The earliest time I remember her talking about it, I think I was like 8 or 9 years old…
She kept talking about that when she had my older brother, and later me, and she told me being pregnant was hurting her back. And when she had me, whe told me about being worried about the authorities finding out about the 2nd pregnancy and lived those like 9 months in fear.
And she told me about about the C-Section that she had twice for both of me and my older brother, and that she said it hurts a lot.
And like, then she literally lift up her shirt and showed me where she was cut open and like… idk showing scars feel so weird… but I guess she treated it like a battle scar or something… idk…
I remember feeling so bad about it and I felt like I loved her more as a mother.
Then she kept like repeating it every so often and I’m just thinking like: hmm… is this some weird emotional manipulation thing? and it just gets very weird every time she talks about it, and it always ends with something like “I suffered so much for you, you need to ‘behave’ and listen to me” and “if I didn’t have you, I’d be much healthier”
Like I lost count how many times she’ve retold the story, like 20 times at least. I remember being told of it at least once a year. Like I’d talk about my birthday and talk and she’s like: “Oh yea that’s the day I went through so much pain to have you” and “you should take me to have tea/dimsum” (okay this part, it was sometimes said as a “joke”, I was a dependent, of course I couldn’t buy her anything lol)
So I felt so guilty every time I talk about birthday celebrations… cuz like I feel like I owe her or something.
I have noticed a common theme of guilt tripping parents in friends with an asian (mostly indian and malaysian chinese) background. It’s common in those cultures for parents to expect their children to take care of them in their old age more than in western cultures. I think the increasing individualism in society scares the parents and makes them feel the need for manipulative behavior to get their children to not abandon them. This is made worse by the fact that in those cultures it’s generally not done to openly speak about emotions that might make you seem weak, so instead of just talking to their kids they get more manipulative.
My mom cuddles with me so much as a kid, and physical affection was supposedly not “common” amongst asians (? or so I heard, it’s not like I went around asking classmates), so like… idk… this flip-flip from affectionate loving mother to “I sacrificed so much for you, we [as in parents, my materal grandparents] all love you so much do you know that? 🤗” then sometimes the verbal abuse randomly happens and it really just messes with my brain so fucking much.
Coming from a similar background, just know, you deserve your own security, including mentally. You did nothing wrong. You are enough. And most importantly, the good times don’t mean the bad abusive times are okay. Abuse can be physical, verbal, emotional, mental, and lots of blame, shame, and neglect can be abuse.
Treating someone okay sometimes doesn’t justify treating them badly. It is your parents responsibility to raise you too. You had no choice in the matter. It’s okay to explain the story to you, but not to expect you to essentially worship what they did. They chose to have a baby, they need to raise you. There’s no gold medals for doing that expectation aside from the joy of seeing your child become a wonderful human.
Regarding the abuse, including the confusing instability of behavior towards you, don’t let it turn into a bad habit where you constantly feel the need to cling to someone. The abuse and neglect and confusion can make relationships difficult, and may cause you to overthink them later in life and worry about things that harm your future relationships.
Try to center yourself and meditate on how you feel, allow your thoughts time they need to process, and try to truly feel how your body feels.
Wish you the best. Hang in there.
So, she’s guilt-tripping you because she chose do make you? Sounds toxic AF.
I don’t think you can owe somebody for something you didn’t ask for
This sounds very much like manipulative behavior through “Woe is me, look at how much I suffered for you”.
It’s not your fault she got pregnant with you. You don’t owe her pity because of it.
From what I read online, apprarantly childbirth is painful from the accounts of a lot of women… so… I think my mom feels like “I owe her” for the pain… idk lol
I mean, she chose to do it. You’re not the one that got her pregnant, that’s on her and your father. Personally, I wouldn’t feel any guilt for that, she shouldn’t keep bringing it up, that’s a little weird. C-sections are pretty insane though,
This is the first moving name tag that I’ve ever seen. Sorry for changing the subject.
While true in many cases, it’s not universal. My GF and I have four kids together, and while she cam atteat that pregnancy takes a toll on a body, it’s not something that should define the mother-child relationship.
You have to think that for most of human history, the women who were educated and well off enough to write about the pain of child birth were upper class white women who had never really undergone physical hardship.
From my wife’s account, being pregnant is great, birth is fine except for the last 2-3 contractions, which are pretty rough. Then again she runs marathons for fun and it’s an OB gyn nurse, so she understands that having a baby is like any other extreme physical activity
So, it might not be as bad as certain women describe it? I mean, periods sound pretty rough, especially for those with endometriosis, I’d expect that squeezing a couple kilos of bone and flesh out is pretty shit too. I personally wouldn’t want any part of that sort of thing, controversial, I know.
So, it might not be as bad as certain women describe it?
There are probably people exaggerating it, as well as people downplaying it. However, the variation is to big for an outsider to be certain either way.
It varies a lot from woman to woman and from one pregnancy to another. Anywhere from, “That’s it? That wasn’t so bad,” to, “Oh, god! Kill me to make the pain stop!”
You already know nothing she does is normal. No need to question it.
Okay the key here is what you mean by “constantly”. Telling a story about something so life changing once a year hardly goes as “constantly” in my books.
What may come across as manipulative is you mentioning she’s trying to get you to do as she says or trying to get guilt or compassion from you. And this with a pinch of salt, because it’s very hard to tell from what you share here. I would have to become a fly on your wall for a long time to have my own opinion about it.
You tell me she’s telling you this every week and making reference to it every day, several times a day, and now that’s what I consider “constantly”. That she hardly has anything else to share about her past or that she somehow finds a way to spin everything to a framework of scarred pregnancy mother, or similar.
My own mother has told me about her pregnancies several times a year, I heard her stories so many times. Hundreds. Yet that was never the only story she had, and it was always brought up more or less naturally in conversation. The same happened with several other favorite anecdotes of her own past and me and my sister’s childhood. I would consider this aspect to be normal.
I never felt manipulated by her retelling of a story though. And I know she could manipulate pretty well. She also had a few topics she would constantly harass me about, yes, daily or nearly to a point. But retelling the past was not part of it, even though she did frequently.
No, it’s not normal. We will reminisce about events during the pregnancy and birth as a way to suggest that our child’s personality was present well before birth.
Maybe go to the thrift store and get an old donated metal from track and field or something and etch something witty on it and maybe that’ll make your point for you.
I never asked mine about that, honestly, because it never really crossed my mind at all.
Has your mother been a single mother? I mean do you and your brother are from the same father and they are still together?
Lmfao “mgtow” instance
But okay I’ll give the benefit of doubt and just assume this isn’t malicious.
Anyways:
My parents are in an arranged marriage from China. They have been married since like the mid 1990s and never been divorced.
There have never been any issues of alcoholish, drugs, or gambling.
My brother and I are 100% blood related.
But parents had arguments and mom threatened to divorce a few times, but it never happened. And they never separated either. They both work. But in China, dad had a bit of trouble with finding a stable job.
I hear a lot of arguments at home… kinda scary ngl.
But y’all can probabably guess what China was like back then… lots of uncertainty around food. So that’s could be a source of stress and hardship if that’s what you’re wondering, but nothing too serious like mind-altering substances or anything like that.
We’re in the US right now where it has been, relatively speaking, more stable than life in China. Still living in the same house… I looked online and apparantly that it’s common in Asian families (I mean in this current economy, its probably common in the west too).
