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See all MNHQ comments on this thread

Original poster

I Don't love my Daughter!

292 replies

LouLou80 · 07/08/2009 05:07

hi, my names Louise, i am 29 and i have a husband who i have been with for over 10 years. i have a 9 year old Son and 3 years ago i had twins, a boy and a girl. I have a situation that i often feel guilty about and i wonder if its normal for this to happen. Basically i love my boys to bits but i do not love my daughter, i never have done. I do care about her and i don't wish any harm towards her but its always been about my boys. When the twins were born I immediately bonded with my second Son but had trouble bonding with my daughter. I totally focused on my newborn son and resented having her around. It got so bad that after 6 months i took her to my mums and left her there. I would see her quite often either when i visited my mum or my mum came to me and i made sure that the boys got to see their sister. i would give my mum money towards her food and clothes and i would make sure everything was ok. I even enjoyed seeing her at times but was always glad to leave her behind afterwards. Earlier this year my mum sat down with me and said that as much as she loved having her live with her she felt that it was time for me to try and bond with her more and suggested that it was time to have her live with me again, i agreed to this so she came to live with me in April. Three months later she went back to live with her nan because it wasn't working at all. Perhaps we didn't give it much time but she missed her nan, her nan missed her, the boys were not used to having a girl around 24/7 and as for me? well i really tried but i just don't love her like i love the boys. So now things are back as they were. She is part of the family and always has been treated as such and i make sure that she sees plenty of her twin brother as its important for them to have a relationship, he sometimes goes and stays over at his nans and they get to spend plenty of time together. So i don't have any concerns there. But its the fact that i don't love my daughter that does sometimes bother me and i do feel bad that i rejected her the way i did and that i took her and left her with my mum. As it happens my mum loves having her and she is a fit and active woman so its not a problem. But why don't i love my daughter like i love my boys? any thoughts/advice? i'm not a bad person am i?

OP posts:
Milliemuffin · 11/08/2009 12:24

Get her home NOW where she belongs before you do any more damage to all 3 of your children.

elmofan · 11/08/2009 14:24

this is the most disturbing post i have ever seen on MN . i can not begin to understand how any mother could do this to her child .

ZZZenAgain · 11/08/2009 19:26

I never spend much time wondering if an OP is telling the truth tbh. I just assume they are but I came a cropper on the one about the dh wanting a fully "haired" wife...

In a way this thread reminds me of the one about a mother planning to leave her 3 year old dd to be brought up by the grandmother while she went off to study medicine in Cambridge. Will we see an article before long on the question under what circumstances should grandparents be surrogate parents. I thought at the time, the OP sounded a lot older and I wondered if it was actually the grandmother posting as the young mother.

We won't ever know so I give lou the benefit of the doubt. If you're still followingthe thread lou, I hope the meeting with the GP was helpful and you felt able to tell him enough. It is quite different to admit in real life to not being the fully loving perfect mum. Well done if you managed to get the ball rolling and I hope you get the help you need.

Interested in this thread?

Then you might like threads about these subjects:

Families General parenting
DamonBradleylovesPippi · 11/08/2009 20:53

ZZZenAgain if I may that was such a different thread. That poster loved her dd and was going to see her often and regularly. The dd was not rejected or not chosen. Also it seemed that the OP was doing all that hard work and sacrifices for the benefit of the family. Very very different IMHO.

pigletmania · 11/08/2009 20:56

Yes that is a totally different situation, i exect that the dd was very well loved and wanted by the mother, the mother is trying to build a better life for her children and its only temporary.

lisad123 · 11/08/2009 21:03

You need to be the parent here and get her home. Yes its hard, most of us dont find parenting easy.
Maybe you should start with weekends (why you havent been doing that from the start is beond me). Yes she will find it hard, she properly knows you dont want her there, and is used to be cared for as an only child with a loving nan.
Im shocked your dh didnt refuse at all? Did he have any say in this?

Get some help asap and get her home before you screw her up for life.

katiestar · 12/08/2009 09:26

Why should she get her home ?Surely she is better in a household where she is loved than being wrenched from it into a new place where the mother figure can't bond with her.
From the child's point of view I think it is very similar to teh medical student situation.

ZZZenAgain · 12/08/2009 09:30

yes , yes I know what you mean but I'm just thinking both are 3 year old dds, both to be brought up by the grandmother etc etc. After what someone wrote below, I was kind of wondering if a journalist might not be researching the whole concept of leaving dc to be brought up by grandparents and probing to find out when we would say, yes ok that's fine and when we would come down on the mother. Don't worry, just a touch of paranoia on my part, nothing permanent. As I said, I don't really sweat it that much usually, I just assume people are not trolls, including here.

DamonBradleylovesPippi · 12/08/2009 10:42

Yes I see what you mean. Usually I also tend to assume it's all true only because otherwise there will be little point in posting at all and whether true or not there's always some food for thought, like in this case. But I start to think this is made up. The op is not back and the situation is too much 'jane eyre' style without much depth. I did believe the university one however and to reply to katie star I do not tink that the DDs would have the same perspective on this - one is loved one isn't! the fact that she won;t see her mum everyday won't hinder that. my children see my dh less then half what they see me but not once they thought he didn;t love them.

Horton · 12/08/2009 13:17

Was the other one three? I thought she was a younger child, maybe 12 or 18 months.

letsgostrawberrypicking · 12/08/2009 14:48

I emailed MNHQ on monday about this and a thread where again the op hasnt come back on which is similar posting style but haven't had a reply yet, apart from the initial one acknowledging my email. Am not usually suss abouut threads and apololgies to OP if genuine and you are busy sorting out your family, but ...

Horton · 12/08/2009 16:06

What's the other thread?

letsgostrawberrypicking · 14/08/2009 22:56

It was one from last friday where the op gave loads of info about her situation - a very personal issue, all very quickly, got lots of replies, all in the space of a few hours then has disappeared since.

Maybe it's linked with th new DM thread as it seemed very "scripted" to me

MNHQ have still not told me anything though

messalina · 15/08/2009 00:29

Obviously a lot has already been said on this matter and it appears that some MN users are now sceptical about the veracity of the OP. The OP seemed heartfelt and I find it hard to believe that anyone could be so callous as to make that story up. LouLou probably hasn't responded because she has more pressing concerns. I was really, really shocked by her story and feel very sad for her, but especially for her daughter. As she is now 3, I fail to see how it cannot have had a traumatic effect on her, unless perhaps she is still too little to understand. But what also shocked me was the relative frequency of MN users claiming that they too sometimes didn't love their children. Perhaps I am totally naive but I always manage to divorce my feelings about DD's crying/refusal to eat etc. from my feelings about her as a person and how much I love her. Finally, I think it's a very interesting, and disturbing issue, whether parents do actually love or identify more with one child rather than another.

Quattrocento · 15/08/2009 00:41

What a horrible and shocking story.

Well done to the posters who were able to swallow hard and try to give helpful advice

Therapy might be the answer

You might actually consider asking your husband for a divorce so that he could live with your daughter and she would see and feel that at least she has one parent who loves her

Zarn · 15/08/2009 10:39

I am so sorry to read your post. For both you and your daughter. Neither of you deserve this sadness. Don't give up. It is not that you don't love her. You do. Your unconscious knows this. For some reason your conscious mind is protecting you from the fear of loving her. It doesn't matter why. What matters is that a bond starts to grow. Please don't pressure yourself. It so doesn't happen overnight.

I discovered this post the other day and just think it is wonderful and so so true.

Please read Generations of Expectation: Do Maternal Instincts Really Exist. I feel this may shed a little light on bonding with your baby girl.

lifelovelust.co.uk is the blog site the article is found on.

I hope it will help now.

zoena · 06/09/2009 13:50

hi everyone, i actually wish i had found this thread sooner but oh well!
i actually had a little cry over some of the harsh judgemental comments left, after having suffered the worst form of breakdown following birth (its zoe from help me love my baby) i find it hard to comprehend anyone being anything but helpful or compassionate to a woman obviously in a deeply traumatic situation.
yes it is a very sad situation for her daughter to be in and her post may have come accross as unemotional but she has been very brave coming on here, i first told people about how i felt about izzy on a mums forum the day i was diagnosed with pnd, i wasnt truly honest as some of the thoughts i had were horrendous (i most definately would have been shot down on here by the looks of it!)
i think the not liking girls is because of some deep hidden psychological issue that needs to be dealt with, i felt depressed when pregnant and i kind of subconsciously knew that things would be right when izzy was born but tried to bury it.
i know some may not agree but in some ways it is a double edged sword as if lous daughter stayed with her undoubtly she would pick up on the non attachment (if a five month old baby can then a tolder def will) but going to her moms just confirms shes sort of not wanted at home. so she needs help either way!
it is a very very sad situation and i really hope lou has taken the positive advice from here and got some help and i wish them all the best and lou if you ever want to talk im here xxx

zoena · 06/09/2009 13:53

and even at three therapy can most definately help, my eldest was four when i had mine and it one hundred percent helped our relationship, she actually told me she loved me for the first time, and we are now normal for want of a better word!!

FabBakerGirlIsBack · 06/09/2009 13:59

My mother never wanted me.

She wanted a boy.

She never loved me.

She gave me away.

I have, and never will, get over it.

I can't say what I really want to but sort this out for your daughter's sake. What SHE needs is far more important that what you want.

twinmam · 06/09/2009 14:26

Fab What a horrible, horrible thing for you to endure. I am more than impressed that you have gone on to be a good mother despite the terrible mothering you received. Well done for being restrained about this when in many ways this is the kind of thing that must force you once again to confront what was done to you. I only hope that reading about this situation helps you to keep on realising that it was never ever your fault, that you are loveable and deserve to be loved.

I have followed this thread from the start and it is one of the saddest I have read. It is hard not to judge because it is so incomprehensible to so may of us. God, there are times when I don't really like my DCs or particularly like being a mum but I have always loved them. I guess that they and I am fortunate in that.

Troll or not, there clearly are women out there who have these feelings or lack of them and they certainly need help.

However, I would say that we can't help how we feel but we can (usually) help how we behave and sending a child away from its family and its twin seems, I'm afraid, terribly terribly cruel and lacking in responsibility. This will surely have been a terrible blow to the entire family and not just the poor little girl, for whom I feel so sad. If this is real then well done for being brave to own up to feelings that society deem as reprehensible and please please seek the help you need for your daughter's sake and that of your family.

TheDMshouldbeRivened · 06/09/2009 14:45
Sad
FabBakerGirlIsBack · 06/09/2009 16:09

I was so frightened of having a girl in case it was a repeat of my mother and me.

I have 2 boys and a girl and they are my world. I can't understand how she can give up her child for the reasons she did. I best not post them or I might get sweary.

twinmam · 06/09/2009 16:28

Fab, I can imagine what you might want to say to this thread.

.......And you Riven

Am kind of lost for words at the irony and crappiness of it all

TheDMshouldbeRivened · 06/09/2009 17:40

she never came back though, did she.

zoena · 06/09/2009 19:03

fab what a horrible thing to have happen to you but i am so happy you broke the chain and went the opposite way to your mom, i never wanted kids full stop because of my mom, wouldnt have mattered what sex i just thought i would be a terrible mother like she was!
no she didnt come back so maybe she has been getting the help she needed, sad sad situation for everyone involved and yes real or not i have no doubt there are women out there that this has happened to, having a mental illness does affect your judgement and common sense etc... i used to leave my dd with her dad and go off driving for hours on end, i always came home (even tho i didnt want to, because of my other daughter)