A safe place for people with crap mothers, in the run up to mothers day

[pocketsaviour]

Last year I remember feeling very conflicted on mumsnet around the whole mothers day deal.

Lots of threads inviting "Share the best lesson your mum has taught you!" and when I replied "how to take a punch from your dad" it was a bit of a mood killer :(

So this is a safe place for all of us with damaging mothers to freak the fuck out make plans for M-Day which will keep ourselves sane and healthy.

I've been NC with my mother for over 10 years and it doesn't really have an impact any more, I do feel sorry for my dc at this time of year though, as they seem to have ended up with two useless, totally disinterested grandmothers. They're supposed to stump up for cards/flowers/chocolates for Mother's Day but expected to be invisible for the rest of the year.

My mother told me after I had my son that I was really lucky as she was so disappointed when she had me becuase she wanted a boy.😳 She didn't seem to think thre was anyhting wrong with her statement!

I always have a little cry on the day. I send my Mum a neutral card as we have little contact. She adores my sister, loves her unconditionally but regrets having me and has resented me ever since. I m fifty this year and still struggling with her rejection. I have my own lovely dc so concentrate on them but that hurt never seems to go away.

This kind of pain is slow burn, goes on over years. There's no escape.

It is, Timefortea. I always think it's like death by a thousand cuts

Am in same position, NC for nearly a year, i don't think you ever stop wanting the mother you never had, love to all daughters who understand how painful it is

This is my first Mother's Day since going NC, but my second as a mother myself, so it is bittersweet.

Ashtrayheart - that sounds just like my mum! she lives 3 miles away, rarely comes to visit, doesnt phone etc, i had a text earlier asking why i hadnt gone round ( no arrangements were made to go over) it was her hint of did you get me anything!

She doesn't bother much with the kids and has little interest in anything i have to say, and has been like it for yrs. Ive never heard her say she loves me, its never in any cards and gifts are not overly well thought out. I hate all the amazing mum cards and you do so much blah blah blah and go for a simple happy mothers day card.

I save the amazing ones for my MIL who is amazing and will do anything for us, sadly she doesnt live close by :(

My mum once uttered these words " i dont want to hear about the pregnancy as i cant go thruogh that again! ( referring to a miscarrige id had) and " they are your children dont expect me to be looking after them"

She has never had them overnight or given them tea, ive given up asking her to mind them as her work in a local shop is of higher importance and if asked to work she would rather do that than help me out.

I promise myself to be a better grand parent for my kids if and when the time comes

Mossop

My mother is also scarily similar to yours in many respects. She also told me when I was in my teens that she would never look after any children I would go onto have. And indeed she has not.

I personally would not send a card, even a generic one, to your mother.

Mossop "they are your children dont expect me to be looking after them"

Yeah, I got this. I had asked my mum to take my DS (then 8 yrs old) overnight and bring him with her to MY WEDDING TO HIS DAD. Nope. Way too much hassle.

My grandma stepped up, as she often did. She loved him. Because I'd "claimed" him as mine, and therefore as far as she was concerned, he was mine, biological ties be damned.

I have asked myself many times how someone so warm, loving and accepting managed to raise my mum to be so cold and unloving.

Funnily enough I miss my grandma - as an actual person - far more than I miss this construct of what I thought was a mother. I spent a lot of my early years with my gran because my mum couldn't cope (apparently) and I thank my lucky stars for that because I think that's how I learned how to parent. I always felt safe in my grandparents house. They had no TV, no telephone, no fridge! They did have a wireless, so my grandpa could get the football results :D This was the 70s btw, I'm not that old!

graphista I'm actually a bit jealous of you saying you know lots of people in real life with crap mums. I think I must be living in a magical cloud cuckoo land because I seem to be surrounded by dutiful, doting grandparents doing the school run, school plays, trips to the park, you name it. And they all seem to dote on their daughters as much as the dgc. Makes me feel like shit.

User I've met my share of 'smug daughters' too I just tend to not become friends with them because they don't and never will 'get me'.

I've previously lived in areas with greater movement but now live in an area where few people move away and nobody moves here (no jobs, deprived area, arse end of nowhere).

People here are SO close to their families I consider it unhealthy, I see a lot of enmeshment.

Teens here can't get babysitting jobs because nobody hires babysitters. Very few people go on nights out, they're more likely to go round to family/friends (more likely family) with a bottle and have a night in, take the kids with them or on rare nights out (big birthdays, hen do's) then grandparents/aunties/uncles/older cousins babysit.

Their 'best friends' are siblings/siblings-in-law/cousins, they've all gone to the same schools together (they rarely even move out of the PART of TOWN let alone to another part of county from where they grew up) seriously - if they move house to a different postcode sector there's discussions on if their kids will still be able to go to the school they went to, will they experience acrimony from the neighbours..., I'm talking about house moves that are literally 2 streets away! Yet they talk as if they're emigrating!!

It's so far removed from my experience.

I remember the first time I asked my mother if she wanted to come to oldest DC's first Christmas play with me. She said 'why would I want to do that?' and actually made me feel unreasonable in asking her! I have always been so jealous of parents who have GP's with them at school events. Don't even get me started on 'bring a grandparent to school day'.

Mother has never attended any of my DC's school events, even when she only lived up the road and never worked, but then again she never attended any of mine either (not even parent's evenings) so I have no idea why I have always found that upsetting!

Thanks so much for this thread! This will be my 2nd nc mothers day and I don't really know how I feel about it. I hate how this gets rammed down your throat and we're all supposed to be so gushing and grateful to someone who doesn't give a shit. to everyone on here wishing they had a mum who loves them.

We will be spending Mother's Day this year on our annual pilgrimage to DD2's grave which is located in my home town 4 hours away because her birthday was this week and we always go on the weekend closest to that date.

Since my mother disowned me and my DC over 3 years ago, she has been continuing to tend DD2's grave and planting flowers on it which I find really upsetting and asked her to stop doing via a letter to a sibling 2 years ago (mother has moved and I am not ALLOWED to know where she is). The only reason she is doing it is to get at me. DD was stillborn so she had no relationship with her. Not one member of my family so much as hugged me in the aftermath. She doesn't give a damn about my living children and ignored DD1 when she tried to contact her and my siblings off her own back when she became an adult (in a misguided attempt to try to resolve the situation).

DD1 buried a small box with a ring in it on the grave the year before last, last year it had been dug over recently and the box was gone.

I have actually allowed myself to feel the loss of DD2 over the last couple of years because when I was deep in the FOG, I wasn't allowed any feelings of my own, of course and never grieved her in a healthy way, just felt guilt that her death was proof my 'defectiveness'. My mother even had a row with me, which is one of DD1's earliest memories, about what the priest would say at the funeral (god moves in mysterious ways, etc) when I didn't want one there at all and chose flowers to be dropped on her coffin when it was lowered without consulting me.

I actually hope we will 'catch' my mother at her grave this year (she will milk it on Mother's Day) so I can throw her crappy flowers in her face along with a good bit of the soil that she would have planted them in. I cannot believe that I have had to consider disturbing DD's grave and moving it up here just so that woman can't get her hands on it.

This will be the first year I won't be making any effort.

I don't want my children to bother with Mother's Day. I am a mother everyday and I don't want them to feel they have to show me anything.

We show mutual love and respect daily.
Something my mother would never understand.

When I was getting married 10 years ago, my mother told me not to get pregnant so soon (as I was going to pursue my masters degree after marriage so basically concentrate on that) and if I did, I should get an abortion!
At that time I just ignored her advice as didn't want to discuss it further.

Her words came true and I did get pregnant 3 months after our marriage and I was so traumatised and affected by her advice, that I opted for an abortion and that lead to so many other emotional issues with me and it still haunts me.
I got pregnant again 3 yrs ago and my DS was born and all is fine but I often wonder how things could have turned out if I never had that abortion 10 yrs ago.

My relationship with my mum has its ups and downs but I may never forgive her on the abortion advice.. we have never even discussed it. In fact nobody apart from my husband ever knew I got an abortion.

I'm in, but not up for sharing any of the horror stories. I appreciate reading all of the posts though.

Graphista. It's exactly the same where I live. I have one neighbour who's daughter is never away from her mothers, it's creepy.
My own mother walked out when I was nine and left me with an alcoholic father. I didn't see her for 5 years and when I had to live with her to avoid going into care, she told me that the abuse I suffered was all in my head. I had a university place that I wasn't allowed to take up because it "wasn't for the likes of us" & she couldn't afford it ( this was in the '70's and higher education was free and a grant was paid) despite having never paid an maintenance to my dad.
I could go on an on, but suffice to say that when she died I've never missed her.

Adding my name.

NC for nearly 4 years. Too much shit to tell but the worst was when she (and by default my father) inadvertently helped my daughter's father in his quest to have her taken from me.

User147 I've found a lot of the nicest people at work turn out to have had narc parents. Think it's a combination of being hyper sensitive to other people's moods, and not wanting to be dementors like their parents. I'll never flatter anybody, but I do make a point of thanking people/reporting good work/telling people if they're looking great etc ie being honest. You'll be a great parent btw

Have you guys seen this piece in the Guardian this morning?

Mydogmymate geez! There's 2 of them?! I was worried what I wrote could out where I live! Can I ask roughly what part of uk you're in? I'm in Scotland.

mrwalkensir - That description is exactly me, I always try to say something positive to people and be a good person to know. I never want to treat people in the bad way I have been treated.

It is isolating having bad parents - saying anything about it in real life can make people judge you. The good thing about threads like these is that you feel less alone hearing from others who have experienced this.

That Guardian article is spot on.