Why did my stepmother say this?

[stepfamilyWTAF]

My dad remarried 20 months after my mum died. Now 20 years ago. It was extremely difficult to start with, I choose to ignore all lot of it now for the sake of maintaining a relationship with my dad and my own mental health. I don't think she is genuine and feel that she can be very thoughtless and abrasive. It has been heartbreaking over the last 20 years to come to the realisation this is what it is. Don't have a lot of meet ups, I don't really ever good after any of them but it's manageable with good friends and lots of self care afterwards. They are mostly absent from our day to day lives. It is what it is.

My 10 year old daughter is dancing in a show at Disneyland later this year. She mentioned in passing to my stepmother today that their set is 20 minutes long. We are of course all really excited as it's coming up and my daughter is working extremely hard on rehearsals etc, they have been preparing for a year.

My stepmother today said to my daughter face to face "all that fuss and effort for 20 minutes dancing - really!?"

Why would she say this? Fortunately it went over my daughters head (I think). It didn't go over mine. It's unnecessary and unkind. Why say this to an excited 10 year old?

Because shes a cowbag.

What a lovely thing for your daughter to experience, have a ball and ignore the ole witch.

Wow how exciting for your DD you all must be so proud of her!
You SM sounds like a bitter and sad old lady OP. Ignore her. I'd remain at a distance as you have been doing - no-one needs to have that unkindness from a family member.

Partly she's just unpleasant

Maybe also she is ignorant about how important hard work and prep is for a performance. Her loss if she doesn't know that.

I hope your DD has a fabulous experience 💃🏽

She is allergic to your joy.

Enjoy your joy, do NOT let her eat into your head - she'd like that. Smile, laugh, ignore and enjoy the dancing. What an opportunity for your DD.

Because she has no idea what it takes to prepare for a dance show. Twenty minutes is a long set. Break a leg to your daughter :)

Or, as @ChocoChocoLatte, said: she's a cowbag.

Because she’s a jealous, joy-sucking old hag.
She isn’t happy so she doesn’t want anybody else to be happy.
FTS

Because she's a nasty sour faced shit.

I mean, you've got to be a pretty bitter person to try and piss all over an innocent 10 yr olds excitement and achievement. Bitch.

To be fair she's got a point, over a year of rehearsals is OTT for a children's dance show. However, I would never say that to a child who was performing, I'd be all, oh wow, I bet you're really excited etc.

Because she’s a bitch.

Sadly too late to say ‘well it’s better than 20 years of fuss and effort.’ But maybe you’d be able to work it in somewhere.

If she's loving the rehearsals though...and the creativity, and the evolution of the choreography...such fun, as Miranda would say!

and as a child, you get to learn that hard work can be fun, which frankly is a lesson I need to re-learn!

I haven't seen my df and sm for over 20 years due to a comment sm made..
Rang df when they had bought a new house with A Big Win... Sm shouted there was no room for any dc... Meaning mine...

It takes 20 hours to create 20 minutes of performance - fantastic achievement! Well done to your daughter!

Because she's an absolutely spiteful bitch to say that to your excited DD. I'd go lower contact. Possibly just seeing your Dad on his own.

Thanks so much for the replies, for taking the time and the solidarity and understanding. I wonder if anyone who replied here may have similar stepmother issues!

Yes.. it's very spiteful, unkind and unnecessary. I don't think it was just a thoughtless throw away comment and I don't think it was anything other than deliberate. Her own granddaughter dances... I wonder if there's some jealousy there, as silly as that is.

Just going to deal with it by enjoying what's important to me and my own family and ignoring as much as I can.

Oh she's unpleasant and jealous too. Twenty minutes dance will take a lot of hard work and only someone ignorant of this would make such a remark as it makes her look pretty stupid. Laugh at her lack of knowledge, spiteful hag.

She's mostly absent from your lives and won't have any kind of bond with your daughter, so I expect she was just fed up of hearing you all going on and on about this dance performance - it's the sort of thing that is excruciatingly boring to hear about if you have no personal sense of involvement with it.

Of course, she shouldn't have rained on your daughter's parade by making her feelings known, but that will be the long and short of it.

Gosh @BaroqueInterlude

We certainly weren't going on about it. I

Well then why’s she inflicting her company on them. We all might find any number of things a friend, family member, colleague, neighbour or small child is telling us about at any given moment not wildly interesting; thinking it is one thing, saying it is quite another. It’s called manners and just being a decent person.

One word. Jealousy.

My ex step mother couldn’t stand for me to achieve anything, be good at anything, enjoy anything. She hated to see my dad being proud of me. It’s like she was in constant competition for his attention and hated the thought of him being proud or happy for me.

The evil old warthog left him the day I gave birth to my DD.

Because he didn’t want to have any more children (or any with her anyway)

Ignore, smile and carry on. I hope your DD has a wonderful time!!

Sounds v familiar. I have one of these people on the periphery of my life. One small mercy is that at least my DF has had the good sense to refuse to marry her.

@WellWhaddayaKnow your post made me smile - one of these people. They are just not vampires aren't they!!

Is there a chance she just said it without thinking? People do sometimes.