Am I a bad mother for liking my step-daughter more

That’s not what I said, I said men see them as highly intellectual because they talk about how intellectual they are. You missed the point entirely.

I think you’re overthinking this and being judgemental, putting people into boxes.

Just enjoy all the girls’ company, they will all have their positives and negatives as do you. I would ask your girls questions about what they’ve read or what they’re saying, don’t just shut them down. They will start to feel inadequate.

Your girls are young and probably a bit immature, don’t write them off. But try and spend time with them doing what they like too, build positive relationships with them. They may surprise you.

" would bet my right arm that they are whole, considered, aware people who have formed their own opinions and thought processess. Because most people who are "kind, intelligent and funny" - as you say your daughter's are - do."

I disagree. A lot of people who are genuinely intelligent do stupid things like re-post obvious scams on Facebook.

Because she sounds insufferable. Her daughters are happy, intelligent and funny according to her. And they have different opinions to her so and reading between the lines it sounds like OP tries to draw them in to a debate about anything they disagree with her on, she dismisses their opinions as ill-informed and as regurgitated and demands their sources. If they are intelligent then both can’t be true can it. I know people like that and it’s draining. The type of person who plays ‘devils advocate’ like bore off, you pseudo-intellectual.

People are allowed to have a basic opinion on things, not everyone needs to be well informed and well read on every topic. And my annoyance is mainly with people responding about how that’s just the UK now, shallow, or how the young generations are all thick due to social media. Every generation bashes the younger generation like the countries going to pot, but yet we still continue to function, life carries on moving and then that young generation grows up and starts accusing the next generation of ruining the perfect society that they supposedly grew up in

Sounds like you think you're above your "cool girl" daughters.

Are they popular and you weren't? Is that the problem, that you feel like you don't get them becaise theunwouldnt be your froends at school and so are rejecting them first?

They will grow emotionally but you will only be their mum at this age and stage once.

You think Rogan and Tate are "highly intellectual" and read "intellectual books"!?!??!?!?! They really don't. They are anti-intellectual: They appeal to those who don't have an education or critical reasoning skills because they are easy to manipulate. It's bizarre that you would compare the two situations!

It seems you have a personal dislike of anyone who is, by your definition "intellectual" - it's not clear what you mean by that. There are plenty of very well read people with professional jobs who have travelled the world and can have a reasoned debate on many subjects who also love to watch love island and paint their nails. There is absolutely nothing wrong with rejecting social media. And being intelligent would of course mean she has very little choice about sounding intelligent - are you suggesting that people who are intelligent should force themselves to sound ignorant??

The difference is intellectual curiosity and an interest in bettering oneself/learning about the world/challenging one's own assumptions or ideas etc etc. Reverse/inverted snobbery is unpleasant and typically indicates a lack of self-confidence - perhaps you should examine why you hold these viewpoints?

I posted earlier about thinking about attachment styles and how it can be easier for avoidant people to get closer to people where there is not so much emotional baggage.

Anyway, I have been thinking more about this and I wanted to tell you my experience as an adoptive parent to two girls, who are both now adults.

I have lost count of the number of women/mothers who have taken a thoroughly inappropriate interest in my daughters. And the girls loved it and fed right into it. A neighbour used to refer to my younger daughter as "my other daughter".

This is classic insecure attachment territory. It is too scary to get close to people so you keep them at bay and have compensatory relationships with less involved people instead.

Right from nursery my girls were attracting these women - it's highly complicated in their case due to their experiences in their birth family and foster care, which made them indiscriminately affectionate.

But this was catnip to a certain type of woman. These women tended to have daughters who they weren't that happy with for whatever reason- along come my two, feeding them what they wanted....

Obviously this isn't entirely the same scenario but it smacks of it.

Step daughter is a substitute for reasons that the OP would do well to explore. I bet it has nothing to do with views on world affairs, coming from another culture etc.

It’s nothing to do with culture. You raised your kids. They are what you made them. If you don’t like them, that’s on you, not them.

😆👏

You sound like an insufferable intellectual snob in many ways.

What? You think that wishing your children showed more critical thinking skills, that they fact-checked and didn't accept random views promoted on TikTok as gospel, that they read widely and therefore gained perspectives on history and different cultures and ways of doing and thinking about things — you think that is insufferable? I'd suggest you expect far too little of your children.

There is nothing snobbish about wanting to be well-educated and informed. I live in a part of the world where in many towns there is still a building that used to be the Working Men's Institute or similar: where ordinary working class men — miners, steel-workers — used to meet to learn, discuss, read and broaden their knowledge and horizons. Would you have called them snobs?

🎯

And anyone who ventures a view outside that is wrong or toxic or outdated or suffering from some personality disorder than can diagnose because they watched a different online video about it or simply because they are, as op has been called, an “ intellectual snob.”

I wonder how much of this is because your SD finds you interesting? I have a 26 y/o daughter who has next to zero interest in me, finds my views too right wing, rolls her eyes at me etc, and it's a horrible feeling, almost like I am a non-person. Just recently I had the eye roll treatment, because I advised her not to travel abroad without travel insurance. Long haul to a third world country too - but apparently I was "wrong" for making this suggestion. 🙄On the other hand, I have friends in their 30's (I'm 55), and I am self employed and some of my customers are in their 20's and 30's and they find me hilarious, so I'm obviously not the fuddy duddy that she thinks I am. People who like you, make you feel better about yourself, don't they?

That’s is true about the difference between 19 and 23

Very well said - I agree with you.

Don't discount genetics too. I have two DDs, 22 and 20, and the eldest sounds like your SD. Interested in arguing, in viewpoints, reads widely, takes little on trust and never jumps on bandwagon. Youngest is much more #bekind, less challenging, less interested in the world and politics. Same parents, same upbringing. Both at uni, both have travelled independently. I find it easier to have long and interesting and challenging conversations with my eldest. My youngest is much less stressful to be around though!

They were born the way they are. No doubt youngest will mature but I think we underplay the effects of genetics in personality- how we respond to opportunity, whether we are open and seek challenge, whether we tolerate conflict. Upbringing and culture, and exposure to lots of cultures, of course, develop different aspects of a person but the building blocks are already there.

It sounds a bit like you are a maturer version of your DDs, and SD is different. Sounds like your DDs need to see a bit more of the world (I think this also of my youngest) and mature a bit. Shoehorning them into the world is not always easy though, particularly if they enjoy their nice comfy unchallenging lives!!

They have no idea of the history, and refuse to take the time to learn it.

They are not interested in politics or history and that's okay. You shouldn't expect your children to be a mini you or someone to have discussions about history with. I think you need to go out more OP.

I've got three older women here at the moment after an earlier meeting: one used to be chief executive of a big London borough, another founded and ran her own recruitment agency business, one is a retired professor. I asked all three if they talked to their mothers about their relationships when they were in their 20s and they were all horrified at the thought.

We all learned about life by talking to friends and peers and working stuff out on our own, for ourselves. We learned to be independent by not living at home with mum and dad and remaining in a child-like dependent state for any longer than we had to. They need to be leaving home, going to college, living independently and doing things that will help them develop resilience — which is what the OP's step-daughter seems to have learned.

In a nutshell… this.

And I think what op has noticed is less that there is something unusually limited in her DD’s vis a vis most other young people round them, but that other cultures don’t seem to have these same issues to the same extent. They SAY they do, they worry too about social media etc; yet spending time with them ( which op has now done) I think you do sense a difference. We are very hampered by exactly the issues @WhatNoRaisins has outlined.

You sound like an insufferable intellectual snob in many ways. My kids are similar ages to yours. They are young. Yes, they have some ‘silly’ views representative of their ages, and then they also have some interesting views which make me look at the world differently. They are still maturing. I think you are being unfair to compare them like this.

And there is a big difference in maturity between even 19 and 21 and then another change to 23 and onwards.

Some people mature earlier than others. Maybe your DDs are just "younger" for their ages than SD. I read somewhere that children with ADHD, for example, can often be 2-3 years behind their peers in terms of maturity. I'm not sure whether that's the case, but I think it's certainly true that young people mature at different rates, shaped by their life experiences. Just enjoy the different qualities that SD and your DDs bring to your life.

I wonder whether your daughters had everything they wanted from you on demand and whether your step-daughter, possibly having had a more complicated, possibly difficult, certainly different kind of life growing up, had to face reality and work stuff out for herself at an early age. I'd find your daughters shallow and mindless, from the way you describe them. Your SD sounds interesting, thoughtful and self-reflective. Let's hope her influence rubs off on your daughters.

I was very close to my niece as a child. I'm a lesbian and a feminist, her mum and I are both educated, thoughtful women and we both tried to to encourage her to use her brain, think for herself, go to university, develop some critical thinking skills and ideas of her own. But my niece grew into superficial young woman for whom hair and make-up and nails and boyfriends were all that mattered. I very rarely have anything to do with her these days. She's a wedding planner — totally obsessed with the fantasy of the perfect day rather than reality. She is openly contemptuous of my greenish, leftish, less-is-more lifestyle and regards her mum and I as failures in life, though we have both had interesting careers and are fully-rounded human beings. She's an influencer in her local neck of the woods, all botox and fillers. My sister and I just sigh when we talk about her. We both understand what you are saying.

Its Perfectly ok.
If she was a ' person ' not your SD this wouldn't even be a 'thing'

I would prefer conversation with one of my peers over my mum sometimes didn't mean i loved them more or her any less

But it sounds like they are just trusting whatever they see on social media. The OP says that when she asks them why they think what they think, they have no answer. I don't know why this seems implausible to you - I know loads of people like this. They believe everything they see in the Daily Mail/Guardian/TikTok/Mumsnet!

I think SM has actually made people more stupid. The trans and Israel-Palestine issues are prime examples of that. People end up expressing two completely self-contradictory opinions within the same sentence. E.g. 'Israelis are terrible, they are ethnic cleansing Gaza, so Israel should cease to exist and all the Israelis should ship out to Europe' or 'Trans women are at risk of male violence so need to be in women's prisons, even if they are convicted rapists'

Sounds like your daughters are not earnest enough for you. They seem to be enjoying life on a shallow level, as one can at their age, plenty of time for the worries and stresses of life to knock that out of them.

Don’t worry OP, when life has dragged them down enough and they no longer see life as fun you can have cynical and dissatisfied daughters too.

I hate threads like this. Just because OP says that they are sheep and have no independent thought due to social media doesn’t mean that that’s true. It’s confirmation bias. Just because young people have different opinions from you doesn’t mean that their opinions are vapid and based on someone else telling them what to think.

Also before social media it was newspapers that influenced our opinions and morals so people shouldn’t think they’re intellectually superior just because you grew up without social media. As long as people aren’t just trusting whatever they see on social media - or newspapers then how they get their news isn’t important.

People grow up and develop a sense of self. That’s no different to 30 or 50 years ago. It’s just a cycle of different generations thinking they’re the ones who had it right and this next generation are useless/shallow/woke or whatever