Sometimes the best thing to do is just duck.

I duck but still seem to get hit more often than I’d like.

Yep, Moms are a safe target. If I see it coming I get really busy, but even so sometimes you don't have time to duck.... ; )

Oh, no. I'm really sorry to hear that.

I hope I never made my mom feel that way. I did call her sometimes when things were going bad. But I called her when things were going good and when things were just going unremarkably. On average, I probably only saw her once a year in my adult years, as we lived in different states, so there were a lot of phone calls.

I am not sure I am understanding this right. I am the target to complain to I suppose if something doesn’t go right. Is this what you mean?

No, I'm happy to listen to my children complain to me if things aren't going well, a loving ear always helps a burden be lighter. However, this time DS wants to complain about me. I think it is the 'kick the dog' or 'kick the mom' in this case, because moms are safe. Hopefully, he will take some time and relax over the weekend and end the drama.

Yes, moms will love you no matter what.

I have to admit that I wasn't always nice to my mom but i made up for it in latter years.

Oh Lucille, I understand. I'm sorry.

Oh. I am sorry! I am the ignored mom. As in I can ask my older daughter every couple of days for weeks in advance if she is coming home for a holiday. I am the one having to get her room ready, ship presents if she is not, shop for her special food, get the litter box ready and get food if her cat is coming and so on. And she will tell her grandmother way before me. Once again, sorry. Don’t want to take away from you. In your words, just kvetching. And now I should probably google what that even means.

Oh, Lucille I have been the object of ridicule recently also. I'm sorry that you are experiencing this with your son too.

My story goes like this.

For spring break, our daughter came to visit for a week with our three grandsons. They are 10, a 3.5 year old with special needs (Asperger's Syndrome) and the 14 month old baby. Locally we have our son and daughter in law's twin grandkids, a 3.5 year old boy and girl. We decided to have an outing with all of the grandkids at the Fort Worth zoo, a pretty nice day, you'd think. Because of the baby and 3 preschoolers, we divvied up the kids between the 4 adults (son is out of town working). Our twin boy is a real handful, so I took responsibility for him. I was running like mad to just keep him corralled, he does whatever he pleases when Dad is gone, Mom has zero control over his behaviour. At one point, he had shot off headed around a building and out of sight, so I took off after him. Unbeknownst to me, the twin girl tried to follow me and fell, getting a bad bump on the head. I had no idea, didn't hear the screaming at all.

A week later, I got an angry call from my son because I'd left my daughter in law alone to take care of their daughter and she had no help when Jade fell. Apparently, she (DIL) felt abandoned because I was running around trying to watch the boy. I really was oblivious to her feelings. I certainly didn't intend to abandon her, what was I to do with the boy running off on his own?

I had to take her to lunch and apologize, but the whole situation left a bad taste in my mouth.

I raised my son as a single parent, but I see that having twins is a lot more complicated. It honestly never crossed my mind that she wanted me to include her and Jade in the constant running to corral Jude. They were sitting on a shady bench eating cotton candy while I was chasing him all over the park.

My mistake and now hard feelings between my son and me.

Oh,my goodness yes. I've heard a couple of rants that made me feel like Mommy Dearest. The worst on the phone while I was preparing the dish to bring to family Christmas Eve. Holey moley, I don't even remember most of that! And you've been harboring this for how long? And then I get a "thanks for being my mom." We're just easy targets.

Wow, PK, ive never experienced one of my kids getting upset with me like that. My feelings would be hurt tremendously. Maybe its good that you (put it behind you?) apologized to the DIL who can't handle just ONE of her own twins. I have a feeling that your son heard the story just a little bit different. Sometimes our grown children seem so ungrateful. G'ma's don't HAVE to help with the kids.

I'm sorry, PK, but I'd be dipped in hot oil if I'd have apologized to DIL because she is incapable of managing one of her kids at a time. Your grandson is out of control because your DIL has NO control.

PK, you're a saint. In your shoes, i would have said something that would have probably estranged me from that son for life.

Thanks for the support, but let's not detract from Lucille's OP. That was my fault, sorry Lucille.

One of my dear friends was told by her grown son that his childhood wasn't perfect. You know, some lapse -- she'd never taken him to a funeral so he didn't know how to behave at one or what to say when he finally went to one as an adult. He felt low and thought he might be depressed because of her other similar parenting mistakes. This was not a mother who abused or neglected her son. This is the kind of thing I thought the OP was referring to.

Lucille, while that kick is landing in a soft place for our children, the place it’s landing is often left with hurt feelings and a sense of bewilderment. You are not alone and you have my empathy.

PK, I’m completely bewildered by your Son and DIL’s behavior and insensitivety. WTHeck??? You have a heart of gold and they obviously don’t appreciate it.

Thanks to all of you for making me see what a great family I have. I can't imagine treating my mother this way (she's gone now.) My mother died when I was 5, and Dad remarried quickly. I remember at some point going through the "you're not my mom!" phase, and ignoring Mother's Day. Boy, did Dad fix my wagon but quick!

Wow, just, wow.

This may make you feel better and smile.

My 5 year old grandson told his friend that Papa doesn't have a mom because he's old, and his mom would be too old to be alive.

I am extremely thankful that I have not had any cross words between myself and any of my adult children or grandchildren. I am truly blessed. I love our peaceful family.

I'm in the same position as phoggie and feel so awful for those of you having different experiences. There is someone else in my life who says unkind things and I have recently learned that the best "defense" is not to take offense. Once I stopped being defensive when something unkind was said, my heart stayed open to hear what was actually being expressed. I find that many people who lash out are doing so out of their own pain or because they have been put in an untenable situation and you are a safe target (will love them anyway).

Bad luck here - Mom got sick when I was six, died when I was13.

o j

I don't remember ever mouthing off at my Mom. But I do remember the last time I got really mad at her. I was 24, had moved back home for about a month between ending an apartment lease and pending marriage. Mom did my laundry as she'd always done when I was a kid. But this time, she left it folded on the foot of my bed, she didn't put away in my dresser drawers -- Geez, mom, do the job right! Luckily some instinct for self-preservation kept me from expressing that anger to Mom -- I might not have survived!

Perhaps her reason was to show respect for the privacy of your drawers?

I don’t understand why we are mean to our mothers, the most important being in our lives. My mother sheltered me from her (at times) troubled money times. Yes, I knew she worked two jobs from time to time but was otherwise unaware of the whys.

as an adult, I was laid off and short on money. I remember mentally blaming my mother for not teaching me how to manage $ during difficult times by sheltering me like she did. Mothers can’t win sometimes. When I regained my composure, of course I realized I was totally unreasonable and a little b@tch for harboring such ungrateful thought.

I think and hope that for all you mothers that have been target of hurtful statements/actions, your children will come back to their senses and make it up to you.

So sorry that any of you struggle with this horrible thing that seems to happen to some of our children and in some of our relationships.

Without saying too much I'll say that this was not an easy Road between me and my DD to our current loving peacefulness. At one point I put my foot down and said she would have to find other living arrangements if she didn't stop mouthing off in such a horrible way to her brother and myself, her mother. DH stood up with me against her. It shocked her. She had many tears and mended her ways.

I wasn't thinking tough love over nice love or anything like that. I was just heartsick and was ready to try anything as I'd already tried most things.

Teenage angst had a lot to do with it but so did the fact that we struggled with illnesses and financially.

So very thankful every moment of every day that we got back our loving daughter, found our way around many of the illnesses and are a bit better off financially. Even if we can't find our way completely out financially I still feel like we won the life Lottery.

Lucille, maybe? I wish I could say it was good manners that stilled my tongue that day, but that would be revisionist history. Oh well. Sometimes you just look back and laugh or cry about how naive, foolish, young you were. Might was well laugh ... and try to keep improving.

I wrote this a decade ago:

Blood on the Banjo

“Hit the right note!” my mother screamed in her famous fingernails-on-the-chalkboard tone of voice. I was thirteen years old, forced to practice my trumpet, and I hated it. The war between us had begun.

My problem started with my brother Thomas, who is five years older than I am. He could get music out of the silverware drawer by clicking spoons together or by pounding out a beat on the dashboard of a car. He devoured the music book that came with his elementary school plastic flute and soon had the theme from the old television series “Combat” memorized. Combining his natural perfect pitch with his pit bull determination to practice creates a professional musician in short order.

I remember Mr. Barrett, my brother’s clarinet teacher, as a kindly older gentleman with wire frame glasses. He would stop by the house every week for lessons. Doctors still made house calls in those days too. By the time my brother was in his late teens, he was playing clarinet and saxophone professionally. My dad had to drive him to the Polish National Hall in Toledo, Ohio, and I’d go along. He’d play polkas with a group of guys my dad’s age. My mom loved the music and was bursting with pride for her son.

Her greed for a second musician in the family would be our undoing.

It was decided that I would play the trumpet and my younger sister Kay would try the clarinet. All the natural talent and determination in my brother was in absolute inverse proportion in my sister. She was virtually tone deaf, had little dexterity and no will to practice or make music. The bleating sharp’s and flat’s emanating from the bell of her horn would be suitable only for elevator music on the decent into hell.

Unfortunately, I was stuck in the netherworld between the two of them. I have the perfect pitch of my brother and even enjoyed playing an occasional polka. My trumpet teacher complimented me on the quality of my tone and told my mom. I didn’t get the pit bull practice gene my brother had. I despised the scales and drills and every minute spent playing them was torture.

It was obvious to my mother early on that my sister wasn’t going to make it as a musician so she was mercifully allowed to quit. With my excellent tone and ear as evidence, my mother figured all she needed to do was superimpose her will over my lack of practice. The ensuing battle of wills would have more damaging consequences to our relationship, now and in the future, than either of us could have imagined.

Of course, my misery wasn’t confined to home practice; I had to be in the school band also. That meant lugging the heavy case back and forth to school every day.

Probably the most important aspect of teenage life is looking like all the other kids and fitting in. The bulky trumpet case did nothing for my look, so I built a smaller one in my grandfather’s workshop. I may have looked just as nerdy, but I felt a little better.

I remember despairing at practicing so much that I pushed the bell of my horn into the floor so hard it crinkled. We had to have it straightened at the music store and there was always a small abrasion where it happened as a reminder. I’m still amazed I didn’t get in more trouble over that incident.

I will never forget getting kicked out of the school band for misbehavior on the eve of Junior High Night, the social highlight of the year. As I was preparing to go that evening, my mom told me: “Mr. Brewer called. He said he kicked you out of the band.” I knew my night was doomed and she ordered my dad to “Take care of this.”

My dad lead me into the stairway where my mom can’t see and as he’s removing his belt, he said “This is going to hurt you a lot worse than it’s going to hurt me.” He winked and whispered, “Be sure to make a lot of noise.” He gently brushed the belt past my butt a few times and I fake-wailed all the way upstairs. Apparently satisfied, my mom let me go to the dance anyway.

My mother was a bit of a musician herself. She was given accordion lessons as a child and my grandmother even had studio portraits taken of her posed with her accordion. This was considered a luxury during the great depression. I remember her singing and playing her accordion intermittently throughout my life.

My brother began playing guitar and formed a small group similar to their idols, Peter, Paul and Mary. I developed a serious teenage crush on Sandy Boothby, the girl in the group who sings Mary’s part. Thomas taught himself the banjo and played until his fingers bled. This only encouraged my mother to push me harder and I’m soon reinstated to the school band.

It probably wasn’t the teenage angst, the crinkled horn, or even getting kicked out of the band and reinstated that finally caused her to relent. It was probably the death of my older brother Jerry in Vietnam in 1970 and my parent’s subsequent divorce that triumphed over my mother’s will to make me practice. But by then, it was too late. I hated her for it. She had ruined our relationship permanently.

I visited a therapist in my early twenties and told him of the psychological child abuse I had endured. He told me “All parents make mistakes.” Fifty bucks an hour to have this guy tell me common sense, however, it was immensely helpful and I just couldn’t see it at the time. I forgave my mom and we gave our relationship the best we could.

My mom died this spring of cancer, but I could not find a tear.

I wish my mom had been a safe target. She was great in many ways but also very selfish in others, and I'm still trying to get over years of emotional abuse. I believe a huge part of my anxiety disorder now stems from childhood fear of her, and constantly worrying about saying or doing the wrong thing and being screamed at. As an example, when I was 7 or 8, she screamed at me on Christmas morning for buying her a gift she didn't like, and I spent the entire morning sobbing, my Christmas ruined.

So I guess in a strange way, it's almost a compliment that a child feels safe enough to last out? Not that I think it's ok or acceptable, but just a different way to think about it.

It's all immature selfishness, both on the part of any adults as well as children that created problems in these situations.

she screamed at me on Christmas morning for buying her a gift she didn't like

Many people in the world don't have adequate shelter, food, water or medical care.

It turns out that parents - moms, in this case - are people too. Just like children, it turns out they're people too.

Some people are nice. Some people are not. Some people make great parents - other people really should not be responsible for any living being, much less a small child. Some children grow up to be wonderful loving adults, some children grow up into immature jerks.

My mother made a great many mistakes with me. She was very quick to anger, she held a vicious grudge, and I can recall things she did to me as a small child that would count as abuse under current laws. My response to the way I was treated was to lash out as well. So we fought like wildcats. And so it goes.

I'm all grown up now and she's been dead for a decade. What I've come to realize, is that she did the best she knew how. Her coping skills weren't great. She wasn't a perfect mom, and I sure as hell was not the perfect child.

People are complicated.

(((((CHI)))) I feel for you. Your mother IMHO was mentally ill.

Thanks, eld. I don't know if she was mentally ill but definitely incredibly selfish most of the time and usually put her own needs before ours.

When I was 16, I developed my first kidney stone and it was the worst pain I ever felt. She wouldn't take me to the ER, and just said they would only give me Tylenol and I could take that at home. I was vomiting every 20 minutes, couldn't eat or drink, couldn't sleep, and for the first time I seriously considered suicide because the pain was so bad. It took her 3 days to take me to the ER after I begged and begged and she did it, very angry and yelling the whole time about the inconvenience for her to wait around for hours. I have permanent scaring in my kidneys now because of it.

I do believe she loved us very much and she definitely had her good moments, but I look back now as an adult trying to have a child and I see how bad it really was at times. My therapist helped me to see it. I thought I had it ok because I wasn't beaten or starved but emotional abuse is a real thing.

The positive thing is I think I'll be a better parent because of it. She's been gone 10 years now and I hope that she has learned from it.