Awful mother - daughter relationship after grandchild born

[Belle82]

All the articles say you will be closer to your mum after you have your own child.
I have felt the exact opposite.

My mum can be very weak, selfish and critical ( although will deny all these things) will lie about pointless things where I have begun to question everything that comes out of her mouth.

I think since my little girl has been born I have spent a lot of time reassessing my childhood and being very critical of how she was as a mother. Mainly so I don’t replicate her wrongdoings with my little girl, but I have begun to resent her and feel no respect for her about the way she was and still is.

Does anyone understand or have the same kind of relationship?

Well I guess no ones perfect....you say she can be all these negative things....does she have any redeeming characteristics? My Mums older now and we are closer now than ever....my daughter is 27 and since She had babies when she was 21 we’ve been very close.....that doesn’t mean any one of us is perfect....we all get on each other’s nerves at times ....but the positive things in our relationships outweigh the negative ones.....I now have 3 little grandaughters.... and see that as a family of females we are all very similar....similar traits ...both good and not so good....but the love is there and that’s what holds us all together.....only you can decide whether you want to continue having a relationship with your Mum

I've always had a dreadful relationship with my mother, and it's got worse since I've had DD. I can't fathom how any mother could behave like mine did towards me. It's driven even more of a wedge between us.

Exactly the same with my Mum. Since having my DDs, I have suddenly realised how selfish, self-obsessed and unreliable she is. I also feel a lot of resentment and anger towards her. We were pretty close before I had kids and got on well.

Yes, having my own children made me realise actually how f’ing abusive my mother was and still is to me and how much she gaslit me into thinking it was all my fault. In my first pregnancy is manifested as extreme anxiety that something was going to go wrong because I deserved it and I believed bad things would always happen to me, i got some counselling and was able to make the connection that it’s because of how I was raised that I felt like that.

Would you be open to some talking therapy might make you be able to make sense of how you feel? Xx

Have you considered that she might be right OP?

It's difficult with your first child; attitudes change but experiences still matters....

We both looked back and reevaluated our own childhoods and couldn’t understand how some of the things that happened to us, you would do to a child even when we were just thinking about parents. It made us see our parents and childhoods as dysfunctional and brought up alto of anger, but also understanding.
People automatically assume their parents are right, but outsiders see it completely differently. A lot of people’s parents are shit.

Parenting changes over the generations. I spent a lot of my childhood sat outside a pub with a bottle of Coke and bag of crisps. We never had fruit in our house. My Mum let me go on holiday with a man she had never met. By my standards, Mum's parenting was terrible. Do I judge her? No. Do I respect her? Absolutely. I choose to parent my DC differently. But Mum loved me with all her heart (still does) and that's what matters.

@HelloTreeWindow

We both looked back and reevaluated our own childhoods and couldn’t understand how some of the things that happened to us, you would do to a child even when we were just thinking about parents. It made us see our parents and childhoods as dysfunctional and brought up alto of anger, but also understanding. People automatically assume their parents are right, but outsiders see it completely differently. A lot of people’s parents are shit.

Have you read Philip Larkins Poem....’they fuck you up your Mum and Dad’ .... no doubt many of our kids will say we were shit parents in years to come

It’s very easy to be critical of your upbringing. I used to think my mum was an awful mother then I realised she’d probably been suffering from PND but PND wasn’t recognised back then. Both my sisters agree. I can’t imagine what my mum went through having no help or support and being told it was her “nerves’. Being weak isn’t a failing. It’s very easy to judge without understanding what others have been through.

Having my first hammered home all the shitty behaviour my mum had subjected me to. Our relationship wasn't great prior to that, it had creaked along really. We're now pretty low contact. She sees my children maybe once a month/ every two months. Still thinks she's nana of the year. Prefers the idea of them and showing off pictures of them to the actually reality of being around them and having any sort of relationship.

Since having my kids it's really just highlighted to me all the terrible decisions she made and has opened my eyes to how unacceptable they were. I can't and won't forgive them. Years or dealing with her moods, alcoholism and raising my siblings for her to then turn around and rewrite history in front of me and make out how wonderful she'd been. How she'd done it all herself with no help (hahahaha)... Blah blah blah. She's incredibly selfish and clearly has no long term memory of all the support she received from her parents or me for that matter.

It's hard seeing how the birth of a grandchild seems to bring most mothers and daughters closer together when for me it just drove us further apart. If you can access support to help you deal with it I'd recommend it. It eats away at you.

The suggestions of talking therapies are very much appreciated. I am on the waitlist for the NHS as I have OCD PND since my first was born.
@Teaandcakeordeath83 I could have written exactly what you said with the exception of the alcoholism. My mum rewrites the past every single time it is brought up 😔

@underneaththeash sorry I wasn’t clear enough in my OP, She is critical of my house looks even though I will spend four hours cleaning the house top to bottom before she arrives. She recently bought products with her to clean the house in front of me as my job was not good enough, this would be lovely had it not been a running conversation we have had many many times over how rubbish it makes me feel every time she does it and it is in one ear and out the other.
She is critical over the person who basically raised me as she was never around and rewrites history about that person, that person being my Nan. She is massively critical over most of my friends and her own friends and her own family, she isn’t happy unless she is bringing someone else down behind their back. These are friends who were there for me when I had PND, my mum went on holiday for 6 weeks when my daughter was 3 weeks old and made me feel worse in phone calls about my PND.
I should have been clearer in the OP, sorry.

I had a poor relationship with my mother before I had children. Once my children were born it dawned on me how bad my childhood was. At the same time, my mother's behaviour got even worse. At that point I went NC but she still contacts me. She tells me what a wonderful person she is while denying that she is a bully (eg she would tell me I'm ugly because eg my skin is dark) her reason being she has a merciful heart and is giving me an opportunity to improve myself). I totally understand you.

"Children begin by loving their parents. After a time, they judge them. Rarely, if ever, do they forgive them" ~ Oscar Wilde

Old Oscar was on the ball with this little gem, I tell you.

Even if you are right about your mums, you are at risk of replicating their parenting, if you hang onto this anger.

You don’t necessarily know your mums situation, and their own life experience. There wasn’t help to them to cope with damage done to them by their parents.

It’s easier to be a lovely mum to young children, not so easy with teenagers.

I’m not disagreeing with your perspectives of your mums. My mum is also a twisted person and I get where your coming from.

But my kids are grown now and I can see why it’s so hard to be a parent - especially when there wasn’t always the psychological self awareness that there seems to be now.

Mums also come in for all the blame. What about your Dad? And if there wasn’t a Dad - then how much harder was it for your mum to be a single mum?

Read some books and understand how to get over your feelings about your childhood. If you dwell in it it will only damage your own parenting.

Yes, though not wt my childhood, more how she's treated me as an adult. I feel guilty as it's not really her fault, she's been bullied by my sister for over 30 years and treating me badly has fewer implications for her, but there was a point last year I really thought she would have taken the hit for once and she didn't. Her actions towards me were cruel and I can't forgive that.

My mum and I have very different perspectives on life and different personalities.

She thinks she is so helpful and caring, and told me she uses my kids as an excuse to not take on extra shifts in work ("can't cover that shift as I'm minding grandkids") whereas in reality I don't think she's looked after them alone all decade and last time was with my dad in March 2021 when I was rushed to A&E.

I don't wish her any ill will and I know she has a good heart. But I am agog at her view of reality being so different to mine.

I think this is normal in the early stages after birth. Fine to acknowledge that your parents have made mistakes, but you need to be equally open to your own dc blaming you too. None of us are perfect parents, we all bring our own baggage.

@Kitkat151 there are different levels, we re NC from one abusive set.
Have you read the OPs latest post about having to clean for 4hoirs before her mother arrives and getting told off?
OP, it’s not worth it. Any decent mum would tell you not to clean before you came and just to enjoy your little one and they will bring you a hot drink and food

What you describe is very common OP. After you become a mother you start reflecting on your own childhood and automatically this will impact the relationship with your mother - either in a good or in a bad way. I never had a good relationship with my mother but I truly detest her since DS was born. That she behaved awful during my pregnancy didn’t help and I lost whatever respect I had left for her.

My mum had always been a difficult person. Having my own children made her and our relationship more difficult. However she is now in the process of being diagnosed with dementia in her late 50s. So it makes some of the hurtful things she has done less hurtful. Still difficult though.

I have OCD. I had signs as a child but it was really triggered by pregnancy. Although people assume its just about the behaviours - its not - even if we showed no behaviours our mind works in an obsessive way.
Its can also be inherited. Its very likely your mum has it too but never had the education or access to help we can get in this generation. It doesn't excuse her poor behaviour - but I hope it helps you understand she might be struggling with her own mental health and incapable of putting other's first.
You don't say how old your child is but I am guessing fairly young. Watch this space because as they get older you will find out how so much harder being a mum is than you think and mistakes are inevitable.

[quote HelloTreeWindow]@Kitkat151 there are different levels, we re NC from one abusive set.
Have you read the OPs latest post about having to clean for 4hoirs before her mother arrives and getting told off?
OP, it’s not worth it. Any decent mum would tell you not to clean before you came and just to enjoy your little one and they will bring you a hot drink and food[/quote]
Yes I have read the post....she doesn’t say she had to clean....she says she did clean for 4 hours....I take cleaning products round to my daughters....I clean her oven or microwave if I’m babysitting, without being asked.....I’m not saying her Mum isn’t what she says....I’m saying there are different perspectives .....If OP has PND she likely she’s situations differently to what she normally would....and no one is perfect in this world.....it’s not a black and white situation

@InternetAnonymityCanHelp
You are completely right and have hit the nail on the head. Behind all the resentment and holding onto grudges I am terrified of having the same relationship with my daughter. Which is one of the reasons I am so desperate for counselling, but I can’t access it without the help of the NHS.
The old counsellor I used to see was amazing but she was so expensive and I can’t go back to her but one thing that resonated with me was writing a letter to my mum (whether I send it or not is another matter - and as she said completely up to me).
Even with all the crap between us I still want a normal mother daughter relationship. It’s difficult when she lives 200 miles away, she moved, not me, just for clarification. Her constant passive aggressive criticism makes it quite hard to move past it too.

My mother had a complicated relationship with her mother who preferred her sons and their children. My mother was terribly hurt by this and really seemed to believe that she'd be different and treat us all equally.

That hasn't happened. She barely bothers with me or my daughter. I don't mind so much, I'm a grown up but I do remember how hurtful it was when I was a child and me and my siblings were disfavoured and I'm a bit shocked that my mother is behaving in just the same way herself.