Dear Margo | 05/28/2009 11:00 pm
Dear Margo: Playing Favorites
A woman cries all the time because of her mother’s negligence … Margo Howard’s bright advice
Playing Favorites
Dear Margo: I am badly in need of advice. I am a child of a blended family. My mother has two children from a previous marriage and one from her current marriage. As teens, my sibling and I were forced out of the house because anger was directed at us. After we left, our half-sibling was spoiled rotten. We are over any hard feelings, but the problem lies with the grandchildren. All three of us are grown with children, yet my mother only spends time with our half-sibling’s child. My children have stopped asking to visit Grandma because she put them off for so long that they got the hint. Whenever we get together briefly for the holidays, she says she loves and wants to spoil her grandchildren, but she only spoils the one. I cry all the time because my kids will have no special memories of my mother. We live in the same town and it weighs on me. I have tried to talk to her about this, but she becomes angry and says hurtful things to me. Any advice? — Feeling Awful
Dear Feel: How perfectly sad this situation is. For starters, your mother did not properly protect you when she remarried. To have two teenagers forced out of the house is regrettable, and I get no sense of a "blended family." Her affection and attention are indisputably directed toward the last child — to the point of excluding your children. I hope you know there is nothing wrong with you, your sib or your kids, but there’s plenty wrong with your mother. My advice is to stop trying to talk to her and stop crying. You just drew the short straw in the Mother Lottery and nothing can change that. I suggest you make other memories for your kids and work toward acceptance of the fact that your mother is an odd duck. A lot of kids either don’t have grandmothers or they are at a great distance, and that is just one variable in growing up. — Margo, acceptingly
Party On
Dear Margo: My long-term boyfriend’s family is very warm and loving, and they have a penchant for celebrating milestones. My family, in contrast, did not give me gifts or even cards when I graduated from college. I am a few months away from completing a certificate of study at a community college, and although I’ll be glad to be finished, the "accomplishment" means almost nothing to me. I decided to get the certificate to raise my salary a little, and while it’s been a hassle to go to the classes and do the work, I don’t consider it an academic achievement at all. My boyfriend’s mother actually wanted to throw a party for me, and I’ve talked her down to a congratulatory dinner, but I’d really rather have the "graduation" pass with no acknowledgment at all. I tried to explain nicely that I really don’t care about this certificate, but she has not listened. The dinner is likely the best I can do without raising my voice, and I’ll be dreading the event for the rest of the semester. What do you advise? — Indifferent
Dear In: C’mon, what’s the big whoop? Look at it as a dinner in your honor because she likes you — and she likes parties. There could be no clearer indication of her affection for you than wanting to celebrate something you’ve done. I am pretty sure your discomfort with this is that your family celebrates nothing and never marks an occasion, so you’re unused to gestures of this kind. Truly, there is nothing to dread, and my hope is that you can progress beyond your family’s approach and adopt that of your boyfriend’s mother. Life is gayer that way. — Margo, festively
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Dear Margo is written by Margo Howard, Ann Landers’ daughter. All letters must be sent via e-mail to dearmargo@creators.com. Due to a high volume of e-mail, not all letters will be answered. To read more about Margo Howard, click here.
COPYRIGHT 2009 MARGO HOWARD
DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
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Read more about: Advice, Boyfriends, Dating, Dear Margo, Family, Graduation, Margo Howard, Motherhood, Parenting, Racism, Relationships
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65 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment
Ltr #2: Margo hit it right on. Celebrate! And what better way to reinforce the idea that working hard gets rewarded.
andrea and joy, you both hit it right on the mark. she wants the relationship back that she could never have and hoped that her children would bring that about. i gave up on that a long time ago with my kids and my MIL. she was an awful parent to her son’s and daughter and an awful grandparent to her grandchildren. her daughter takes care of her now and the only grandchild that bothers with being near her is her daughters son and that’s because he lives there.
she was/is a devout jehovahs witness and as soon as her sons left the religion she said they and their "offspring" were dead in her eyes. my first husband (father of my kids) totally ignored this and would visit her anyway and bring my kids (when he was still seeing them). when he abandoned them my kids still wanted to visit her, when i called i was told forget it we will only see them thru daddy. so i matter of factly told my kids this and told them that THEY were NOT to blame and that i would take good care of them. later as the years went they were reunited with their uncles, aunts and cousins. BUT they have never wanted to see their grandmother again and only ask about the stories i had about her occasionally (being partially deaf she loved to pinch newborns so she could hear them cry etc).
my kids grew up happy, healthy and well adjusted without that evil, unloving grandparent. so i’m sure this lady’s kids will to. she just has to make sure that they get the love she never got. this way she will get what she missed from her own kids back.
Good for you, Nancy, to recognize that your kids would be better off without the paternal grandmother. I think it’s excellent that you told your kids the truth rather than make up a fib. Sometimes it’s too late for some relationships, but it’s never too late to love your kids to pieces.
That business of pinching babies to make them cry - CRINGE!
Sounds like a lot of hostility and anger in that family, Nancy. Often those who don’t demonstrate much emotion are have been emotionally abused or neglected in one way or another. It’s sad, really. But I believe that if you can’t work out these kinds of problems then you need to get help. It’s just ridiculous to waste your life away and spend that much energy being angry.
Anderea I just read this story and it hit home, as I’ve said before, I lost precious memories with my Father because my Mother chose her so-called-husband (he was married to somone else at the same time and had a family with both). I learned to be a mother at age 10-11, cooked my first hoilday meal in 1967, I was 12 yrs old. What I was made to do made me a better Mother. I tried for years to have a relationship with my older sister (we have the same parents), but she was and is a mean spirited person who doesn’t really have anything to show for her life. She spent her entire life buying people and then telling the world (everyone she met) of her good deeds. It took me YEARS to realize trying to be her sister was a waste of time, she never did anything for me, she never acknowledged my children, so now she’s living with a married man (20 some odd yrs now), my children want nothing to do with her, the other neices and nephews just want the expensive gifts she gives them. But my childern I’m happy to report grew up loved, educated, responsible and have never had the need to look to anyone for exceptance or approval.
you can’t get something that’s not there, trying to get Mom to be a Grandmom is a waste of time if she doesn’t want to do it. Your better off just saying the heck with it and making sure yourself that your children and grandchildern are loved by you and keep them involved in the lives of those who show an interest.
You get what you reap, make good with what you have and work for what you want.
Isn’t that the truth? I was walking yesterday and was listening to a call-in therapy program. A young woman called in because she was so "depressed." She said she couldn’t be a good wife because she never knew her father and felt she had a hole in her heart for loss of a dad. The therapist told her to get over it because her father was obviously not a "father" so what was she moaning over?
It’s sad that this woman was ruining her marriage by making her husband be husband and father to her. The energy spent in wanting what never can be is wasted. Yes, it’s sad that not everyone gets to be part of a loving family……but you have to get beyond that.
So you’re right, Denisann, you have to make good with what you have and work for what you want.
I was talking to my daughter the other day about her father, he left in 95 because he was transfered to another base and said it would be best if we stayed in our home and they finish school with their friends. We all talked about it and thought it was the right thing to do. For the first couple yrs he came home every weekend, the next yr he was shipped overseas, when he came back he was back to LaJune NC, where he stayed until he retired in 2001.
I was really blind and stupid, I had no clue he had GIRL FRIENDS, yes more then one. I found out when I was cleaning the hard drive to the computer and clearing out all the useless emails from our system. This was 97 towards the end. I should have know something was wrong because the visits went from every wkend to once a month, then bdays and hoildays only. I confronted him with proof in hand, first he lied and said I was nuts, then I hit him with the emails, but not only him, I notified all the other ladies of his goings on, he didn’t lose just his wife, but all his girlfriends too. The sad thing is my kids weren’t the only ones who loss a full time parent. I didn’t talk to any of the husbands of his girlfriends but some how they found out and four families were broke.
I refused to let him slip out of the kids life, it would have been easy to do, vengence and all that, but I wanted to make sure they had their dad in their lives for all their lives. If they had a falling out it wouldn’t be because he was a cheatling, lying bastard, it would be his own undoing.
I’m happy to say that my children have a GREAT relationship with us both. Together we paid for our son’s wedding (what the kids asked or we wanted to do). I made candles, two of those things the girl wears on her leg (brain fart can’t remember what it’s called, lol), I made a pillow out of velvet, I had their picture superimposed on the material, it was heart shaped and the rings were tied to it. It was lovely, the whole day. Both of us helped our daughter through college, with tuition, books, etc.
I’ve only seen him once since my son’s wedding but the he has to pay me every month for the rest of my life. Marine corp don’t look to kindly on cheating marines, I got 1/2 his pension, and if he goes before me, lol, he still will be paying me because they made him set up a fund which would allow me the same as now with yearly increase, lol.
The fiddler always gets paid. So you see we get what we deserve, what we work for and what we earn. There’s no free ride in this life for anyone, one way or another it all comes out in the end.
You know Andrea if I weren’t writing a book right now about my life experiences half the stuff I’ve said here on WoW I would have probably forgotten, I ‘m thankful for this site and the opportunity to talk with other women, and be able to share my experience and learn from others.
God Bless you. :)
Deniseann,
I think the more people share about ourselves, the more we realize that we’re not the only ones with problems. Life comes with no guarantees, for sure.
On the father issue: women who were raised without a male father figure in their childhood have two choices: they can either lament and play victims, or they can become might self-sufficent in spite of it.
And you’re right, Deniseann, the fiddler ALWAYS gets paid.
God bless you, too, Deniseann.
PS You should save all the things you write on wowowow - you never know if you one day will write a book.