What's your relationship with your Mum like?

[Griffomais]

I have a very bad relationship with my Mum and now I'm a Mum myself I am desperate not to have that with my DD. When I was a child my Mum worked 6 days a week full time and I spent the majority of my time at my Gran's. When I was 12 my Mum gave up her job to become a Childminder - something I have never been able to understand. Now please don't judge me on this it's how I feel and I can't help it. I'm angry that she looked after other people kids while I was cared for by my Gran. Result being my Gran died when I was 14 and for me it was like losing a parent the grief I felt was overwhelming I could not cope with losing her even now 20 odd years later I still think of her often and feel that sense of loss. My Mum is rude , arrogant, always right, critical and generally won't do anything for anyone unless it benefits herself. I can't be around her for long periods of time as I actually dislike her. What an absolutely awful person I am - I know. As I'm getting older I'm finding it more and more difficult to cope with our awful relationship. I'm sorry if I've offended anyone by speaking like this I'm just really looking to find out if it's just me or if there are others going through the same sorts of feelings.

My relationship with my mum is great but only because she is great. Please don't feel bad for not liking your mum, if she hasn't been nice to you it's not your duty to like her.

Not about work. I have no problem whatsoever with the fact my mum worked (in childcare as it happens). In fact I found it inspiring. Personally I don't think children should think the "default" person to quit work should automatically be the mum, provided the children are well looked after.

However the key difference would be that my mum is kind, cheerful and creative. She was/is a typical mum/gran who looks out for her family. So in context I see her job as a way of supporting us and helping other families.

It sounds like you blame yourself/childcare for your grans death.OP. I doubt very much that childcare contributed to her passing away. In many cultures grandparents doing childcare is "the norm" which it wouldn't be if it was risky or too much.

Thanks blue. Hi Squizita sorry maybe I wasn't clear it wasn't about my Mum working it's about her looking after someone else's children and not her own, her previous job was nothing similar. My Gran died because she was ill absolutely nothing to do with looking after me. In my eyes my Gran was my Mum and I lost her at 14. I'm so glad you have such a good relationship with your Mum she sounds lovely - you're very lucky , thank you for your advice.x

I have a generally good relationship with my mum, though sometimes get a bit fed up if I spend too long with her as she makes "useful suggestions" that she then won't let go of.

However I think that my relationship with my mum is irrelevant to yours. You dislike someone who is dislikeable. That's just logical. As you say, your gran was your mother figure. Most people love their mothers/mother figures as they grow up so close to them that they are used to any foibles they have and take them as they are, the same for other members of immediate family. You also then choose your friends as likeable people. The most common person people dislike seems to be their inlaws - people you haven't chosen and haven't grown up close enough to to be used to their ways. Your mum is more like that to you - neither chosen or familiar.

If I were you, I'd resent your mum as a sort of usurper. It seems to me to be perfectly reasonable to feel as you do. So to move on you need to accept your feelings as justified.

Thank you Pico you're absolutely right I need to accept my feelings and this is the first step. I've never spoken to anyone about my true feelings it always felt wrong but I'm really tired of suppressing how I actual feel. It was starting to really affect me so I'm going to try really hard to accept and move forward. Thanks again.x

Mine is up and down. She carries immeasurable baggage from a traumatic childhood. I generally feel very sorry for her, but she is never wrong and hard on me- so it's hard. She's an amazing women in many ways and very good to me and my family. We have had a massive fall out today though - and as a result mothers day meal is a write off as I'm too upset anyway. (She has a bad temper and screamed abuse at me before stomping off) Sorry you feel bad for resenting your mum, but it's justifiable from where I am sitting. Acceptance is key, if you accept her as she is it can only help matters. I need to learn to practice what I preach more... I've come a fair way though.

There are some things that it is hard to say to people in real life because they may judge or reject us for saying those things. Often we don't want to jeopardise our real life relationships by exposing the deep stuff. I find the anonymity of the internet good for that type of thing. But I have also had counselling which was very useful as counsellors don't really judge or reject you. Is there any way for you to access some counselling?

My mum was a childminder during our (brother and i) formative years. She's an excellent mum. However my relationship with my dad is quite different, one of the best things i did was to stop thinking he 'should' have been this or 'shouldnt' have done that. Instead i think about his values, and hes seriously self absorbed so they were hard to see at first. She may be your mum, but shes just a person too.

Just the fact that your anxious about being a good mum shows that you will be!

Difficult. She is almost childlike in her selfishness, she has a complete disregard for other people's feelings and struggles. If something is going badly in her life she expects me to drop everything to listen to her moan, but won't take any advice/help as 'there's no point' and 'everything is too difficult'. She needs to be looked after and can't be on her own. She had an affair when I was 16 and left to live with the OM (they married and are now divorced). My brother and I stayed with my dad, who is amazing. She blames my dad for the affair as he worked too much. She didn't ask us to go with her when she left and has never offered me anywhere to stay since. At least once a year she falls out with me for a minor slight, she will ignore me completely when I try and sort it out and has told a relative that she ignores me on purpose so that I will 'worry she's done something stupid'. If I try and talk to her rationally she tells me to 'stop being so fucking rational'.
Having said that, I blame a lot of how she is on her upbringing. Her father left when she was young and her mother worked very long hours making her a latch key kid from about the age of 6. I know she loves me, but she expects me to take responsibility for her happiness. She often treats me as the parent in the relationship.

Phew! Cathartic at 2.30am when I can't sleep

Not all mums are perfect. Far from it actually and it's easy to feel saddened when you look on the relationships others have with their mums.

My relationship with my mum is pretty poor. We've never had a row but she is not a person I would ever go to in times of trouble. She is the sort of person who saps the joy out of a room. She is always suffering fictitious pain (this has been the case for years), and has ruined many a special event due to it. Over the years when I've tried to do nice things for her and my dad, there has always been a problem with it (we bought them tickets to see a show at great cost to us and have repeatedly been told since how rubbish the seats were and what a nightmare the whole experience was). I have never had any of those memory moments with my mum. Even buying my wedding dress was an ordeal as she refused to go without my dad who ended up waiting in the car outside!!
Not everyone has it perfect but actually my upbringing has inspired me up be the best possible mum I can be. I know I'm doing a better job than she did.

Hi OP. My relationship with my mother is terrible. She is bossy, critical, argumentative and manipulative. I still allow her to have a (monitored) relationship with my DD, but I dont feel bad for disliking her. Anyone would have struggled, growing up with her, i think. It is an ongoing source of stress in my life though.

Does she make you feel guilty for anything?

Non-existent, and she certainly hasn't been near my children in the last ten years.

I have a terrible relationship with my Mum, and am from a family of daughters. I was secretly delighted when DS came along, figuring I wouldn't fuck up with a boy. However, when DD followed, I think I managed to avoid my Mum's mistakes. My Mum is an alcoholic narcissist who cares only for herself and who has broken all of her children in different ways (I largely escaped because I am the oldest so she was at her best then. Also, went to boarding school).

Very hard, however. I rarely drink, which helps. I have good friends and other family and a great DH to provide examples of normal behaviour. And I am very, very alert to being like her.

The fact that you worry, means you will do just fine. Sorry about your Gran. Parenting can be found all over, often not just from actual parents. She is your role model. You will be great.

It sounds like you have been holding on to this resentment for a long time. It's good to talk about it. Get some counselling or read up on forgiveness so that you can learn to let it go. Your mum is difficult, but she's human.

Absolutely awful relationship. You described my mum. She has an appalling anger issue and will not hesitate to scream and use foul language in front of my young child ( who emulated her last time). I can cut myself off from her very easily now. I feel ill in her presence after a few days. She is like a spoiled child and has caused us a lot of grief. Nobody can understand that a mother is capable of being vile and so I don't discuss it. It is like a taboo. I probably need counselling as I feel a lot of anger and resentment towards her. I sound like an awful person.

Hi OP, I know how you feel! My mum and dad divorced after they had my two older sisters, but she got pregnant after seeing him ten years later and I happened. They remarried two days before I was born. I've always known I was an accident (oh that drives DH crazy!) and she's been very close to my sisters, while I couldn't get the time of day from her.

I grew up believing children were horrible, because of the way she behaved around me. There are stories of my saying I didn't want "stupid kids" at my 7th birthday party! I now have to deal with seeing her fawn over my nieces and nephews, doing all the things she would never do with me as a child.

It's taken counselling and a lot of love from my DH and his family to get to the point where we are TTC. My counsellor was horrified and had me challenge her, which made zero difference, so she said screw her!

I go through the motions at Xmas and birthdays and leave her to her own devices rather than worry about it.

Hope you feel better reading this

My relationship with my mum is great. But as a child my mum didn't work because she suffered with terrible panic attacks so we were always with mum. My daughter is 5month s old & im returning to work in a months time full time & i'm worried about our relationship as she gets older because i'll be working full time but my mum didn't so i was a real mummys girl x

I think what you have wrote is brave and the first step to you moving forward. We don't have to like our parents as we dont get to choose them.

My mum is great and everyone loves her but for some reason she winds me up, always has done. i find it difficult spending time with her as I have no patience with her and I end up being mean. I don't know why I feel like this, as its been happening since I was a child.

I wish you well for the future x

I hate my mother as she is an abusive bitch and the sooner she dies the better as the world will be a better place without her in it.

It feels like a bit of a taboo subject sometimes doesn't it? We are always supposed to love our mums because they are our mums.. But the reality is, we get older, wiser, start to understand what makes a good relationship, what decent parenting is about.. and it's harder to paper over the cracks.

My mum is a good person but she never really matured past a suburban 15 year old. So she's never wrong, always has incredibly juvenile fall outs with people, takes really petty stuff seriously, cannot process any feelings of guilt, has a fight or flight response to any stress or perceived conflict. Slight drinking problem.. So she's a pita a lot of the time and I struggle as a daughter to process my own feelings of frustration and anger at her.

No parent is perfect, some are fucking terrible! And it's ok to hold your relationship and experience up to the light and go 'not ok'. Good luck with it! X x