Mother-Daughter Resentment: What No One Tells You

Yeah, for sure.

I mean, I think it's like I feel really bad, you know, like I feel like it's something heavy, like something like like this huge bag of like rocks that you're carrying in all parts of your life, whether it's like, you know, when you're first getting married and it shows up in every interaction you have.

getting married or having a first child or raising your child.

It's like something that you're constantly having to face and deal with because like so much of who we are, we get from our parent relationship.

Like my mom is a lot older than I am or what a traditional mom is, right? So she's like what a grandma's age should be.

So I feel like I had a very different relationship with her because I didn't have room for resentment because from a very young age, I understood that she is very elderly.

And so I always approached her with a sense of like deep empathy and like space for her to, you know, Like more like a service to her rather than having expectations of her.

And so I guess like now, you know, my husband plays that role where he's that caretaker for me that I'm grateful for.

But I think like for my mom, like it's I don't really have those expectations or that resentment because she literally did the best she could with the what the limited access she had.

But I think that somewhere deep inside of us, like whether we admit it or not, we all have that part of us that feels, whether it's subconscious or conscious, that like maybe there were gaps in our parenting that we're facing now as adults, right?

Yeah.

And I think maybe because you grew up with the vision and with...

the binoculars of empathy where a lot of us grow up not with the binoculars of empathy, but this is our right, like our parents right upon us.

Like we deserve the perfect childhood.

We deserve, you know, all these incredible things.

Like it's so funny how even my kids, they were like, what are we going to do today? Where are we going to go today? As if it's like their right to be going to play dates every single day.

Um, so I think having that lens, um, But now as adults, we've already passed our childhood.

What would you guys say to somebody who is struggling with that resentment? And what kind of framework or where do you guys lie on the spectrum? I know Freya, you said, but Cubana, where do you lie on that spectrum? And how do you process that?

Yeah.

I have a hard time relating to it because I actually feel like no negative feeling towards my parents.

So that's why I'm a little hesitant to say like, oh, okay, this is how you can overcome it because I feel like you can say that if you have, you know? Um, but for me, I feel like growing up, it was just pretty much known that like as first generation, you know, children, like there are certain things that we aren't able to do and our parents are doing the best that they can.

So for me, I've, it's, it's crazy because I actually forget a lot of the negative things that happened, um, And it's not until somebody else talks about something that I think back and reflect.

And I'm like, oh, wait.

But, like, things weren't always so perfect.

Because, like, for me, I feel like my relationship with my parents changed so much once I was in adulthood.