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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to ask: How did you disappoint your parent/s?

228 replies

Countingwiththecount · 30/07/2011 17:06

I dropped out of uni after a year to 'reconsider'. My mum was so upset she declared the previous twenty years 'an utter failure' and held me personally responsible for gender inequality. To this day we are still nowhere near as close as before. Fortunately I have reached a stage in my life where I can accept this but I'd be v interested to hear other MNers experiences!

OP posts:
Spuddybean · 30/07/2011 19:13

oh okay - you are ALL wonderful parents! i feel much better now, thank you Wink

Mishy1234 · 30/07/2011 19:15

Quitting a PhD after a couple of months. I had done an MSc in the same place and really missed my friends as they had all left when I started. I was just SO lonely and couldn't face the 3 long years stretching out before me.

I called Dad to tell him I was quitting and he refused to collect me. I had no car and a room full of stuff to shift. Luckily a friend came to help. When I got home my Dad didn't speak to me for weeks.

Everyone in the family has a PhD apart from me. I guess he just wanted the set.

I don't regret my decision at all.

itisnearlysummer · 30/07/2011 19:18

My very existence is a disappointment to my parents.

I was top of the year in most subjects, played 3 musical instruments, was in the all school productions, choirs, bands, orchestras, (including running some of the younger ones), never lied about where I was going (really!), never got drunk (until I was 18), never took drugs (at all), didn't have sex till I was 19, got a first class degree (as a mature student).

My parents split up and my mum blamed me for that. There were quite a few arguments as I was a teenager but largely because I felt I could do no more (see above) and they were never satisfied.

Now I'm older I've realised that my mum is a bit strange. In reality, she likes being a victim. I was such a good kid (on the whole, I wasn't perfect!) that she didn't have anything to complain about. And she despised me for that.

My husband mentioned the blaming me for the divorce bit to her a couple of years ago and she confirmed that she still holds me responsible.

DumSpiroSpero · 30/07/2011 19:20

I take after my dad!

They are still together after 37 years but are chalk and cheese and I am pretty much 100% my fathers daughter. I'm sure my mum wouldn't believe I was her offspring had she not given birth to me Grin.

In spite of that and the resulting driving each other round the bend we are very close most of the time.

HedleyLamarr · 30/07/2011 19:26

Too many ways to count. Angered my dad by contacting my mum, who he had left years earlier with no contact address so she could keep in touch with us. Before I told him that I had no contact from when I was 19 till 35. Then from then till on his death bed about 5 years later, and he didn't want me told. He wanted everyone except me round him. Never mind eh?
Step mother just by being. The cow made it perfectly clear she hated me in both word and deed. I've seen her twice in 28 years and that was two times too many. She made my life hell as a kid, something she apparently now denies. I say apparently as one of my brothers told me. The same brother (her actual son, so my step brother) also doesn't remember the physical and mental abuse she dished out. The only reasons I'll be going to her funeral are to see my niece & nephew and to make sure the old bat is really dead.
Yes, I have ishoos. Grin

Tortu · 30/07/2011 19:27

My brother got ridiculous grades at school (7 As at A-Level) and went on to get a top degree at Cambridge. He has gone on to become mildly famous and does an impressive job.

The other day, my father told me, 'you know, your brother has always been a bit of a disappointment to me. I'd always hoped to have a son who was interested in Thomas the Tank Engine'

I thought that was hilarious!

superjobee · 30/07/2011 19:27

oh im responsible for my mum and step dads marriage breaking up! poor guy was fantastic to her and my sis and i everything a normal person would want but when he finally had enough of her and walked out it was my fault and my sisters for being born as he never wanted a ready made family and if it wasnt for us she would have had ''her own real kids < wtf are my sis and i?! play doh??!! >

TottWriter · 30/07/2011 19:29

I'm never sure with my mum. Growing up I got the impression that everything I did disappointed her, but I think that may have been me misinterpreting.

I know she was disappointed in my choice of partner though. According to her, he should provide for me while I stay at home with the kids. She's never gotten her head around the fact that I am happy to go out to work (although not physically capable anymore) and not desperately holding together a failed relationship.

I have nothing against SAHMs, which she was when we were growing up, but I do resent the fact that she once told me to leave DP until he bucked up and went out to work. (Paraphrasing - it was more tactfully put than that...somehow!)

2old2beamum · 30/07/2011 19:36

From experience crap parents always pick on the weakest child I was thick ugly useless and was used as an unpaid skivvy. Failed everything spectacularly. However I escaped, somehow I got into nursing (paediatrics)
and learnt to like myself. Now an OAP I have a wonderful DH got 9 children (6 with special needs--adopted) and life is fab. So stuff you, you hateful old bitch of a stepmother. I dance on your grave. Sorry everyone first time I have ever written anything like this. love to you all YOU WILL SURVIVE xxx

GwendolineMaryLacey · 30/07/2011 19:37

I'm fat. Simple as that. My mother in particular is very disappointed in me.

CurrySpice · 30/07/2011 19:38

Oh lordy this thread has made me really sad :(

I know my mom is proud of me. She tells me how wonderful I am all the time Blush and anyone else who will listen tbh Blush

I am so sorry for those who have been made to feel so shit by their parents :(

squeakytoy · 30/07/2011 19:38

i was a bitter disappointment to my parents from the age of about 12 til 24.. and it was fair comment too. At the time I didnt see it, but looking back now, I wouldnt have liked me very much or been happy either..

I was a nightmare teen, and didnt grow up until the shock of my dad dying I suppose.. when I was 24. I sorted myself out after that, and my mum did say many times that she was proud of the adult that I was, and that she was relieved that I did eventually grow up. :)

EssentialFattyAcid · 30/07/2011 19:43

I was supposed to be an impossiby beautiful film star and a film director and have a glittering academic record and then professional career after Oxbridge preferably as a stockbroker or investment banker yet not have to work very hard at my job or be stressed by it and also be a SAHM married to a rich man yet still very dependent financially and emotionally on my dad and preferably also always living with my parents my whole life (my dad's choices).

I was also supposed to be a talented musician and a teacher or academic with lots of children who never bought any new clothes or spent any money on themselves who was massively independent and adventurous and travelled the world alone for several years and was THIN or if not thin then at least obsessed by trying to be and wanting to discuss dieting constantly (my mum's choices for me).

I spent 40 years trying to fulfil my dad's impossible and conflicting ambitions for me (MAssive DURRR) and no time whatsoever trying to please my mum.

I am finally done with it after professional counselling...if only I had done this 20 years ago...

ChildofIsis · 30/07/2011 19:49

I too have a mum who thinks that a small dress size is an indicator of a 'nice' person.
She was particularly vocal when I was morbidly obese for around 20 years. I refused to see her.
We have since made up and she's still quick to comment if my now lower weight fluctuates, I just tell her it's none of her business.

However she's starting to actually share some real emotions now that I've finally found my birth mother, who I get on really well with and who is proud of the way I've turned out.

Mum suffered very much at the hands of her mum and didn't get an accurate model of mum/daughter relationships so I can take a longer view of it all now.

EssentialFattyAcid · 30/07/2011 19:53

I have finally realised that my parents were a massive disappointment to me. This is a liberating way to feel rather than feeling that I have disappointed them!

mediawhore · 30/07/2011 19:55

Failing most my A-levels, moving away with a boyfriend at 18, not going to uni (immediately).

Then
got pregnant at 19 to a (different) man I had known a month.

Still together (and happily married now) 10 years later.

Also did Uni with a small baby and got a 'career' so all is good now!

PinkSchmoo · 30/07/2011 20:03

I can only think of one time my mum has seemed disappointed in me but looking back she was disappointed for me, not by me.

She had a bit of a shit childhood and basically no one really gave a damn about her. She is the most wonderfully supportive and accepting parent imaginable and I would be lost without her. I hope I am half the parent to DD and DS that she was to me.

Just thought I would post to show that the cycle can end.

Ria28 · 30/07/2011 20:13

I've never felt my mum was disappointed in me, though she is more vocally proud of my extrovert, depression-free brother.

I disappoint my dad by not hitch-hiking round the world, wanting to teach instead of getting a real job in an office, and by making parenthood a life goal rather than one of the less enjoyable aspects of being an adult. By not being him really.

kippersandjam · 30/07/2011 20:16

not as awful as some of these posts, but not having a perm for the last 20years. refusing to have short hair if not having a perm. being over size 10, ie "ballooned" to a size 12. it grates her that sometimes i let the dcs have pizza, i should make a full roast and pudding every single night. refusing to marry at 18 to a milionaires son who asked me, i thought i was too young and didn;t love him. she said it didn;t matter. leaving my longterm dp as he was having an affair, and i found out. he was vvv succesful and she was devastated. i should have begged him to let me come back...
buying my own house, and not living at home til i got married.like that was going to happen:)
getting above my station, having to leave school at 16, going to night school for a levels as well as a job, getting a degree and supporting myself, travelling for work and not sending postcards (munich for 2 days, mostly at kempinski airport!)
marrying a younger man. not calling my ds after my dad. not emigrating to new zealand(not sure about that one, think she actually wants me gone:)

BrawToken · 30/07/2011 20:20

Good point pinkschmoo My Mum's Mum was awful to her, but a kinder and more understanding parent, you will never meet.

PinkSchmoo · 30/07/2011 20:22

Btw 2old you sound like an incredible and inspirational woman.

Debs75 · 30/07/2011 20:24

I had my kids young, got pregnant at college just after A level exams.
I didn't know the freedom of work??
I have had 4 kids when I should be working in a factory to make ends meet.
I haven't travelled. i'm scared of flying and terrified of boats so where was I going to travel? I walked to Birmingham once but that only got me grounded

Ingles2 · 30/07/2011 20:27

I have no idea if I'm a disappointment to my parents, and frankly I couldn't care less if I was...
They on the other hand... have been a huge disappointment to me.

LordOfTheFlies · 30/07/2011 20:27

No I'm a flippin angel!

Been 25 years with DH. Married for 16 years.
Even got married abroad so that they didn't have all the hassel of a wedding.
DS and DD -one of each (even that is perfect!) Their only GCs. My mum says she was lucky and very surprised to have GC1, so GC2 was a bonus.
Parents very churchey so I wouldn't have had children out of wedlock.
Don't smoke or drink.
Got a diploma, work in healthcare.

Wouldn't deliberately dissapoint them, they are not bad old sticks Grin

Oh I've got a tatoo, but they can live with that.Hah!

feralgirl · 30/07/2011 20:28

I have no idea if my parents are disappointed in me. They certainly never tell me that they're proud of me for getting a first in my degree, producing a gorgeous DS and excelling in my job; same as they never told me that they were pleased with me for doing well at school, or at any of the other things I worked my sorry arse off at while they were wrapped up in their careers.

And they wonder why I am hyper-critical of myself and others and an obsessive over-achiever Hmm