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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To ask how you got along with your mums when you were teenagers

54 replies

MsBagelLady · 10/08/2018 14:50

I had a dreadful relationship with my mother, she was an 18 year old art student when she 'had to' get married because she was pregnant in the 1960s, she says she tried to abort me but it didn't work [gads and eww woman, why tell me that] anyhoo once I hit my teens things were dreadful and we have had NC for approaching 30 yrs, we moved from a dreadful relationship to an horrific one and then back to a dreadful one. I have adult kids and will never behave in the same way, we're family and love and support each other through all of it, good and bloody difficult and that's that! AIBU is probably the wrong place to ask but it's busy so how did/do you get along with your mums? PS my mum has great grandchildren that she does not even know exist, I don't ever want to be in that situation.

OP posts:

LorelaiVictoriaGilmore · 10/08/2018 15:16

I always got on well with my mum. She had been a pretty rebellious teen herself and actually had a baby who was adopted when she was a teen. I always felt like I could talk to her and I never really felt the need to rebel!

Maraudersmap1 · 10/08/2018 15:19

My mum and I were very very similar and so we would often clash while I was in my early teens but around 14/15 we ended up being more best friends doing loads together. I loved our relationship but appreciate it was probably because I am an only child that we were so super close. Unfortunately I lost my mum to cancer and I miss her every day

Trinity66 · 10/08/2018 15:21

I was a bit of secretive and rebellious teen so we got on fine but I didn't tell her everything(like the way my own teenage daughter does with me). We're extremely close now though

Trinity66 · 10/08/2018 15:22

Sorry yours isn't good though OP, atleast you're capable of not passing that on to your own kids though

DoubleNegativePanda · 10/08/2018 15:23

I was a terrible teen and made my mother's life hell. We fought a lot, but we get on very well now. I'm thinking to move in with her in the next couple years, she needs a bit more support than she's gotten in recent years.

DD is 16 and we have a very close relationship. She seems to actually enjoy spending time with me.

Whalebird · 10/08/2018 15:24

We were really close. Much less so now.

hammeringinmyhead · 10/08/2018 15:28

I got on well with mine until I was about 15. At this point we really knew how to push each other's buttons (she was a neat freak and worried a lot about other people's opinions: I was a "good" student, well behaved etc. who was frustrated that she took that for granted and nagged me anyway). I spent every Friday night to Sunday afternoon out of the house from 16 until I was 18 then went to uni at 19.

As soon as I moved out we got along again and I can now happily chat to her for over an hour at 34. But it definitely helps that there are 200 miles between us!

WallisFrizz · 10/08/2018 15:28

We were close but argued a lot during my teenage years, I can’t remember what about as she let me have a decent amount of freedom and in return I was pretty responsible and trustworthy.

Interestingly re your OP, I was also an unplanned pregnancy and my Dm told me that she had contemplated an abortion. It has never bothered me, probably because it was never said to me in anger and resentment and she has always made it clear that she was so happy she had me.

OwlinaTree · 10/08/2018 15:31

Not very well. We get on ok now because I've made a conscious decision to let it go.

I think she thinks she was mother of the year though!!

ParkheadParadise · 10/08/2018 15:42

I was the youngest of 6. I was always the baby of the family. I was close to my mum, we spent a lot of time together
I absolutely broke my mum's heart, when I became pregnant at 15. She stood by me and helped to raise my dd it actually made us closer.

MarthasGinYard · 10/08/2018 15:44

Dreadful

Didn't help I found her overdosed when I was 12.

jasjas1973 · 10/08/2018 15:48

I was a teenage terrorist and made my mums life hell, i hated her and blamed her for all the worlds ill's
As i grew up, especially in 30s we became close and she became my greatest friend.
She died 2 years ago and i miss her every day.

dangermouseisace · 10/08/2018 15:51

I didn’t really get on with my parents. They were violent/drank too much. I wanted to go NC as soon as I was 18 but it didn’t work out like that.

I get on much better with them 20 odd years on, at arms length. They are much more reasonably behaved now.

Metoodear · 10/08/2018 15:59

Haven’t seen her since I was 14 enough said really

She beat me abused me let others abuse me she is. Cunt

Justgivemesomepeace · 10/08/2018 16:01

My mum spent most of my teens in a depressed fug. I just got on with my life whilst she sat smoking at the dining table. She was ok. Just left me to get on with things. My dad used to warn my sister and I when my mum was about to crack and we would be extra careful to behave. We couldn't talk to her about anything really as she just couldn't cope with anything and would catastrophise. I'm a bit of a people pleaser and very independent and find it hard to talk about stuff as as result. She made sure we had what we needed within reason but emotionally was not there for us.

BendydickCuminsnatch · 10/08/2018 16:07

Awfully! She literally couldn’t say a single thing without making me absolutely furious, she was so so irritating. I admit I was a horrendous teen but now 10+ years on (aged 28) she is an irritating person who can’t be quiet and is very nosey, and I’ve realised she never understood me. So while I can appreciate she has good intentions, we still clash.

EvaHarknessRose · 10/08/2018 16:17

I felt grateful to her for not insisting I move out with her when my parents split. I felt understanding of her reasons for leaving. I felt welcome in her new home and it was nice to have another place to go. I felt glad when she met someone, because seeing her lonely was a big responsibility. My Mum is kind, responsive, positive and undemanding as a parent to me and hides her own hurts, sometimes to her detriment.

She is a different parent to my siblings, but that’s how she is for me.

Junkmail · 10/08/2018 17:41

Pretty terrible. There were times—years here and there—when things were better but she let me down really badly a few times and refused to accept any responsibility or even discuss so we are NC. And I’m a lot happier. Sometimes, even if it’s family, people are just incompatible.

Original poster

MsBagelLady · 10/08/2018 22:07

My mother initiated a court case in order to prevent me and her granddaughter from moving from our 'home town' she lost and we set a precedent. I'm glad that something so negative became a positive for others. My personal experience with my mother is one of fighting to escape her control, we have been NC for many years, she 'won' her granddaughter visiting her once per year for 2 years then absolutely nothing. People are strange right?!

OP posts:

QueenofStella · 10/08/2018 22:34

My mum didn’t have the best upbringing herself and therefore made it her mission to be the best mum she could be to us - we had everything we needed (but not necessarily everything we wanted). I so appreciate her for that because it’s (hopefully) made me into a decent human being.

I saw some of my peers go through horrendous times because they had a mother that was either too helicopter-y or didn’t give a shit.

to PPs who have lost their mums and miss them x

Original poster

MsBagelLady · 10/08/2018 22:39

Do you feel that you will not repeat the poor parenting that our mums demonstarated?

OP posts:

Original poster

MsBagelLady · 10/08/2018 22:40

I do not know what helicopter parenting is and if someone would clarify that I would appreciate that.

OP posts:

IceCreamFace · 10/08/2018 23:06

We just had a very distant relationship. She would work fairly late and spent a lot of time at the gym. I think she hadn't much privacy growing up and wanted to give us plenty of space (I also think she'd kind of got tired of bothering with parenting and just wanted to do her own thing). I'd make my own dinner and eat it in my room. Then on the weekends everyone would do our own thing. My brother and I didn't get on either and neither of my parents were really about to do anything about it. My mum definitely compensated for the lack of time and energy with money (we both had generous allowances and didn't have to do any housework or chores) and she'd always fill the house up with all kind of food. I actually developed an eating disorder for a number of years (probably partly instigated by her obsessive dieting) no idea if she knew or not - although I remember my parents finding lists of calories in my room only adding up to around 500 a day but they just kind of moaned that I should eat more and said no more about it.

Rebecca36 · 10/08/2018 23:29

I didn't get on with my mum at all from babyhood to adulthood. She was a petty tyrant in the home and nice as pie to people outside of it, there was no point in me telling anyone because when they met her they thought she was lovely. Couldn't wait to leave home and ran away a lot as a teenager.

Radiosheep · 10/08/2018 23:35

My mum also had to get married at 18 to keep me. I'm lucky though my mum is lovely we're very close and I never went through a rebellious stage as a teenager. My mum mostly brought me up single handed as my dad was pretty useless but you can't have everything I guess!

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