Lack of care from adult daughter

[user1492387367]

I had a wisdom tooth out recently & as I am an anxious person was very stressed. It’s been two days since the extraction & no phone call to see if I’m feeling ok from my adult daughter. I am a pensioner and recently had breast cancer & have other health issues. Do you think this is an ok way to treat your mum .

I'm just going to say that if you spoke to my mum she would tell you what a fantastic parent she'd been and helped me with my children, put a roof over my head, sent me to University yada yada.

I would tell you she was abusive, aggressive, forced me into a young carers role leaving me to look after my elderly terminally ill dad and wreck my a levels in the process, didn't support me at all after he died qhen I was 18 as she'd ' just lost her husband,' didn't support me when I told her about my eating disorder as 'haven't I got enough on with your father?' Didnt support me at all through uni, left me in a foreign country needing daily hospital treatment after a near fatal road accident at the age of 21, because when I rang and begged to come home was told 'you stay there, I want my holiday, I never get anything ' and then she rocked up 10 months later for her free accommodation, etc etc etc. Even last week when i had surgery, I had to take another adult with me that I didn't mind seeing me naked and my partner is having a triple bypass so had to take mum. She left me on my own unable to walk in Kings Cross Station for an hour and a half after I asked her to pop to get me some water as I felt unwell. She went round the shops and forgot the water. I'm nearly 50 now and honestly can't even bear to look at her sometimes.

As someone earlier said, you reap what you sow!

A wisdom tooth extraction can be very sore and you can feel very battered afterwards.

It does seem as if you have given your daughter a huge amount of your time and effort over the years, particularly childcare.

Unfortunately she sounds as if she is very caught up in her life.

I can understand that that must make you feel both sad and disappointed.

I hope you feel better soon.

I don't think I'd remember the exact date if my mum told me she was having a tooth taken out, I'd be aware she mentioned it, but I have too much going on and in my head to remember stuff that I don't need to remember. My mum would probably WhatsApp me to let me know that she's had it done, and of course I'd offer my sympathies etc. What I'm sure my mum would not do is use the fact she paid for my childhood expenses and university as a sign of some kind of obligation to her. It's the sort of thing my father has said to me, and tbh, he's an arsehole, and I have as little to do with him as possible. You don't come across very well mentioning those things OP.

Just read you look after her kids.
Stop doing that as you view it as transactional.
Your relationship with her is practical and transactional.
Why is there no emotional connection?
You haven't said you miss her or want to spend time with her, you just want to moan at her.
She has kids, a husband, a career - she's looking after her own future, her happiness lies there.

Flipping heck. You don't have and raise children to mother you and nurse you in old age.

Presumably you chose to send her to private school?? She didn't demand it?

I love my mum and support her, when necessary, through illnesses and hospital treatments. I try to visit her at least once a week, even though I work FT and have a busy life of my own. If I can't visit I call, but I have to be honest, the calls are hard work. My mum likes to talk about herself, she can be a bit moany, and talks endlessly about what the neighbours have been up to. She may ask what my DDs have been up to but rarely asks about me. When she does think to ask how I am I barely get one sentence out before she's back to talking about herself again. After a while I tune out.

What I'm trying to say OP is we can't say whether the way your DD treats you is good or bad because we don't know her life circumstances, what your relationship is like, or your behaviours.

She’s busy relaxing at home?? Why can’t she enjoy her time off work. You have every week of the year off she doesn’t!!!

OP, I'm sorry that you're not receiving support from your daughter.

I'm even more sorry at the way you're being treated here. I can only assume that the reaction you've received is from people angry at how their relationship with their own mother was and projecting their bitterness onto you.

The thing is OP, you've not given us much info to go on and I suspect the info you have given us is carefully edited to get people to agree with you.

Absolutely impossible to answer

But would be fascinating to learn your daughter’s interpret job of the situation and your relationship with her

Some societies/cultures/countries (an good example of an elder centric culture is usually Italy but there are many others too) heavily focus on eldercare... the UK is not one of them.

We tend to focus on raising our own kids who then in turn focus on raising their own kids and so on rather than vice versa where kids are expected to focus on caring for parents, grandparent and the elders.

I have 3 kids who take up all my time, I frankly dont get time to piss about on the phone up for chats about general life things like dentistry. The only person I would phone about dentisty related (other than the dental practice itself) is my DH and that would be to either inform him of something happening with the kids or to ask him to watch the kids while I go in.

On the flip side though I have had a terrible time with dentisty (had a bodge job done by a bad dentist and got a terrible infection that lasted years and distroyed bone). My mam has never once phoned me about it and I wouldnt expect her too (she has a hard enough time keeping track of her own appointments without being expected to remember mine) but she might ask me in person how its going when she sees me same as I would with her.

Agree with you.

You do not mention the word “LOVE” in terms of how you feel about your daughter - once

My mum's always having teeth out! I'm surprised she has any left. I've never called her about it. It's not that I don't care (I do very much) but I suppose I just don't see it as a big deal. If there was any problem she'd let me know. I've also had a couple of teeth out in the last year or so. No one called or messaged me about it.

There's some nasty responses on this thread. Sorry you're going through this

@ttacticall i agree. Posters are being much too emotional in their responses to be anything to do with op.
Op, I’m a busy mum and work full time, went through ivf etc but when my mum was ill I made time. If she had something as life threatening as you did, you can bet I’d de -prioritise my life.
she did some drop offs once a month basically - I don’t think that’s a lot.
Did she ask you what you needed, was she aware how much you struggled?
Sometimes, when you give give give the other person doesn’t know how to do anything other than take.
Having said all of this, I only have one side of the story.

I'm so sorry to hear that, OP. I wonder if you have a friend you could meet up with for a cuppa and chat?

I also wonder whether she has always enjoyed robust health and doesn't yet understand how it feels to be unwell, or lonely and feel vulnerable because of ill health / treatments. In my experience, a lot of people who have never been unwell just don't get it - they haven't had that experience and can't imagine it.

Another thing I wonder is whether she's having a tougher time than is obvious to outsiders. The pandemic, for example, has been and continues to be an extremely difficult time for some people. Maybe her energy is zapped by work, home life, etc. I am not justifying how she is to you, just trying to think of possible reasons.

take care

What age are you? There's a big difference between being 67 or being 82 for example. Have you a husband or are you a widow or separated?
Is your DD the only person who provides you with support?

That's a bit of a leap, all posters have said is that there's no really enough info to comment, but that some of the things OP are a bit off, and suggest a less than great relationship. My father could start a thread along the lines of "My adult daughter has only visited me once in 12 months, I get no support from her, I'm a pensioner with x,y,z health problems, I paid her uni fees!". Any sympathy he may well then get from MN (not that he'd ever be on MN), would be very misplaced. My mum could have equally written a thread detailing his behaviour as a husband and father, and be unanimously be told to LTB and fight for full custody (thankfully she did, eventually). What I'm getting at is that, as others have posted, we have no idea what kind of mother the OP is. There could be very good reasons why she doesn't have the relationship she'd like to have with her daughter. There could also be none, and her daughter is just self centered, but we have no idea from the information given. Although we do have a bit of info, that the OP thinks the daughter owes her something, which can suggest something (not good) about the relationship as a whole.

Op hope you okay. Yes I would text or ring if she had apts. But like other threads we do get it thrown back at us "all we did for u over the years" its not nice at all.

One thing I’ve noticed with some adult children is that they don’t really view their parents as separate human beings with their own needs-they just see them as “Mum and “Dad” who are there to support them. As adults, the relationship needs to be more reciprocal, the parents can’t give all the time. Perhaps phone her and say that you’re feeling awful and you need cheering up-don’t moan, just let her know that you could use some support for once. Sometimes being upfront is the best way to point something out to people.

I’d probably call a friend, though, tbh, my best friend and I do reciprocal grumbling, it’s v. theraputic.

This is going to sound heartless but she is your child, not the other way around.

Mothers look after their children, children shouldn't be then expected to owe them back.

My mother expects me to mother her, and it's not good for our relationship. I avoid her, particularly when she's throwing a pity party to try to 'make' me care more. Are you sure that's not what you're doing right now?

I also fail to see how school fees, grandparent care etc translate into her being beholden to you for the rest of her life?

@mam0918

Absolutely, UK is not a family centric country, Western countries usually aren't unless you are religious like some societies you see in America.

Southern Americas, remote Russia, India - now these are the countries where your kids will look after you even if you treated them badly every day of their lives, it's culture.

Sometimes I'm glad I'm born in the UK because I don't have to bother with my parents.
If I was in India I probably would have done it to fit into the wider society there.

I don't owe them.
They didn't have me for me, I was the second child of four, a girl, so definitely wasn't the wanted child.
Glad I'm born in the UK and don't have to bother with them as most people here don't and treat their parents as acquaintances.

My mother will tell the world she bought me the latest fashions - she did - she is very stylish and fashionable - thanks for passing that on mum.
However, she didn't do it for me she did it so society could see how well dressed her family was!

She would tell you that I have a good academic background and career because of them.
They didn't help me nor did the crap racist teachers.
I helped myself in the library that wasn't even attached to the school.
So that's not her doing.

She thinks I live an exotic life due to her.
No, that is due to my partner and his parents generosity.
She wants to be part of my life - no way am I taking her to my summer homes abroad.
I wouldn't even let her have my little rubbish London 2 bed terrace that I only use during the week.

The only thing she did for me was giving birth in a country where she could not bury me.
Guess I do have something to be thankful for!

Oh well, my son knows I sometimes worry too much about things so probably he would have just assumed that if things had gone wrong I would have called him.

I also had a cancer scare a few years ago and he took it on his stride, when the situation cleared off I asked him if he had been worried and his answer was: “you are such a strong person mum I just knew you would be ok” obviously we have gone through so much over the years the poor guy thinks I am immortal.

I suggest that you think about your conversations with your daughter. Are you broadly positive or broadly negative - listing the difficult things in your life etc. If so, I would suggest that it is very draining to interact with negativity all the time. No idea if this is the case - only you and she know that - but worth a think!