I have such a non-relationship with my mum

[MrsHogg]

With both my parents really.

I wish it didn't upset me, but sometimes it does and it helps to talk about it on Mumsnet.

I am 40 weeks pregnant. I have spoken to my mother once since Christmas, when I rang her on her birthday.

We have not fallen out. This is just what passes as a normal mother / daughter relationship in her eyes.

It's not normal is it? Tell me it isn't normal for my own mother to be so completely disinterested in me that she hasn't even phoned, emailed or texted to see how I am? Or tell me it can be perfectly normal and everyone's different. That would make me feel better.

She's not being mean or anything. She's certainly not making any point. It just won't have occurred to her to phone me. She gets on with her life and I get on with mine.

I haven't spoken to my dad for months either. He emailed me a few weeks back.

In fact I don't think they have my phone number - I have given it to them - but when I phoned her on her birthday she thought I was someone else for the first few minutes of the call.

And the really stupid thing is that they think they are SO EXCITED about the arrival of the new baby. They can't wait to hear news and find out what it is and what we call it.

I just don't think it is completely and utterly unreasonable of me to want one of my parents to phone me and see how I'm doing, given how hugely pregnant I am. Don't they care? No they don't.

They speak to my brother every week at least. They phone him. And when I do phone them all I get is news of my brother.

Sounds like a classic dysfunctional family set-up where you are the scapegoat, and your brother is the golden child.

Why do you still seek their approval? (serious question). You are an adult in your own right now. You are a valuable person, however much or little your parents phone you.

Maybe take a gander on the Stately Homes thread and see if any of the literature linked to at the start of the thread rings any bells. It can help you detach and stop being hurt by the actions of inadequate parents.

This isn't usual and she is different with your brother,soit isn't a personality thing with her (as it is with my mum).

I have had to accept how she is,in my mums case it isn't worth trying to expalin it to her, she just doesn't get it and goes into denial. Only you will know if it is worth confronting her about this.

What i will say is that it might get better when you have this baby, or tbh, worse, but you will have new found confidence to deal with this.

Pregnancy and birth usually hits home all that is wrong with our relationship with our mums and what you are now feeling, is usual.

You will probably start to re-examine lots of things in your life.

Hmm, I realise I may have been using advanced Stately Homer jargon in my post. Let me try and rephrase:

I'm sorry your mother ignores you so much, and favours your brother; that has got to be very hurtful. You are not the only one in this boat on this forum, so plenty of people here will understand why you are so hurt by her neglect. It's a pain acquired in childhood that can take a lifetime to heal. Well done for putting in words how unfairly she is treating you, though. And I'm not surprised this is coming out while you are pregnant: that will unconsciously evoke memories of your own mothering, and how inadequate it was for the little-girl-you who needed to feel that she was unconditionally loved for who she was. You probably have trouble feeling like a valuable person at times, am I right? And in (vainly) hoping that you mother will pay you the attention you still crave, you're hoping to heal that hurt.

Well, I'm sorry but: forget it. If you mother could be a kind and compassionate and unconditionally loving mother to you, she would already have demonstrated it by now.

The good news is that you are a capable adult, and you can fix by your own self all the hurt she left you with. There are tons of resources on the Stately Homes thread that can help you.

I can't imagine that your mother thinks a mother - daughter relationship is SO different to a mother-son relationship. Maybe they feel closer to your brother. it's sad but unfortunatly true in a lot of cases. i allways felt like my parents preferred my brothers. I suppose you've just got to keep making an effort with them, maybe explain how you feel.

I can certainly relate to a lot of your post as my relationship with my mother is pretty similar to what you describe. Infact I am more like my Dad personality wise; my brother is more like my mother in terms of personality. I can relate also to the very painful feelings of them feeling disinterested and uncaring to your own life because my parents have acted the same and it was bloody hard for me then particularly when my now teenage DS was a baby and toddler. There was no real support then from them towards any of us.

It took me a long time not to want to seek their approval any more and I am finally there with wobbles along the way. I like myself a lot bloody more now too!.

I am seen as the "capable" one because I have a family of my own, my childfree and single brother is seen by both parents to be needing more "help" (my mother cleans his showhome of a house through her own volition a couple of times a week and does his laundry and ironing) so they all lean on each other. I was also trusted, well left by my parents, to get on with it from the age of about 14 or so, I did not realise this fully at the time but did become self sufficient and independent quite early on and started working after leaving school.

My brother has used them to his advantage with the result being he says "jump" and they say "how high?". It has been ever thus; he is far more demanding of them than I ever was.

I hope the rest of your pregnancy goes well.

Before my dds were born I barely spoke to my mum nor she to me - but she has been an excellent grandmother. I think she didn't know how to be a mum to an adult. We aren't particularly close now but I do see that she brings lots of love to my children and that I like. Maybe things will change and your parents will have a new way to connect with you too.

I am basically sorry that you are heavily pregnant and haven't got a mummy. :(