To think that I'm not the reason why mum didn't get the promotion of a "lifetime"?

[ldontWanna]

My relationship with my mum isn't great. There are several issues there so it might be clouding my judgement. Normally I can ignore her usual bullshit but every now and then she comes up with something new that completely blindsides me.

The latest one is that she had the opportunity to go for a big promotion but she didn't feel like she couldn't because of me/having to look after me.

As a baby and toddler I was very difficult to look after ,I was quite sickly as well and they did struggle a lot with lack of childcare (I was left sometimes left alone sleeping for an hour or two since age 2)and circumstances,but this promotion was years after.

The thing is, I was a latchkey kid since I was 7. She'd wake me up when she left for work,I'd get dressed,make my bag and walk to school. Come back, eat something do homework and just entertain myself until she got home several hours later. She never helped with homework, only came to school 3 times in 12 years(and that's because dad couldn't make it), never organised playdates , I've never been to a dentist as a child, never had a birthday party,never read to me,never played with me .... you know all the things that take time,effort and account for mental load when you have kids.

She did take one promotion FOR ME apparently,because it meant regular shifts and being home in the afternoon. She did cook,clean, do chores and watch telly. I was either in my room or playing outside in the street and unless I sat with her to watch her shows I wouldn't even see her except at dinner.

Now she tells me she had this amazing opportunity,and she could've been somebody if it weren't for the fact that I needed looking after and she had to go away for courses for a few days in order to get it and she couldn't have possibly done that. Except she has done it for other courses and me and dad were fine. Well I was, no idea how dad felt about it.

AIBU to think it's absolute bullshit and that the mothering side was never that demanding for her to actually use it as a reason?

Yes, a 10 yo DD , so I get what's involved with raising/parenting a child and what things can prevent certain career progressions. Probably why I don't get it, because she never did any of it .

YANBU

She made her choice to have a child, and through adopting you I would expect she would have had plenty of time to consider the consequences of her decision.

The fact that she chose to prioritise an immaculate house and starched shirts over spending actual time with you and taking any interest sounds like she was very obsessed with keeping up appearances.

It doesn’t matter what kind of a baby you were, it’s not your fault if you were colicky or bad tempered in your first few months of life, perhaps you didn’t get the best start in life.

She has no business blaming a child who she adopted for her missing out on a promotion. Maybe she rubbed her colleagues up the wrong way at work and it was noticed. Who knows? But she can’t take responsibility for her own life choices and that is nothing to be proud of.

Please tell me you don’t have you daughter alone with your parents? Given your barbaric childhood

My mum lives in a different country to me. She came to visit yearly before Covid, but DD was only once left alone with her because I had to have surgery. She's a much better grandmother than mother though. DD is the apple of her eye,perfect in every way(and she's terrified of that changing and her going my way 😬) , she's patient,loving and sweet with her. Hell she even came to dd's first day of school with me and she got all teary and emotional. DD also doesn't speak her language so even if mum were to make any digs/ try her bullshit DD wouldn't have a clue what she's on about anyways.

She's a shit parent op. Simple as that. You'll be a better mother I'm sure.

I've never thought an immaculate house or ironed clothes signaled wonderful parenting. Maybe it's self preservation as I iron what I have to and the house is basically clean but untidy (DH is a hoarder so I'd drive myself into the ground trying to have an immaculate house.)

I don't think many adults look back on their childhood and judge it on how the ironing was done so I'm sure you are pretty safe there.

The main thing is enjoy your child, the past is gone and who knows the truth of it all.

What she has done to you
what she is clearly capable of doing

i would not permit her within 100m of my children

Fair enough.

I guess so. I was just wondering if I'm missing something, which is why I tried to keep the other issues away from the thread... then miserably failed.

Some people seemed to think I was but haven't given any specific examples (for me to understand) so I probably seemed a bit defensive/stubborn in my replies to them.

It's not a nice thing to say and since she left you alone aged two..

My mother would say I was a rubbish glue baby as she had me to trap my dad and he fucked off anyway. She left me in an office and on a door step in her attempt to give me up .

It’s not making sense to you Op because it doesn’t make sense. She’s twisting the narrative and rewriting history.

We’re programmed as young children to
orient in our parent’s reality, and when there’s emotional or psychological damage we can get stuck trying to make sense of our world like a sat nav searching for a gps signal.

I think that’s the gist of what you’re feeling now. What she is saying is pure rubbish. The truth - that she was a crap mum- is probably more than her mind can handle so she twists reality and memory to make it all more palatable.

But this is her and her stuff. It’s not you. It’s not about you. I’m a visual thinker so I can imagine tentacles of her logic twisting out and wrapping themselves around you. You need to take your machete and chop them off, again and again. Over time you’ll be able to see her crap coming and hand it back to her.

Its not about you. It was never about you. It may not be possible to take her out of your life, but draw a line between you do that you can put her away emotionally when she encroaches like this.

This is very flippant written down - it’s taken me years of therapy to get to a point where I can separate myself out from my df’s madness!

That is a really shitty thing to say and the OP has every right to need to process the fact that she has a shitty parent without someone telling her that they had it worse. Realising and coming to terms with the effect of piss-poor parent, plus the fact that such behaviour often carries on into your adulthood, is hard enough at the best of times without someone calling that a “pity party”.

If I'm entirely honest, I think deep down I did want some examples and to understand, and there to be some kind of truth to it that I couldn't see. Because then , like I said to another PP some of the other issues and behaviours would make sense. Still wrong and abusive, but at least with a comprehensible why. A genuine reason.. it would make it not so bad(still bad).

As it stands, the reason why is the same as always. I was never good enough/ what she wanted in a child,a daughter.

While I don't think she would've been that much happier with a different child (because she is who she is) , I do think a child with a different personality/temperament-closer to my cousin/what she wanted - would've got a lot less of the nasty and abusive bits.

Blimey, OP, are you me? I never got braces (massive overbite which my dentist wanted me to have surgery on my jaw for) as a kid because she didn’t have time-a mere 3 months off a year as a teacher! Cost me over £2K as an adult.

if in her words she wanted to be somebody and feels you prevented it than she really really shouldnt have adopted you in the first place , she could have stayed childless and done whatever it is she wanted to do with her life .
once we choose to have a kid we learn about the responsiblity and sacrifice our lives become tied to at times , not many mothers are free anymore to do what they want except maybe the ones with vast amounts of money

it is pointless and rather cruel to dump her regrets onto you effectively trying to make you feel guilty just for being her child . of course theres nothing to feel guilty or bad about , it was her choice to become a parent , the sacrifices and things she couldnt do once you were here are for her to suck up and deal with

the only thing id be tempted to say if she starts going on with this again is to ask what made her decide to become a parent anyway .
of course only ask this if you feel mentally up to doing it though

I didn't see a dentist until I was an adult and in England. Same for my irregular periods, got diagnosed here at 28 with PCOS.
I complained for years I couldn't see and my school work was suffering but I didn't get glasses until 14. Didn't see a ophthalmologist until I was 17 though, they were just cheapie market stall glasses ,try some on until something works.

I remember being really ill once and she didn't believe me,and made sarcastic comments and laughed that I was just missing my best friend. I struggled for a whole week ,pain,feeling faint,struggling to breathe until I spiked a fever of 42, had proper fainting spells and had an xray done. 75% of my left lung was filled with fluid. Ended up in hospital for weeks and on shitloads of meds. That was still my fault for swimming too much on holiday and not listening and it was oh so hard and difficult and traumatic for her.

Years of neglect(even though i was well fed,clothed,warm ,financially supported etc) and emotional,mental and physical abuse. Yes I'm having a fucking pity party.

My first question was going to be do you have children but you do!

I have missed out on so many career advances due to my two im in a good position now but where I could have been is just phenomenal but as a single parent it has been so hard for the last 10 years. however for one I would never tell them 2. I have always made a point of being at School for what they need and stories every night.
I would never make my kids feel how you do in your OP
My children will never be made to feel this way and you shouldn't have seen either. It makes me sad

I recon there's partly guilt in there colouring her memory of the past. Like those parents who say they never hit their kids but they absolutely did. Now we say bad parents hit their kids, and they don't think they were bad parents so they never hit their kids.
She thinks parents should be involved and dedicated to their kids lives so she was.
Also a bit of blaming someone with less power to absolve herself of responsibility for not achieving what she hoped to. It's not her fault she failed.

I'd either say "but I looked after myself from 7!" Or "ah well you probably should have thought about that before adopting me, eh?"

Even if she was held back in her career it was her choice to adopt a child. She wanted a child and should really have looked into the sacrifices she was going to have to potentially make before committing to this. It’s entirely her own fault.

The sad thing is.... when things went well,and I was good and she was good she was great .

She had(still has) this amazing ,beautiful,warm smile that can light up a room. Being on the receiving end felt amazing.

She did give me hugs and kisses, and would scratch my back or head if i climbed into bed with her when she watched her shows.

She could be quite funny.

She cooked the most amazing pizza , and I know it was mostly for me.
She made great food at Christmas/Easter and really awesome cakes.

She would listen to me talk a lot of nonsense about my life ,maybe more freely than other parents.
She was really good with me when I was ill when little . Treatment,cuddles,comfort.
Tbh most of the things happened when I was little. It all slowly started going tits up and becoming less and less frequent when I started primary and it all went down hill from there.

But when it was bad, or work was stressful or I was bad..

I'd either get the silent treatment (for hours or even days) or proper vile rants... I was the enemy, I deserved to get sexually assaulted and there's no smoke without fire, I made her suicidal when I was a baby , she wanted to throw herself off the balcony. She'd use the stuff I told her in our normal chats as ammunition (took me ages to learn to censor myself).I was stupid,lazy,fat. Not ambitious enough . Not skinny enough. Not girly enough. Not lady like enough. Not neat enough. That I'm a whore,but a stupid one because the clever ones get paid for it. That I'm a disappointment and an embarrassment and she regrets not smacking me enough. I'm the reason they didn't have another kid,couldn't afford a car or whatever else, not this promotion.

And then there were the slaps,the hair pulling ,the stick, the door slammed over my foot and so on. Then dad would get home and she would cry and say she has a migraine and feels sick because I did this that and the other and then he'd have a go at me too.

I don't know even know if having the good bits was better or worse as the withdrawal of it hurt so badly and I was very aware I had caused it.

Ffs... now thats IS a pity party!

If you haven’t already, suggest the ‘stately homes’ threads in the relationships section.

Like a lot of people, you found being a latchkey kid is an awful experience, no support, no emotional connection. It's compounded by a parent that views their child as a millstone.

I was always quite fiesty as a teen so if my mum bemoaned how hard it was to "juggle" [she'd ignore me when at home, like your parent I didn't see her until about my bedtime] I would suggest she shouldn't have had kids. My dad was useless, but she's the idiot who married him. A lot more people shouldn't have kids.

I second the suggestion to try the 'stately homes' threads, they helped me a lot a few years ago to realise it wasn't just me! Saved my sanity although they don't know it as only lurked, never posted....... Some things are too hard to put into words! By me anyway😕 They helped me to put boundaries in place. I'm no contact with my mother now, not by my instigation but hers, as after nearly 60 years of running around after her trying to gain her approval I finally said no to her for the first time in my life as she was making me ill with her constant demands for attention, and I finally realised that I can never please her 🤷💐💐

Or your cousin would have been the one on the receiving end of it.

can I offer a comparison?

my ds has special needs and can be extremely aggravating at times. When he’s at his most challenging is precisely when he needs me to dig deeper and love him even more.

I would never smack him, belittle him or treat him badly.

I’ve had to put aside my career, my educational opportunities, and I’ve lost friendships to meet his needs. It’s not been easy. Would I throw this in his face? Of course not. And anyway those are choices that I made.

There is nothing that he has ever done that would justify me treating him badly.

There is nothing that you did as a child that deserved doors slammed on your feet, slaps, beatings, nasty words. Nothing.