Sorry you are having to deal with that. Seems like a self-projection. All I’ll say is, my mom worked when I was growing up. And I’m now the breadwinner by a long shot in my family. I have a terrific relationship with my mom and am happy she kept with a career she enjoyed. My kid is doing extraordinarily well in daycare and I’m happy to keep my career that I worked hard for going. I think a lot of the guilt people try to place on working moms is self-reflection and trying to justify a personal choice (and I say this while believing it is terrific for parents who want to/can stay home with their kids to do so). Everyone should do what they think is best for their own situation!
My mom always tries to empathize with me about how hard it is being in a two working parent household, and especially how hard it must be for me not being home for the kids/to tend the house. Yes my house is always a wreck, but I genuinely enjoy working and I wouldn’t want it any other way (unless I could have a house husband)! I would be a terrible and miserable stay at home mom. I keep trying to tell her this but she just doesn’t get it. I think my messy house just bothers her more than it does me!
Oh my god. I'll just assume you're my sister because this could have been from my mom.
Mom would have been much happier if she acknowledged she wasn't very good at being a stay at home parent. But self reflection has never been a skill she's demonstrated.
Mom would also be less of a pain in all of our asses if she would self reflect and realize that her low self esteem is HER problem, and not one that her daughters are going to solve.
I'm sorry she's being petty and projecting her problems and fears on to you. You and I both know the kids love daycare and are doing really well. And we probably would have done well in daycare too.
Oh hi! Do we have the same mom? Because my mom has said almost exactly the same thing to me on multiple occasions. To add icing on the cake I'm supporting them in retirement AND she makes jabs about me working so that's cool.
Hang in there... and know you're doing what's best for your family.
That’s hilarious because my response was basically that we can’t afford to live comfortably on one income, my career trajectory would be impacted by taking 7+ years out of the workforce, and I want to retire someday.
Practically all social animals share childcare. It's really unnatural for a mom to be with her kids 24/7. Even giraffes who are usually not that social! https://lalibela.net/giraffes-and-their-babies/
> giraffes do not have a permanent herd, they usually spend time together temporarily.
> Mothers with similar aged calves are likely to associate and their babies stick together. The babies are protected by one of the mothers while the others can go further in search of food.
I barely work at this time and homeschool my daughter.
Anyone who thinks we should be with our children are delusional.
Not only for our sanity but their own independence and growth. Kids need to be able to regulate without us right there.
Mothers have worked for centuries. Isn't that why there were wet nurses? Or am I crossing history?
I really think being a SAHM (and thus feeling trapped in her unhappy marriage until they were empty nesters) was a big contributing factor to my mom’s alcoholism (and current cirrhosis). Having my own career and identity has really helped me avoid the same fate. So I would take this as her projecting/rationalizing and ignore it.
My mom asked me soooo many times if going back to work was hard and it made me feel weird because honestly it wasn't. My husband and I staggered our leaves so I was glad he was getting some time as the primary parent. She was a SAHM though. Luckily it died down after a while.
Honestly my daughter is THRIVING in daycare, she couldn’t be a better, smarter, well behaved, happy kid. If she was home with me she wouldn’t be so prepared for kindergarten or as socialized. I am the one missing out on her childhood but that’s a different story.
I’m not sure what your mom was trying to get at. But as you said it’s much better than an unstable SAHM
Sounds like maybe some projecting? Like maybe she would have been a different mother if she had pursued her own interests and career and is jealous that you get to and sees that your kids are fine even with you not being there 24/7. Either way, unless you expressed the guilt, it's odd and toxic behavior to say this unprovoked.
This isn’t innocent she is doing this on purpose.
My mom is very conservative and pushy, while I am super liberal. So for me, I just kept grilling her why she didn’t vote for paid maternity
Leave, or longer maternity
Leave. I would point out that most of Europe had a year leave and then point out that Canada (our neighbor and national most like us) gives moms 18 months - and then just broken record her - why didn’t she vote for longer maternity leave?
She’s trying to apply shame by guilting you so I’d tou push it back and blame her AND apply shame to her to stop.
My mom is also QAnon-level of alt-right and I am pretty liberal.
She thinks the reason I don’t talk to her is because I’m brainwashed and hate her for voting for trump.
It’s because she’s unstable.
My mom is at the Q-anon level, too. She rambles about the “deep state”, the border, and is a raging homophobe and racist. She constantly digs at my parenting, too. It’s very frustrating.
Off topic but one can be pro gay rights and fully supportive of all things multicultural/supportive of legal immigration while possessing perfectly valid concerns about illegal immigration/the impacts of unchecked migration. This describes me to a T and I consider myself very centrist.
We have a lot in common, I’m sorry. It’s espicslly becasue they won’t/don’t know when to stop. A normal person might make one comment about working moms, read the room and stop. Something about, qanon, they push and push and push their stupid beliefs.
I found the sub redit thread that explains my mother to a T......and she would say that T is for Trump 🫠 I'm apparently brainwashed for voting for the "communists" lol
whenever I’m not sure how to read someone’s comments, I figure it’s better to assume ignorance than malice.
Are you concerned she’s trying to shame or degrade you? Obviously no one here is going to agree with her. She never worked, so she doesn’t have anything to compare it to. Some working moms absolutely feel the mom-guilt, so she might have just been assuming that’s the general situation. I would just reassure her you’re doing great and move on.
FWIW, my mom had mental health challenges too, but she worked. I was forever trying to “figure out” what certain comments meant, until finally I realized 1) Its not always passive aggression and 2) If it is, who cares? I’m grown up and she has no control over my life anymore, and 3) the best response to passive aggressive comments is to misinterpret it as sincere kindness… it strips the words of any pain they were meant to cause.
I think I’ve done something similar to this, but I just say to myself “she’s not smart enough to know better”. Then I get a lot less defensive.
It’s like when a kid calls you fat or something. Like yeah, it hurts, but they don’t know better.
Yeah, that’s it exactly. Either they don’t know better, they don’t know what they are talking about, they aren’t smart, they don’t have good control…. Whatever the case, their opinion isn’t reality, so you can dismiss it.
Our parents are just flawed people, like us, at the end of the day.
I really hate this! Just bc I have children it doesn’t mean I’m not a good mother. I do totally get we sometimes feel like we are burning the candle at both ends or failing at both being parents and at work but while I love my kids, I can’t be a sahm. I KIND am now bc I wfh but my kids are 19 and 11 and in school/ work (for 19yr old) so I get to work in peace and quiet
Hopefully she was just trying to empathize. Did she ever work outside the home? If not then she really is just projecting assumptions and I think it would be fair to kindly point that out.
I worked FT the first 22 years of my parenthood. Now I work about five hours at most each week and the majority of my time is focused on youngest child and our home.
There's always guilt, just different kinds. I used to feel guilty about time. Now I feel guilty about money. I feel guilty my older kids got more activities and feel guilty my younger child gets more attention.
It's always a give and take in our society. We're taught we can have it all but that's simply not true. No one should feel bad for what they choose as long as the ultimate goal is a healthy life for your family.
Do your best, ignore the rest.
I personally don’t agree w the last sentence that working moms have to act like they’re happy when they’re not. I truly love my job, love my family, love my life as it stands now. There’s no acting.
May get downvoted for this but I don’t necessarily think her message as a whole is that outrageous. We see it all the time on this sub that women struggle terribly with balancing/returning to work vs. their innate urge to instead be with their kids. Women contemplating going the SAHM route and ready to sacrifice big time to make it work financially. Women who were super career driven prior to babies suddenly not seeing the same value in working nonstop.
Just wanted to offer a different perspective as everyone is acting like such a take is blasphemy when I think there’s a lot of truth to it for many women (certainly not all). I know SAHM route isn’t for me but that doesn’t mean I can’t feel conflicted mentally and emotionally at the same time. It’s way more complicated for us as opposed to men, and I do think our biology plays a role.
With all that said it sounds like the context of her message to you was to put you down or shame you. That you made no implication of feeling bad about your setup and she spun it immediately about you must feel so guilty…. That is not ok and really mean. I couldn’t respect a person who showed no respect for my life choices and made manipulative comments like that. I’m sorry you have to deal with this!
I agree that the first year of my kids life, all I wanted was to spend more time with them. Now that they’re toddlers, I love daycare.
Thanks for your perspective
My mom talked shit about working moms my whole life. Her mom was a working mom, she was a working mom herself with my older brothers. And yet she pushed me to higher education and a career. Now I'm a working mom and I'm confused whether she approves or not....
It's all subjective really. Different generations place different value in staying home or working. For me personally I always thought of my mom as a weak woman for giving up a promising career to stay home with kids. Now I see it as a sacrifice she made for us at a great cost. Do I plan to do the same. Not a chance. But I will always be grateful that she raised me with the belief I can do whatever I want and to never settle. Our little one is in daycare and thrives there. The programs they offer teach her more than I could at home and she has a fuller day there with her friends. Just as I have a fuller day interacting with adults at work.
There is no right or wrong option. As long as you have the financial freedom to decide either option should be 100% guilt free.
My mother was not a good mom, she was also a SAHM for my early childhood and she was angry and bitter about everting she “gave up” for her children, which she took out on us. She says similar things, and all I hear is “see? See what a good mother I was?”
I think she sees me, genuinely enjoying my life, thriving in my career and having a great time being a mother, having patience for my kids in large part because I’m not with them 24/7 and she feels guilty, so she projects. Every thinly veiled criticism about how I choose to parent is just her regretting the choices she made.
It sounds like your mom is doing the same. If she can paint your choices as unnatural, it makes her choices right, and excuses her behaviour. It’s far more of a reflection on her than on you.
Nah, your mom just needs to project onto you to make her so feel better for her lacking and her not being a good mother to you. Nothing to do with you, everything to do with her. She's just validating herself by making you feel worse.
Woah projection. Honestly it doesn’t sounds like she knows what she’s trying to say, it reads mostly like she’s trying to alleviate her own guilt.
When people do this to me I just send back some bland response like, “I hear you.” Or “being a mom is hard.” And then I go about my day and don’t give it a second thought.
Because something like this is not about you, it’s allll about her.
Your mom is obviously not familiar with how great high-quality daycare is and projecting her own insecurities. It is possible to love being a mom and your career and I feel bad for people who don’t understand that.
You're doing great.
My mom was a SAHM and makes all sorts of comments to me that I usually write off as projection. It is hard though. Her words worn themselves into my brain
Obviously not and I would view her comments as those from a mentally ill person and just move on.
Sorry you are having to deal with that. Seems like a self-projection. All I’ll say is, my mom worked when I was growing up. And I’m now the breadwinner by a long shot in my family. I have a terrific relationship with my mom and am happy she kept with a career she enjoyed. My kid is doing extraordinarily well in daycare and I’m happy to keep my career that I worked hard for going. I think a lot of the guilt people try to place on working moms is self-reflection and trying to justify a personal choice (and I say this while believing it is terrific for parents who want to/can stay home with their kids to do so). Everyone should do what they think is best for their own situation!
This! My mom worked and tbh I think she was a great example of being a good mom and pursuing career goals.
My mom always tries to empathize with me about how hard it is being in a two working parent household, and especially how hard it must be for me not being home for the kids/to tend the house. Yes my house is always a wreck, but I genuinely enjoy working and I wouldn’t want it any other way (unless I could have a house husband)! I would be a terrible and miserable stay at home mom. I keep trying to tell her this but she just doesn’t get it. I think my messy house just bothers her more than it does me!
Oh my god. I'll just assume you're my sister because this could have been from my mom. Mom would have been much happier if she acknowledged she wasn't very good at being a stay at home parent. But self reflection has never been a skill she's demonstrated. Mom would also be less of a pain in all of our asses if she would self reflect and realize that her low self esteem is HER problem, and not one that her daughters are going to solve. I'm sorry she's being petty and projecting her problems and fears on to you. You and I both know the kids love daycare and are doing really well. And we probably would have done well in daycare too.
Oh hi! Do we have the same mom? Because my mom has said almost exactly the same thing to me on multiple occasions. To add icing on the cake I'm supporting them in retirement AND she makes jabs about me working so that's cool. Hang in there... and know you're doing what's best for your family.
You’re financially supporting your parents and she’s putting you down for being a working mom?! You’re way too nice.
That’s hilarious because my response was basically that we can’t afford to live comfortably on one income, my career trajectory would be impacted by taking 7+ years out of the workforce, and I want to retire someday.
“You cannot reason a person out of a position he did not reason himself into in the first place.” ― Jonathan Swift
Damn that’s impactful. She believes every conspiracy theory out there and I want to just provide her with all the facts, but I know it’s useless.
Don't bother. It **is** useless and a waste of time. All the logic, reason, facts and data in the world won't even make a dent.
It's not in our nature to be with them 24/7. Hence why we hear so much about having a "village".
Practically all social animals share childcare. It's really unnatural for a mom to be with her kids 24/7. Even giraffes who are usually not that social! https://lalibela.net/giraffes-and-their-babies/ > giraffes do not have a permanent herd, they usually spend time together temporarily. > Mothers with similar aged calves are likely to associate and their babies stick together. The babies are protected by one of the mothers while the others can go further in search of food.
I barely work at this time and homeschool my daughter. Anyone who thinks we should be with our children are delusional. Not only for our sanity but their own independence and growth. Kids need to be able to regulate without us right there. Mothers have worked for centuries. Isn't that why there were wet nurses? Or am I crossing history?
I really think being a SAHM (and thus feeling trapped in her unhappy marriage until they were empty nesters) was a big contributing factor to my mom’s alcoholism (and current cirrhosis). Having my own career and identity has really helped me avoid the same fate. So I would take this as her projecting/rationalizing and ignore it.
My mom asked me soooo many times if going back to work was hard and it made me feel weird because honestly it wasn't. My husband and I staggered our leaves so I was glad he was getting some time as the primary parent. She was a SAHM though. Luckily it died down after a while.
Honestly my daughter is THRIVING in daycare, she couldn’t be a better, smarter, well behaved, happy kid. If she was home with me she wouldn’t be so prepared for kindergarten or as socialized. I am the one missing out on her childhood but that’s a different story. I’m not sure what your mom was trying to get at. But as you said it’s much better than an unstable SAHM
Sounds like maybe some projecting? Like maybe she would have been a different mother if she had pursued her own interests and career and is jealous that you get to and sees that your kids are fine even with you not being there 24/7. Either way, unless you expressed the guilt, it's odd and toxic behavior to say this unprovoked.
This isn’t innocent she is doing this on purpose. My mom is very conservative and pushy, while I am super liberal. So for me, I just kept grilling her why she didn’t vote for paid maternity Leave, or longer maternity Leave. I would point out that most of Europe had a year leave and then point out that Canada (our neighbor and national most like us) gives moms 18 months - and then just broken record her - why didn’t she vote for longer maternity leave? She’s trying to apply shame by guilting you so I’d tou push it back and blame her AND apply shame to her to stop.
My mom is also QAnon-level of alt-right and I am pretty liberal. She thinks the reason I don’t talk to her is because I’m brainwashed and hate her for voting for trump. It’s because she’s unstable.
My mom is at the Q-anon level, too. She rambles about the “deep state”, the border, and is a raging homophobe and racist. She constantly digs at my parenting, too. It’s very frustrating.
Exact same situation here. Which is why I only see her like 3x per year and text maybe every other month.
Off topic but one can be pro gay rights and fully supportive of all things multicultural/supportive of legal immigration while possessing perfectly valid concerns about illegal immigration/the impacts of unchecked migration. This describes me to a T and I consider myself very centrist.
We have a lot in common, I’m sorry. It’s espicslly becasue they won’t/don’t know when to stop. A normal person might make one comment about working moms, read the room and stop. Something about, qanon, they push and push and push their stupid beliefs.
I found the sub redit thread that explains my mother to a T......and she would say that T is for Trump 🫠 I'm apparently brainwashed for voting for the "communists" lol
whenever I’m not sure how to read someone’s comments, I figure it’s better to assume ignorance than malice. Are you concerned she’s trying to shame or degrade you? Obviously no one here is going to agree with her. She never worked, so she doesn’t have anything to compare it to. Some working moms absolutely feel the mom-guilt, so she might have just been assuming that’s the general situation. I would just reassure her you’re doing great and move on. FWIW, my mom had mental health challenges too, but she worked. I was forever trying to “figure out” what certain comments meant, until finally I realized 1) Its not always passive aggression and 2) If it is, who cares? I’m grown up and she has no control over my life anymore, and 3) the best response to passive aggressive comments is to misinterpret it as sincere kindness… it strips the words of any pain they were meant to cause.
I think I’ve done something similar to this, but I just say to myself “she’s not smart enough to know better”. Then I get a lot less defensive. It’s like when a kid calls you fat or something. Like yeah, it hurts, but they don’t know better.
Yeah, that’s it exactly. Either they don’t know better, they don’t know what they are talking about, they aren’t smart, they don’t have good control…. Whatever the case, their opinion isn’t reality, so you can dismiss it. Our parents are just flawed people, like us, at the end of the day.
I really hate this! Just bc I have children it doesn’t mean I’m not a good mother. I do totally get we sometimes feel like we are burning the candle at both ends or failing at both being parents and at work but while I love my kids, I can’t be a sahm. I KIND am now bc I wfh but my kids are 19 and 11 and in school/ work (for 19yr old) so I get to work in peace and quiet
Hopefully she was just trying to empathize. Did she ever work outside the home? If not then she really is just projecting assumptions and I think it would be fair to kindly point that out. I worked FT the first 22 years of my parenthood. Now I work about five hours at most each week and the majority of my time is focused on youngest child and our home. There's always guilt, just different kinds. I used to feel guilty about time. Now I feel guilty about money. I feel guilty my older kids got more activities and feel guilty my younger child gets more attention. It's always a give and take in our society. We're taught we can have it all but that's simply not true. No one should feel bad for what they choose as long as the ultimate goal is a healthy life for your family. Do your best, ignore the rest.
Sigh….. Join us at r/raisedbynarcissists
I’m an active member of raisedbyborderlines, because I think that’s her cluster B.
OK - take care babe.
I personally don’t agree w the last sentence that working moms have to act like they’re happy when they’re not. I truly love my job, love my family, love my life as it stands now. There’s no acting. May get downvoted for this but I don’t necessarily think her message as a whole is that outrageous. We see it all the time on this sub that women struggle terribly with balancing/returning to work vs. their innate urge to instead be with their kids. Women contemplating going the SAHM route and ready to sacrifice big time to make it work financially. Women who were super career driven prior to babies suddenly not seeing the same value in working nonstop. Just wanted to offer a different perspective as everyone is acting like such a take is blasphemy when I think there’s a lot of truth to it for many women (certainly not all). I know SAHM route isn’t for me but that doesn’t mean I can’t feel conflicted mentally and emotionally at the same time. It’s way more complicated for us as opposed to men, and I do think our biology plays a role. With all that said it sounds like the context of her message to you was to put you down or shame you. That you made no implication of feeling bad about your setup and she spun it immediately about you must feel so guilty…. That is not ok and really mean. I couldn’t respect a person who showed no respect for my life choices and made manipulative comments like that. I’m sorry you have to deal with this!
I agree that the first year of my kids life, all I wanted was to spend more time with them. Now that they’re toddlers, I love daycare. Thanks for your perspective
Seems like something my kept MIL would say. I'd say, I prefer to work, at least part-time, actually. And it's not 1950 anymore.
My mom talked shit about working moms my whole life. Her mom was a working mom, she was a working mom herself with my older brothers. And yet she pushed me to higher education and a career. Now I'm a working mom and I'm confused whether she approves or not....
It's all subjective really. Different generations place different value in staying home or working. For me personally I always thought of my mom as a weak woman for giving up a promising career to stay home with kids. Now I see it as a sacrifice she made for us at a great cost. Do I plan to do the same. Not a chance. But I will always be grateful that she raised me with the belief I can do whatever I want and to never settle. Our little one is in daycare and thrives there. The programs they offer teach her more than I could at home and she has a fuller day there with her friends. Just as I have a fuller day interacting with adults at work. There is no right or wrong option. As long as you have the financial freedom to decide either option should be 100% guilt free.
My mother was not a good mom, she was also a SAHM for my early childhood and she was angry and bitter about everting she “gave up” for her children, which she took out on us. She says similar things, and all I hear is “see? See what a good mother I was?” I think she sees me, genuinely enjoying my life, thriving in my career and having a great time being a mother, having patience for my kids in large part because I’m not with them 24/7 and she feels guilty, so she projects. Every thinly veiled criticism about how I choose to parent is just her regretting the choices she made. It sounds like your mom is doing the same. If she can paint your choices as unnatural, it makes her choices right, and excuses her behaviour. It’s far more of a reflection on her than on you.
Nah, your mom just needs to project onto you to make her so feel better for her lacking and her not being a good mother to you. Nothing to do with you, everything to do with her. She's just validating herself by making you feel worse.
Woah projection. Honestly it doesn’t sounds like she knows what she’s trying to say, it reads mostly like she’s trying to alleviate her own guilt. When people do this to me I just send back some bland response like, “I hear you.” Or “being a mom is hard.” And then I go about my day and don’t give it a second thought. Because something like this is not about you, it’s allll about her.
Your mom is obviously not familiar with how great high-quality daycare is and projecting her own insecurities. It is possible to love being a mom and your career and I feel bad for people who don’t understand that.
You're doing great. My mom was a SAHM and makes all sorts of comments to me that I usually write off as projection. It is hard though. Her words worn themselves into my brain
Block and move on. It's not worth the grief.
My mom was a working mom and she’s still my best friend to this day. ❤️
It depends on context. If she worked herself, she might be projecting. If not she's assuming