Anonymous
03/13/2024 09:18
Subject: What is this feeing I experience from a memory of my mother?
How is everyone so inept that they are missing the point that the parents made her feel guilty for existing in their space?
Anonymous
03/13/2024 08:56
Subject: What is this feeing I experience from a memory of my mother?
Parents of my parent's generation didn't attend events, typically. One or two things a year, maybe. They were good parents. Especially more recently, sometimes schools set the expectation that is more than parents can give. That's not the parent's fault. Op and others, if you go looking for fault, you're going to find it.
Anonymous
03/13/2024 08:51
Subject: What is this feeing I experience from a memory of my mother?
^ this!
Anonymous
03/13/2024 08:50
Subject: Re:What is this feeing I experience from a memory of my mother?
Anonymous wrote:Did she work at a family friendly office/job? Because these things weren’t just „allowed“ - that moms could disappear in the middle of the day for a recital. Sometimes we need to remind ourselves that times truly changed.
Agree! My office job from 2007-2015 frowned upon missing work for anything. It was hard leaving for the dentist. You had to use PTO for most things.
Anonymous
03/13/2024 08:47
Subject: What is this feeing I experience from a memory of my mother?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:You are 50, you should not dwell on some past childhood issues. For most of us who are 50, parents coming to events was not a thing.
Wow, that’s not at all true. I’m 50 and parents coming to events was absolutely a thing.
Our moms came because they SAH. A lot of dads were never there, mine wasn't. Work was a lot less flexible back then that it is now, for working moms and dads. I can see not being able to take the time on a whim having been a problem back then, for those who worked.
+1 My dad never came to events either. I hold no resentment towards him. Why would I? I knew we had to eat.
Anonymous
03/13/2024 08:43
Subject: What is this feeing I experience from a memory of my mother?
Honestly, it probably WAS a burden. Not because it was yum but because workplaces held women to a different standard than men (and some continue to do so). In many paces, women had to decide if they were career women or mothers - there wasn’t a place to be both.
Your dad didn’t have a lot of flexibility, but at least would have gotten the pat on the back for being “such a good dad”.
And do you honestly think it would have been easy for what it sounds like was your hourly paid mom to take time off work?
Sending a sick kid to school is on BOTH parents.
Your dad didn’t have a lot of flexibility, but at least would have gotten the pat on the back for being “such a good dad”.
And do you honestly think it would have been easy for what it sounds like was your hourly paid mom to take time off work?
Sending a sick kid to school is on BOTH parents.
Anonymous
03/13/2024 07:59
Subject: What is this feeing I experience from a memory of my mother?
Anonymous wrote:This is so messed up. You are focusing on your mom's not showing up when your dad showed up twice! So you were never sick again for the whole time in school? Your mom never picked you up at all?
Maybe our memories are not correct, are you applying horrific patriarchal judging on your mom?
This is a societal issue that needs to stop, women judging women, but dad and men are congratulated when they show up once!
Women, and moms in particular are called lazy if they are SAHM, if they work, they are bad moms, is house is not clean dad is not to blame it is always the woman.
Can you pause and reflect on yourself op? are you truly the perfect mom? This will come to bite you back, your kids are just like you, judging your every moment.
Hearing you talk about your mom being unloving, stressing them out with whatever demands. Hindsight is a biat*, and oh wait? Another common term I just used to humiliate and make women into monsters! Ingrained in our society.
OP here.
No. I went to school sick. My mother sent me with chicken pox. That was another time I had to be picked up, though I was in K and I don’t remember who picked me up. They were forced to pick me up then, and the time I was throwing up.
I mentioned my dad only because of the stark contrast in their behavior when they DID show up. For my mother, it was a chore and an inconvenience. For my dad, he seemed genuinely happy to attend. Why was I always such an inconvenience? Even the time she willingly chose to give up her lunches and breaks (she worked at a distribution facility, think UPS or Amazon but in the 90s) but then tell me what a burden it was to do that?
I’m just trying to figure out why she was the way she was. I mean, yes, I know she had to work for the money. But she did not HAVE to tell me how difficult my presence was in the logistics of her life.
Anonymous
03/12/2024 06:48
Subject: What is this feeing I experience from a memory of my mother?
This is so messed up. You are focusing on your mom's not showing up when your dad showed up twice! So you were never sick again for the whole time in school? Your mom never picked you up at all?
Maybe our memories are not correct, are you applying horrific patriarchal judging on your mom?
This is a societal issue that needs to stop, women judging women, but dad and men are congratulated when they show up once!
Women, and moms in particular are called lazy if they are SAHM, if they work, they are bad moms, is house is not clean dad is not to blame it is always the woman.
Can you pause and reflect on yourself op? are you truly the perfect mom? This will come to bite you back, your kids are just like you, judging your every moment.
Hearing you talk about your mom being unloving, stressing them out with whatever demands. Hindsight is a biat*, and oh wait? Another common term I just used to humiliate and make women into monsters! Ingrained in our society.
Maybe our memories are not correct, are you applying horrific patriarchal judging on your mom?
This is a societal issue that needs to stop, women judging women, but dad and men are congratulated when they show up once!
Women, and moms in particular are called lazy if they are SAHM, if they work, they are bad moms, is house is not clean dad is not to blame it is always the woman.
Can you pause and reflect on yourself op? are you truly the perfect mom? This will come to bite you back, your kids are just like you, judging your every moment.
Hearing you talk about your mom being unloving, stressing them out with whatever demands. Hindsight is a biat*, and oh wait? Another common term I just used to humiliate and make women into monsters! Ingrained in our society.
Anonymous
03/12/2024 05:33
Subject: Re:What is this feeing I experience from a memory of my mother?
My mom was a SAHM and I was the last child so no younger children after me.
She never attended my sports games or plays or concerts. She did not drive me to college, I drove myself. She never visited me in college. I did not walk when I graduated because it would be weird to have nobody there.
My dad did come to my sports but nothing else.
Some parents are weird and it was wrong and I won’t be like that.
I work but I’m at everything.
I literally have driven 8hours every weekend in the Spring to see my son play his college sport
She never attended my sports games or plays or concerts. She did not drive me to college, I drove myself. She never visited me in college. I did not walk when I graduated because it would be weird to have nobody there.
My dad did come to my sports but nothing else.
Some parents are weird and it was wrong and I won’t be like that.
I work but I’m at everything.
I literally have driven 8hours every weekend in the Spring to see my son play his college sport
Anonymous
03/12/2024 04:23
Subject: Re:What is this feeing I experience from a memory of my mother?
For me the feeling is called “hate.”
Anonymous
03/11/2024 09:06
Subject: What is this feeing I experience from a memory of my mother?
Just a guess here but maybe it’s a feeling of “too little too late”? Like you wanted her to be there for so long and then gave up hope of being loved like that, and when she finally came you realized it was awkward and not what you wanted after all? ( as she hadn’t done it all those years?)
Anonymous
03/10/2024 23:31
Subject: What is this feeing I experience from a memory of my mother?
Anonymous wrote:I have showed up to EVERYTHING for my children, from big things like concerts, to small things like to serve hot chocolate at Polar Express Day in kindergarten. My oldest, 13, showed me a Tik Tok of a little boy at at awards ceremony scanning the room for one of his “people”, looking forlorn, but then beaming when he eyes his mom. Suddenly I was flooded with emotion and was back in high school, at the ONE event my mother showed up to that made me feel so guilty, probably to this day.
My mother prioritized work, and never showed up to anything. My father came to one award ceremony in 2nd grade, and I remember him being so happy to be there. I also remember him picking me up from school the day I threw up in class. He was glad to be there, or at least made me feel that way. My mother made me feel like every normal childhood need that interrupted her work was an inconvenience. I felt it to my core. So you can imagine my surprise when, senior year, I look out at the crowd during a random band concert assembly for the school and see my mother! Oh no! She took time off work for *this*? Maybe I was projecting, but when I walked her to her car afterwards, I got the impression she was expecting something “more” and that she had wasted her lunch AND breaks (she made a point to tell me she was there because she was giving up both). I was so embarrassed and guilty, and to this day, it is palpable.
What is this? What is this feeling I’m experiencing?
Stop being a baby op. This is generational and also work was different back then. I’m sure there are plot things your kids will come up with when they complain about you.
Anonymous
03/10/2024 21:41
Subject: What is this feeing I experience from a memory of my mother?
I come from a large family and my parents never came to any events of the older children.
For the youngest child, that was not the case.
My mother DID have an odd reverse situation to the one OP describes. The one time she did show up to a recital for a younger sibling, it was because the sibling had forgotten her instrument. So mom rushed it to the school. My sibling took the instrument but didn't invite her in. Maybe she felt guilty about imposing on my mom as going to school events was not something any of us identified with mom.
My mom read the event as my sibling being embarassed of her and not wanting her there. It bothers my mother to this day. I don't have the heart to point out to her that she NEVER attended any school events besides the youngest child's.
For the youngest child, that was not the case.
My mother DID have an odd reverse situation to the one OP describes. The one time she did show up to a recital for a younger sibling, it was because the sibling had forgotten her instrument. So mom rushed it to the school. My sibling took the instrument but didn't invite her in. Maybe she felt guilty about imposing on my mom as going to school events was not something any of us identified with mom.
My mom read the event as my sibling being embarassed of her and not wanting her there. It bothers my mother to this day. I don't have the heart to point out to her that she NEVER attended any school events besides the youngest child's.
Anonymous
03/10/2024 20:59
Subject: What is this feeing I experience from a memory of my mother?
I love how we judge past things with today’s standards. Perhaps the mother made the negative comment because it was special and she did want to be there but she needed to buffer her own hurt at the situation, she saved her feelings at your expense. Maybe you should ask her about it, not us. As for all you, we do things so much better now, parents your turn is coming. You won’t be spared from the critical gaze of your kids in the future as standards continually evolve and you’ve shown them you shouldn’t be.
Anonymous
03/10/2024 19:15
Subject: What is this feeing I experience from a memory of my mother?
Your mother sounded self absorbed and that was hurtful to you. You also sound like you wish she was more loving.
My mother was this way too, and now I wish I didn’t focus so much on the negative.
Mothers usually do so much that is unrecognized, but then when they either can’t or don’t want to do something, they are severely criticized.
My mother was this way too, and now I wish I didn’t focus so much on the negative.
Mothers usually do so much that is unrecognized, but then when they either can’t or don’t want to do something, they are severely criticized.