A woman has been backed for shouting at her mother for treating her like a child, as internet users urged her to get a lock for her door—or even kick the parent out.
Redditor u/Sriracha11235 is an adult woman in her 30s, married and with a good career, but as she vented in a post on September 10, her mother still insists she needs help with her life.
It led to fury online, and one parent/adult child counselor, Deanne Schulz, told Newsweek the mother “hasn’t learned to see her daughter as a separate person, capable of getting through life on her own.”
The woman’s mother, who lives out of town, stayed with her daughter on a recent trip, and immediately began acting as though her offspring was still a child, waking her every morning by entering her room and pulling the blankets off her.
The user complained she is “perfectly capable of getting up for work,” and has been waking herself for school and work since she was a child.
Schulz, of Lake Mary Counseling, said behavior like this “rarely starts when the child is an adult,” and can usually be traced back to a “helicopter” parenting style from early in the child’s life.
“While the mom’s actions are based in love, it’s an overbearing, enmeshed love that the daughter probably interprets as, ‘You aren’t capable of doing life without me,'” Schulz said.
When the woman told her mother to stop, she refused, insisting her daughter needed help and continuing to wake her—even though, as she said, “I’m married and often sleep naked.”
“She often tells me how helpless I am and that she should move in with me to help me with basics,” the woman wrote, which she called “extremely patronizing”.
The daughter admitted she “yelled” at her mother, and posted to Reddit‘s r/AITA [AmITheA*****e] sub asking if she was in the wrong for reacting how she did.
But Reddit users responded with a resounding “No,” and many told her she should go further, reducing contact with her mother or cutting her off completely.
Schulz said the angry reaction from the daughter “kicks the pattern into gear,” as by reacting in this way, she “yells at mom, and mom feels rejection,” and the mother may then make her daughter feel guilty for yelling.
She encouraged therapy for the mother, which would likely focus “on learning to let go of the childlike relationship she has with her daughter, and to embrace a new dynamic between two adults.”
“It can be a scary endeavor for mom—separateness from her daughter will feel like a loss,” she acknowledged. “But it will be important for mom to know that their closeness will actually improve, as the daughter is allowed to attach to her mom on her own terms, free of guilt or coercion.”
The woman asked if she was in the wrong for yelling at her mother for pulling blankets off her and telling her she needed help in life. But she was quickly supported in the comments. Pictured, a stock image of a woman looking stressed.
Jacob Wackenhausen/Getty Images
Reddit users did not hold back on their clear-cut thoughts on the situation, however.
“Sounds like she needs to find alternative accommodation,” one commenter said of the mother, with another agreeing: “Sounds like OP needs a lock on their bedroom door.”
Others couldn’t believe the mother was acting this way despite the fact her daughter is married, with one commenter writing: “My wife would murder over this behavior.”
And one said that, if they were in the the OP’s position, “I wouldn’t let her stay with me at all, and would probably limit our relationship to text messages and public meetings.”
In the U.S., around 1 in 4 Americans is estranged from their families, an estimated 67 million people, according to 2020 research by sociologist Karl Pillemar.
Newsweek has contacted u/Sriracha11235 on Reddit for comment.
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