Dear Mary-anne: How can I stop my daughter's abuse?
QUESTION:
I would like your advice on the behaviour I am dealing with not with a child but a 40-year-old mother of a 1-year-old.
It's a long history, too complicated, but essentially my daughter is a successful, well-educated and well-respected person with many friends who I think would be shocked to hear her sometimes spontaneous, angry outbursts towards me; at times quite violent.
She has a lot of grievances and some definitely valid around not feeling heard for years.
I have tried my best to listen and give her what she needs but it seems never enough and then out of the blue she reacts with the same stories and essentially becomes abusive and disrespectful.
I am a 72-year-old mother who comes to help her with her child but when she blows up – as she did yesterday and today – I am still devastated, traumatised and quite helpless and disempowered to respond. She does not want my view at all and we just move on until her next blow-up.
I would never have confronted my own mother like this. I am wondering if there is their some current teaching that these young people are getting that it is OK to express anger and not allow others to shut them up and have their say even if their language is chastising, judgmental, critical and attacking of the other.
I would appreciate your comments as I just move on and cannot say it is unacceptable to treat a mother like that. I must find a way up say stop – which I have tried but she feels I am not willing to listen to her and she says it is my problem. She won't see a therapist
ANSWER:
Your daughter is 40 and she has a 1-year-old. We all know how drastically a child can change a person's life, and your daughter – a parent now – may be struggling to cope in her new role. You say she is well educated and well respected and I'm sure she is, but a 1-year-old can be the undoing of even the most organised, respected people.
You also say that she has a lot of grievances, and some definitely valid, around not feeling heard for years. Perhaps those grievances are surfacing now she is the parent. Perhaps her lack of sleep, her lack of time and her drastic change of circumstance have made her more vulnerable.
Perhaps too, your well-educated, well-respected daughter is unable to formulate her ideas as clearly as she would like.
Many people of your generation have buried traumas, hurts and misdeeds under a blanket of silence. I do believe there's a healthier climate these days for people to express their feelings and work through significant events. This expression of feelings doesn't need to be shouted and it's not the prerogative of the young.
I'd like to suggest you should take advantage of it too. It's irrelevant if we're 72 or 40; if we have stuff to deal with then we should do so. We can all make changes in our lives.
Why don't you start by seeing a therapist? Say what's happening now and then have a go at confronting whatever it was that occurred when your daughter was growing up. Let an expert guide you in making peace with yourself and with your daughter. This suggestion lets your daughter see that it's possible to face past events and to admit wrongdoing. She may follow your example and get the help she needs as a consequence.
You have a 1-year-old grandchild and the chance to make yourself part of his/her life. You don't want that child to witness angry, sometimes violent, outbursts as those behaviours then become part of the fabric of that child's life.