Teen daughter favours her Dad over me

[parentoone]

I’m feeling hurt as my teen daughter is favouring her Dad over me. She’s almost 18 and will be going to Uni soon. I do understand that these ‘favourites’ can go in waves, but the can be really nasty to me. I’m the one in the family who does all the planning, organising etc and I know that it’s always me who has to play ‘bad cop’ where her Dad is more like a brother sometimes, but recently she has said some nasty things. She says I have an ‘attitude’ or an ‘rude’ when this is absolutely not the case. If it were true, I’d change it. I feel totally alienated in my own home. For example, last night, I headed to bed, knocked gently on her door and said ‘night night. I love you’. She grunted. Then, when I went to bed, she got up and went downstairs as her Dad was closing up the house. Had a laugh with him, then skipped upstairs shouting ‘Night Dad! Love you’’. I try not to be hurt, but I am….

I am going through this too at the moment with my DD and DH very cliquey. My DH is a history teacher and she loves history so they have bonded over that. I feel very excluded and they sometimes make fun of me which I find very rude and call them out on it. Fortunately I have 3 other children so just focus on that and hope it’s just a phase.

Its because you do all the parenting. You're the un-fun one.

Stop parenting her. Let Dad sort her laundry, dishes and meals. Let him meal plan and worry about buying her favourite snacks.

Step back and be the fun one. Start saying "ask your Dad" when she demands from you.

Its probably too late but you can move forward better if you take your foot off the gas pedal and share the burden with your husband.

Your husband is the problem here, not your daughter.

I think this is quite normal, but I do think actually that it’s your Dh who needs to call her out on it. I find dd, who is younger, tends to favour Dh because he is more fun. He may not get on her so much about losing her school jumper or doing homework. He’s more let’s go out and do this fun activity at the weekend. I get a lot of “you ruin everything” because I’m the one saying you can’t go with this friend because you need to finish homework.

I overheard her talking to her friends the other day and they were all discussing which parent was their favourite. Dd said, my dad is really fun and crazy, but my mum is the sensible one who does everything for me. ☺️

I suspect your dd deep down feels like this too actually. Your Dh where he catches her being rude though does need to speak up for you and call out her behaviour.

Thanks so much everyone. I took her out for coffee and we had a good chat. All is well now and I’m actually so proud of what a balanced, mature and empathetic daughter she is ☺️

I am glad you feel better about things but this is also on your Dh because mine would have pulled our children up on their behaviour and pointed out all the things I do. It is unfair for your Dh to be the only one who gets the nice side of her. To badly quote a tv show, "I am your main caregiver and yet I get the worst of you." Why should you do all the things for your DD when she is nasty toward you? I wouldn't do it.