My mother always encouraged my interest in sex, as long as I didn't have it with any actual people. She bought me an expensive Latin dictionary so I could translate the naughty bits in my Chinese Erotic Art book.
When I was in first grade, she said to me, "A door has closed in my heart to you that will never be reopened," because I took the side of my little friend who had supposedly been rude to her.
Nicest: She does strive to be nice. She always says “I love you,” as incapacitated as she is by her own lack of understanding what that is. As much as she strives to be nice, it never rings true as when she’s kind. She really worked overtime to make sure I stayed on grade level and she taught me how to be a diplomat. She took me, my bully and his mom to McDonald’s to mediate after he threw Godzilla toys at me in kindergarten. It worked, and I remember that to this day.
Worst: ignoring my CSA at the hands of her father is more of an unspoken thing, but spoken is definitely senior of high school during a fight about my sexuality. I was downstairs, she was at the top, she said “Fine, I hope you get AIDS and die.” Says more about her than about me, of course, but that’ll stay with you.
Dude. This time last year my mom was diagnosed with brain cancer. She was staying with me but it got really hard and so i had to put her in a care home. My brother then visited her and she said how much she loved him. He then asked if she loved me and she said “not the way i know she wishes i would.” And she never told me she loved me the rest of the time. A few days before she died my brother and i visited her and when we left she lifted her fingers to her lips and pressed her fingers to my brother’s hand. Didn’t even look at me.
She also once told me that if i went to the mall with friends that if i went into a changing room to try clothes on “all your friends will ditch you cause they don’t actually like you enough.” Those two things will always stick out to me.
I am really sorry Melanie --this is totally shit. I didn't know other people had vengeful mothers besides me. It feels therapeutic to Bring these stories out into the open.
When I was in high school, I was trying to work at our store though I was a novice at it. One day when I was trying to answer questions for a customer, my mother stepped in and said let me answer your questions, she doesn't know anything. Meaning me. What a bitch
Seeing so much of my own mother in these comments, and seeing what a wonderful mother I’ve become because of my mother’s failings. I hope that there is never anything that my daughter could think of that was the worst thing I ever said to her when she gets to be my age. I could film notebooks of the things. My mom said to me that we’re horrible including when I lost my child to stillbirth at 8 months along and she said to me that I “must have done something”…
No, Mom 1 in 100-120 babies are stillbirths every year and 99% of the time no cause is ever found.
Yes, I found that statistic as shocking as most of you all did after my stillbirth.
I hope my mother can inspire my parenting as well. My kid is barely two so who knows but so far I'm really pleased with their personality! Kind and eager to help out and very empathetic to pain and injury.
I approached your Mother Rage story today with trepidation and also a great hope to laugh my head off.
I would like to meet “Liem” whose escapade losing his sister — and almost his life— reminded me the most of my own.
I think there are *categories* of parent threats and insults! When the child is baby, and presumably can’t understand the words being invoked, it’s very popular to have adult rages along the lines of “I wish you were dead.” True, baby doesn’t know— but then baby grows up and certain adults who bore witness in the old days decide to tell you, “This happened.”
The single-digit kid years are often filled with threats that the child can’t quite grasp, isn’t sure if it could be TRUE. Everything from “Santa Claus isn’t coming,” “No supper for you,” to “I’ll kill you if we can’t find your sister.”
And lots of physical punishment threats : “I’ll tan your hide if . . . “
Teenage years get more sophisticated. The question of sexuality and leaving home, what the kid is going to do with their lives, opens up a big territory of fireworks. Lies/secrets on both sides are uncovered and plundered for ammunition. Vocabulary and insinuation skyrocket, and the teenager fights back, often scoring hits.
It’s ugly out there, people! Forgiveness and apology is the dream you hope to wake to.
I don’t think it’s the worst thing my mom ever said to me because some of it was just so ridiculous, but the one that probably hurt the most over time was in college she told me I wouldn’t be a good waitress. What??? What is it about me?? I’ve been told I was good at things and smart, I was in college and WORKED COUNTER SERVICE AT A PIZZA PARLOR. It felt like she looked down on me, former waitress to current cashier. I just didn’t have what it takes apparently.
My mom told me the same thing and it really stuck with me as well! It’s funny too because she would always say I was her daughter who could do anything (because I would figure out how to do whatever she needed done.) And that was maybe the best and worst thing she said about me.
My mom has said so many kind and wonderful things to me. The only bad one that sticks out is when she sometimes enthusiastically asks “have you lost weight??” (when I’m maybe down 2-3 lbs at most). It’s hard enough not having body dysmorphia, but having a thin mom that praises any sign of weight loss is rough. (For more context, I’m a size 8 and she’s a size 4.)
My mom just helped me through top surgery recovery, which was beautiful and also her reparations for calling me out of the blue in college to demand an answer to: "WHERE DID YOUR BOOBS GO?!"
On separate occasions, she told me that I was the rudest and politest person she ever met. I pointed this out to her and she said something like “well, people change.”
God that's amazing. I'm really sorry Anna. When I left my first husband who was very demeaning and belittling every single day, my daughter came to see me at my new apartment and said disapprovingly, mom you're just so .so happy.
I find this deeply therapeutic! At 15 I was severely anorexic. I remember my mom coming into my bedroom wailing 'why are you torturing me?!'. Maybe I am unhinged but I think it's funny now.
Too many worst things to count. When I cried to her that my friend had taken my new bike she said, " You are such a sucker." I was 5 yrs old. More recently she said, "It's too bad you and your children are going to hell." in reference to me not baptizing my children.
My mom wrote that in a letter about me that I ended up finding, but she didn’t say it to my face. (I knew she thought we were all bound for hell without her saying it outright.)
My mother always encouraged my interest in sex, as long as I didn't have it with any actual people. She bought me an expensive Latin dictionary so I could translate the naughty bits in my Chinese Erotic Art book.
When I was in first grade, she said to me, "A door has closed in my heart to you that will never be reopened," because I took the side of my little friend who had supposedly been rude to her.
She's dead now.
Jesus Jendi---You and I had the same mother. I am so sorry.
She thought she was so original but she was apparently a textbook narcissist with a LOT of clones. Sorry you got another one!
This is better than therapy!
Nicest: She does strive to be nice. She always says “I love you,” as incapacitated as she is by her own lack of understanding what that is. As much as she strives to be nice, it never rings true as when she’s kind. She really worked overtime to make sure I stayed on grade level and she taught me how to be a diplomat. She took me, my bully and his mom to McDonald’s to mediate after he threw Godzilla toys at me in kindergarten. It worked, and I remember that to this day.
Worst: ignoring my CSA at the hands of her father is more of an unspoken thing, but spoken is definitely senior of high school during a fight about my sexuality. I was downstairs, she was at the top, she said “Fine, I hope you get AIDS and die.” Says more about her than about me, of course, but that’ll stay with you.
Dude. This time last year my mom was diagnosed with brain cancer. She was staying with me but it got really hard and so i had to put her in a care home. My brother then visited her and she said how much she loved him. He then asked if she loved me and she said “not the way i know she wishes i would.” And she never told me she loved me the rest of the time. A few days before she died my brother and i visited her and when we left she lifted her fingers to her lips and pressed her fingers to my brother’s hand. Didn’t even look at me.
She also once told me that if i went to the mall with friends that if i went into a changing room to try clothes on “all your friends will ditch you cause they don’t actually like you enough.” Those two things will always stick out to me.
I am really sorry Melanie --this is totally shit. I didn't know other people had vengeful mothers besides me. It feels therapeutic to Bring these stories out into the open.
When I was in high school, I was trying to work at our store though I was a novice at it. One day when I was trying to answer questions for a customer, my mother stepped in and said let me answer your questions, she doesn't know anything. Meaning me. What a bitch
OMG this is awful, I'm so sorry.
Seeing so much of my own mother in these comments, and seeing what a wonderful mother I’ve become because of my mother’s failings. I hope that there is never anything that my daughter could think of that was the worst thing I ever said to her when she gets to be my age. I could film notebooks of the things. My mom said to me that we’re horrible including when I lost my child to stillbirth at 8 months along and she said to me that I “must have done something”…
No, Mom 1 in 100-120 babies are stillbirths every year and 99% of the time no cause is ever found.
Yes, I found that statistic as shocking as most of you all did after my stillbirth.
OMG. This is terrible. I'm so sorry.
I'm very sorry for your loss. We take for granted the million things that have to go right for a viable birth. ❤️🩹
I hope my mother can inspire my parenting as well. My kid is barely two so who knows but so far I'm really pleased with their personality! Kind and eager to help out and very empathetic to pain and injury.
I approached your Mother Rage story today with trepidation and also a great hope to laugh my head off.
I would like to meet “Liem” whose escapade losing his sister — and almost his life— reminded me the most of my own.
I think there are *categories* of parent threats and insults! When the child is baby, and presumably can’t understand the words being invoked, it’s very popular to have adult rages along the lines of “I wish you were dead.” True, baby doesn’t know— but then baby grows up and certain adults who bore witness in the old days decide to tell you, “This happened.”
The single-digit kid years are often filled with threats that the child can’t quite grasp, isn’t sure if it could be TRUE. Everything from “Santa Claus isn’t coming,” “No supper for you,” to “I’ll kill you if we can’t find your sister.”
And lots of physical punishment threats : “I’ll tan your hide if . . . “
Teenage years get more sophisticated. The question of sexuality and leaving home, what the kid is going to do with their lives, opens up a big territory of fireworks. Lies/secrets on both sides are uncovered and plundered for ammunition. Vocabulary and insinuation skyrocket, and the teenager fights back, often scoring hits.
It’s ugly out there, people! Forgiveness and apology is the dream you hope to wake to.
I don’t think it’s the worst thing my mom ever said to me because some of it was just so ridiculous, but the one that probably hurt the most over time was in college she told me I wouldn’t be a good waitress. What??? What is it about me?? I’ve been told I was good at things and smart, I was in college and WORKED COUNTER SERVICE AT A PIZZA PARLOR. It felt like she looked down on me, former waitress to current cashier. I just didn’t have what it takes apparently.
My mom told me the same thing and it really stuck with me as well! It’s funny too because she would always say I was her daughter who could do anything (because I would figure out how to do whatever she needed done.) And that was maybe the best and worst thing she said about me.
My mom has said so many kind and wonderful things to me. The only bad one that sticks out is when she sometimes enthusiastically asks “have you lost weight??” (when I’m maybe down 2-3 lbs at most). It’s hard enough not having body dysmorphia, but having a thin mom that praises any sign of weight loss is rough. (For more context, I’m a size 8 and she’s a size 4.)
My mom just helped me through top surgery recovery, which was beautiful and also her reparations for calling me out of the blue in college to demand an answer to: "WHERE DID YOUR BOOBS GO?!"
how's this: you should be afraid to sleep that God doesn't strike you dead.
Laughed and cried about six times, thank you.
On separate occasions, she told me that I was the rudest and politest person she ever met. I pointed this out to her and she said something like “well, people change.”
I've always been what we in Swedish call "en glad skit" — "a happy little shit." My mother never was.
She once got upset with me and said, "I don't understand why you have to be so happy all the time! Don't you understand how that makes me feel?!"
God that's amazing. I'm really sorry Anna. When I left my first husband who was very demeaning and belittling every single day, my daughter came to see me at my new apartment and said disapprovingly, mom you're just so .so happy.
Natalie’s mom wins the prize for mildest worst comment. Those school mornings can be hell
I find this deeply therapeutic! At 15 I was severely anorexic. I remember my mom coming into my bedroom wailing 'why are you torturing me?!'. Maybe I am unhinged but I think it's funny now.
Too many worst things to count. When I cried to her that my friend had taken my new bike she said, " You are such a sucker." I was 5 yrs old. More recently she said, "It's too bad you and your children are going to hell." in reference to me not baptizing my children.
she sounds like a good person to distance from.
Agreed. Currently taking a break from her but, like the Terminator, she will be back.
My mom wrote that in a letter about me that I ended up finding, but she didn’t say it to my face. (I knew she thought we were all bound for hell without her saying it outright.)
That's where all the cool kids go. We can hangout!