AIBU for telling my parents about my pregnancy very late? I just sometimes forget they even exist or that I have parents

[BeBreezyAquaFinch]

I need an objective gauge on this because my mother is currently upset with me, and I’m genuinely struggling to see if I’ve done something wrong.

A bit of background: I (35) am heavily pregnant with my first baby with DH, main due date is in early September but baby could come in August. My husband and I are thrilled and looking forward to being parents. Last week, I was on a casual catch up call with my mother and happened to mention the pregnancy. When she asked how far along I was and I told her, she became incredibly upset that I’d kept it a ‘secret’ for so long. The issue is it wasn’t a secret I just didn’t think they’d care. They’ve never really cared about anytbing I’ve been up to. They came to the wedding I even forgot to invite them till my husband asked. It’s not that I’m upset I just forget that they exist sometimes.

To preface: I am not heartbroken or bitter about my upbringing. I had an incredibly privileged childhood and have very fond memories of my parents taking us skiing, on holidays, I got to see the world from a very young age and picking us up for exeat weekends. But the reality is, I barely know them. We did not have nannys or anything of that sort, there’s 4 of us altogether. They’d pick us up from boarding school, take us out etc but all in all we were kind of left to our own devices, money was never an issue my father topped up our accounts whenever we wanted never questioned what we spent the money on, we’d have parties at their house all the time they never cared.

From a young age, my siblings and I were sent to boarding school in the UK. My parents lived all over the world for work Monaco, Switzerland, the US, Luxembourg. Even when we briefly went to school in Switzerland, it was a boarding school. We lived with them for maybe a few weeks a year. I made friends for life at school and have done plenty of therapy as an adult to process it all. I don't hate them at all, but I view them as distant relatives or acquaintances who happen to have given birth to me, rather than "parents."Because we only ever have superficial chat, it genuinely didn't cross my mind to announce the pregnancy to them. I just didn't think they'd care that much.

My mother thinks I've been incredibly cold and hurtful by leaving it until the final weeks to tell her she's going to be a grandmother. From my perspective, we don't have that kind of relationship.

So, AIBU? Should I have managed this differently, or is her reaction unreasonable given the distant relationship they chose to cultivate?

I genuinely do not hate them I just forget they exist. I even have fond memories with them but due to my upbringing to me they’re just somewhat random people who happen to be my parents. My husband has a very different relationship with his parents and he too attended boarding school. We do not plan on sending our child to boarding school. I was raised by other people and essentially raised in an insitution.

Looks like you were wrong about them not caring though doesn’t it?
Evidently your mum did care very much. Does this change how you perceive them?

My mother came to live in the UK from a European country and got married, she had very caring parents but a more formal relationship than people have now. She loved them very much and they her. Given the relatively high cost of international phone calls in the late 1950s/early 60s, you could argue there was a valid reason for writing a letter to her parents to let them know she was pregnant rather than phoning them - but I always marvelled at the detachment there.

Your situation is something more though - it just didn’t occur to you whatsoever to tell them. I know we don’t know you or the details of your life but your behaviour comes across as almost callous.

You sound spoilt and entitled. Your parents were very generous with you and you ought to be more respectful of them.

for some reason, I get the sense that the fortnightly phone calls are kind of you bringing them interesting little offerings, nuggets of perception and thoughts on uk politics, basically you trying to be what they seem to want, like the way a small child might show their parent something they found/made. Basically you are still trying to win their attention/love, and yes I can see how you could forget your own self and life in this dynamic.
Also I find this whole thread, some of the responses I guess, quite odd, I mean obviously few of us can relate to this kind of upbringing, but the OP is getting kind of scolded, told off and talked down to, like a naughty little child, told to grow up. Like she’s being parented, which is what she missed out on….
Your parents perhaps had/ have a belief that small children are boring and hard work, and maybe that’s why you have both forgotten you’re pregnant and forgotten to tell them. Yes to boring and hard work at times, but also incredible! Wishing you the absolute best, you might be shocked when your child gets to the age you were starting boarding school, I understand many people have no choice but that must be heartbreaking for a child…..

We had similar upbringings and have eerily similar catch-up calls (my Dad will also opine for an hour on the state of global politics). But, I think he’s awesome and enjoy the political rants.

The ‘I forgot because I didn’t think they’d care’ argument is bizarre. It only holds up if you also didn’t tell any acquaintances that you were pregnant/getting married. Those things tend not to be closely guarded secrets, most people tell everyone. Did you not tell everyone?

No I don’t . I don’t bother having people in my life I’m not bothered with . If I was taking my mother out for a sense of duty I woundnt hide a pregnancy from her deliberately. I wouldn’t see the point . They are going to find out anyway . I don’t believe in being fake like that .

This. People don't "forget" to tell their parents they are pregnant or invite them to a wedding. You don't get to 30 weeks and suddenly remember you need to tell your parents. Having a baby and a wedding are monumental occasions. I find it (like most people on this thread), impossible it just slipped your mind. It's very clearly been done as a form of punishment and resentment.

And my parents never asked me when I was having kids. Not because they didn't care but because they didn't want to be intrusive.

There are different types of privilege.
While you may have had a financially privileged upbringing, I’m wondering if you missed out on the emotional support which you needed.

Ok I’ve just read your last post about your sister’s photo - I understand more now.

But there must have been a point early in pregnancy when you made a conscious choice not to tell them, and then suddenly forgot that you’d done that when talking recently.
It may have been a self protective measure for you and your baby, so you wouldn’t feel the rejection that your sister did. I can appreciate that.

This is almost word for word what I was going to write.

If you have "catch up" chats with them once a week, it is not possible for you to forget they exist. Throughout most of my adult life, from leaving to go to university onwards, I only spoke to my parents once a week, unless there was something special to tell them about, like a wedding or a pregnancy, though those were actually announced face to face. That was normal for the time and does not mean we weren't close. Phonecalls were an expensive luxury.
I think you have to see that you are punishing them, or trying to. You feel very much that you weren't "seen" by them as a child so here you are, as an adult, trying to make them feel the same. Well, you've succeeded in making your mother upset but she won't know why you have chosen to upset her, so nothing has been achieved. But, come on, you're an adult and have been for many years. I'm not advocating "forgive and forget" - not at all, they sound like awful parents - but far from forgetting they exist, you're giving them an awful lot of head room and being harmfully dishonest with yourself.
You're about to become a parent. It's time to grow up. Get your own back by being a thousand times better at it than they were. Show yourself some respect and start being honest about your feelings. Weekly phonecalls with people you essentially don't like is not healthy. When you have the baby, you'll have the perfect excuse to cut down on them.

I think if they’re in your life and you speak to them regularly, you have to tell them these big life things. It’s disingenuous to say you thought they wouldn’t care. Even if you don’t think they’ll care to be involved with the pregnancy or baby, you knew they’d be hurt or angry not to even be something so major. It’s not a minor thing you forget to mention. Every time you spoke to them, it was a choice not to tell them.

If you want to cut them off completely, you’d be entirely reasonable to. But keeping a relationship with them means telling them the major things, even if you keep them at arms length for the little ones.

People seriously need to have a word with themselves when they say the OP wasn’t abused or neglected. They think because she was given material things and opportunities that she was nurtured and loved in the way that children need? I think the OP is absolutely the product of her upbringing. I’m
not sure exactly what her parents can possibly expect. I’m sure there are many parents who use boarding schools for their children who do not have a distant relationship with their children but they must have been making some efforts to know their children and their lives in the time they are together and while away.

I have many questions for you OP. My child has not been sent to boarding school and I can’t imagine not seeing her daily. I’d want to be sending care packages and letters if I couldn’t see her or phone her. I’d want to know who her friends were and who fancied who and what was the gossip. What music she was listening to and TV programmes she liked. This is the kind of nonsense I DO in fact chat about. You mention letters home but what response did you get. What happened when you were home for the holidays? Were you all together and what did that look like.

It's very clear to me that this is the case.

Some PP are seeing that OP had a financially privileged upbringing and are now accusing her of being spoilt and entitled for not repaying her parents financial investment with an emotional one.

I can't even imagine a childhood where you only get to see your parents a few weeks a year (and as a parent I cannot imagine choosing this for my son). You're effectively being raised by other adults and it's no wonder the relationship is damaged.

I think OP deserves some kindness, as based on the childhood she's described I can understand how she's got to a place where she's withholding personal information from her parents.

You didn't forget to tell them about the wedding or the baby. You didn't tell them because you didn't think they'd care.
It's not the same thing
You didn't want to give them the opportunity to upset you by not caring

But she never said she forgot she was pregnant, not sure how you managed to teach such a stupid conclusion.

That can’t be real. Im well aware that kids sent to boarding schools from a young age often don’t have warm relationships with their parents but there are basic things like wedding and birth of a grandchild that people understand are important to share even in not warm relationships.

Surely in your therapy you would have come across a concept that maybe that was what they thought is giving you the best opportunities, and out of not coldness or lack of interest in your life ?

Have you never spoken about your feelings to your parents, to explain how you feel or ask for what they think ? If not, you had some crappy therapy, I’m sorry.

are you on the spectrum ? Other than that I don’t understand how you can genuinely think that wedding / birth of a child are not important in a family where there was no falling out and no cutting contact.

I think you need to have more therapy pronto

It’s not that I’m upset I just forget that they exist sometimes.

If you talk to them once a fortnight, you clearly don't forget they exist.

Kept forgetting to tell them?? Bullshit. If you didn’t get on with them, fine, but that’s not the case here. Your poor mum. Final weeks of pregnancy should be all about you but given your actions, I think you need to involve your mum a little.

Come on, you’re going to judge her based off that phrase which may even be OP’s wording? Op becoming a mum = mum becoming a grandma. They’re the same thing.

@Ceramiq "Your parents were very generous with you", materially, yes, emotionally though, they were absent, which for a growing young person is essential.

@BeBreezyAquaFinch this article may offer you some insight, it may help untangle your pain somewhat.

Enjoy your baby, a new chapter for you and your husband.

I can believe you forgot OP. I would imagine that if you were diagnosed with cancer it would not cross your mind to tell them either. We share with people who are a source of support to us- your parents by their own choices are not. Providing is not parenting, it’s great they gave you all those material benefits but they did it at the cost of their connection with you. If we were working all over the world, kids would be coming with us everywhere and sharing the experience, if it were too dangerous for them one of us would stay with them. Similarly, being retired and having more time hasn’t made them any more engaged in their children’s lives from what you’re saying. From what you’re saying they’re never really interested in your life, so why would you think they’d like to know- it feels like nothing about you is important to them, so then it doesn’t cross your mind to mention things that are important to you. You probably broke some unspoken norms by not including your parents in your life events but I don’t think it’s some horrible transgression. Your mother has every right to feel whatever she feels too, I’d be honest with her about why you did (be ready for pushback like on here about how providing life of privilege is all that matters) but maybe it can open up a conversation and make them realise that they are missing out. You mention they had tough childhoods- their generation didn’t do therapy like ours does- it might be that they would like to be closer to you and your siblings they just literally don’t know how- so it’s not that they’re disinterested just that they don’t know that it’s ok to be or how to express it. Maybe this situation will make them realise that treating grandkids pics as clutter is not the right way to go about things.

No, she just said she forgot to tell her mum she was pregnant which is quite clearly bollocks - when you speak to someone regularly you don’t “forget” about your pregnancy 🙄

Yanbu @BeBreezyAquaFinch your distant relationship with them is a perfectly natural consequence of having the most significant years of your development spent at boarding school. You are "lucky" in that your experience was not particularly negative or traumatic but still, the bond with your parents just isn't there, and that's ok. You are doing fine.

Don't try to explain all this to your parents. Apologise for the unintentional hurt you caused them, but without saying anything like what's in your OP to explain why. Just something vague like "everything has been so busy, I've hardly told anyone"

I hope you manage to develop a stronger bond with your own child and future further children, if any. You may find this difficult due to not having a pattern/example to follow so don't be shy/reluctant about getting councelling or family therapy to help if you need it.

A relationship where you have catch up chats is not a distant one where you 'forget' they exist.

You deliberately attempted to not invite them to your wedding, and you have quite deliberately not told them about your pregnancy..and it's nothing to do with how interested you think they'd be.

You have had an incredibly privileged upbringing, including a free flat in London and a job handed to you, as well as having an allowance.

I can only assume there is some resentment somewhere about neglect as a child, otherwise I genuinely don't see why you want to hurt and punish your parents by keeping major life events from them?

Saying 'You don't really know them' hasn't stopped you grabbing every penny and opportunity from them has it?

Perhaps do some work on why you simultaneously resent them, whilst not turning down all the money and opportunities presented to you , even as an adult.

Is autism diagnosed anywhere in your family? I have several male friends whose relationship with parents is similar, but they all have autism. There’s a tendency to mentally list things to remember to say before the duty phone call. And absolutely no sense of ‘wanting’ to spend time with them, check in with them, see how they are.

I see you not telling your parents as a power move, you don't see them as distant relatives - no one speaks on the phone to distant relatives they don't care about.
I think you'd like to see them as distant relatives, even so sharing pregnancy and wedding news is not usually considered very private business - you'd share it with a distant relatives if you were having a chat with them.
You have not come to terms with your upbringing, you are still playing a game - I'm guessing you played it all your life as a way of coping with what you perceive is rejection. At least learn to be honest with yourself. There's a lot more hurt to be resolved.