Do you judge no contact children of single elderly parents?

[Onekidnoclue]

Inspired by another thread where someone asked how people would view a parent with two NC children.
Im in therapy and hoping to get the resilience and coping mechanisms to go no contact with my mother (only parent). She has a lot of friends, some for decades. My sisters are in contact with her. Shes a wealthy woman who provided a materially rich childhood (private school, horse, luxury holidays etc) and can be very charming. She volunteers for charities and has helped friends financially. She has never physically or sexually abused me.
I believe she is a deeply unpleasant person who has made my life extremely unhappy (either through emotional neglect or abuse) and I want to cut her out so there’s no risk she could hurt my child. her friends don’t know this, they’re her friends, I don’t have an independent relationship with them.

If you were friends with someone like her. Friends for decades, see her charity work and material provision etc would you think I was cruel to cut her out of my life? Would you assumed I’d acted because I wanted to hurt her or just didn’t want to provide care in her old age? Or would you wonder if she wasn’t the person you thought after all these years?

thank you.
YABU I’d think you were being unkind and ungrateful
YANBU I’d wonder what she’d done that forced you into this position.

I wouldn’t judge you.

My remaining grandparent isn’t a nice person. My mum dutifully visits multiple times a week even though said grandparent is absolutely awful to her and has been so her entire life. I see them sparingly.

I’ve been very clear that should my mum ever evolve into being like them, I won’t be doing dutiful visits.

@Onekidnoclue No I don't judge. You don't know what goes on/has gone on in other people's lives.

My own Mother was very difficult. One of my Sister's went NC, another managed to stay in contact but managed nevertheless to slide away from seeing or phoning her very much. I stayed in contact and took on a lot of looking after her when she became very fragile and needed help and resented it very much. I was on my knees by the time she died and often thought, that I should have gone NC, but I simply could not do it. At All. I couldn't have lived with myself, even although it would have been better for me if I had.

That was my choice, but we are all different. If you need to go NC for you and you can actually do it, that's fine.

No, I wouldn’t judge her or you. She will tell those close to her side, it’ll be very different from yours.

I have read too many comments from people who have gone NC with their parents, who have said 'they know full well why we are NC, I have spoken to them, I have written letters, and yet they tell other people they have no idea why they are NC' to instantly believe parents who say they have no idea.
I do believe that sometimes people do disappear from others lives without a trace, but lets face it, its a cliche for a reason that men will say 'she just left me over nothing' and its actually YEARS of the wife trying to communicate, asking for an equal partner, asking for respect, and it just so happened the final straw was him leaving his filthy pants on the floor for the 1000th time... so its not exactly hard to imagine parents would do the same.
I also in real life have observed a women i worked with for years have no contact with her daughter and say she had no idea, lovely woman, comes across very reasonable And complimentary of her daughter. Found out later that the daughter cut contact with her without specifically saying 'im cutting contact with you because of xx reason' (so that part was correct) but it was because after years of the daughter helping the mother prop up her awful brother, brother the favourite, brother horrible to the daughter and mother defending him when daughter spoke up, the daughter had discovered her brother stealing from her, but in a way that he had taken money that was her children's, evidence, police, everything, and when she confronted her mother, her mother was mad at her for telling the police. Final straw - so she just cut contact without explaining.

On the one hand, I can't imagine it is easy going "no contact" with a parent, but on the other hand, it does seem that a lot of people are quick to lay a significant amount of blame at their parents door because they weren't perfect. (I am not referring to parents who have clearly failed in their duties, hurt their children, didn't care for them etc.) I think if I was your mother's friend and didn't know you, I would give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that something significant (or a series of events) had happened that I wasn't aware of. I wouldn't necessarily judge your mother either. I've got to admit, if I were your mother's friend, i wouldn't actually give you much thought at all. (I don't mean this to sound terrible, but does anyone give much thought to acquaintances?)

Thank you. In reply to the open and honest conversation that is something I’m considering but I find it hard to see the value. She has an extremely flexible concept of reality. In her view facts are what she says they are. And she doesn’t really believe other people especially me have valid feelings. So if I said I was upset she just wouldn’t believe it. When I attempted suicide as a teen she said all the right things to the drs but to me she said I was “being silly” and “hormonal”. I’m not trying to drip feed! I’m not asking for validation or trying to justify why I do not want to have contact with her.
she is a very different person to the one she portrays and has been able to keep her mask on in front of some very bright people for a long period of time.

Call me a cynic, but I don't think that anyone has something they're not hiding. Some to a lesser extent than others, obviously. I wouldn't be shocked if somone told me that a highly thought of individual was, in fact, the opposite of that and was actually cruel to family and/or others.

My DP is NC with his mother because she was an awful parent to him. He tried to forgive and hold onto the relationship, but she's such an unreasonable person, it was impossible. He was the scapegoat. His father is a weak man and never protected him during his childhood. He has tried to get DP re-establish a relationship, but it's too late.

It doesnt matter what other people say. You know what's best for you and your family