Grandchildren are the reward for not strangling your teenagers

[fusionconfusion]

My mum just put this up on FB.

Standard jokey meme... except when I was a teenager she was completely off the rails, barely ever home and certainly when I was a kid she was fairly ragey and not known for holding back with the slaps/wooden spoon/thumping. If we had a standard mother-child argument she would drive off in the car. When I was 13/14 I went to bed most nights in my uniform with a knife under my pillow because I was alone so much.

So you know Mum, FUCK OFF. Grandchildren are the reward you get for me not strangling you and finding a way to forgive you for it all.

Christ. Perspective taking is not her strong point. Just had to get it out somewhere.

[butteredmuffin]

My mum was not as bad as that, but she had her moments. Times when I did something wrong which was really not that bad and her response was completely disproportionate and out of control. I don't have kids yet, but she sometimes makes comments along similar lines, implying that I was a problem child (I really wasn't) and that she was a saint for dealing with me for all those years (she didn't). I have managed to maintain a reasonably good relationship with her, but I don't want her to have much involvement in bringing up my future children, because frankly some of the things she did to me were quite fucked up. Sometimes I think you have to accept that they just don't get that they were in the wrong, and they likely never will, and distance yourself a bit.

[Headdesk]

I felt the same when after finding my birth mother (in foster care since the age of 10, she actually put me in foster care on my 10th birthday) she sat and make a big joke of my childhood (I was beaten, regularly exposed to drugs and her prositiution and clients) so I stopped talking to her and she put up a status on Facebook saying 'I wonder if my daughter has gotten over her strop yet' I literally couldn't believe it.

[fusionconfusion]

I know, I know.. but it just sort of sucker punched me for a second. She's a bit clueless that way. She is a lot better as a grandparent because she can do it in short bursts and I think is a lot more emotionally stable now in general. I've done a lot of therapy and generally we've moved on past most of it.. just had a WOW moment with it!

Thanks for responding . Sometimes you just need to say it somewhere.

[fusionconfusion]

Headdesk for you too. Honestly! You'd wonder what planet they are on sometimes. It seems so easy to have a short memory for someone else's pain and suffering. Not so great coming from a mum!

[Headdesk]

I don't know why she had kids I honestly don't, she seemed to keep me around to torture me, she put my sister up for adoption when she was born but kept me, I have no idea why.
It honestly breaks my heart when I hear that other people had a childhood like mine :( so for you too.

[karigan]

I totally feel for you. My mother's worst moment when i was a teenager was attempting to drag my belongings out the house and burn them whilst absolutely ratted. Earlier in the same argument she had belted me across the face because I told her to leave my room. (1am and I had college the next morning)
Last month she told me that she doesn't think I'm a very good parent because I don't always put a hat on my toddler when we go out. I just stood and stared at her.

[Headdesk]

I had that too!! My mother (hate calling her that) told me I was a bad parent because when ds was 3 months old and he was up at 3am feeding constantly, I watched family guy while he was in the room while trying to get him back to sleep and that was a bad influence apparently, I had no words.

[butteredmuffin]

Headdesk, this probably isn't what you want to hear, but your mum obviously had some very serious issues. Drugs, prostitution and violence aren't the kind of life that anyone would choose for themselves or for their children. It's easy to question why someone bothered having kids at all, but I don't think many people actually sit down and think, "am I really the sort of person who should be having children?" And the kind of people who do probably are more the sort of people who would make good parents, because the recognise what a responsibility it is. It is obviously hugely unfair on you that you had to put up with that kind of shit as a child, and I can totally understand your reaction to your mum's Facebook post. My heart goes out to you for wanting to reconnect with your birth mother after being put into foster care and then having her show no remorse for what she put you through. But she is clearly just one of those people who just can't function properly. Hopefully you are able to put it behind you and make more of a success of your own life.

[Headdesk]

I don't hate her, I nothing her, if I feel anything it's pity. I was willing to accept that my childhood was a result of her being a drug addict who didn't know what she was doing but she made fun of everything, like the time when I was 8 she shaved all my hair off for a laugh. Or the time that she gave me drugs in my drink when I was 2 so I would sleep through while she went out and partied. She tried to make a joke out of the time she slapped me so hard that I had a hand print bruise on my face so I couldn't go to school for a week and had to hide it behind my face. She genuinely thought it was funny, and this was years later when she wasn't on drugs any more so imo she had no excuse anymore. But I gave up hating her a long time ago because it serve no purpose other than making me feel horrible.

[Headdesk]

*hide behind my hair I meant

[butteredmuffin]

That is awful. I'm so sorry.

I feel loath to talk about what my mother did because it is absolutely nothing in comparison to how yours treated you. But when I was 11 years old I forgot to go to a music lesson and when my mother found out she completely lost control, screamed at me, then took my favourite teddy bear which I had had since I was a baby and set fire to it in the garden. I was obviously really upset at the time, but I also clearly remember that as the moment a light bulb went on in my head and I thought, "You are not normal."

It came up in conversation recently (I'm 30 now) and she just laughed and said I had deserved it, and it was quite funny really.

[Headdesk]

Thats so horrible :( its devastating when something that hurt you a lot when you were a kid is laughed at or not taken seriously, no matter what it was that happens it just makes your heart sink when it's something that's stuck with you so long. to you butteredmuffin

[butteredmuffin]

I don't really blame her, she is ok most of the time. I was just quite shocked when I brought it up and she reacted like that because I actually thought it would be something she felt ashamed of looking back and that she might apologise. But no, she didn't get why it was a big deal to me at all. I think she had quite a messed up childhood because my grandfather was a very difficult, angry man who was badly damaged by his experiences during the war. My mum's brother and sister both have quite a lot of issues too. I've talked about this with my brother and cousins and we all agree that we are going to try to draw a line under the crazy and not pass it down to the next generation!

[fusionconfusion]

Sorry to hear others have had this. It's very invalidating. That's not cool about your teddy butteredmuffin .

So infuriating to have parents who could barely hold it together standing in judgement over the most minor, normal things too!

I'm over it now but I was hopping mad this afternoon!