AIBU to think my mum slapping me as a teenager was unacceptable?

Oh absolutely how will she ever get past this? I know the solution! She should immediately go NC with her terrible abusive gaalighting mum. No wonder no one wants kids anymore....

It sounds as though, in your heart, you've forgiven her. It's okay to forgive her, and move on from it. Ruminating over it is your issue now, rather than the experience itself.

Oh C'mon! The OP is wildly self centred and needs to get a grip on reality. When I stopped reliving the past and blaming everything in my present on other people inclusive of my childhood my life got much better. It sounds like her mum was a great mum who fucked up literally one time. What do you want her mother to do????

It's not okay, and her making fun of it and saying the poltergeist was out to get you is awful. At least she has finally owned up but I'm not sure how you can put this behind you. She needs to apologise. She should have apologised back then, rather than gaslighting you for years. Classic abusive behaviour.

The worst thing is her gaslighting you. She should have owned what she did. Your experience being denied is almost a bigger insult than the physical slap. There may have been all manner of reasons behind why she snapped, but pretending the whole incident didn’t occur is awful.

It was one slap that OP's mum has denied ever happened until now. The slap was understandable and forgivable, the denying reality and gas lighting was not.

OP lived in an abusive home with an abusive father and her mum was her safe person. An act of physical violence by that person has obviously affected OP for years, particularly as whenever she brought it up her mum's response was minimising and denial.

Of course many people have much worse childhoods. That doesn't make what OP's mum did OK and it certainly doesn't give you the right to tell OP that she is lying about being afraid of anyone coming near her face.

This is an absolutely wild take. She hit her kid around the face! If she’d done that to another adult she’d have been arrested. Instead she violently slapped the child who depended on her for security and protection.

I think it’s a despicable thing to do and she probably feels very ashamed and hoped you didn’t remember it. You deserve a heartfelt apology. Have you spoken to a therapist at all?

I'm 35 OP and vividly remember my mum slapping me across the face really hard once at a similar age! I think I was probably being incredibly unpleasant at the time.

I've actually never brought it up to her because I think she'd be really upset to relive/admit it. We used to get smacks on our legs if we were really naughty when younger but I think the slap was just a total human loss of control and I can imagine she's very ashamed of it.

I hope you can move past it x

Edited to add- I do think you're right and it's completely unacceptable, but I also think we're human and we all fuck up sometimes

Me too. Hitting their kids and then telling themselves that it's ok, the child was being a little shit and so deserved it.

I don't imagine it at all. Friends Mothers had to leave in the 70/80s. They were factory workers and cleaners, but got their kids out. Sometimes women stay because they've reasoned it out to be the best for everyone. But that doesn't mean they shouldn't acknowledge the damage done. If you stay in an abusive situation, or just some of the , living-with-angry-men, situations on here, you are affecting your children's mental health. To help your children heal and most important, not repeat, it needs discussions and apologies.

Of course it's not okay but it was one slap, once in the context of family difficulties. She should not have done it but if she was otherwise a really great mum, why torture her with this one thing and ignore everything else she has done for you and what exactly do you want her to do, a year's penance? Stop feeling sorry for yourself, millions of people have far worse childhoods. I also REALLY doubt that one slap from your mum has made you afraid of anyone coming near your face. Get over it.

No, just previously involved in child protection. There can't be DV/DA in the house and the children not be victims. The OP was also a direct victim. The OP needs to work through this now, at the point of pregnancy. She will revisit it, because she'll look at her baby and think "how could they?". It's about the OP healing. You seem very quick to minimise and dismiss. You seem to want to shut any discussion down.

The OP was a child. A child living in a dysfunctional family, watching her mother be abused. We don’t even know what her behaviour was, except for her allegedly making her mother late. A child is not responsible for safeguarding the wellbeing of the adults in her life. I have compassion and empathy for her mother in that situation but it does not alter the fact that the OP was not being kept safe by the people she should have been able to rely on.

As the mother of 3 teenagers, I can tell you that some of them push people to the brink- and then really start pushing.
And then they forget what they did to make themselves look good.

Yes your mother did something wrong- but you (deliberately) took someone who you knew was under pressure and picked and goaded at her until she snapped.

If we sit and acknowledge that people have limits that means accepting that if we push them beyond their limits then stuff may happen that we don’t like.

Yes she shouldn’t have done it, but maybe you could have occasionally just zipped it. Would anything have persuaded you to stop that day? Or should she have taken it from you as well, as the lovely start to her day, every day?

Happened to me. My mum was (and is) a lovely LOVELY mum but she had a line and I really did push it too far! As a parent now I can see I was HARD work. No way would I be carrying a grudge for this long over what ultimately was a minor incident in a life time of love, support, empathy, compassion and kindness.

The whole family still talks about the time my mum did that to me. In the living room, having some argument about I have no idea what, but I clearly pushed my mum over the edge because she gave me a resounding slap across my face, and silence fell. I don't actually remember what happened next either.

TBH, I was a lot of hassle as a teenager, she probably was at the end of her tether and just saw red.

There was no abusive upbringing, it was the 80s so physical punishment was normal (although very, very rare in our house). I bear her no ill will over it - TBH at the time I didn't either, we just got on with it.

That's probably the difference - this was a massive shock in the middle of an otherwise fairly boring, normal childhood - not another event in a history of abuse.

TW for abuse - My father was an extremely abusive and violent man who beat my mother for years. One day, when I was about 13, he started raging at her about the state of my bedroom wall because I had pinned some posters up with tacks which left tiny holes. He shouted at her, called her kinds of vile things and then punched and kicked her. I remember her getting up from the floor, picking up a plastic tennis bat and chasing me into my brother’s bedroom and she beat me with it so badly that it shattered. I remember her shouting at me saying I was the bane of her life because I was the reason she was getting beaten. I remember lying on the floor after and looking under my brother’s bed and there he was hiding under it, in shock. He was 7. I’ll never forget the look in his eyes. My mother never apologised for that day. She is the sweetest, kindest most respected woman I know amongst family and friends. I don’t know how to feel about that moment but I love her dearly. But I have always found my love for her uncomfortable and awkward. I suppose deep down I haven’t forgiven her for what she did but too much time has passed and memories are no longer as reliable to even talk about it with her now. So I have moved on, but I know it altered the way I feel about her forever.

I don’t think what she did was right at all. But I have a feeling that as you go through your parenting journey and your children push you to your limit, you may look at this from a different perspective. Especially as she was otherwise a good mother and this wasn’t a regular thing.

I am genuinely baffled by this response! One of the nastiest things I’ve read in a while on here.

What a horrible post.

So a small minority then.

I’ve never hit my kids but I used to get hit around the head/face a lot. I didn’t know what I’d done. It was awful. Happened regularly and I was such a good kid. I love my mum, she was wrong to do that but didn’t know any better. She was stressed & lashing out made her feel better.

We have a nice relationship now. I now focus on all the meals she made, time she sacrificed, my clothes always being clean and ironed. I use the experience to be more emotionally intelligent with my children. I have given mine so much respect and I have never shamed them. Now they’re teenagers it’s coming back to me from them, we are so close, something that I never experienced, so it’s all worked out okay.

You won't get much support on MN, but the incident was understandably impactful and the ongoing denial from your mum has made it impossible to resolve it between you.

If your childhood was frightening, and your dad also frightening, then this single incident with your mum could have been a big extra shock as it took away the person you trusted before that moment?

Clearly there were major issues in your family that were affecting your mum deeply. A mother is no less answerable for her actions than anyone else in our society.

If you're determined your past shouldn't impact your child, then you could have some focused therapy. You are not required to cover up your true feelings about this incident. Your childhood was not idyllic and you can be realistic about that even if your mum can't.

What an absolutely hideous post. OP, as well as her mother, lived in an abusive home at the handsf of her father.

OP has displayed plenty of empathy, sympathy and compassion for her mum in her follow up posts. A one-off slap due to severe stress is understandable and forgivable. Denying reality and lying to OP about it until now is unacceptable.