About not liking your child

[juicee2]

I imagine that many go through a stage of disliking their child when young, but I really mean when they are grown and when you realise their values are so opposite to yours and they just aren’t a pleasant person.

What can you do if this happens? Does the fact they are your child override everything else or not?

Namechange, thank you. Ive certainly made my mistakes but I hope that most of the time, I'm good enough.

I think that's called "care" Cheesy.

I'm sure you are @AlexKate.

My teenage daughter is pulling away and I’m terrified we will have no relationship in the future. She has an extended family who love her and I devote myself to her without spoiling her but she seems to hate me more with every passing day.

FFS there are areas I wouldn't bring up a dog you middle class fekkers.

This has been picked up by the Daily Mail

Ofc it fucking was Daily Mail sucks sweaty skunk balls.

This thread has been so interesting for me.

I’m about at my wits end with DD1 who is currently home from uni. We have always clashed but having had a break from her living at home, her coming back has made me realise just how stressful I find being around her.

Looking back I don’t think I ever really “got” her but now she’s effectively an adult our differences are stark and I’m sorry to say I don’t like her.

Added to what boils down to a personality clash, she’s returned home with debt, doesn’t seem to get the need to study for her exams, is totally disorganised, wants to go out all the time and lies to us about the most ridiculous things. Eg she professes to want to diet, and says she goes to the gym, but then goes to McDonald’s most days and lies about it. She’s put on so much weight at uni that none of her clothes fit properly but still insists on wearing tight and low cut clothing, which (because they don’t fit) make her look tarty and cheap. She is very adept at diversion tactics and screams at me that I’m psycho and she hates me, so nothing ever gets resolved. The thought of her being here til October is making me feel so anxious that it’s making me ill.

She’s always getting into scrapes - think lost I-phone, no money, passing out at parties and us having to pick her up, and expects us to sort her out, which we always do, but shows us no respect. She’s meant to be coming on summer holiday with us, and I really don’t want to go...

I worry that this is all about me, but I really do consider myself to be easygoing and kind, and I have a wide circle of friends. She seems to go through life upsetting people. She left school with no friends and fell out with her flatmates at university. To be brutally honest if I wasn’t her mother I’d certainly not want to be her freind.

skinnydecaff, that was so honest - something you rarely read on MN's i think. Its sad to read but not much you can do for now i guess, she will have to make her own way in life. I think i upset my family a lot when i was younger as i was a bit feckless, naive and liked to party, but i soon grew out of it. looking back it wasnt even that bad, but a few things i did used to wind them up and i am still mortified now in my 50s about it all. They were older parents and just wanted me to be the dutiful daughter and ' be good'.
I suppose people will say, have a word with her, but its hard if others will not listen and she sounds quite wilful. maybe when she does move out you might have a better relationship then? I am sorry, i hope some others might have better advice for you. I have sons and that isnt always easy either.

My teenage daughter is pulling away and I’m terrified we will have no relationship in the future. She has an extended family who love her and I devote myself to her without spoiling her but she seems to hate me more with every passing day

Don't stress too much about it. My daughter hated me from age 14. We had a bit of a love/hate relationship but despite all the problems I loved her even when I didn't liked her much.
Don't 'devote' yourself to her. If you do she will just pull away more.
I had to have firm boundaries with my daughter as she was very strong willed but there was only going to be one person in charge in our house and that wasn't going to be her. She knew she could always rely on me but she also knew I was no pushover.
By age 20, she changed completely and loves and appreciates me although we disagree on quite a lot.
I was with her when she gave birth to my first grandchild and she wrote me a beautiful letter afterwards to thank me for everything and to apologise for her behaviour in her teen years.
Always do your best for your child but don't worry they hate you because they seldom do for long.

My mum and I are very similar - too much alike. Sometimes we have a great laugh but we also both like to get our own way, mum more so. Things get strained if we spend too much time together.

The difference is that my mum has a spiteful streak that I don't have. She can't resist getting the knife in sometimes, especially when she's tired. Parents are coming to visit on Friday and there will be at least one row before the weekend is over.

I am very conscious of trying not to pass on bad habits to DC.

Thank you so much The80sweregreat. I found it quite cathartic to write the post as my feelings have been weighing me down for a long time now.

When she is away at uni we generally get on better and I quite look forward to speaking to her, but when we are together we clash so badly. She will not listen to guidance or advice eg in how she could manage her money better. And she certainly won’t entertain criticism without it escalating. I honestly wish she wasn’t here and the guilt is overwhelming.

I hope that once she’s left home properly and I am not involved in the minutiae of her life (this is not my choice but she is so disorganised, messy, broke etc and is living in my house) things might improve.

But in the immediate term having her home for the whole summer and the thought of a summer holiday with her is making me ill.

Skinny- Could you not go away this year ? If it’s going to be that bad it might be a good idea not to go? I know that sounds miserable but if she isn’t going to engage and your going to be stressed it might be better to put it on the back burner this year? It’s so hard with older children - my ds2 can be very cutting sometimes- he can dish it out but if I say any thing to criticise it’s bad. It’s a mine field at times.

Juicee2 had a very similar thread going yesterday. www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/3210770-How-would-your-adult-children-disappoint-you

Journalist??

No, course not. It’s because my parents didn’t like me!

It’s all booked, and seems pretty drastic to cancel as I’ve literally never done anything so ‘out there’ as cancel a holiday! Maybe I should be braver and less of a walk over. It’s also complicated as other people are involved.

I have said to her that if she continues like this she can’t come but I think that DH (and to a lesser degree me) would not want to leave her home as a punishment due to concerns about what she might do - she’s never been responsible and we could quite realistically come home to a crashed car, burgled house due to not locking up, or get an emergency call because she’s lost her phone, keys, etc.

All I want is for this to all be better and for us to have a normal life but as time goes on the situation is just getting worse. I don’t want our relationship to break down completely but the relationship we have is so unpleasant it doesn’t feel like it’s worth saving anyway.

I’m so unbelievably sad.

Skinny - I am sorry. My heart goes out to you. I hope things improve. Take care x

That’s exactly how it’s like here, she can dish it out but when I try to counter the argument or point out the flaws it makes it worse.

Like you I was probably a bit of a challenge, liked to party and probably got into the odd scrape. And definitely did a lot of eye rolling and door slamming. But once I went to uni I became very independent, organised my own accommodation, jobs, travel etc. I feel she is actually very immature.

Youngsters are more immature. I’m not doing them down but they seem different/ less resilient maybe? I don’t know but it is hard going sometimes. All my friends say the same.

God, there was a girl at my school just like returntolife’s daughter’s so I can well believe it.

She was going missing all the time with her ‘boyfriend’ off begging in the West End to fund his heroin habit (and her dabbling with it). For a middle class girl I suppose it was exciting and dangerous and the forbidden.

She got pregnant and her parents literally had to bribe her away from that situation in a way they couldn’t afford. Brand new top of the range car, own house, a stonkingly generous allowance for clothes and hair and make up. They couldn’t afford that and had to borrow. I’ll never forget seeing her in her brand new jeep then her parents who had worked hard all their lives tootling around the corner after her in a 12 year old micra.

Every time she wanted something she’d threaten to withdraw contact to the GD. It was horrible. Anyway several years later and a couple more unsuitable relationships producing a few more kids the DD has managed to get a low paying but professional job. GD has wised up to her Mum’s game and was supported through sixth form and now uni by her GPs. And the GPs now have started taking the route of saying ‘Okay’ when DD tells them she can’t see the kids unless they get her. X,Y,Z. It doesn’t last long.

My own situation with my Mum wasn’t great as she struggled very much with a daughter getting prettier as she got older and less attractive. But I totally realise sometimes people’s kids are horrors too.

This thread really got to me.

I’m the wild one that went off the rails! I went through private school and had the most amazing upbringing, my family was great, we had fantastic holidays etc. I managed to get pregnant at 18 and dropped out of school.

Needless to say my parents were naturally very disappointed. They never hid that from me but were supportive when I needed it, when I had no idea what I was doing with a baby and, subsequently, when I realised the father of my child was a bum who wasn’t the one for me.

I still feel the guilt of what I put them through and I’m sure I have disappointed them but I have a good job and managed to work my way out of the hole I created.

I couldn’t have done it without my parents support even though they were clearly disappointed in my decisions. They gave me a couple of tough talkings to but, ultimately, they were always there and eventually I realised they were right.

We are stupid when we are young and I’m glad they didn’t turn their backs on me.

I just want to say, from the wisdom of my advanced years, that of course you (probably) will always, always, LOVE your children.

But you won't always LIKE them. Why would you? They are completely separate beings. As they grow up they are bound to come to different conclusions than yours - and quite right too!!

But there is a universe of difference between disagreement and abuse.

No Parent has the right to abuse their child
No Child has the right to abuse their Parent

Gottagetmoving thank you so much. That does give me some hope. x

My DM prefers my younger brother and it’s always been obvious. I don’t know whether it’s because he’s the youngest, a boy or that she just has more common ground with him but the favouritism was always unbelievably evident.

Now we’re both adults and yes, I married and had my three DC young but I also went on to work hard, get a good degree and a career. My Dbro is still young but has dropped out of uni, lives with my DM and is just working FT at McDonald’s (he seems more than satisfied with that.) My DM is still closer to him and I would go as far as to say prefers him. I could never do good enough for her. Even now when she visits she will always pick on something she doesn’t like about the house or the way I am dressed etc. Really frustrating.

My DC are still young and I will confess to sometimes disliking traits they have. It’s not that I dislike them, it’s just frustrating dealing with inherent laziness or a lack of common sense when I know they have it in there iykwim. I don’t have a ‘favourite’ at all though and I’ve worked hard to treat them all fairly and equally. It’s horrible feeling like the outcast.

Regular cannabis use at uni meant my DD was chaotic, skint, disorganised, depressed, paranoid and angry.

Since pretty much quitting a year ago (she did Camp America for 3 months) she is like a new person and I have my lovely girl back.

Heavy drug use is normalised in our universities.