I feel terrible

[Sierra_Indigo]

I said and did some terrible things to my mother when I was a teen. It started at about thirteen or fourteen and continued until I left high school, and then after when I got my first job. I was regularly having my bookcase closed over so I couldn’t read when I was grounded. I hated my mother, seriously “I wish you were dead you bitch” stylie.

Then I moved out.

I moved out at 17, moved halfway across the country. Mum and I mostly emailed, we didn’t even talk over the phone. Our relationship got a lot better, and I ended up moving back to Adelaide. Now I’m 22 and we’re not best friends, but we’re in a pretty good space in terms of our relationship. We hang out sometimes, she helps me with errands (I don’t have a car) and talk to each other a lot.

For me it was having the space. I was growing, mum was still treating me as a child (and let’s not talk about the insanely strict rules I got that seemed to have been repealed when my brother went through the same stages 4 years later). When I moved out and was supporting myself, she had to see that I was an adult and capable of making my own decisions and own mistakes. Our relationship became more equal, and we were both happier because the petty power struggles that marred my teenage years were finally over.

I agree with the “Myspace != diary” comments as well. I won’t say that if I was your daughter I wouldn’t have been pissed - I would have, majorly. But your reasons were valid, and to echo a 3rd time - if it’s on the internet, it’s not private.

You’ll probably find that your relationship with your daughter will remain hard for the next few years. But I’m pretty confident that you’ll find in a few years time when she’s moved out, had a chance to grow and become an adult rather than a hormone-ridden teen, she’ll come back to you. It won’t be perfect, but it’ll get better.

[as_u_wish]

First and foremost, your hurt feelings are legitimate and nothing I say below should be construed as in any way denying that.

Within that context…

Our children constantly hurt us. When they are infants they deny us sleep. At two and four they throw tantrums. In grade school they throw balls through windows and don’t do homework. We are able to get through these because they are cute and we love them and we can clearly see that their behavior is juvenile and we convince ourselves that they don’t know what they are doing.

But when they are teenagers, and later adults, the hurts are more difficult to laugh off. The hurts become emotional AND we believe that they do, in fact, know what they are doing.

So the question you might want to ask: Can my daughter possibly have realized how much this would hurt? Yes, she was “throwing a tantrum in public,” but I suspect at least part of this was due to the strange double-think teenagers have. They are very aware of their own feelings, but they are careless of other people’s, particularly adults. Adults, especially parents, don’t have have “real” feelings, they are, well, adults…and they’ve grown out of that, right?

I suspect this has been a rude awakening for your daughter. She probably has no idea how to move forward. She may be stuck and may unwittingly dig herself deeper.

I suggest the following dialog (or even a note):

Growing up and leaving home is difficult. Many children need to fight with their parents, even convince themselves that they hate one or more of them, in order to make the difficult and sometimes painful and frightening choice to leave home. Your behavior seems to indicate this. Clearly, you are ready for your relationship with us to change and quite soon for your living situation to change. Nonetheless, we are family. We need to find ways to live to gether in harmony and respect. Particularly in this next year, we have the opportunity to set the tone for the future.

Your recent behavior was inconsiderate and juvenile. You, however, are not juvenile and generally are not inconsiderate. You are nearly an adult. You deserve to be treated like one, and we expect you to behave like one. I expect better of you–because I respect you. I am also very aware that I am not perfect. We are, all of us, flawed individuals. Perhaps you feel let down because you have expectations of an ideal mother, when what you have is me–one who loves you, but often makes mistakes.

We cannot go back to the relationship of “little girl and mother.” We can only go forward. I am open to finding ways to do this that don’t involve open conflict and allow you to move on to the next stages of your life with positive feelings towards the family you grew up in.

Le me know when you would like to talk.

[lavenderviolet]

Well, a lot of others have already given you a lot of thoughtful advice here, so I can’t add much to that.

I agree with those saying not to take it personally. I was a teen not very long ago (I’m 23 now), and I had a lot of difficulty getting along with my mom during my teen years. I said plenty of mean things about her and to her. It NEVER meant that I stopped loving her though. Teens are impulsive and dramatic by nature. They say lots of things they don’t truly mean. I assure you that, deep down, she does love you. Fighting with Mom is just a phase of the teen years for most girls.
To a kid nowadays, posting on MySpace probably doesn’t seem any different than just complaining to friends in real life. They don’t think through the consequences of stuff like that.

Personally…if it were my kid, I probably wouldn’t have even told her that I saw it. I’d probably just keep an eye on her blog to make sure she isn’t getting into SERIOUS trouble (like drugs or whatever) and wait for things to blow over in a few years.

[Zoe]

You know how angry you can be with her and still love her as no one else can. She may not yet understand that the two feelings don’t exclude each other. When she hates you, she may be unaware of how much she still loves you – but she does. You have to trust in that. And you have to feel okay about the two extremes you are feeling. They are both real and you don’t have to justify them or choose one or the other.

She is in some ways doing her job: to pull away from you.

I have recently been rejected by my sixteen year old granddaughter and it is about to kill me. There is nothing I can do except open my arms if she comes back.

One possibility for you would be to put her computer back with a letter from you. Tell her that you have rethought the issue and as much as her words hurt you, you are glad that she is in touch with her feelings and has a place to vent them. Let her know that you will NOT be reading there again.

Maybe you can consider having some specific time set aside for venting with each other. You might ask her if she would like that. The house must not become a hostile zone for either of you though.

Let her know what you are feeling and that sometimes love and anger go hand in hand.

I guess this is the price we pay for loving.

Damn. Damn. Damn.

[Bippy_the_Beardless]

This isn’t even worth $0.02 but…

Get Dad to ground her, and let Dad say he found the MySpace website and was horrified at the nasty things she said about Mum.

[Anne_Neville]

purple haze, you might want to mention this article to your daughter. It features a (presumably) reasonably bright kid expressing surprise that something he did on Facebook got him in trouble in the real world. What happens on Myspace or Facebook doesn’t necessarily stay there…