Difficult Mother
Just a rant about my mother on Mother’s Day, lol.
I’ll start by saying my mother and I don’t really have a close relationship. For the majority of my childhood, she was emotionally distant. There are other things too like abuse in the house she didn’t defend me against or ever talk about after. In general though, she was just never interested in my life. She knows maybe one of my friends’ names. I danced competitively, she complained about every rehearsal and competition. I ran track, she never came to a meet. Most egregiously, I got my PhD and she could not be bothered to come to my graduation because she accidentally planned a vacation that weekend (that she could have canceled and gotten refunded but whatever). You’d think at some point I would have gotten used to this and stopped expecting something different, but I’ve felt hurt each and every time.
Anyway, today was Mother’s Day and we went to dinner with my whole family. She was being insufferable. She kept calling my daughter, “my baby” and talking about how she couldn’t wait to meet her and she would teach her to read and they would have sleepovers, etc. She has never asked me about any of this and she is so uninvolved in my life she has never even been to my home that I’ve lived in for 3 years (45 min away). Whenever we meet, it has to be where my parents live. Not even in the middle. Mind you, I’m 32 weeks and it’s getting harder for me to get around. Then she was offended she wouldn’t be in the delivery room?? Another thing we’ve never spoken about. I was pretty pissed and told her that I would be the one teaching my daughter to read, there would be no sleepovers, and no one except my husband would be in the delivery room.
I guess I’m just feeling upset because I see this as being a continuous issue. But also because it makes me feel like either I was never enough for her to make an effort for (I also have 3 siblings she treats similarly but they’re less independent/younger than me) or that she will make a lot of promises to my daughter she won’t keep. I know I will have to maintain strong boundaries to avoid problems but it’s already stressing me out that she doesn’t seem to be hearing me.
Our daughter will be going to daycare and we do not rely on my family for any financial support so at least I won’t have to compromise my boundaries. I just did not want this extra stress at the end of my pregnancy or beginning of my daughter’s life. Luckily, I have a husband who is an angel and many supportive friends but damn I wish I had a mom who actually wanted to be a mom to me.
Don’t know if anyone can relate but I’d love to hear it if you can!