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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To find mothers day a bit sad

50 replies

Kiddiewinks2008 · 06/03/2016 17:25

I see posts on facebook from friends about their mother who support them no matter what, who are their best friend and who are always there.

I dont feel this way about my mother- she is totally toxic. She has never been there for me, or been supportive, or said a nice thing to me. She makes me feel rubbish and a failure and makes it clear that nothing I do will ever be good enough. She rang me up this morning and had a go at me. She has made me feel shit my whole life.

Thankfully I have 2 lovely DCs and I will never make them feel like she does. But it makes me sad that I never had that relationship with my mother.

OP posts:

Tadpoletoatoad · 06/03/2016 18:23

God yes, resipsa. I'm so different from her, I know that. But every so often I have a complete confidence fail and worry about my children feeling about me the way I feel about her. I couldn't cope if they went no contact with me. I'd do all I could to change their minds, which is where lies the difference!

Chocolatteaddict1 · 06/03/2016 18:25

though I think dawn means she secretly helps them with MD stuff so that in the morning they are proud and happy and she is 'delighted' and every one is happy - rather than not helping them and acting miserable and making them feel shit about it.

Well that's my take on it

shinynewusername · 06/03/2016 18:26

Buying Mother's Day cards is a nightmare for me

Yup. Mine isn't as bad as those some pps are describing, but still toxic enough to make the cards seem a mockery.

PalmerViolet · 06/03/2016 18:26

Oh Tadpole, I'm so sorry you still feel like that. It's so hard not to hear the script they feed us sometimes, isn't it?

My mother is all over FB with her darling angelic perfect son and his wife. All kinds of shiny happy pictures and hugs and smiles. It's all a front, because I know that he will have taken his children home before she started to get really pissed and start being vile about the older one, saying the exact same things to her that she's always said about me. I want to wrap her in cotton wool and run away with her and tell her that grandma is wrong. I wish someone had done that with me when I was little as she was telling me how fat, ugly, stupid and useless I am.

I'm ok now, haven't spoken to her for some time. But I still hear her voice in my head when I'm feeling bad about myself.

So I wish all you mothers and not mothers a lovely day today. Hand holding available for those who need it.

pinkcan · 06/03/2016 18:26

OP my father is like your mother. My advice is to emotionally disconnect, do the basics, don't expect anything from her and just keep things civil. That is the easiest way to go forwards. Re cards, you can buy blank ones with pictures of landscapes or flowers on and just write happy mothers day inside so it isn't filled with inappropriate/vomit inducing poems.

Whilst you can be sad about the fact your mother is shit, it won't achieve anything. What you need to do unfortunately, is accept it, manage it as above and focus your emotional energy on the people that do actually really love you. Part of acceptance is the fact that it will never change.

spanky2 · 06/03/2016 18:30

Abusive and cruel mother. She was always particularly nasty on Mother's Day and her bday as my presents according to her were always so awful they would make her cry. I always feel so sad and angry that I have never had a mother. I've been nc for nearly three years. Why don't card makers have cards for us? Eg You are the most toxic and abusive mum. Presents like poo on a stick and anchovies in toilet roll holders...

Octopus37 · 06/03/2016 18:31

No, YANBU,I dont like Mothers Day and have stayed away from facebook today cause I know I will feel like shit. I no longer have my Mum and my MIL died last year. To be honest my relationship with my Mum wasn't always perfect and I feel very inadequate as a Mum myself. I try my best but struggle to be good enough. Today, my DH arranged for us to go out and tbh they have misbehaved so I feel more of a failure. Sorry for all of those feeling this this today, only advice I can offer is stay away from facebook.

Justaboy · 06/03/2016 18:47

How sad it is:-(

How do they get to be like that anyone any ideas?.

DrSeuss · 06/03/2016 18:50

I always wanted to send a card that said, "You're a bitch but the grief I would get from sending nothing just isn't worth it. Good luck with my perfect brother remembering but as a childless, single man he is soooooo busy."

Heatherplant · 06/03/2016 18:54

Used to hate mothers day due to lots of negativity (didn't have the best relationship with my mum at times and she's now deceased) got my own DC these days and I can break the cycle. No way will they be able to tell the stories I could about my parents, I'll bloody make sure of that.

Quietlifenotonyournelly · 06/03/2016 18:54

I feel your pain op.

bananafish · 06/03/2016 19:02

I've always loathed Mothers Day. Nothing I could do would be good enough, and it would infuriate her and make her even more vicious which, frankly, took some doing.

I made sure to try and stay out of her way, but I knew what was coming my way by the evening when she would have worked herself up into a frenzy about what an evil, selfish, disgusting child I was. God, she really was unbelievably toxic.

No contact works for me. I occasionally get weird pangs of guilt and discomfort, but I've learnt to examine them clinically for what they are, and then let them go.

It was having children that did it for me. The thought of having her in their life was just terrifying.

spanky2 · 06/03/2016 19:16

Me too bananafish. Having dcs saved my life.

DawnOfTheDoggers · 06/03/2016 19:17

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

JaceLancs · 06/03/2016 19:20

DP has been nc with his toxic family for quite a few years - which I totally understand having had some involvement with them myself in the early years
Sadly any celebratory occasion just makes him more depressed about his family situation - which impacts on me and my family
I have an okish relationship with my own mother I love her but don't always like her or what she does - I do buy her a card n present but choose carefully anything gushing would be a lie and sit badly with me
Thankfully my adult DC make up for all this - we sent DP back to his own home after lunch - went out together and tonight they are cooking for me
I got chocs flowers and a lovely card too

LifeofI · 06/03/2016 19:31

My mother is dead now but when she was alive i couldnt spend mothers day with her because my toxic nasty brother was around and i couldn't psychically be around him. Only when he was in prison i would be around her, thats kind of one thing me and my sis disliked abotu our mother how she didnt realise what a nasty piece of shit her son was and she always choose him over us.

pigsinbutter · 06/03/2016 20:46

resipsa i do worry about it a little bit but not that much - my memories of knowing that my mother definitely did not love me as much as my brother start very young, as did the feeling of having to tip toe around the place in case she flew into one of violent rages.

i think they set the bar so low that anyone making even the tiniest bit of effort to think about their children's feelings is bound to do better! i am very close to my kids, even when they are grumpy. i can't imagine ending up with the same relationship.

pigsinbutter · 06/03/2016 20:47

LifeofI why do toxic women always prefer their sons? i have heard it so many times...the daughter always ends up the scapegoat

JoffreyBaratheon · 06/03/2016 21:39

My mother died when I was a kid so I always hated Mothers Day as the not very sensitive or emotionally intelligent 1970s' teachers would still have the whole class making Mothers Day cards. I can't remember what I did instead.

Later I had a very unpleasant stepmother who'd milk Mothers Day to the maximum, with her own (unhappy) kids.

Now I am a mother myself it is a happier day. I just think about my own kids.

However, it disturbed me not a little today to see a Mothers Day card ostentatiously in the (alcoholic) next door neighbour's window as she has two kids ages about 5 and 3 and all we hear is her shrieking at them that they are c-words, effers, etc etc. Those kids have grim, miserable lives courtesy of their parents, but still the charade has to be gone through (presumably so if the SS come out, yet again, they see the veneer of 'normality' and sign them off again).

Dawndonnaagain · 06/03/2016 22:20

Through I meant ensuring my children had what they needed to not feel they were getting anything wrong and that they were enabled to give me a good day. My mother's favourite trick was to ensure failure. eg. Imagine giving a 13 year old who never, ever gets pocket money 20 quid the week before their mother's birthday. You make a big deal and ensure they know it's pocket money and don't mention the birthday at all. You know the chlld has some difficulties understanding social things etc. but you don't make anything clear. Said child has a make up obsession, and I do mean obsession. Child remembers it's parental birthday so very carefully, spends half on make-up and half on present. It turns out that all of it was for a present and how dare the child get her a piece of cheap shite and the child had better get out before school when only one shop is open and get her something else. Got beaten all the way up the 20 foot long hall for that one, and all the way back again. Luckily neighbour heard and worked in shop, she had a book wrapped and ready when I got there, no charge.
Deliberately setting up to fail.
My children, when younger would get pocket money and if a birthday was coming up I'd given an extra amount and say that extra fiver is to buy Mum/Dad/Granny a birthday present. That's playing fair.

VioletVaccine · 07/03/2016 11:00

I've just been put onto these by a friend, annoyed I didn't know about them last week! Maybe an idea for next year though?

Sleepybeanbump · 07/03/2016 11:27

I had a shit day too. It was my first Mother's Day (10 week old DS) and I got a card thrust at me unceremoniously mid-morning that my DH had forgotten to give me earlier. Nothing else. I did gardening in the morning, had a sausage roll for lunch and then spent all afternoon tidying the house and having my own shit useless toxic mother round for tea. Having been out to buy her a really lovely hand made bouquet of flowers. Great.

She then proceeded to - as usual- sit on my sofa while I ferry endless cups of tea and cake to her and my dad while not lifting a finger to help and over exciting DS until he cries and then ignoring all my efforts to get him to nap. I confiscated him and took him to another room to calm down and decompress but eventually relented and gave him back to her for a quiet cuddle to sleep. What happens? Within 5 minutes she's got him sitting up and singing songs at him again ffs. Then, as she's leaving she's goes all head-tilty at me and says 'he's cried a lot today'.

So she gets the whole day devoted to her as usual - for being a shit mother- and I get fuck all. I'm properly hurt that dH did nothing.
It's not like he has no clue what might be expected. Every year for the 10 he's known me he's seen me ordering lovely flowers for my mother and we've taken her out to lunch. He even came with me yesterday to collect the flowers for her, knowing he'd done fuck all for me, the bugger!

Told him how hurt I was this morning which made for a great start to the week. And really not enjoying hearing all my NCT group gushing about their special first Mother's Day.

Sorry for the rant. And for everyone else. If DS wasn't EBF I would just wait for him to get home, shove DS at him and then take myself off for a nice relaxing few hours by myself and bloody leave him to it.

Lndnmummy · 07/03/2016 11:29

Me too, me too

Sleepybeanbump · 07/03/2016 11:38

And Yy about the cards. I just get her a plain one. Always feel such a pang looking at 'best mum in the world' type ones, thinking how wonderful life must be if you have a mum you genuinely think that about.

God I hope I don't fuck it up with DS. I will die happy if I can bring up a boy who actually likes me and thinks I'm a nice person to be around and feels I did a reasonable job with him.

allypally999 · 07/03/2016 12:47

Goodness so many people with awful Mums. I struggle to find a card too so this is obviously a niche market if anyone wants to step up.

Cards that say "you were rubbish but I still feel pressured to give you a card" or "thanks for giving me no self-esteem" and my favourite "thanks for all the digs and outright rude comments"

On a good day I think "you did your best for a selfish person"

to us all

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