My Mother disowned me! - Page 2

[member234098]

My thoughts are that life goes on. Congratulations.

Well begun is half done.

If your mom is reasonable, she will come around and get to know her grandchild; if not that is her loss not yours. The future is your child.

[Nicci P]

Really sorry you're dealing with this. I didnt tell my dad even though I birthed in his house with my mum present. He knew I was planning to birth there but not that it would be a UC.
When he came home from work, minutes after the birth he had to go in the garden to get air because there was no midwife and spent the whole weekend asking when I was going to get the baby checked over! My family havent been too thrilled with it either (I got called "f***ing insane" by my grandparents) which is exactly why I didnt tell them. It's important to not have people's negative views of birth clouding your head while you are in labour and it totally makes sense that you didnt tell your family.
If you still want a relationship with your mum, I hope she comes back and apologises for over-reacting.
xx

[maritimemum]

Originally Posted by Kidzaplenty

I totally disagree!

It is not lying to NOT tell someone that is not involved in a decision and does not have a say about your choices in any matter.

I do not go out of my way to tell everyone about my choices regarding our life choices (that includes our UC or vaxing choices). And that includes my Mom and my ILs.

The OP's mom has no right to beel hurt or betrayed. It was never her choice to make, and the OP was never required to tell anyone beyond her husband.

And if the OP felt that she may find some unsupportive responses there is nothing that could possibly mean she should have to tell and then just deal with those responses.

If her mother is so immature that she throws a temper tantrum and disowns the OP because the OP made a mature, rational decision regarding her own healthcare and the care of her baby without telling her, a decision that said mother has NO say in, well then, what can be said? It boggles the mind that she would feel justified (and that anyone would justify her behaviour), IMO.

^^EXACTLY my thoughts!

[Zenful]

Originally Posted by Kidzaplenty

I totally disagree!

It is not lying to NOT tell someone that is not involved in a decision and does not have a say about your choices in any matter.

I do not go out of my way to tell everyone about my choices regarding our life choices (that includes our UC or vaxing choices). And that includes my Mom and my ILs.

The OP's mom has no right to beel hurt or betrayed. It was never her choice to make, and the OP was never required to tell anyone beyond her husband.

And if the OP felt that she may find some unsupportive responses there is nothing that could possibly mean she should have to tell and then just deal with those responses.

If her mother is so immature that she throws a temper tantrum and disowns the OP because the OP made a mature, rational decision regarding her own healthcare and the care of her baby without telling her, a decision that said mother has NO say in, well then, what can be said? It boggles the mind that she would feel justified (and that anyone would justify her behaviour), IMO.

She is the OP's mother, though, so even though she doesn't have a say in the matter and one could argue that it's none of her business...the OP still lead her to believe something that's false, and, yes, that is lying. You can look it up in the dictionary if you like. If she didn't want her mother to be apart in the birth or her choices in this regard then she should have made that clear to begin with. Establishing boundaries is much more compassionate than lying, imo. Anyway, what's done is done...she can't take back what's happened, but I was trying to be fair since all the other comments basically condemn the mother for feeling what she's feeling. It's not completely the mother's fault for feeling how she feels, in other words. Disowning her daughter is extreme, I agree, but she's obviously very hurt and feels betrayed. Maybe she didn't even want a say in the matter or to try to convince her daughter not to have a UC...maybe all she wanted was to feel included and honored as an equal partner in her daughter's life. When a person hides something from someone else because they can't trust them with the information, this communicates to the other person that they are not seen as their equal...they usually feel shunned and hurt, in other words. At the very least, I feel the OP should explain to her mom how she feels and why she did what she did...maybe also mentioning that being disowned hurts her quite a bit, too. It sounds like both people could use some more understanding about how the other person is feeling...

[sweet.p]

Originally Posted by Zenful

She is the OP's mother, though, so even though she doesn't have a say in the matter and one could argue that it's none of her business...the OP still lead her to believe something that's false, and, yes, that is lying. You can look it up in the dictionary if you like. If she didn't want her mother to be apart in the birth or her choices in this regard then she should have made that clear to begin with. Establishing boundaries is much more compassionate than lying, imo. Anyway, what's done is done...she can't take back what's happened, but I was trying to be fair since all the other comments basically condemn the mother for feeling what she's feeling. It's not completely the mother's fault for feeling how she feels, in other words. Disowning her daughter is extreme, I agree, but she's obviously very hurt and feels betrayed. Maybe she didn't even want a say in the matter or to try to convince her daughter not to have a UC...maybe all she wanted was to feel included and honored as an equal partner in her daughter's life. When a person hides something from someone else because they can't trust them with the information, this communicates to the other person that they are not seen as their equal...they usually feel shunned and hurt, in other words. At the very least, I feel the OP should explain to her mom how she feels and why she did what she did...maybe also mentioning that being disowned hurts her quite a bit, too. It sounds like both people could use some more understanding about how the other person is feeling...

Thanks for your common sense words.

My impression is that it's an important enough relationship that the OP wants to figure out how to repair it.

[sweet.p]

Originally Posted by Kidzaplenty

I totally disagree!

It is not lying to NOT tell someone that is not involved in a decision and does not have a say about your choices in any matter.

I do not go out of my way to tell everyone about my choices regarding our life choices (that includes our UC or vaxing choices). And that includes my Mom and my ILs.

The OP's mom has no right to beel hurt or betrayed. It was never her choice to make, and the OP was never required to tell anyone beyond her husband.

And if the OP felt that she may find some unsupportive responses there is nothing that could possibly mean she should have to tell and then just deal with those responses.

If her mother is so immature that she throws a temper tantrum and disowns the OP because the OP made a mature, rational decision regarding her own healthcare and the care of her baby without telling her, a decision that said mother has NO say in, well then, what can be said? It boggles the mind that she would feel justified (and that anyone would justify her behaviour), IMO.

Her mother is NOT everyone.
From the tone of the OP post it sounded as if she is troubled that this has created a fracture in their relationship. I don't think her mother threw a temper tantrum being concerned over the welfare of the baby and her.

[inkedmamajama]

Originally Posted by Earth Momma

last tues we had the most amazing birth experience ever! I truly believe our UC has changed my DH's life!

We called the fam later that day and got mixed reactions, my Mom being one of the positive "it's your choice, etc" now she says she feels like we lied to her and doesn't want to have anything to do with us. She as well as MIL are nurses and very much from the medical model of everything and I decided not to tell anyone so I could focus on having the birth I always wanted, I don't have any regrets about that choice but I'm very upset with the current situation.

any thoughts?????

congratulations on having a wonderful, life changing experience!

enjoy yourself right now and let her come to you, make sure she knows you still want her in your life

[NettleTea]

Originally Posted by Zenful

the OP still lead her to believe something that's false, and, yes, that is lying.

That is not true. The OP never said she lead her mother to believe anything. It could be that she simply kept her plans quiet. My family never really asked about our birth plans. I think hospital was assumed. Does that mean I was misleading for not volunteering that information? No, I don't think so.

It would not have been a good ideal for my family to know anyway. So I am glad they assumed. My mom is a worrier. I know she would've worried herself sick and in return would've painted all sorts of different "what if" situations for me out of her own fear. Something I did not need to hear. I knew deep within myself that I only needed encouraging words and that our plans were something to be guarded.

And if my family had asked about our birth plans I wouldn't have pretended we were going to go the typical route. I just wouldn't have said anything. The most I would've offered is that I do not feel comfortable talking about it, it is something very private to us at this time. Something along those lines. That might not work for those who have more aggressive families though.

In the end my mom was totally shocked, but pleased and proud once she knew that we did not go into it blindly, we had prepared ourselves. She's always been very amazed by it. She has reread our birth stories many times because it means so much to her. But I know that if she had known beforehand she would've been worried sick because UC was a totally unheard of thing to her.

It is important for one to do what they feel is necessary. It is not the family who has to bear the burden of doubts, discouraging words and horror stories when it comes time to labor. Unfortunately, most families of today are not supportive of homebirth and unassisted birth. The society we live in is much too medical minded to be expected to support things of that nature and other ways that do not rely on a doctor for "guidance".

[Serenyd]

Originally Posted by sweet.p

I don't think her mother threw a temper tantrum being concerned over the welfare of the baby and her.

If she was really concerned about her daughter and her grandchild, she wouldn't have broken off contact.

[jeliphish]

Anger is a secondary emotion. I am guessing she is in shock and more than likely going through a lot of emotions. You are her little girl and she still loves you, I'm sure, with as much intensity and "motherly passion" as you love your child. She has the right as your mother to feel whatever emotions she is feeling just as you will one day when your child is doing something that you either A. Do not agree with or B. Something that you are totally convinced is going to be the end of them. She needs to of course continue to be respectful of you and your choices and not say or do anything too inappropriate but I think you still need to keep in mind that its going to be difficult for your mom not to act like a mom LOL. She does not love or care for you or your LO any less because she doesn't agree with your choices... Nor is she a horrible person for having her own beliefs about certain issues. Give her some time.

[jeliphish]

Originally Posted by Kidzaplenty

The OP's mom has no right to beel hurt or betrayed.
.

Her mom has a right to her feelings. It's her daughter! There were so many times in my life where my mom was scared, terrified, and angry (despite the fact that it's a secondary emotion) at me. Loving a child doesn't mean we will always support what they have chosen to do. Even if those feelings are completely fear based, that doesn't mean she is some horrible person... She deserves some time to sort through this. While my children are young, I still have a difficult time imagining ever losing that "mama bear" sense of love and protectiveness over them... Even when they are parents and grandparents themselves.

[MsBlack]

I agree that your mother has a right to her feelings, just the same as anyone. That said, I don't think she has a right to manipulate you or anyone with her feelings--and threatening to disown you is very much a manipulation. I also sense that it is not just fear for yours/baby's wellbeing that drives her reaction, and it is not just her sense of having been 'lied to'. It is her ego in overdrive; it is her fear of losing any sort of control over you. And, by making such a 'nonmedical' choice, you have (in her ego's opinion) 'attacked' her life's work and some beliefs she holds very dear (beliefs about the primacy and efficacy of modern medicine).

About the idea of 'lying' to her. I guess everyone's right....it WAS a lie of omission in the strictest sense; and it was ALSO not your obligation to share all the info with family about your birth plans. (Personally I think wanna-be UCers are fairly nuts to take on family dynamics and stress by giving advance notice about UC plans! Well, unless you have the most cool, accepting, etc, parents and extended fam in the whole universe ) An important part of the equation is the need for her to ask herself how she is creating a relationship with you that necessitates your lie of omission--and that is something very difficult for most people to consider (so much easier to point the finger of blame--'it's all YOUR FAULT, cuz YOU lied to me...' far harder to ask oneself 'how am I contributing to the necessity for my dd to hide things from me? What about me makes it hard for her to totally trust me?').

So, when it comes to the idea of 'apology', here are my thoughts--that you can express regret/compassion for her feelings, acknowledging that she feels betrayed by your lie of omission; but you don't have to feel bad about that lie at all.

My own mom is not a med professional, but she certainly is a 'maternal pro'--having raised 8 kids. And her ego was always similarly involved in her struggles against me and my crazy choices (non vax, fam bed, etc). In our case, I disowned her several years back, after some 20yrs of trying to come to terms with her, trying to change our relationship to a more positive and egalitarian one which she just was NOT going to have! It meant too much to her ego to a) have me make the same parenting choices she did, so she could have the self-affirmation inherent in my imitation of her and b) have me accept her 'authority' over me and my life....which, if she was honest, she would realize she never had in the first place! (I've never been anyone's obedient follower ) She simply could not imagine that we might have another, and satisfying, relationship of mutual respect and consideration.

In any event, with your birth you have stepped further into your own life and further away from being a child in need of mommy's approval and support. That is hard for many parents to accept...as I like to joke, when going through yet another round of stress with each of my kids as they have come into adulthood--'breaking up is hard to do!' (Hey, I'm a pretty cool parent--according to my kids--but even *I* have to go through a sometimes difficult letting-go process as kids become teens become adults and our relationships have to change. And well, they can be real bears when it comes to stepping free!). However much your mom might have thought that you guys had gotten through that already, however much it seemed that you guys had already shifted gears with your growing-up-and-leaving-mommy, this represents another (and in her mind, probably gigantic) step: another step for you into your own maturity and power, another step away from the original mother-daughter relationship. YOU feel euphoric about your UC, and it means so much to you, your marriage, your family....SHE only feels abandoned, betrayed, afraid, angry--because she can't yet imagine having a good, an even better, relationship with you on these new terms.

I agree with pps who've said--keep your heart open. Time will do it's job of healing hurts, and also of showing her that she would probably rather have a relationship with you and your kids than not. My mom is very much an exception! She never stopped waiting for me to toe her line, never could see how our conflict was just as much HER input as mine, never stopped finding ways to argue with me, no matter what I did or stopped doing (and even my sibs noted my efforts, and her refusal to do anything different; her own sibs warned her that she was driving me away). Anyway--most parents do come around in time because family is so important to us. She has a tough pill to swallow right now, and nevermind that she can also credit herself for raising a healthy, empowered daughter....perhaps that realization will come in time.

Let your own reaction have time to fade. Enjoy your baby and just let this go for now. Consider this a needed 'time-out' for you and your mom, and let it be as happy as you can. I guess that things will come around in time.

[cottonwood]

I'm betting what she's really upset about is what she thinks is implied by your not sharing the truth with her from the start -- that you feel she's untrustworthy and a threat. That's a pretty heavy blow to learn that a loved one feels that way about you, so the lie isn't just a simple lie of omission or white lie, it's a lie about your own whole relationship since you've been behaving as if you love her while really having this low opinion of her. I'm not saying that's the actual situation, but that it probably feels that way to her. Hopefully she'll be able to get past her ego and consider whether there's a good reason for you to have felt the need to keep quiet about this. She needs to be honest with herself about how she would have reacted to the truth before the birth, and then ask herself how that would have affected you, what stress it would have caused you. She needs to understand that it wasn't personal ("I must protect myself against this bad person who is my mother",) it was pragmatic ("she won't understand and will be upset about it which will cause me undue stress, and that would be bad for both the pregnancy and the baby.")

[mammal_mama]

Hmmm ... so it's a "lie of omission" if you choose to leave out details of personal decisions, so that people who aren't even part of the decision-making process won't "assume" the wrong thing about what you are doing?

I.e., if I choose not to tell everyone that dh and I don't use birth control, even knowing that they'll "assume" that with 2 children 5 years apart we probably "planned it that way" -- then I am committing a "lie of omission." Because we are "responsible" for any assumptions that people outside our immediate family decide to make, about decisions that don't concern them.

I imagine that even the ones who think the OP should apologize would think I'm being just a tad ridiculous here.

I think the OP knows her mother. Daughters tend to know their mothers. Maybe some mothers respect boundaries ... but this hasn't been my experience with my own mom. She did know we were planning on a homebirth with a midwife with our last baby ...

And when she said she wanted us to call her when my labor started so she could be in prayer, I felt a twinge of unease. I just had this eery feeling that she might make some last-ditch effort to get me to go to hospital ... if she didn't do it herself she'd undoubtedly have let my sister know and she might have tried something.

So we didn't actually call her when I was in labor. We called right after Baby was born and let her know, truthfully, that the labor had passed really quickly, and that by the time we were sure I was in labor it was almost time to push. This was all true, but I think we could have squeezed in a call to her if we'd felt really SURE that she'd just be praying.

But I felt direct honesty -- as in "H__, no! We're not going to call because we don't believe you'll 'just' pray" would have been very hurtful to my mom.

OP, you have nothing to apologize for. I feel sure that if your mom had laid a foundation of respecting you as an adult capable of making her own decisions, you would have had no anxiety about telling her. So if anyone needs to apologize, it would be her for not laying that foundation of trust.

Not that I think you should insist on an apology if she decides to resume contact ... just saying ...

[Kidzaplenty]

Originally Posted by mammal_mama

Hmmm ... so it's a "lie of omission" if you choose to leave out details of personal decisions, so that people who aren't even part of the decision-making process won't "assume" the wrong thing about what you are doing?

I.e., if I choose not to tell everyone that dh and I don't use birth control, even knowing that they'll "assume" that with 2 children 5 years apart we probably "planned it that way" -- then I am committing a "lie of omission." Because we are "responsible" for any assumptions that people outside our immediate family decide to make, about decisions that don't concern them.

This is exactly what I was thinking.

I can not take responsibility for people's assumptions. Unless I deleberately lead them to believe something that is untrue, I don't feel it is a lie of omission. Now, I do "lie by omission" to my OB when I omit to tell her that I am planning a UC, because the very fact that I am seeing an OB infers the idea that she will be delivering my baby. This, I can't really change, if I am to recieve medical care. However, to omit the fact of when and where I am planning to have my baby to someone other than that (someone that does not have any say in the matter) is not a lie, by omission or any other way.

I do not go around telling everyone of my every move, of my every idea, of my every plan. Thus, many times they assume something that is not accurate (especially since I rarely follow the crowd and have a tendency to do things my way). It is not my responsibility to go out of my way to correct their assumptions. This includes "close" family (parents, brothers, SILs, etc). And if their assumptions save me stress, it is just an added benefit.

I just can not get over someone accusing me of lying by omition because I did not go out of my way to correct an assumption, an assumption presumably made because of a "society standard".

[mammal_mama]

Originally Posted by fourlittlebirds

... it's a lie about your own whole relationship since you've been behaving as if you love her while really having this low opinion of her.

Gosh, I know my relationship with my extended family is waaay more complex than that. I love them but I have definite trust issues with them -- which of course means I have a low opinion of them in some areas. Yet I love them ...

Kidzaplenty, I wish I'd started thinking like you a lot sooner! If I'd let my relatives "assume" that we were doing conventional parent-led, curriculum-based homeschooling, maybe there never would have been that CPS visit. And then we could still have a face-to-face relationship, instead of just occasional phone contact with my mom.

[peainthepod]

Congratulations on your fabulous birth and the newest addition to your family! I'm so sorry your mother is attempting to emotionally punish you for your decision to exclude her from your birth plan. Clearly, given her reaction after your extremely successful UC, you made the right decision from the beginning.

Give her time to cool off and realize how selfishly she's behaving. I agree with others above that she has every right to her feelings--there's no such thing as a "wrong" feeling--but her reaction was totally out of line and you are not responsible for it whatsoever. She is choosing this course of action; you are not making her do it. Please try not to let it mar your otherwise perfect birth.

Enjoy your babymoon!

[cottonwood]

Originally Posted by mammal_mama

Gosh, I know my relationship with my extended family is waaay more complex than that. I love them but I have definite trust issues with them -- which of course means I have a low opinion of them in some areas. Yet I love them ...

I think you misunderstood? Read it again in context of what I wrote next -- "I'm not saying that's the actual situation, but that it probably feels that way to her."

[HappyMommy2]

Her reaction shows that you clearly made the correct decision in choosing NOT to announce your UC beforehand.

Congratulations you strong beautiful smart mama!

Your mom is in the wrong, and you have to just let it go. Enjoy your own family and be confident in your decisions. Maybe someday she will come to you to apologize for being mean to you, and adding stress to your life immediately after giving birth.

[amberskyfire]

Originally Posted by Earth Momma

last tues we had the most amazing birth experience ever! I truly believe our UC has changed my DH's life!

We called the fam later that day and got mixed reactions, my Mom being one of the positive "it's your choice, etc" now she says she feels like we lied to her and doesn't want to have anything to do with us. She as well as MIL are nurses and very much from the medical model of everything and I decided not to tell anyone so I could focus on having the birth I always wanted, I don't have any regrets about that choice but I'm very upset with the current situation.

any thoughts?????

My MIL also disowned us when I was pregnant and planning a UC. She eventually came around and gave it up after the baby was born. She didn't want to miss out on her new grandbaby. Your mom will come around too, once she cools off a bit. She will realize it's stupid to disown your child for not telling you something. It's perfectly your right not to tell her. She's just angry and doesn't know what else to do.

She'll cool off eventually