Oprah podcast on estranged families

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: I could not believe how many things Gibson nailed perfectly. She was trying to gently explain to that one mother there is a power differential and that together with a strong personality makes it hard to do "conflict resolution" with some parents. I know with my mother anytime I gently brought up anything it was "I am your mother! You must...."

She also was perfect with the whole idea of how people are under much more stress now. I danced around my mother's difficult behavior and people pleased for decades to keep the peace. Between covid lockdown, my husband's prolonged illness, my father in law's emergency and then our daughter's emergency surgery over the course of several years, I had nothing left to give and through it all mom was all "me, me, me" and trying every tactic possible to manipulate. She did not have an ounce of empathy, just fury that my attention was not on her. I finally understood I could try to appease her and she would not be satisfied, or I could distance and do nothing and she would not be satisfied, but I would time to recover for all this mess.

There is nothing I miss. I have some contact, but when she decides to punish me and have none, it's even better. I only mourn what I never had, but mostly I have accepted that.

Exactly regarding how she tried to address the mother who clearly showed disdain for her daughter. Maybe this is my bias but to me that mother seemed very satisfied that she was right and would win any argument (what she was calling a discussion). Both Coleman and that mom had an aggressive manner that they were trying to keep in check.

That tattoo mother comes across as a bully pretending to be into conflict resolution. She wasted too much time trying to convince the public her daughter stinks. If her daughter is so terrible, then why is this mother so interested in resolving things. She definitely seemed emotionally stunted. Her daughter may be too for all I know but why try to humiliate her on TV? Coleman is still salty and lacks much insight. He basically learned the things to say to play along, but in his heart, he seems like he still resents his daughter for not falling into line.

Exactly. That mom and Coleman both seem to have resentment to the kid that made it clear they aren't/weren't great parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I cannot with all the people who seem to think this is the hardest time in human history and no one has ever had it this bad ever. Hothouse flowers all of them.

I don’t think the doctor said it was the hardest time, she said it was a dramatically different time for younger people than it was 30 years ago. As someone in their late 50s I agree with her.

I see so many parents go on about “when I was a kid….” Well, you’re not a kid. When I was a kid I could make a mistake and not worry about it being being recorded and shared with anyone and everyone on social media. Work didn’t expect you to respond to texts and emails at any time. People couldn’t hound you like they can today and ask why you didn’t answer their text, voicemail or email. My parents didn’t except to hear from me everyday when I went to college. Long distance calls were expensive. People didn’t have answering machines. Call waiting was a big deal. Everyone is demanding your attention and texts and emails take no real effort so people overuse them, especially people that tend toward controlling behavior or need lots of attention.

The expectation to have so much contact and communication can be overwhelming. Some people refuse to or can’t understand that. I tend to have stricter boundaries with them these days and it took a long time for me to get to that point.

My mom grew up during the depression and I remember her talking about how much harder it was for women in the 70s because everyone expected them to do so much. They were also expected to be entertaining more than she ever saw growing up. More women were working and we had various new machines to help at home ie betterclothes washers, dryers, dish washers etc but even back then she said everyone expected more out of women. She also talked about how back in the day you didn't go out as much. Sheh talked a lot about how life was slower .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I recently asked my sister, the golden child, why it's so difficult for my mother and I to have a decent relationship and she said, "because she wants you to love her no matter how awful she is."
Just why? And why not my sister?

I don't know your family PP but your sister, like many golden children, sounds enmeshed with your mother. Golden child often becomes the confidante/best friend with parent.

This is my husband’s sister. 100%

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: I could not believe how many things Gibson nailed perfectly. She was trying to gently explain to that one mother there is a power differential and that together with a strong personality makes it hard to do "conflict resolution" with some parents. I know with my mother anytime I gently brought up anything it was "I am your mother! You must...."

She also was perfect with the whole idea of how people are under much more stress now. I danced around my mother's difficult behavior and people pleased for decades to keep the peace. Between covid lockdown, my husband's prolonged illness, my father in law's emergency and then our daughter's emergency surgery over the course of several years, I had nothing left to give and through it all mom was all "me, me, me" and trying every tactic possible to manipulate. She did not have an ounce of empathy, just fury that my attention was not on her. I finally understood I could try to appease her and she would not be satisfied, or I could distance and do nothing and she would not be satisfied, but I would time to recover for all this mess.

There is nothing I miss. I have some contact, but when she decides to punish me and have none, it's even better. I only mourn what I never had, but mostly I have accepted that.

Exactly regarding how she tried to address the mother who clearly showed disdain for her daughter. Maybe this is my bias but to me that mother seemed very satisfied that she was right and would win any argument (what she was calling a discussion). Both Coleman and that mom had an aggressive manner that they were trying to keep in check.

That tattoo mother comes across as a bully pretending to be into conflict resolution. She wasted too much time trying to convince the public her daughter stinks. If her daughter is so terrible, then why is this mother so interested in resolving things. She definitely seemed emotionally stunted. Her daughter may be too for all I know but why try to humiliate her on TV? Coleman is still salty and lacks much insight. He basically learned the things to say to play along, but in his heart, he seems like he still resents his daughter for not falling into line.

Exactly. That mom and Coleman both seem to have resentment to the kid that made it clear they aren't/weren't great parents.

I get the resentment. I think they are human and this is a natural feeling a parent would have.

I wish more people would have focused on what the mom said about poor conflict resolution skills.
This is so true! and we have realized this with our own kid - college age but not estranged. We can see that we didn't help them much in this area and we observe the same with their friends.

On self reflection, this is another issue that should have been highlighted since there are many estranged adult kids who would benefit from that.

I do think social media and therapists have made this worse. There are so many posts on social media spouting the same stuff claiming it to be based in psychology but really it's just based on someone else tiktok

And post covid there are a lot of newly graduated, very young therapists who took advantage of online education to get their degree and begin a career as a counselor / therapist. I question the veracity of the training and experience of many of these recently minted ones.

Especially for those who cut off their parents because they were MAGA, one of the funny things, I would bet many of them are using a therapist who got their degree from Liberty online.

I also went down a rabbit hole on reddit forums for estranged adult kids:

- Forums skew those in their twenties and early thirties and moms who have young kids. Personally I think you gain a new perspective on your own parents when your own kids are college age.

- Two type of posters - parents were truly abusive, addicts, or who went in and out of their lives or left completely and parents were there but were critical, and harsh.

- Lots of posts about boundaries and it's clear the concept is misunderstood to be a boundary is something you impose on someone else instead of something you do for you.

- Posters clearly show lack of their own conflict resolution skills, lack of their own communication skills , lack of understanding the therapy terms they use, and lack of their own ability to deal with uncomfortable feelings.

- Lots of encouragement for cutting off but no encouragement for self reflection or critical thinking.

- Whole thread of complaining they cut off contact with a parent , then being upset their parent didn't attempt to continue contacting them. It was surprising and baffling.