Anonymous
03/29/2025 15:16
Subject: Anyone have an adult child who seems to hate you suddenly and for no apparent reason?
My DD calls me pathetic, boring, stupid, etc.
She wants drama. With friends, with us, boyfriends, whatever. We don’t engage. DH & I are boring. We work, we like to cook, read, take walks, do little home projects - but honestly the majority of our time is caring for our teens, supporting their activities, going to their performances, grocery shopping/cooking, planning vacations, college visits, etc.
When she tries to start drama, we say something of the lines like “we don’t talk to each other like that”, “I’ll give you some space until you can discuss things calmly” etc.
She has said she wishes we would tell back/yell at her, so she can be mad at us. It’s a little weird. DH & I grew up with yellers so that is not us as parents or as people. We value calm, rational discussion- which a kid doesn’t always want, I think she would prefer what I grew up with - friction, slammed doors, getting yelled at for accidents & small mistakes. I’ll never be a parent like that.
She wants drama. With friends, with us, boyfriends, whatever. We don’t engage. DH & I are boring. We work, we like to cook, read, take walks, do little home projects - but honestly the majority of our time is caring for our teens, supporting their activities, going to their performances, grocery shopping/cooking, planning vacations, college visits, etc.
When she tries to start drama, we say something of the lines like “we don’t talk to each other like that”, “I’ll give you some space until you can discuss things calmly” etc.
She has said she wishes we would tell back/yell at her, so she can be mad at us. It’s a little weird. DH & I grew up with yellers so that is not us as parents or as people. We value calm, rational discussion- which a kid doesn’t always want, I think she would prefer what I grew up with - friction, slammed doors, getting yelled at for accidents & small mistakes. I’ll never be a parent like that.
Anonymous
03/29/2025 14:55
Subject: Re:Anyone have an adult child who seems to hate you suddenly and for no apparent reason?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Still no response about how much time you’ve spent with the childhood special needs versus this daughter.
Also, I’m surprised your therapist hasn’t talked to you about this already. What does your therapist say?
Wowzers. OP does not owe you a response to your a-holish questioning.
+1, this pp gets nothing. No soup for them!
Hold onto that Mulligatawny for one minute...
While the PP may have been a bit blunt there is merit in their questions.
I've seen this dynamic many times. In particular, close friends has one "special" child with a medical condition (which is manageable) and one without. The entire focus of the family revolved around the one child's condition. The "other" child was often an afterthought. We saw this playing out first-hand but of course said nothing because, you know, you can't criticize others' parenting.
It was suggested several times (by school) that the entire family would benefit from counseling. Our friends ignored that advice.
This came to a head during their teen years. The "other" child was obviously affected and suffering from emotional neglect and acted out in ways that essentially ended his life.
+1 DDP
Anonymous
03/29/2025 14:53
Subject: Anyone have an adult child who seems to hate you suddenly and for no apparent reason?
Anonymous wrote:I had a very good relationship with my daughter until she was around 16. Suddenly, around 17, she began to detest me, but she could never articulate any reasons (i.e. no abuse - physical, mental, narcissism, etc.). Both my husband and I have always loved her tremendously, provided for her, cheered her on at all her games and activities, and allowed her to pursue her own dreams. She is 19 now and she is at the point, where she wants nothing to do with her family (but me in particular). She told me that she cannot even stand to look at me and that I am pathetic. Her therapist had once told me that it is really an issue that is more about her than me. However, it's just been so painful and I just don't understand what is going on. She blames me for everything that went wrong in her life. She also says that she's upset that I didn't put a lot of pressure on her growing up (which I purposely tried not to do because I hated having so much pressure when I was growing up). From the outside, she looks like she has it all (she was a good student, got into all her top choices for college, had wonderful friends and was very pleasant around everyone - except me). Anyways, just wondering if others can relate? If so, did things get better? And how?
She probably means “support.” Are you a passive person?
Anonymous
03/29/2025 14:14
Subject: Re:Anyone have an adult child who seems to hate you suddenly and for no apparent reason?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:There is a blame-your-parents-for-everything movement in the internet. It's trendy to call parents "emotionally immature", "neglectful", etc.
People keep forgetting that parents weren't born adults, they are the product of their upbringing. If you question their parenting, wait till you become a parent of your own teen.
+1. It must be nice for all of these people to be so perfect they would NEVER make any mistakes. In my opinion, therapy has caused a lot of this. It’s great that we are learning more but it’s being used as a weapon by a lot of emotionally immature people.
Anonymous
03/29/2025 12:32
Subject: Re:Anyone have an adult child who seems to hate you suddenly and for no apparent reason?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:There is a blame-your-parents-for-everything movement in the internet. It's trendy to call parents "emotionally immature", "neglectful", etc.
People keep forgetting that parents weren't born adults, they are the product of their upbringing. If you question their parenting, wait till you become a parent of your own teen.
Becoming a parent myself is what made me question my own upbringing. I realized that I sincerely love my daughter. I find her antics mostly adorable. My natural instinct when she’s upset or hurt is to comfort her rather than dismiss it. It was a lighting bulb to realize “oh, this is how parents are supposed to feel about their children? It’s not just a common universal experience that children are annoying and anything that requires you pay attention to them is worth being punished?”
My mom could easily have written the OP, though.
Young kids are easy to love and support.
I could have written your post (about how I parented my young child) AND OP’s (about how my grown child treats me).
Anonymous
03/29/2025 12:30
Subject: Anyone have an adult child who seems to hate you suddenly and for no apparent reason?
Anonymous wrote:I think a lot of young women go through this weird pulling away from/separating from their mom’s phase where they desperately want to differentiate themselves from their mothers. They aren’t mature enough to understand their moms as whole human beings, just as “mom”.
I’d give her space, as she matures she will hopefully gain perspective and will come back to you and your relationship will be stronger for it.
Anonymous
03/29/2025 12:29
Subject: Anyone have an adult child who seems to hate you suddenly and for no apparent reason?
I can relate to your posts. And your pain.
My daughter has zero appreciation for my strengths as a parent, and dwells upon minor fights we had years ago (nothing physical of course, and no screaming, just normal parent-child disagreements. Like over cell phone use).
I walk on eggshells, because when they are older you only see them at the kid’s discretion. We talk every few weeks and see each other every few months. Now that she has a boyfriend, her time is very limited. You take what you can get. But I envy parents with kids who are warm and considerate.
My daughter has zero appreciation for my strengths as a parent, and dwells upon minor fights we had years ago (nothing physical of course, and no screaming, just normal parent-child disagreements. Like over cell phone use).
I walk on eggshells, because when they are older you only see them at the kid’s discretion. We talk every few weeks and see each other every few months. Now that she has a boyfriend, her time is very limited. You take what you can get. But I envy parents with kids who are warm and considerate.
Anonymous
03/29/2025 11:36
Subject: Re:Anyone have an adult child who seems to hate you suddenly and for no apparent reason?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:There is a blame-your-parents-for-everything movement in the internet. It's trendy to call parents "emotionally immature", "neglectful", etc.
People keep forgetting that parents weren't born adults, they are the product of their upbringing. If you question their parenting, wait till you become a parent of your own teen.
Becoming a parent myself is what made me question my own upbringing. I realized that I sincerely love my daughter. I find her antics mostly adorable. My natural instinct when she’s upset or hurt is to comfort her rather than dismiss it. It was a lighting bulb to realize “oh, this is how parents are supposed to feel about their children? It’s not just a common universal experience that children are annoying and anything that requires you pay attention to them is worth being punished?”
My mom could easily have written the OP, though.
Anonymous
03/29/2025 11:23
Subject: Anyone have an adult child who seems to hate you suddenly and for no apparent reason?
I would assume it’s soiling the nest. But she’s already in college.
A friend of mine started freaking out when her teen dd began to pull away, and as a result became more permissive and put up with some pretty mean/extreme aggressive comments towards mom because she didn’t want dd to pull away even more. But I wonder if because mom didn’t fight back, dd felt mom was pathetic and she was actually looking for boundaries and mom wasn’t providing.
But we don’t know, so I would suggest mom talks to her own counselor about how to respond or manage her own feelings.
Good luck op, keep us updated if anything changes.
A friend of mine started freaking out when her teen dd began to pull away, and as a result became more permissive and put up with some pretty mean/extreme aggressive comments towards mom because she didn’t want dd to pull away even more. But I wonder if because mom didn’t fight back, dd felt mom was pathetic and she was actually looking for boundaries and mom wasn’t providing.
But we don’t know, so I would suggest mom talks to her own counselor about how to respond or manage her own feelings.
Good luck op, keep us updated if anything changes.
Anonymous
03/29/2025 10:50
Subject: Re:Anyone have an adult child who seems to hate you suddenly and for no apparent reason?
I am having a similar issue with a DD in college. Somehow I am now the “bad guy.” It is a very difficult time and reading all the responses some of which are super unhelpful, makes me wonder why people write what they do. I am also a SAHM and had a special needs child. So my life has been devoted to the kids and the SN child actually always had to take a backseat to the older sister. So really, that cannot be the issue. Money has never been an issue either. Yet, here we are as well. I’ve tried talking to DD as other person suggested, listening to her, etc. but with young adults who have their mind made up, it’s quite hard.
Anonymous
03/16/2025 15:14
Subject: Anyone have an adult child who seems to hate you suddenly and for no apparent reason?
Anonymous wrote:OP did you vote for Trump?
QTNA
Anonymous
03/16/2025 12:07
Subject: Anyone have an adult child who seems to hate you suddenly and for no apparent reason?
Nope. Thank goodness.
Anonymous
03/16/2025 10:31
Subject: Re:Anyone have an adult child who seems to hate you suddenly and for no apparent reason?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Still no response about how much time you’ve spent with the childhood special needs versus this daughter.
Also, I’m surprised your therapist hasn’t talked to you about this already. What does your therapist say?
Wowzers. OP does not owe you a response to your a-holish questioning.
+1, this pp gets nothing. No soup for them!
Hold onto that Mulligatawny for one minute...
While the PP may have been a bit blunt there is merit in their questions.
I've seen this dynamic many times. In particular, close friends has one "special" child with a medical condition (which is manageable) and one without. The entire focus of the family revolved around the one child's condition. The "other" child was often an afterthought. We saw this playing out first-hand but of course said nothing because, you know, you can't criticize others' parenting.
It was suggested several times (by school) that the entire family would benefit from counseling. Our friends ignored that advice.
This came to a head during their teen years. The "other" child was obviously affected and suffering from emotional neglect and acted out in ways that essentially ended his life.
Anonymous
03/13/2025 22:18
Subject: Anyone have an adult child who seems to hate you suddenly and for no apparent reason?
My son was pretty terrible to me for awhile in HS. I definitely think it was partly “shitting the nest” as a PP described above.
But, it was also partially a mood disorder aspect of ADHD (meds helped) and was encouraged by an abusive girlfriend who was trying to isolate him from family.
At a certain point, I had to verbally draw boundaries and essentially say, “you can dislike me, and I acknowledge I can be wrong. Constructive criticism is OK but nastiness is not. I treat you with respect and never yell or name call you even when we disagree and I have a right to the same from you.”
That seemed to make him pause a bit. ultimately, after a couple years (when in college) he reverted to his lovely self. It was a painful time for me.
But, it was also partially a mood disorder aspect of ADHD (meds helped) and was encouraged by an abusive girlfriend who was trying to isolate him from family.
At a certain point, I had to verbally draw boundaries and essentially say, “you can dislike me, and I acknowledge I can be wrong. Constructive criticism is OK but nastiness is not. I treat you with respect and never yell or name call you even when we disagree and I have a right to the same from you.”
That seemed to make him pause a bit. ultimately, after a couple years (when in college) he reverted to his lovely self. It was a painful time for me.
Anonymous
03/12/2025 11:30
Subject: Re:Anyone have an adult child who seems to hate you suddenly and for no apparent reason?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Still no response about how much time you’ve spent with the childhood special needs versus this daughter.
Also, I’m surprised your therapist hasn’t talked to you about this already. What does your therapist say?
Wowzers. OP does not owe you a response to your a-holish questioning.
+1, this pp gets nothing. No soup for them!