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Okay this is weird
My mother and I have been estranged since I was 14 years old and I left home and moved to another state. When I was 18 she told me never to speak to her again. Since that time we've seen each other on 2 occassions and she acted like she barely knew me. My childhood before I left home could be considered "Mommy Dearest-lite". Yeah.
I have stayed in contact with my siblings and my grandparents and aunt. She no longer speaks to my grandparents or aunt and did to them what she did to me - created a giant fight with each relative and wrote everyone off. She did the same thing to her H's family, as well.
So 3 years ago we became FB friends. Mainly I allowed for this so she could see how awesome my life is and how happy I am. I feel like I needed her to know that for my own "healing".
Anyways, now I have a baby. And he looks EXACTLY like I did when I was a baby. And I was her first baby. So she's been commenting on just about every picture of P I post on my page. She even left me a message on my wall congratulating us. She sent us a card for his birth, plus one for my birthday which was right after he was born (which she hasn't acknowledged since I was 18.)
This is all so weird. I so badly wanted my mom to be part of my life, but then realized it was never going to happen. Now she's trying to come back in by waving her white flag.
So yesterday a large box arrived on my front door. It was from her. She made P a beautiful scrap book with each page completely laid out, ready for me to add pictures. She then did a few pages that said "Family" and the like, complete with pictures of me and my siblings. I just sat and cried looking at this album.
Then I called her. We ended up talking for 30 minutes. She asked me all about P and labor and mom-hood. She seemed very interested in P.
This whole thing is so weird. I consider myself "mom-less" and have my grandmother (who pretty much raised me anyways) and my aunt that have stepped in after my mom went cookoo. I'm not sure how to feel about all this. I almost feel guilty for being excited to have her trying to come back into my life. It's all so foreign that I can't really explain how I feel. Ugh.
Anywho, thanks for listening. I'm not sure the point of this post, but I felt I needed to let my feelings out.
*I may DD this later*
Re: Okay this is weird
Grandbabies have a way of making things better.
I'd tread lightly here but enjoy what you can.
Click me, click me!
BUT - I fully agree... tread VERY lightly. If there are genuine mental issues, she may revert back.
~Benjamin Franklin
DS dx with celiac disease 5/28/10
Yep.
I have... had? ... a somewhat similar background with my father.
For quite some time I'd been thinking about reaching out to him, wondering how to do so and what to say (I'd made it so he couldn't contact me) and then he died.
Yes, he's the one who made the choices that caused our relationship to be what it was, but I'd always imagined there was more time for us to at least have some sort of relationship.
I agree, tread lightly, but I'm glad you've connected in some way. It will never be the same as most people's relationships with their parents, but its worth having something, so long as it works for you.
Definitely be careful, but I don't think it's wrong to be excited.
I have had no contact w/ my sperm donor since I was 10 - well, except for a really sweet email he sent me when I was 22 letting me know his father died. I do know he reads my family blog, and I let it continue (i.e., didn't make it private) for the same reasons you mentioned for being FB friends with your mom.
I'm not sure what I would do if he wanted more contact with me or contacted me again - I have a father in my life, who is my dad, for all intents and purposes, so I don't feel a gap there, but at the same time, I think it'd be good for me to hear his reasons for why he was such a jackass.
Well I say congrats for the reconnect! I dunno if I'd go so far as to say that babies change people as much as I would say they spur people to start anew. Don't be surprised if what has happened is all that is going to happen. Still, I'm glad she's done what she has for you and your son and glad he has something you can say she did for him.
Agreed.
Your story is very similar to my H and his dad.
I agree with this completely. If you dont want her in your life, then you need to cut her off and NOT have her in your life- no scrapbook, etc.
but it sounds more like you are not sure if you want her in your life. I agree with HAB in that grandbabies can change people and yet I would still tread lightly here. Maybe she has changed, grown up, gotten help, realized her mistakes, whatever.
Maybe she hasn't and in that case it's really on you to protect yourself and your family from being hurt, which sounds harsh but you know what I mean hopefully. The issue I think is that it's hard to tell sometime with whether her change in behavior is geniune.
My mom never cut her mom out of her life pre-children but once she had children and she realized her mother (who was always abusive towards my mother but not the other kids) was mentally ill (and was saying things to my sister like "your mother is a bad mother bc of all these reasons" when she was 4 and 5) she did cut her out. her terms were that my grandmother either had to get psychiatric help or she had to wait until we were old enough to realize that she was mentally ill. My grandmother refused to get help so I didnt see her again until I was in middle school. So that is one way to handle it I guess.
anyway - best of luck - family situations like this can be really difficult to navigate :-(
I'm not 100% estranged from my biological mother, but some days I wish I was. She was neglectful and abusive to my sister and I as very young children. When our father and step-mother won custody of us, she pretty much just checked out. No birthday cards, no presents - always the promise of those, but they'd never appear. A phone call once every six months or so. She just didn't care. But then when my first was born, suddenly she wanted to be all chummy and tried to turn into grandmother of the year. I even let her visit and stay with us for a week when DS was a couple months old. It wasn't awful and she was nice enough, but it was really hard. I had a lot of anger towards her because it was hard to see her want to be a grandmother when she hadn't bothered being a mom - I mean usually the latter comes before the former right? So I get your conflicted feelings on this. I really do.
I haven't cut my mom off and I'm not sure I ever will. I just don't know that I have it in me to do that. But I keep her at arms length emotionally. Occasional visits are fine. Gifts for my kids are fine. A phone call is fine. But I'm not looking for a true mom-daughter relationship because truth be told, she isn't my mom. Sure, she birthed me, but my step mom raised me and that's the woman I want when I need a mother figure. Now that DS is 3 and the novelty of a cute newborn has worn off, she's really cooled off and is back to her normal "talk to you once in a blue moon but anything more than that is too much effort" old self again. I tell you this very truncated version of my story to let you know that this might not last. Heed the other ladies' advice and tread lightly and keep your expectations low. A lot of folks get all caught up in the excitement of a newborn. But my son hasn't received a single gift or card or even a phone call from her since that visit when he was 2 months old - and that was three years ago. She didn't even bother posting comments on the photos of my daughter I put on Facebook right after she was born. So yeah, the whole "OMG I'm a grandmother, lets be chummy and act like the past never happened!" phase was very short lived.
<a href="http://www.thenest.com/?utm_source=ticker&utm_medium=HTML&utm_campaign=tickers" title="Home DI have nothing useful to add as both sets of grandparents for us are actively in our lives, but I do wish you nothing but the best whatever path you end up on. I can see wanting her in your life again, but I can also see keeping things apart - whatever you choose is probably the best decision for your family
Good luck.
I wish you the best. It sounds like there is a mental problem going on here. I can't imagine her making those decisions without that- sounds like bi-polar (only because I have a distant cousin who is bi-polar and she has written off a lot of the family).
Good luck!
Agreed to tread lightly and keep expectations low. Some people change I suppose, I haven't had a lot of experience with that. My experience is people are exactly the same as they ever were, and you're either okay with that, and keep it at the distance it deserves, or you're not, and you keep a much larger distance.
My feeling is to be grateful for crappy people not being in your life.
My brother is estranged from my father, but despite having some of the same reasons to be, I'm not. Sometimes he (my dad) can be a really great guy, and sometimes he has no regard for my brother or I's feelings. It's incredibly hurtful what that has led him to do in the past, and very hard to reconcile with when he is a good guy. Over the years I've learned to have a relationship with him where I don't give him the opportunity to upset me, and take the good where I find it. My brother was never able to do that, and after years of being hurt over and over again, cut off ties completely. You've sort of got the same choice, I think...is it worth the risk of becoming emotionally involved again.
I think it's good to be excited, but be very careful.
Also, be prepared that your other relatives may have conflicting feelings about your contact with her.
Listen to your gut and tread lightly. You are not that little girl anymore and now a grown woman with a beautiful baby. I have lots of experience with a mother like this. Not only do I need to protect myself from my own nut job mother, but I would my own (if I had one) child as well. I hope with all my heart she made changes, and this is the start of something wonderful between you two.