I’m going to start a Shit Daughters Club- anyone care to join me?

[AngeloMysterioso]

Reasons why I’m a shit/selfish daughter (according to my DM)

• I changed my WhatsApp privacy settings so I no longer have a last seen status or send read receipts. This, I’m told, is rude and unfriendly.

• I went for a walk with DH and DS on Sunday. I’m on the shielding list (as is my DM, not that it’s stopped her meeting people or having her cleaner round) but because I’m a student my DS is still in childcare for two days during the week while I have online lessons, and I didn’t want to further increase the risk by going to see my DM. This was apparently selfish because I have “two mothers to consider”. By this she meant herself and my MIL- apparently I don’t count as a mother on Mother’s Day. Even though I’ve only had two of them and they’ve both been in lockdown.

• I sent her a moonpig Mother’s Day card. That made her feel like an afterthought. It may be worth mentioning that my brother is NC with her so my “afterthought” moonpig card will have been a damn shit sight better than the less than fuck all she’s had from him for the last decade.

So there we have it. Can anybody beat me to the title of shittest daughter? Is there a lower rung on the ladder of shit daughterness than that which I currently occupy?

@KurtWilde

I'm a terrible daughter because I can't drop everything to chat on the phone multiple times a day, usually about absolutely nothing.

I was also told she had me and my siblings so she'd have someone to care for her, and is most perturbed that my children come first.

I still can't get my head around this. It seems like several people in older generations feel this way.

@RosemarysCat it's an odd one. I'm sure I'm not the only adult child with a parent who thinks that. I've noticed that - to my DM - I'm not Kurt, I'm Mrs Wilde's daughter, if that makes sense. She doesn't celebrate me as my own person at all, only judges me on daughterly deeds or lack there of.

Just because you are a shit daughter doesn't necessarily mean your mother is shit.

@shutterteal, snap. I got an email out of the blue a year and a half ago saying that as I obviously didn't care for my mother she was going to give up on the relationship and cut off contact. I still don't really understand what I did to mess up our relationship so badly. The last contact we had was a year ago when I posted her a book and a card just before we went into lockdown. The first year was incredibly hard, but I'm getting more used to it now. It's oddly reassuring to hear that someone else has had a similar experience. She was a really great mum when I was younger, and I'm sad that my kids won't get to spend time with her.

Can I heartedly recommend the statelyhomes thread on relationships board for adviceand support?

You know your autocorrect on your phone replaced the word mother with daughter? Damn autocorrect.

@DaisyWaldron
I'm so sorry you had this experience. It nearly killed me and for two years I was a complete wreck. Then I slowly found my self esteem and moved forward with my life. Today I'm happy, I don't miss her or want to see her now.
Why she did what she did I'll never know, or where her hatred came from, she was incredibly personally verbally abusive towards me. But hatred burns in her heart not mine.
I forgive her, not that she'd care, but for my own peace.
I truly wish you much future happiness.

@skirk64

Sorry but my first thought at reading that was I can't blame your brother for not having contact with her for the past decade. I don't know the ins and outs of why that happened, obviously, but right now it sounds like you'd benefit from going NC too.

This ^

My mum lives in the same small town as us. I am a shit daughter because I dared to take my young children to my in-laws, who live 120 miles away, for the weekend when my husband was out of the country on business. Thing is, my mother was also out of the country that same weekend. In fact, not even on the same continent as me. She was in New York on a jaunt with one of her groups. The irony was completely lost on her. It was just another stick with which to beat me. And there are many from a lifetime of little criticisms and me never having been quite good enough at anything.

Some very sad stories on this thread

My mother thought I was a shit daughter because I was interested in science and logic, and learned to disregard her wailing tantrums at the age of 6. Apparently I was a cold heartless bitch. It ate her up that her preferred DD never remembered key dates, so I was the only one she got stuff from.

I also recall a Christmas where teenage me got her a nice bracelet, at the suggestion of one of her friends who told me she'd like it. She threw it at me and told me it was cheap and that I clearly didn't think much of her to have bought it I never bothered to buy anything nice/different for her ever again!

I still haven’t forgiven my mum for the tantrum she threw on my first Mother’s Day because I had the audacity to not make everything about her. I was very young and had paused uni to have a baby and she was clearly very angry and ashamed that I was a “young mother” and she didn’t want to acknowledge me being a mum. So I’m a shit daughter for getting pregnant at 19 against her wishes.

Our relationship is actually better now (11 years later with distance and boundaries) but I still won’t go over to hers for Mother’s Day as it just stirs up bad feelings for everyone. She still won’t wish me a happy Mother’s Day!

I'm sorry for all hurt, I'm a shit daughter just because I'm a daughter and not a son and I didn't have children for her to fawn over and play the doting grandmother.

I got called 'pathetic' on Mother's Day because I said I didn't think we'd be able to go on holiday with my parents this year. My reasons for this are thus: I started a new job today and I've only got 25 days annual leave and no idea when I'll be able to take it yet (so if they want to book something now I won't be able to give them dates).
They are 91 and 84. My girls are teenagers. After two days the Pointed comments about them being on their phones too much wear thin. They don't like dont the same things and it's inevitably a row every year.
The want me to spend £650 I don't have and a 5th of my leave allowance going to north Wales. I've got no interest in going to north Wales at all.
Not sure why that makes me pathetic. But so be it.

I’m a shit daughter because I didn’t walk the 4 mile round trip with a newborn to hand deliver a Mother’s Day card. I was taking her out for tea at 4pm but apparently I hadn’t made any effort. She sulked for a year about that.
I’m a shit daughter because I didn’t tell her about my first pregnancy in the way she’d imagined (she’d never told me about this daydream so how I was supposed to know is baffling)She said ‘ if you’re f@@king joking about this I’ll never forgive you’. Not quite how I’d imagine her to react. I left in tears.
I’m a shit daughter because when my 3rd son was still born her grief was worse than mine and her feelings should be acknowledged before my own. I’m selfish apparently.
As you can image I went NC shortly after this.
I haven’t missed the narcissistic bitch once.

@intheenddoesitreallymatter

I bought her Toblerone and apparently it's smaller than usual and I went with the cheaper option.

it was a fucking fiver!

To which the only response should be "well if it's not good enough for you, I'll take it away then." And do so.

I am a shit daughter because I haven’t taken my son to see her for a year. A YEAR!!!!!!!

Actually I have. The last time we went to see her was at Christmas but she was a bit put out about that when I reminded her as it is clearly ruining the story that she tells all her friends on the phone about what a shit daughter I am.

whydidyouask I am so very sorry to hear about your third son. Your DM behaved unforgivably

I’m a shit daughter because my communication is atrocious, I never make any effort and it’s my fault she doesn’t get to see her grandkid.

It took her 5mths to reply to my last message and I should’ve chased her up apparently.

I don’t drive and DC has sen. Transport is tricky. Mother has a car and is welcome to come see DC. She won’t yet I have to put the effort in for her benefit.

DC doesn’t want to visit anyway. I’m not going to force them.

We had therapy for DC. Mother was invited. Mother bought other grandkids to a specialist therapy session wasting everyone’s time and pissing me and the therapists off. I Called her out on it in the therapy room. She flipped it back on me for booking it on the wrong day. Cried about how bad I am. She was at the last session when we all booked it DC pointed it out to her.

I even bought her a fucking diary to write down all the things she’s was supposed to remember. She wrote it in there and knew. She did it on purpose I’m sure.

Tbf it was a ‘good’ session because the therapists could see what we were dealing with and helped DC untangle a lot of the mess and turmoil mother caused us. Not all lost eh?

I am also a shit daughter I never attend family meals I’ve never been invited to. Mother swears blind she invited me through the family WhatsApp group. I am not on it, never have been.

We are now NC for more reasons that the couple about.

My mother suffers from anxiety and it’s all about her, I’m a bad daughter because:

• I might tell her at any time I hate her guts which she cries about (never happened and completely in her head)
• I don’t message back straight away (as I’m busy / forgot / have young children)
• I’m not allowed to be annoyed they never offer to help look after my DC but they do for other DC.
• everything she says is right and I never listen to her advice (by advice I mean what she thinks is right and I’m not doing her way)

@RosemarysCat My maternal grandmother not only felt like that, she made sure it happened..she had 9 children, 3 daughters and 6 sons. She emotionally blackmailed 3 of the sons (who didn't have the sense to leave home the minute they could) to never leave her house...they literally spent their whole lives looking after her. She died in 1996 at 89...she'd had children early so they were all in their mid/late 60s at that point. 2 of them had had a fight back in the early 80s and never talked to each other again...even though they both lived in the same small house! They've all died in the last 5 years, the last survivor in 2019. None of them ever had proper relationships, friends or children of their own.

I'm so sorry for everyone suffering but I'm pleased to find some like minded shit daughters! Mine is queen of emotional blackmail, silent treatment and expecting me to drop everything and travel halfway across the country to visit whenever she deems it necessary. I always seem to say or do the wrong thing and It is incredibly draining! Also, like another poster, I never had children and I was a daughter, not the son they both wanted...

@FlorisFigure

whydidyouask I am so very sorry to hear about your third son. Your DM behaved unforgivably

I think there are many of us here who have unforgivable mums. So many sad stories here. I have learnt a lot about how not to parent. I have wonderful relationships with my children because mine and hers relationship is so bad.

I am a shit dd because I dared to go nc..
Blissfully happy being a shit dd tbh!!
Def recommend it..

@MMM2

Just because you are a shit daughter doesn't necessarily mean your mother is shit.

Have you misunderstood the thread?

Oh I’m glad you started the club OP, I should get a place for a lot of the reasons previously mentioned but I’ll list them;
I also turned off my last seen status so that I could avoid the inevitable phone call asking why I haven’t immediately answered her whatsap.
I don’t want to have conversations about Mary across the roads, sisters, husbands cousins dog or such like.
I don’t want to come over and give her a hug because she’s struggling not seeing anyone, lockdown is so hard etc, she lives twenty minutes walk away (with my Dad) and refuses to walk anywhere (not that she would get a hug anyway but she could come over to the garden)
I have a positive attitude and don’t turn EVERYTHING into a negative.
Because I don’t make my teenage kids go and see their Grandmother regularly (see above lockdown/pandemic info)
Because I have worked hard and saved for nice things for my home, she hasn’t and can’t, therefore I deserve her spiteful jealous comments about, showing off etc.
I’m sure there are many more, that felt good!