[ SECRET POST #2489 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2489 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 058 secrets from Secret Submission Post #356.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

06. http://i.imgur.com/AgAFQay.png?1?3148

[feotakahari]

If I may ask, what did your mother do wrong?

[(Anonymous)]

somehow i don't think your mother would change her mind.

[hiyami]

Yeah, this. I've never seen anyone realize what they were doing wrong simply with showing them in a media a character doing the same.

[seventh_seal]

I guess you're not alone in sounding like an asshole since this was my exact reaction to the secret.

It's time to let go and forgive, OP. This reminds me of how my dad always went on about what a bad father his father was to him and guess what, my dad sucked at being a dad himself.

[dreemyweird]

Thank you. That was what I wanted to say. As somebody who did have an abusive mother, I absolutely do not understand the point of confronting the abuser (or anyone who mistreated you) about their misdeeds when the actual threat of being hurt is gone. Most of the time they are either unable to realize that they did something wrong or have already realized it. If the latter is the case, it could be that they feel guilty over it; why do you need to make that guilt worse? To make them suffer? What would be the point of doing it, exactly?

[(Anonymous)]

Not OP but I think you're forgetting that parents are parents for as long as they and their children are alive. OP stands to gain a healthy relationship with their mother or at least the chance to have a relationship that isn't harmful. It could also mean having a relationship (or a better one) with other family members.

Example: My own mother is horrible and I hate her but I can't cut her out of my life without cutting the rest of my family out, too. I won't do that so it means putting up with her. I'm 35 and she can't hurt me the way she used to but that doesn't mean she doesn't try and our interactions aren't good for me. But it means I can still have my father and sister in my life so I call her regularly and keep up the pretense that we're a normal mother-daughter pair.

[darkmanifest]

Personally, I couldn't continue to have a healthy adult relationship with my mother if we never discussed and accepted the ways she fucked up as a parent (and less so, the ways I fucked up as a bratty kid), purely because we would probably continue that negative behavior towards each other. Of course it would have less power now, but as she never stops being my mother, she would always have a unique influence on me, for better or worse. I'd have to cut her off; maybe OP would like to avoid that.

[forgottenjester]

I think they should do that for both parents. Not evil, maybe even good people, just not the best at parenting. It would probably be difficult to write but I can see it being done very well.

[(Anonymous)]

I agree. I like stories that show parents as people. The best example I can give is Digimon Adventure 02 with Ken Ichijouji's parents. I loved that they were genuinely nice loving people who made mistakes. I loved that they realized their mistakes and started trying to do better. It would have been easy to make them flat characters who just "want a genius son and nothing else". But instead they made them human.

Then again Digimon was always pretty good at that in the early seasons. So many complex back stories that didn't just go with 'abusive parents'.

[(Anonymous)]

Uh. She wasn't abusive, you're in your 30s... no offense, but... dude, get the fuck over it. Get into therapy if you have to, but holding a long-standing grudge against your mother for not being perfect sounds like it's FAR more your problem than hers at this point. We all wish our parents had traits or behaviors that they lacked in. Parents are human too. I'll bet she knows her own shortcomings more than you realize. She doesn't owe it to you to sit down and go on and on about how she was the Worst Mother Ever just so you can finally move on with your life rather than sit there complaining that fiction doesn't show your situation the way you'd like it to.

[blunderbuss]

Uh, there's a lot of those types of parents in media. There's a reason why TV Tropes has multiple pages for different types of bad parents, like neglectful or overly criticising or even overly smothery.

And honestly, speaking from experience, trying to get someone to admit that they've wronged and/or failed you can be like squeezing blood from a stone. You could find a fictional mother who is a dead ringer for your mother but if she doesn't want to see it, she won't. And hanging out for that 'aha' moment from her can be a waste of time and energy better spent.

[(Anonymous)]

All the responses to this secret telling OP to just "get over it" like getting over having an awful parent is that easy make me feel really sad. You don't have to be abused for someone who's there for a good 50+% of your life to leave a huge impact on your life. If OP's mother was a racist, sexist, homophobe, whatever, that tried to make her hate certain groups of people all her life, would everyone be telling her to lol "get over" years and years of someone you love telling you really bad shit and just forget about it, you're too old for that plus it wasn't even abusive? Maybe I'm having a very personal reaction to this because I do have a mother like that who isn't abusive but bad anyways but jfc people have no sympathy.

I'm sorry, OP.

[littlestbirds]

It sounds like you're imagining a way to make your mother understand this without some really difficult conversations, and I don't think that's realistic. Fiction is subjective, it's not some direct-to-brain emotional transmission.
And fwiw, I did try to have that difficult conversation as a adult and I didn't get much out of it. It's not that satisfying or validating to hear that parents don't know what they're doing and their parents didn't know what they were doing and, btw, you don't know what you're doing either.

[(Anonymous)]

The movie Heartbreakers comes to mind. My mother seems to think it's a compliment that our relationship is like theirs (minus the conning).

[visp]

1. There's a lot of movies out there, I'm sure you could find one that worked, and if not, try books.

2. But honestly, what's the point? You're past 30. If you don't like your mother, stay away from her. Stop hanging around her trying to get an apology. It won't make your past suck any less.

[(Anonymous)]

So what happens when you find the perfect bad mother character? What happens then? What's the plan? It sounds like you've been hunting for a while. Do you show it to your mother? Because sadly you can't plan out her reaction. She might see something, might not. And I worry you're putting way too much hope in the power her response will have on you. Let's say, best case scenario, you find the fictional doppelganger of your mother. She watches the movie. She comes to you in tears, "I should have been a better mother. I'm so sorry." she lists all of her faults, all of the things she could have changed about herself, cries and says she wishes she could take it all back. Then what? You... hug it out? 32 years of grudges and wishes are suddenly okay? She becomes an entirely different person overnight, you no longer resent your childhood?

It's healthier for you to give this up. If your mother has bad behavior NOW, call her on it when you can. But you can't change what already happened and the victory of making her see it your way will be short-lived and pointless. It might feel like this huge hurdle you have to get past, but you don't. Believe me.

[(Anonymous)]

Are you basing your "bad" on all the "good" you see in movies/tv? If so, please don't. The mothers your friends had? Please don't--you have no idea what it was like when you weren't there.

I'd like to know what qualifies someone as a good or bad parent as well. Mine did what she knew how to do, the same as I did for my kids. Mine seem to think I did okay no matter how I feel about how I screwed up their lives.

[(Anonymous)]

My mom always treated me like a miniature adult and expected me to understand and react to things emotionally and intellectually like an adult. Tiny me would go to her feeling sad about something or wanting comfort and she would say, "okay, honey, what would you like me to do about it? Tell me what you want from me." Intended in the most sympathetic way possible but she never understood that sometimes kids just need hugs and sympathy and to be told things are okay, which I never got. Only practical offers to resolve problems. Do I need money? Do I need things? Do I need assistance? No? What do you want from me?

We've never really had a close relationship because she'd treat me like an adult then be surprised and confused and hurt when I acted like one (meaning independent, non-affectionate, never going to her with my problems because shit, I'm 8 years old, I don't KNOW what I want from you), instead of a normal loving little kid.

She's a good person who tried her best and I can acknowledge that. She was far from abusive. But I can acknowledge at the same time that she wasn't very good at being a parent or filling a parental role, and even though I try to explain, she still doesn't understand why we turned out the way we did instead of all the normal, affectionate, loving mother-child interactions that she sees amongst all her friends with children. If I could find a movie or something about a situation like ours that I could have her sit down and watch to maybe help her understand, I'd definitely ask her to give it a shot. I've never been able to find anything, though.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeeeah, don't see that working. People generally don't pick up on that unless it's pointed out - and pointing it out is just go to make them defensive and not get you anywhere.

[rbhudson]

I'm so sorry, OP :(

[(Anonymous)]

Evelyn Harper from "Two and a Half Men" is the first one who comes to mind.

So, did you want a list?

[(Anonymous)]

Leonard's mother (Big Bang Theory)
Alicia's mother (The Good Wife)
Meredith's mother (Grey's Anatomy)
Monica's mother (Friends)
John's mother (Terminator 2) - although an argument could be made either way
Rose's mother (Titanic)
Nancy's mother (Nightmare on Elm Street)
Conrad's mother (Ordinary People)

[(Anonymous)]

Why are all your chosen examples Disney? That might be the problem right there: it's kind of a hard sell to portray realistic issues in media that's mostly meant for the under-12 set. Outright villainy = much more attractive.

Maybe you need to branch out. There are plenty of examples in other media, the comment right above mine lists a few prominent ones. I read the book My Sister's Keeper just because I heard it portrayed a character who was a great mother to one kid and absolutely terrible to another, etc.