The Dismissed Parent

I have three children. I share a loving, deeply respectful relationship with two of them. However, my oldest has chosen to sever our relationship due to personal grievances. I think it is important to note that I have always been a devoted, hard-working mother committed to family. I have never willingly done harm to my children; I wasn’t an absentee mother, an alcoholic, or a helicopter mom living vicariously through my kids.  I’ve worked my whole life to provide for my family while also being the primary caregiver, disciplinarian, and the one who made boring, practical decisions to keep life from spinning out of control- a necessity to compensate for a father who was financially irresponsible and tended to put his own desires over his children’s needs.

While raising three children, I also built a successful business and put myself through college to get a business degree. Despite everything on my plate, I voluntarily became my daughter’s Girl Scout leader. I picked up and dropped off my kids at school, chauffeured the kids to afterschool activities, sewed my daughter’s clothes when off-the-rack dresses didn’t fit her, and made matching outfits for her dollies. I painted and decorated my children’s bedrooms to their taste, read to them before bed each night, and played games with them.  I shopped and cooked for the family, hosted parties for their friends, and planned family vacations that were child oriented. We had season passes to Disneyworld, and the holidays were happy and grand, complete with cookie decorating, cocoa and cartoons, and other kid-friendly holiday traditions.  I scrimped and saved to fund prepaid college accounts to ensure they would be educated, and they had new shoes and lunchboxes even when I couldn’t afford a decent bra. Even as adults, I did all I could to improve my children’s lives, depleting my savings to help them buy a house, pay off a debt, or get furniture for their apartments.   

Even so, one child has always felt bitter, blaming me for perceived slights despite the good life she was provided. She has alienated not only me but also her grandparents, aunt, and siblings by reinventing truths and developing a narrative she can’t resist splashing on social media to support her identity as the woe-begotten child. She’ll tell anyone willing to listen that I was not a good enough mother and not there for her in the ways she needed. In her mind, I deserve to be punished. Banishment is her punishment of choice, validated by the trending act of establishing a “no contact” relationship and “setting boundaries for mental health” – subjects that are all the rage on TikTok and Instagram. She has deemed me a narcissist, an egomaniac, and a workaholic and identifies as an abused child. My other children are flabbergasted and offended by her claims. She is still my baby, so rather than take offense, I am simply sad – disappointed but not surprised – that she has dismissed me as a parent.

While I miss her and deeply grieve our broken relationship, I see her as punishing herself and her own children more than me. As she severs all her family ties and wallows in a new, negative story, she has missed happy family gatherings, cut off support from those who love her, and is forgoing opportunities to learn and grow from her mother, the one and the only person whom she can count on to be her greatest advocate and protector and would never turn her away in times of need.  As each month or year passes by, her losses mount up. As a parent who always wants the best for her children, I mourn what she has thrown away in self-righteous anger. And as a mother who has wisdom gained over years, I am painfully aware of things she will come to learn only when her own children are grown – that time lost cannot be reclaimed, and our lives and relationships are precisely what we make of them. Choose to be a victim, and you become one. Choose to live in gratitude, and love abounds. Sadly, you cannot rescue a child from the enemy within.      

I know many children dismiss parents due to family trauma, such as substance abuse, sexual abuse, narcissism, lack of caregiving, abandonment, lack of stability, financial scarcity, and many other painful and hard-to-forgive issues that make for difficult childhoods. My heart goes out to all those who struggle to keep love alive, both for the parents who failed their children and the children who struggle to forgive the past as they attempt to unravel such complex histories. These tragic stories are sad for everyone involved, and this blog is meant for them as well as for people like me who face animosity rather than gratitude because their best was not good enough in their child’s eyes.

Love shouldn’t be so hard, but sometimes, it is.

Writing about my daughter’s ostracization isn’t a knee-jerk reaction to hurt or frustration. I’ve thought long and hard about addressing this subject and have enough experience to know its relevance. This isn’t my first rodeo with being a dismissed parent. Years ago, when I got divorced and finally left a complicated and dysfunctional marriage, my daughter blamed me. We went three years without speaking unless you count the ugly e-mails telling me I was sick and needed therapy or that she wished I would die. My husband tried to erase me from my children’s lives and might have been successful had he been even slightly responsible or protective of their interests. My children have shared stories of just how diabolical the brainwashing campaign was to paint me as the evil villain.  As if financial ruin, the end of a 20 year marriage and the loss of a beloved career wasn’t enough, I was separated from my 11-year-old daughter for 18 months. Eventually, I felt no choice but to give up custody because our fighting was creating mental health issues that threatened her life. Her subsequent breakdown a week after I signed the papers led to my ex having a change of heart. After two years of fighting, I got her back as easily as if he was passing the bread at dinner. Motherhood interrupted was put to an end thanks to the fact that Dad was unwilling and unprepared to care for a preteen with mental health challenges. Me? We all knew I’d be up to the task. A mother like me does what needs to be done for her child.

Despite this harsh and ugly period of family drama, I forgave everyone: my husband, his next wife, and my eldest daughter, who chose to stand against me with such vengeance at the time when I was at my lowest. We then entered a period of harmony where I helped my ex out when he was in trouble. I continued to be kind and helpful to my ex- sister-in-law, and encouraged my children to keep up their relationship with that side of the family despite endless reports that Dad didn’t speak well of me.

But then, my eldest daughter faced a family crisis of her own. She wanted a divorce and needed help establishing a new life with her toddler. She came to me for help. I fired a good and loyal employee to hire my daughter when she needed a job and let her move in with me and my husband during the transition. We helped set her up in an apartment. I babysat late nights for a year so she could return to school. A year later, we helped pay for her subsequent wedding and a downpayment on her house and did much more to help her thrive and prosper.

Family is never perfect, but I was proud we were getting along. I figured we had all learned from the past and matured beyond emotional reactivity, so while we still annoyed eachother (as family often does) we coped. It was clear to all now that I was the same mom they always knew – one who sacrificed and put my children’s best interests in the forefront of my decisions. I was someone who let bygones be bygones and who wouldn’t hold a grudge. Love unconditionally, right?

And yet . . . a few years later, here we are, back to that alternate universe where disrespect and blame rule the day. Karmically, I suppose there is something I have yet to learn about letting go, or my daughter has to learn the lessons of poignant loss from emotionally driven choices. I’ve been dismissed once again, with that buzzword, toxic, assigned to me.

In this case, I had a massive heart attack and soon after, COVID-19 changed my industry. My profession was collapsing in undeniable ways. I tried to work around these life-altering changes, but due to my age (65), health concerns, and financial stress, I felt I had no choice but to retire and close my business before it went belly up. This decision affected my daughter’s job, and her hope that she would one day take over the business. She viewed my retirement as selfish as if I was cashing out at her expense. I tried to explain my business choices in a way she would understand, but her lack of comprehension regarding the nuisances of the situation made her distrustful of my intentions and motivations.

We offered start-up capital to help her set up a business of her own as soon as we sold our assets and property. We were still in financial gridlock, but if she could be patient and trust that things would work out, they would. She instead went on the warpath, quitting her job and doing all she could to quicken our demise through attacks on social media and negative commentary to my employees and customers. She cut off communication and turned the grandchildren against us, blocking me and anyone connected to me on social media, assuring we were blind to her rants. Gifts for the grandchildren were refused, We were told not to send anything else. The monster continued feeding itself as her disenchantment with me grew to disdain, and her circle of distrust widened to include anyone with any connection to me – her siblings, grandmother, aunt, and family friends. I could go on, but my story isn’t unique if you talk to other dismissed parents. Things that could have been solved with a good heart-to-heart and a bit of compassion spun out of control until everyone had an opinion and was pointing fingers. This makes reconciliation seem almost impossible.

 This blog will explore the many layers of hurt, illogic, or confusion that is a part of the dismissed parent’s journey. My hope is that the posts will help others navigate the labyrinth of hurt and frustration that is a part of being dismissed by a child you love. It will also be good for me to purge my thoughts here rather than hold these thoughts inside. Healing only happens when we choose to openly address our wounds and shine a light on the darkness.