My mum has thrown away over £150 worth of makeup and medication

[nostyleandnoclothes]

I have a small pouch that I carry around with me everyday. It’s got a lot of medication in it (antihistamines, painkillers, stomach medicine), as well as 5 lip sticks and 4 lip liners. In total it comes to over £150 worth of stuff in a space NK small pounce (which is expensive in itself!).

I was at my mum’s on Thursday night when she complained about her having bad hay fever. I pulled out the pouch and handed it to her, and although I thought I’d put it back in my bag I must’ve left it on the side. I realised tonight it’s missing as I’ve gone through my bag ahead of work tomorrow and she’s admitted that she has thrown it away.

AIBU to say she should replace it? Both the makeup and medication she’s thrown away?

I've forgotten plenty of things in my life, and done everything I can to retrieve them. I've never expected anyone else to reimburse me.

I presume would still nurse you if you got sick and needed her help

I'm far from convinced. Deliberately throwing in the bin (not even chucking in a 'random stuff' basket out of sight in the cupboard under the stairs) the possessions of a known and supposedly loved person who accidentally left them there (incidentally after helping you by providing you with some medication that you needed) is an extremely clear way of demonstrating to them that they do not matter to you.

🤔

Are you got real? OMG.

Right??! I can only imagine the sort of people who come out with such rubbish were born into extreme wealth. If I only bought things I could afford to buy twice, then that would rule out the weekly supermarket shop in the last week of the month, among many other non-negotiables. Utterly stupid phrase.

They’ve always been like this.

When I was a teenager, if I ever left anything on the side/not in my room (like, ANYTHING), it was bundled into a bag and thrown on the floor. One day I left my toothbrush on the side and my mum binned it because “you can’t need it that much if you don’t put it where it belongs”. The cupboards are full of crap but they can’t have anything sat out! It’s infuriating

Well, sure, but that doesn't mean any of us are wrong for wanting to be able to use a lipstick we'd bought.

From my pov, lipstick cases are plastic and can be washed in a way that I'd find sanitary, so that's what I'd do so I could still enjoy my lipstick. I'm not revolted by things like my kitchen pans and knives after they've touched raw chicken - I just wash them.

But I appreciate, other posters may have different incomes and priorities!

I think the op's mum is clearly not going to give her £150 so she needs to decide whether she wants to clean, replace or do without the items.

Yep I think this is what I find so strange.

I feel relatively sure that if the mum had posted

“My adult daughter came round on Thursday. I had Hayfever so she passed me a pouch she keeps medication and make up in so I could find an antihistamine. She left it behind and as she hadn’t mentioned it in the 48 hours afterwards I assumed she didn’t want it and binned it. Now she’s messaged asking for it back. AIBU to tell her it’s her own fault for being so stupid and careless?”

The replies would rightfully be horrified, asking OP why she is so intolerant towards her own daughter making a simple mistake, why she didn’t text her about it asking if she wanted it back, and saying her daughter probably only left it behind in the first place because she’d removed it from her bag to give her medicine and help her out.

Not sure why the other way round is resulting in far more mixed responses!

Yeah, destroying your mother /daughter relationship for evermore over this is a completely normal and proportionate response.

Ask her to look in the bin for it or replace it monetarily. Her choice which. It may have been an accident to chuck it but she’s not accidentally refusing to get it back…

Just what I was thinking. And the complete lack of remorse, unwillingness to put it right, and then laughing at her own daughter rooting through bins due to her own fecklessness, all point to a thoroughly selfish and uncaring individual.

Would you also take the same hardline 'everybody for themselves' attitude if it was your own DM who was suffering from hay fever, didn't have any tablets for it, but you do have some tablets you could give her... but family counts for nothing, so it's her own fault and stuff her if she didn't buy some in advance?

I raise you 2 freezers of stinking fish bait /guts for fishing

ex turned them off in the shed maybe 6mths previously /around Xmas time and when discovered said it wasn’t his problem as he had moved out . Coz he is a selfish prick

this happened last summer when we had that other heatwave and temps up to 35/40 in southeast

sorting that out was hideous. So much gagging and the juice that escaped into the patio

and bless my dad. He was over and helped. I told him not to as a man in his 80’s / but he insisted and said that what dads do

i was seriously 🤮🤮🤮 with masks gloves and wipes /bags

so a bag of bbq chicken pieces /bones a few days old like op had really wasn’t that bad imo

all she had to do was to open another bin bag and carefully rip the old one on top of it and look through it

would take maybe 10 mins to find the bag

saying it took her 2hrs is such an exaggeration

I see you’ve got it and it’s ruined. I’d ask her to replace everything then. If she says no I’d say I’m really disgusted by her behaviour and upset that she cares so little for you. Let her feel bad.

Why are those are the only 2 options? I take responsibility for my own things and also help my family when needed.

Why do you frame it as though the person on the receiving end of the selfish and unpleasant behaviour would be the one destroying the relationship if she decided she didn't want to put up with it, rather than the one being selfish, unreasonable, unpleasant and remorseless? Very bizarre way of looking at things.

I saw that thread too and remember it as most people saying of course the business owner should be expected to charge for his staff's time.

OP is trying to frame this as people saying she should never forget anything. That is not the argument. People do leave stuff behind. Thing is, most people when they leave stuff behind and it gets lost, accept their own responsibility for leaving the stuff behind.

OP has repeatedly said that just chucking everything out is something that her mother has always done.

OP knew her mum is like this and still did not take care of her stuff. She has to accept her share of the blame in this.

Um... there is a sea of difference in between "expecting others to reimburse you for things you've forgotten" and expecting them to NOT IMMEDIATELY BIN SOMETHING VALUABLE, that is clearly not rubbish??! And to reimburse you for something they have picked up and chosen to bin. What planet are you on?! My parents and in-laws all live a very long way from us, so we often go and stay at theirs, and they also come to stay at ours. Without fail, every single time, in both directions, at least one thing gets left behind. Do you know how many times I have BINNED my mum's or mother-in-law's belongings that they left behind? ZERO. And how many times they have binned ours? Also zero. We put it aside in a drawer or cupboard until we see them again (and they do they same for us). And we live in a small house, so we don't have loads of room to spare, but we still do it because BINNING the belongings of someone you supposedly "love" is deeply unkind, selfish and completely out of line.

Yes, I think it's a firm mindset that a lot of people harbour on AIBU in particular. They aren't at all interested in considering the facts as presented and conveying a fair and balanced opinion; they're coming on for a fight and determined to punish the OP for daring to start a thread.

@Firegoddess
OP knew her mum is like this and still did not take care of her stuff. She has to accept her share of the blame in this.

Her mother is not a wild animal with no control over her behaviour. She is consciously choosing to bin her daughter's possessions, and she could easily choose NOT to.

But none of them equally care about or want to help you? Why does it only go one way?

My memory may well be failing me, but IIRC, a lot of the people on that thread were calling the business owner unreasonable, on the make and worse. They didn't come out of it especially well.

Applies to cars perfectly well. If you are going to get a giant, fancy car and then have a melt down when you're in a bump then you can't afford it. Get a banger/mid range and accept life happens when it gets a bump.

Sounds like my mother, doesn't care about her actions effecting others, if she decides she dosnt want something in her sight it’s thrown away regardless of who it belongs to, what it costs or means to that person and would never dream of apologising or replacing it. She once threw my DDs balance bike out because it was blue and not girly, also threw a box of toys out because she didn’t like them and thought they were a waste of money…

Who just blindly sweeps everything off a counter into a bin?

Make her pay up if she can afford it.

Ok it's not that bloody literal. No "extreme wealth" here and no make up bags with £150 of crap inside them.
If OP has to consider taking her own mother to small claims court as suggest by one poster (I presume sincerely) then she needs to buy cheaper lipstick.