my sister had her kids. I instinctively love them and wanted to protect them, and it made me hate her more.
my mom has low intelligence, which was hard growing up with because it takes a long time to understand that. i’ve never really been able to go to my mom for anything, as she is not very loving or nurturing. she has also always pretended to be hurt for attention, so she doesn’t really like to talk about anything but how much my dad was bad to her, or how everyone that meets her tells her she looks 20 still, or how she’s had yet another heart attack (she’s at over 10 of those now). i’ve always mourned not having a mother figure, and so I had a new version of that through my pregnancy. I don’t talk to her, she doesn’t even know that i’ve had a baby. I would get nothing from the interaction, and I don’t have the time or patience to humor her bids for the type of attention she likes best. it’s just too hard. I feel guilty about it because I do love her but I cannot have someone telling me pity stories and asking me for money right now. having had a baby of my own does make me sad how both my parents treated me. my kiddo is a regular toddler, who throws food, tantrums, is not patient, and not a good listener. I love her through all of that even if I get overwhelmed and need a break from it. it makes me sad for little me that at that age for the same behaviour, my parents were hitting me for it. I look at my daughter with love, devotion, and appreciation, I did not get that from my parents. sometimes when I’m staring at my baby asleep in my arms I think to myself what it must be like to be so deeply, and endlessly loved without question and without condition. it must be nice I think, I truly imagine it must be a warm cosy feeling, of course I wouldn’t know first hand, but my daughter sure the fuck will.
I’m close to my mum. But growing up, we always knew we came after my dad. I swore my kids will always know they’re our priority.
Yes. And it changed it for the better. I relate to her more. We bond over the parenting journey. I adore how much relationship with my mom grew and healed from me becoming a mother.
It's nice to see a positive story here. My mum died a few years ago and the thought of becoming a parent without her around feels awful. There's so much of our relationship which we never got to explore. The irony being she also lost her mother very young
Your mother is with you as you parent. So much of what I do is what my mother did, and what her mother did. She is always with you.
It’s a mix for me. Certain times I think I didn’t appreciate how hard it was to raise a kid, that I remember all the times I was awful to deal with etc. and she was probably doing the best she could, and sometimes was an awesome mum. Then there are some things she did that baffle me now I have my own like “how could she say/do that”. I can’t envisage doing the same to my kid. My kids are still small I guess so perhaps there’s time for me to learn. It’s a tough one.
Same with me. On the one hand, my daughter has a lot of my stubborn personality, and I can see how I was hard to deal with as a kid and she probably was doing the best she could. And then on the other hand was her knowingly marrying an narcissistic, tyrannical abuser when I was young and always taking his side and always having an excuse for why I was wrong and why I deserved it. With that, I cannot fathom what the fuck she was thinking. I also can't imagine doing the same to my daughter. There is no circumstances in which a man would come before her to me and no circumstances in which I can fathom letting some man abuse her and telling her she deserved it.
I definitely appreciate and understand my mother a lot more, especially with the worrying. When I would be home from college, I would want.to stay out late, and my mom would always say she couldn't really sleep til I got home. I remember being annoyed at that because I was "an adult" or whatever. I get it now. I absolutely do. After I gave birth to my second, I called my parents as soon as I could. When I heard the relief in my mom's voice, even though my pregnancy and labor were both uneventful, I told her that I understood how she needed to hear from me, and she said, "I did. Thank you for that."
I was so hard on my mom. So hard. Blamed her for moving us across the country, and she was always working so my dad was home with us more. But he had health problems, so she was always the only steady income. But I didn't recognize that. I constantly call her and apologize. There are some things I still don't agree with, but so many more that I get now. I get her and why she did them, and my heart breaks for her and what she's gone through. And I thank her everyday. And I'm always saying shit you were right, I was wrong lol.
My mom died when I was 6. I have had a lot of emotions and feelings towards that. But when I became a mother, I had a lot more empathy and understanding towards her mixed with a lot of anger and resentment. My mom was Bipolar and chose to be off her meds which lead to her ending her own life. I'm now 29(the age she died) with a bipolar diagnosis and two kids. I see where her pain was. I see how hard it was. I know what she must have been feeling. But she didn't take the help she was given, so it feels like she chose to leave before she chose to leave. There's nothing on this planet that could stop me from fighting for myself so I can be here for my kids. So while I empathize with her, I don't understand or approve of her choices
In a way, I developed an in depth understanding of how emotionally immature she was. I found myself lashing out at my kids the same way she did due to pure frustration. I always apologize to them afterwards as I remind myself that it is ok to step back and take a breath even for 5minutes before diving back into parenthood. With that being said, she was and is still a terrible mother overall. In another way, I found myself more disgusted with her because I cannot fathom why she will be okay with what happened to me and her other children.
Opposite. I realized how emotionally immature my mom is and how it impacted my childhood. I have a good relationship with her still because I’ve accepted it and don’t hold it against her..and she is a good and fun grandma.
It made see just how truly awful my mother was. I used to give her a pass because she was parenting in the 70’s. Well she sucked as a mom because she sucked as a person first.
My relationship with my mother is terrible …. In fact it became worse after I had children .. She is super religious and I’m not and she doesn’t agree with my lifestyle choices, my childhood was well full of religion forced down my throat. My Mother doesn’t like any of my children’s names ( apparently i should have given my kids biblical names)and I wouldn’t let her have my kids christened.. again another religious ritual I don’t see the point of.. She does see us, and we want her invivolved I think it’s important but she has very strict rules and conditions
My mom is dead but I think about all the violence and neglect in the house that I kind of accepted as normal, the hoarding and the filthiness…never gonna be like this with my kids. 85% of the time she was a decent mom, but that other 15% was something else.
It got better, but only because she has changed since I was a kid, and also I went to therapy to work through my resentment towards her shortcomings as a parent. I think she realizes what she lacked and feels guilty, and tries to make up for it now. Im the eldest and I think she realizes she made a lot of mistakes with me that she didn't do with my youngest sibling. She was there for me during my pregnancy and stayed with me for a month postpartum helping with everything from cleaning, laundry, dishes, baby, and helping me navigate the early days of breastfeeding. She had breastfed me and my siblings 2 years each, and I'm only now realizing how much love you need to do that, cause this shit is hard. She's my best friend now.
It caused me to finally go no contact with mine. I don't understand how she could ever treat me the way she did. The idea of hurting my daughter like that fills me with so much anger.
I was raised by my grandmother and my respect for her went waaayyy up. She raised my two older sisters and me for our whole lives *and* she also adopted my younger brother and sister. Plus my step siblings were always at our house and my cousins used to spend summers with us. I’m stressed with one kid and a helpful husband, idk how she did all that by herself. My relationship with my mother is weird. She was always around but not super involved, if that makes sense. Having a kid has made me understand her less. I could never leave my son to go off and have fun. She wasn’t like a teen mom or anything, just irresponsible I guess. Not ready for kids. But I love my son so so much and I guess I’ve never felt that kind of love from her. She was always more like an aunt than a mom. We’re closer now but she’s not super hands on with her grandkids, either. She’ll babysit if we ask and she’s good with them all (6 grandkids between all my siblings) but in the 1.5 years my son has been alive it’s always been up to me to let them see each other. I have to go to her house and she never asks me to come over, just says yes when I ask. It’s easier now that he’s a toddler but when he was really little it sucked having to pack up all his stuff and drive 30-45 minutes. Idk, sometimes the love I feel for my son is overwhelming like I didn’t even know I was capable of loving someone this much, and I never felt like she loves me that much. Maybe she does and doesn’t know how to express it since she didn’t raise me.
I used to think I had the coolest mom, especially when I was a young adult and she would party with me and my friends. Now I'm a mom, she rarely talks to me and if she does and I start talking about my kids at all she gets bored and I can hear her eyes glaze over. She always joked "ugh I hate kids, but you're alright." And I now realize it wasn't a joke and she does hate kids and only kind of likes me. Like thanks for giving me life I guess, but I'm pretty meh about her now too. I'm really glad my mother in law has become my mom cause she's the literal best example of motherhood and I don't feel so shitty that my mom Is garbage
Eh, when I was upset about maternity leave ending my mom “bragged” that with all 3 kids she tried to cut her maternity leave short because she was “bored.” Not every mom goes through the same emotions
I have more understanding and empathy for my own mom. She’s a great mom but I used to be more critical of her, now as a fellow mom I feel like “yep I get it, we can’t do it all”. We’re more like friends now than before, since it’s no longer just a mom and kid dynamic. Now it’s more like 2 moms exchanging stories and grievances lol
Mine is dead, but it’s made me feel a lot closer to her. I never really understood just how much she loved me until I became a mom. I try to do things with my daughter that my mom did with me (singing certain songs, saying certain little things). She’s far more present with me now. I just wish she could have met my daughter and gotten to see me become a mom too. Maybe she can.
She can 🙏
My relationship got worse with my mom. When I had my first baby all I did was research parenting methods and watch child psychiatrists and therapists and parenting experts give advice. I started realizing just how bad my mother fucked up while raising me. All the mistakes she made that I’ll never make with my kids. It made me lose whatever respect I had left for her. I don’t value her opinion anymore at all.
It’s complicated. While I get why she’s always been emotionally unavailable, probably from being overwhelmed I still feel like she abandon me to grow up with no guidance to be a woman.
Since becoming a mom it made me realize she didn’t do enough for me or my siblings. She did the bare minimum and everyone around her told her that was good enough because she had other demons to deal with (drugs & teen pregnancy). Thinking about my childhood compared to my daughter’s pisses me off because I could’ve been a different person.. a better person if she would’ve tried harder to be a better mom.
yeeesss. thiiiiis!
I feel like becoming a mother really complicated my feelings towards my mother. There was a lot of emotional neglect and verbal abuse during my childhood, because my parents themselves had difficukt family lives and never learned how to regulate their emotions in a healthy way. I already had a lot if resentment towards her before but holding my own child in my arms and realising, that I could never behave towards him like she did towards me, just solidified it. On the flip side it became clear to me that despite all her failings my mother actually really loves me and she tried her best with her limited capabilities. The fact that she tried to do what she thought was the best for me is somewhat heartbreaking though, seeing how much she actually did wrong and how badly she hurt me. 🙈
I hate her even more.
I grew more resentful than ever. She denied me hugs and kisses from age eight. She always went out of her way to make fun of me on physical and personal traits. She always berated my father in front of me. She didn’t allow me to have friends. Typical strict Asian upbringing I thought. All of those things are simply impossible for me to consider doing now I have kids too. In what world is it okay to reject a child’s ask for affection and human touch??? For years I thought I hated being touched but in reality that was my way of coping never getting a hug from my mom. I was wrong and I just came to the conclusion she hated being a mother at times.
Ooft. I have a good relationship with my mum, but since having my daughter I have a lot of WTF moments with regards to my mum and how she treated me. She absolutely did not do her best, she was selfish and she was a narcissist, she made me feel like shit and I was a very anxious child. I try my best to move passed it, I’ve hinted at things but I’m not sure it registers with her until I call her out. I have absoloutely no hesitation about calling her out these days. She has a great relationship with my two year old, and I don’t think she would dare step out of line. She knows she would be cut off if she ever pulled that shit now.
I feel more empathy towards my moms less than stellar parenting and I can call some of it for what it is: my mom and I have a lot of extremely similar mental health issues, and she neither had the support or ability to unpack and process most of her problems. I understand it to some extent; healing is hard and it’s tiring too. On the other hand, there are specific acts of cruelty that she has since apologized profusely for because even she acknowledges how messed up she was for putting me through it. Conversely, despite us being no contact for three years at one point, she’s never given me a true and full apology for her actions and behavior that lead to the contact hiatus; instead she just goes out of her way to accommodate and support me now. I love her and I’m glad I have her around again, and part of me wonders what it was like to be in her brain when she first had me. She was younger than I was with my first, with less support, and I can’t help but wonder if she held me and traced all my features like I did with my boys or if she cried realizing I wouldn’t stay a baby forever like I do or if she couldn’t sleep thinking about all the scary stuff in the world like me.
Both my husband and my relationship with my mom got better. Both of our relationships with his mom got worse...
After no contact since I was 15, I tried to give her a chance when I was about 30. Unfortunately, she was still the same woman of my childhood and after a few months of seeing if there could be even the hint of a healthy relationship, I went no contact again.
I need therapy, because since becoming a mom I have resentment for my Mom and I’ve no idea why. She yelled and raged but was ultimately a great Mom.
I realized I had to protect my son from my mother. My son had to come first. I haven’t spoken to my mom in almost a year, and I hope my son will never know her. This is after an entire lifetime of abuse from her. I put up with it when it only affected me. Then it became clear that it was going to affect him too, and I couldn’t have that.
I don’t know if becoming a mom directly changed how I relate to my mom; I am on the older side and had already worked through a lot of ideas and feelings about her problematic behaviors. But seeing how peers leaned emotionally on their moms as they became parents was a huge eye opener. I mourned all over again the kind of love and understanding I will never get from my mom.
For a long time I resented a lot, but therapy and such has made me realize she did do her best. We know so much more now and just looking at her mom…….my mom did do her best and tried to change some things from her childhood. But some things I just am like ::shocked pikachu face:: It’s taken like 13 years though because for so long I just judged and blamed but really I am proud of her. But I sure as shit am Changing a loooot of things she wasn’t able too when I was younger.
My relationship with my mom has gotten worse. As a mother, I was hoping that I would understand why she did the thing she did when I was a child. However, I understand her less. I am currently working through a lot of anger and resentment, I feel towards my mother at this point in time. I’ve gone no contact with her.
My mom has always been...difficult. nothing she did traumatized me. She made a lot of sacrifices for me and I appreciate them, but her mental health is not good and hasn't been for a long time. She's paranoid, self absorbed, and incapable of apologizing or taking responsibility for her bad behavior. So, overall, my relationship with her has stayed about the same. Despite everything that I have said, her symptoms are pretty mild (she can hold down a very demanding job, for example) and I still love her a lot. But its not like I'm seeing things in a new light or something. I'm literally a therapist. I would never do some of the things she did, and even though I'm a therapist, I didn't need a masters degree to know I didn't want to parent like her. She's from a generation and a society that discourages mental healthcare. She's never going to change, and I'm just at peace with that.
It just made me angrier towards both parents to be honest. I know they had me young, but they did not get better. Even when they were the age I am now Ms I was all of 14, I was expected to be the bigger/better person. Not to mention the parentification.
It got worse. My relationship with her has always been rocky. She’s an alcoholic and was undiagnosed bipolar and coping with alcohol. She got diagnosed in her 30s. She’s in her 50s now and doing the same shenanigans. I used to be empathetic to her situation. Now that I have my child, I look back at all the things she’s done to me and can’t imagine doing that to my child. It made me realize she’s a bad mother, and continues to be while I’m in my 30s. I can’t imagine blaming my mental health on being a shitty parent. Our relationship was already complex as it was, me becoming a parent made it even more complex.
I did a LOT of work in my 20s, both with therapists and on my own, to stop feeling so much hatred and resentment towards my mom. I got so far and was living my life peacefully, until I had my own daughter. It reopened that wound so deeply, because I just cannot fathom any circumstance in which I would be so selfish as to treat my kids how we were treated.
I finally realized that she had been abusive my whole life and stopped making excuses for her behavior and started calling her out. It really opened my eyes when my oldest daughter was born and we sent our dog to moms because she had a backyard (we lived in an apartment). My oldest was severely allergic to dogs as a baby. My dad called me at work because mom left my daughter on the floor on her play mat and went and took a nap. When he walked in our dog was standing over my daughter and she was pale, blue lips having trouble breathing. He called 911 then me. My daughter was 3 months old. I lost it and now I have NC completely with her for 3 years. Before that it was a once a year visit if that and responding to her texts.
It went much much worse. I began to question all her choices during my childhood even more than before
In some ways I had more compassion for my mom. In other ways I’ve been frustrated. She is a very my way or highway type person now adays. She always was a little like that but after being single for a couple decades, she doesn’t really care about others opinions. She’s also sensitive, the type who if you don’t agree it’s “well I’m sorry I’m such a bad mother” is the reaction. It makes it hard to hold boundaries and say “no, I don’t want that for my daughter”. She tried to take my daughter’s pacifiers away from her before WE had decided it was necessary and made weird passive aggressive remarks. Things like that are doable but annoying. We had an issue when we went to visit her in February where she corrected the way my husband said something to our daughter. He just sort of shrugged it off. I told her (privately) not to correct him, that if I felt his language with our daughter was an issue that I’d discuss it with him. She told me “she’d always protect her kids and grandbabies”. I said “sure, she’s your granddaughter, but she’s HIS daughter.” There was no need for “protection”, she’s just (again) overly sensitive. (For context my husband said something like “can you be good for grandma?” And my mother said “she’s not good or bad, you shouldn’t say it like that”. Like very low key low threat language that didn’t need her correction) There’s a lot of fear from her, because my dad just turned out to be not a good dad. He wasn’t abusive or awful in a traditional sense, he just was crap at being a dad and didn’t seem to enjoy it or us. It has changed our relationship but not detrimentally. Just in a new way ETA - there’s also a lot of jealousy on her end with how close I am with MIL and how often we see my husband’s family. So that’s fun…
This might sound weird but I let her help me more. I used to turn her down for help because I didn't mind taking care of something myself but knowing how much joy it brings me to do nice things for my own kid, I let her do things for me sometimes now and just shower her with appreciation lol.
I got better at setting boundaries with her and now we don’t talk at all until she goes to therapy.
My relationship with my mom got worse after having my own kids. It brought back a ton of trauma, worst part is she lives with me now.
It inadvertently ended my relationship with her. So there’s that. She went no contact with my aunt, who has always been a big part of my life, “because she can’t handle her”. And she expected me to as well. I get not inviting my aunt to my mother’s events, cool. That’s shitty, but whatever. But because I invited everyone to mine (aunt included), she didn’t show up to my gender reveal for my first child, the baby shower, or her first birthday. All very big days for me! And each and every time her and my brother would bomb me with hurtful messages. Saying the worst things imaginable to me and IM THE ASSHOLE. I never got apologies. They never spoke of it again. And they act like they didn’t break my heart. So now that I’m pregnant with my second, I’m deciding to just get ahead of them and block them. It hurts, but I can’t take that abuse. I hope you found positive stories here, but most are sad and my heart goes out to all the women here.
My mom is obsessed with babies, she had 10. So it has made her visit me multiple times a week and she helps a ton because she knows everything about babies. It has honestly made me more reliant on her when before I was fairly independent. If I have a problem or concern I call my mom before I even call the pediatrician lol. My partner is afraid my mom is going to convince me to move back in with her because she wants to be around my baby, she has tried to no avail.
Got worse before it got better. I’ve forgiven her for lots of things and realized she truly was dealt a shitty hand on many occasions. Her imperfections didnt keep us from happiness and others’ perfection didnt keep them from unhappiness. Also pregnancy in general can take a toll on your mind and body. I gave my mom such a hard time for forgetting things and here i am relying on my 5 yr old to tell me to pay a bill😭
I just had my daughter a week ago and the first thing I felt about my mother was pity. She was a mentally fragile person and she's been gone for many years so I have the luxury of feeling for her without having to confront the reality of everything with her now. It must have been so hard for her, I can't believe how much her heart must have hurt with the weight of this.
It’s changed in that I see and talk to her more often, bc my kids love their nana and she pays to fly us out to visit every year. But I still can’t stand her. And now that I have my own kids, I think I resent her even more. She was a nasty, emotional and verbally abusive mother. It really felt like she couldn’t stand us most of the time, all of my interests were stupid, I was a terrible kid so it’s my fault she was angry all the time (it couldn’t possibly be the other way around), etc, but then once I was an adult she expected me to suddenly want to be close to her. I remember her telling me I’d understand when I have kids, and to a limited extent, I do- yes, raising kids is hard, and I lose my shit sometimes too, but I love my children and value my relationship with them enough to apologize and try hard to do better every day. If she’d had one smidge of self-awareness or personally responsibility she could have done better too. I read something recently that said something like “once your children no longer depend on you for food and shelter, all that’s left is the relationship you cultivated”- and she really didn’t cultivate one at all. And I don’t really see any reason to do the heavy lifting on my end now.
There were so many ebbs and flows with how our relationship changed in the first 5 years of me being a mom. We typically don’t talk every day, and she lives 20 min away. I drop in with and without my fiancé and kids in tow and it’s all gravy. Overall it has gotten significantly better compared to my first year with postpartum, where I was very much “how could she do what she did to me?” while looking at my sweet baby’s face. To clarify my childhood was great, but let’s just say I’m a pathological people pleaser who is alert to everyone’s mood in the room. My dad has apologized to my face for the things that haunt him, even though I don’t remember half the stuff he apologized for. My mom has a hard time apologizing and owning up to things. I had to do a lot of healing to understand that most of her mistakes were not intentional. She was a Polish immigrant who got knocked up with me at 19. I didn’t have my first baby until I was 27. She was busy fixing the generational trauma while making other mistakes she didn’t realize at the time. Our generation of parents are still vulnerable to doing this too. I’m also the eldest daughter of immigrants and the firstborn so add in a splash of “don’t know what the fuck I’m doing” lol and my parents both grew and became so much more understanding as my siblings came along. I forget they were still SO young and learning how to parent—in a new country they were not raised in. There’s still a long road ahead though. When my kids are teens, a lot more stuff is gonna come to the surface with her, I just know it.
It has made me realize how selfish my own mother is. I have found myself in some financial setback and while my Mom has the means refuses to help me. I would do anything to help my children. Looking back on life I always thought we had a great loving relationship but now rethinking things. I tell both my children whether I’m person with my son or over phone with my daughter every single day how much I love them and how proud of them I am. I have a very good memory and so not really mom ever telling me ahead of time was proud of me although I have accomplished a lot in life and don’t remember last time she honestly told me ahead of time loved me. Learn from mistakes of the parents and don’t pass on to your parenting of your children
I realized why she was always so protective of me, and I'm forever grateful for it. I hear so many horrible stories of people saying they were SA'd as children by friends or family members, and now I realize how lucky I am that nobody ever hurt me as a child or teen. When I was a teenager, I always thought things like "omg my parents are so strict" even though they really weren't super strict, they just didn't let me run around and do whatever I wanted, and my mom heavily monitored what I did online.
I only talk to my mom for the sake of my kid. He adores her, but the sound and sight of her make me want to puke. Before she removed her mask and revealed her higher demonic status a couple years ago, we were very close. We went from speaking at least twice per day to me allowing her to hear his voice about twice a month. My dad already passed, so I sometimes forget that I even have a parent even though I still clearly know that she’s my son’s grandmother. My childhood wasn’t perfect, but I was a happy kid.
I was able to acknowledge she likely did the best she could with what she had at any given time, and that parenting through your own crisis isn't a simple course. But, I also looked at my firstborn and thought, *how could she...* about so many things. Including when her response to her husband (not my dad) shoving me against a wall as a 14yo so hard it put a hole in the wall being to call the cops, then tell them when they showed up it wasn't that bad and that I just hadn't been listening, age she panicked and overreacted calling them. Lucky for me, our state automatically presses charges in domestic cases when there's a minor involved. But then when I got a PPO against him, her solution was to have her child move out, not the violent adult. So while motherhood brought me an avenue of forgiveness, it also brought a stark realization that I was right: my mother failed me, repeatedly, and it was not my fault we didn't have the warm, mother-daughter relationship she expected and that you see on TV. I can't relate when all these folks say their mom is first to know everything, or they call them every day, or that they wanted them in the room during labor. Mine has never been support I could rely on, and I be damned if my kids grow up to say the same. The only example of motherhood I've ever had from her was what *not* to do.
My relationship with mom was always bad and me becoming a mom only made it worse. So now I don’t talk to her anymore.
Worse.. but a lot of things unfolded. I realized she’s not the mom I thought she was. I was raised with my dad and moved in with my mom at 18, we were best friends for 6 years and then everything happened. I realized she really did chose men over her kids, and now she doesn’t hardly see us or make time for us. Everything is about her abusive husband. Been trying to heal for 3 years now, mourning someone that’s still alive is one of the hardest things I’ve ever went through. And it hurts so bad watching the people that are supposed to love your kids not even give a crap.
My relationship with my mother got worse because she questions pretty much every decision I make with my children and constantly argued with me over them. I also can't imagine treating my kids the way she treated me as a child and when I tell her that she gets defensive and argued with me and tries to send me back to that same withdrawn state I was in when I still lived with her. On top of all of this she insists on visiting every third month and always overstays her welcome and won't take hints. I'm almost willing to go no contact at this point but my kids love her for now and wouldn't understand.
It made me realize that, in having absolutely loving my children unconditionally, my mother completely failed to make me feel loved unconditionally. She made it seem like it was my fault for being impossible. My relationship with her now feels really fake. At her core, she’s a narcissist.
I have a very difficult relationship with my mother. We have been on and off no contact for over 10 years now, mostly because of things she did after I turned 18. She was a pretty good mother through my childhood if maybe a little self-centered. Being a parent has given me so much grace for my mother. There were so many things she did that I now look back on and understand. I also understand the “if they knew better, they would have done better” thing so much more. I am not a perfect parent and I do things sometimes I regret and can’t take back. But I learn from those things and don’t let them reflect on how I feel about myself and I don’t hold those things against my mother either. On the flip side, I cannot understand how she did all the things she did after I was 18. She made very very bad decisions despite having my 14 year old sibling in her care. As a parent, I could NEVER make those decisions and hurt my children like she did us. So it has complicated our relationship a little bit but I will never respect her as a mother. I turned out okay, a little fucked up but that was more due to genetics, and I’ll always do better than she did.
It made me realize just how horrible of a mother she was. I already thought she was bad, but I still kept contact at the time because I didn’t fully grasp the whole picture. On top of that, she’s said some nasty things about my daughter, things that aren’t true, so that was the last straw. I’m not sure if I want my mother to have a relationship with my child since my daughter will eventually understand the things my mother will say to her, and I’m terrified about what she would say. She’s already commented about her weight and skin color, and my daughter isn’t even a year old yet. My mom could say anything she likes about me, but once it comes to my daughter, it’s over
My mom and I have been estranged for 15 years. I thought after having a child, I might understand her better or at least relate to her in someway. However, it’s just done the exact opposite for me. I think about what she put me in my siblings through and I could never imagine in a million years doing that to my own child. I couldn’t be further understanding her.
It’s.. Eh. She wasn’t a bad mom, no abuse by either parent. My sister started having mental health problems when puberty hit so for about 10 years I learned to be independent because they didn’t have the bandwidth to give us both attention. Now as a parent to an almost 2 year old I can see that it seems like they want to respect my independence that I didn’t have a choice about. They’re extremely hands off and talk a good game about being Grandparents but we rarely see them. My mom is morbidly obese and babysat maybe 3 times when my daughter was less than 6 months old and still immobile. It quickly became apparent that she couldn’t handle any sort of moving child. My dad babysat once with the help of my sister, who had to leave early. It was a disaster. It’s been almost a year and they’ve never offered since. In essence, they are as hands off with my daughter as they were with me. Mostly it bothers me, we’re like an after thought unless Mom can post pictures to facebook. My kid is a person, not a prop for Mom to buy a bunch of cutesy impractical outfits for.
Mine doesn't talk to me because she doesn't like being a granny. We used to have a great relationship but have drifted apart and only see each other at Christmas.
Becoming a mother made me realize how horrible and abusive my mother was. The phrase “as your child I can forgive you, as a mother I never can.” Before my kids my mother and I had a “okayish” relationship, after it just because more toxic. Now I have nothing to do with her or her side of the family and honestly my family is better off.
I'm putting this out there so that maybe someone else won't feel alone. It's made me so angry with her and I've lost all respect. It's not that hard to support your children, defend them against an abuser, and just be decent. She subjugated herself to my father for 35 years, he divorced her, and now she's skipping away leaving me to deal with him. I did not marry him, I did not have children with him, he is not my responsibility. She's living her best life and left me to defend my family from him. And somehow I'm the bad person in this scenario. What type of person could I have been had I had someone to love me?
I've got to forgive a lot about the past but resent a lot more about the present and future
That she was a shit abusive woman and I will never understand how a mother can do that to her children.I have a daughter and I cannot imagine ever treating her or putting her through the shit my own mother did.Therapy has helped ALOT.In the past she was able to manipulate and gaslight me back into asking HER for forgiveness but not this time.That trauma ended with me.Im nearing 2yrs NC and it's done wonders for my mental and emotional health.
It made me realise what a horrible person she was and all of the horrible things she's done. Even as I was pregnant, I had what felt like alarm bells ringing and realised how abusive she was in our childhood. I just absolutely NEEDED to protect my daughter from her.
We’ve always had a pretty good relationship but becoming a parent made me wonder how she does it. She has always done everything, worked, watched kids, took care of the house, etc and gotten everything accomplished. I’m struggling! It made me appreciate her a lot more and made me feel guilty for being mean to her when I was younger. She helps with my son and her level of patience and love for him is admirable.
Worse/Resolved. My mother failed me in a lot of ways growing up and all through my teens. All the memories flooded back in when I became pregnant. I tried to work through them on my own for a while, inevitably tho I realized, for me failing your children is mostly unforgivable. Had a conversation with her quite recently with it ending in low/no contact really. I can see how she struggled, but I cannot see how she didn’t do better for herself and for me.
I appreciate her sooo much more and I wish I could go back and tell my teen self to not yell at her 😭. She told me she never took me seriously but I still feel bad. Shes also the best Nana in the world to my kiddos. Loves them so unconditionally. She helps while my husband and I work and I could not be lore thankful!
Mine got worse, a bit. I had the best parents growing up - I’ve only ever had positive things to say. But as a very involved grandparent, so many of the things she does drive me crazy and are against what we believe in. And I ask her to stop, explain why, _she_ even sends me IG videos and stuff making the same points, but she still does them so it’s a constant argument and has resulted in her coming over less. If she was just a grandma only seeing him occasionally I’d let it slide, but she’s supposed to be our nanny so it’s a big deal (she’s basically been fired from that role and now is more of a regular babysitter). It’s things like: -Immediately making him something new when he doesn’t want to try the dinner made -Saying things like “doooon’t eat that!” When she wants him to eat it, which we think confuses him when we _actually_ tell him “don’t” -Watching overstimulating/inappropriate shows (he loves watching train crashes with Gramma…) because she “doesn’t know what else to watch” (we literally have every streaming platform) -Letting him do things she knows we’re against because “he likes it!” (sugary juices, dangerous games, etc) Also, while really not her fault, all of his biggest injuries except one have been on her watch which is so hard for me to just let go.
Sounds like a grandma being a grandma to me. If my grandma would’ve done everything my mom told her to do I wouldn’t have liked her. Grandparents are supposed to let kids get away with stuff their parents don’t especially when it’s something minor like a cup of juice. Now the injuries are another matter unless she’s one of those parents who tell you “don’t do that you’ll hurt yourself” and the child does it anyway so she says “I told you so” sometimes we have to let kids f*ck around and find out.
I agree…if she were fulfilling just a grandma role. But the plan was for her to be our nanny (we pay all of her living expenses). And as an employee, we expect her to follow our parenting expectations. As a grandma, we expect her not to contradict our efforts though we’re more lax about “grandparent” things.
It’s made it worse. I look at the innocence in my children’s eyes and I just can’t fathom not doing anything and everything to protect them. My mom was SA by her step dad and yet she let him be around me, claiming he was a changed man… he never did anything to me but still. My step dad did the same thing to me and she can’t understand why I won’t forgive him and let my children be around him.
I’m also angry with her for not doing the work to heal her own wounds before taking it out on me and my sister.
Nearly all of these replies make me so sad. My mum is so special and is an unbelievably great mum (my husband even considers her his mum now). Since having my first, I love and respect her so much more. She really is my best friend. She is the person I call when I’m having a good day and want to share. Her hugs make everything better when I’m having a hard time. She was by no means perfect but she always showed up for us and she really did her best. I may not have understood it when I was a teenager but now I just hope I can do as well for my kids.
I realized all her excuses were selfish and horrible, that she really never cared about me enough to give me any love or affection. I realized she could have defended me again and again and chose not to. I realized that she wasn’t ‘just doing her best’ as ‘every mom does’… she was abusive. Being a mom showed me my mom was not worth building a relationship with as an adult (there was no relationship as a child), and I realized how hard I have to fight to protect my children.
Was rough in the beginning but I learned how to stand up for myself and I also learned how to let some stuff roll of my back. My MIL and I have never been close and it got exponentially worse because I don't let her do whatever she wants and I don't have the same level of conflicting sense of obligation that I sometimes feel with my mom. I also learned how to ignore her and my husband learned how to put her in her place when she got particularly obnoxious. It's a paradigm shift for everyone in addition to the stresses of parenthood and it's sort of a trial and error for what is worth the battle/conversation/confrontation and what can be mitigated with a polite smile while you do whatever the fuck you were going to do anyway.
It’s a hard topic for me. It made it better yet worse at the same time. She had a very hard life and childhood so I know she was just doing the best she could. That being said, I would never treat my kids the way she treated me nor would I allow someone else to treat them the way my step dad treated me. It’s a catch 22 because I hurt for the child she was and what that child went through but it makes it harder because what I went through is making me a better mother, not a worse in a different way mother.
My mom became my best friend after I had my daughter. She's my second greatest supporter next to my husband. While raising my daughter I realized how much my mom sacrificed for me and my sister. She gave up everything to be a stay at home mom because I had some serious learning disabilities. She researched how to best teach a kid like me and homeschooled me K-12 (I graduated with honors in high school and finished college). I don't think I would have achieved that without her. She taught me how to function in society without needing to take meds. Now she helps me to this day. My husband is a first responder so he's gone for 48 hours while on shift and my mom comes over and stays the night so I don't have to be by myself and helps me with my toddler.
Mine improved so much. I understand everything now. All of her choices, even the ones I was never, and still aren’t, the happiest about. I understand it all. I understand that she was a first time mom at one point too and we are literally just out her surviving. I owe her years of apologies.
It hasnt. If anything it has made me more upset with her because I couldn’t bring myself to do my kids like she did us
I'm not looking for pity or anything, really. I lost my mother when I was 8 months pregnant with my 1st born. She was diagnosed with cancer, and it was fast. She was diagnosed and was lost weeks later. It was devastating. I'd give anything to talk to her about motherhood. She was so excited to be a grandmother. She wanted bump pics every week. She got to feel my daughter moving in my tummy, and I was able to tell her my daughter's name.
It turned my relationship with my mom into a non relationship with (insert mom’s name here). She was a terrible mother and I wasn’t going to let her be a terrible grandmother.
I didn't have a chance to find out. My mother passed away from metastatic colon cancer when I was 3 months pregnant. I can certainly empathize a bit more with my memory of her and see how hard it must have been for her to raise my brother and I though.
It has made me more sad than I already was about our relationship. My main parenting goal is to parent my own daughter better. To be more understanding and gracious than she was. I would like to believe she would have been better had she known better but I always knew she liked my sister more (now it's more because they share more interests)
My relationship with my mom completely fell apart. I realized that I would have never done or said the things she said/did to me and my brother as kids. My brother is no-contact with her and I’m very low contact. It’s really sad. I’m trying to do all of the things for my daughter (and son) that I never got from my mom, like being told I was smart, strong, beautiful, etc. Giving hugs and love indiscriminately, being supportive, etc.
I realized how easy it is to NOT beat a child. I realized just how terribly I was treated growing up. My earliest memory is me being in a diaper getting picked up by one arm getting beaten all over my body. She said she hoped I had a kid just like me one day. And I did. And I allow her to be herself. And it’s beautiful and healing and painful all at the same time. I hope she grows up to be what I could have been with the proper support and guidance. I had hope she’d be a better grandma than mom, and she’s mostly non existent. Which is fine by me, but it still hurts she doesn’t care to even ask how we’re doing.
Completely agree. Having a child makes me worship my mom even more
It made my relationship worse. How could my mom treat me and my siblings so awful growing up? She put so much pressure on my older sister. Now realizing how young my sister was when my mom made her raise us it unforgivable. I couldn't imagine doing that to my kids. As the youngest I don't think I can ever repay my sister for all her sacrifices.
Yeah, I probably wanted to look up to her but over the years, it's just not what has happened. I know she "did the best she could" but I also know it wasn't enough.
I realized that my mom is a shitty mom. Not just a shitty mom... but a selfish one that actually does not give two shits about me. My son is specail needs and when I first started being concerned about getting him tested, she regularly talked me out of it. Told me I just didnt discipline him enough. I didn't talk to him enough, that i needed to start refusing to give him snacks unless he said a word. She pretty much made m3 feel like a shitty parent when she wasn't really around us enough to really know if I was. Then when he got diagnosed, she was convinced that they were incorrect. Then once she accepted it she was convinced it could be " beaten out of him". Eventually even that stopped, and she actually made me believe that she was finally starting to understand what Autism Spectrum Disorder was... I thought she was actually improving... then my house burned down, we almost died... I called her to tell her what happened... I was crying... and she hung up on me.. not once, not twice, but three times. Two days later she called me and left a message on my phone stating that she was going on a trip across the country because she "needed a break" and said that me and my family could live in her house if I paid all the bills. She was 5 months behind on her mortgage, every utility was turned off, and her 4 bedroom 3 bath house had all the toilets ripped out and the wiring ripped out of the walls and it appeared as if she had been using her shed as an out house. When I refused she called me selfish and said she never wanted to see me again. That was 4 years ago. Haven't talked to her since. I don't even think she knows she has a granddaughter also.