It's not fun to only hear from someone if they need something from you. A woman on Reddit said that when she was 5 years old, her parents got divorced and her dad disappeared. Two years after that, her mom remarried and moved to France, leaving her with her grandma.
Now, at 29 years old, she said her mom reached out to her because she needs help. "Apparently her husband divorced her, her kids can't help her (I don't know why, she mentioned some financial reasons), so she got my number from a cousin I'm in contact with, and wants me to move her in with me," she wrote in her post.
She doesn't want her mom to move in with her.
Though she says that she feels she doesn't owe her mom anything, she offered to buy a plane ticket for her to get back to their home country. She doesn't want her mom to move in with her, but due to cultural and religious reasons, she explains, many relatives are siding with her mom and not her.
She explains that her mom previously pretended like she was not her mom.
The woman added that her mom lied to her new partner and told him that she had no kids and no prior marriages. Her mom and her mom's new partner visited her and her grandma sometimes, but the woman's mom acted like the woman was just an orphan that her grandma had taken in.
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She eventually had no contact with her mom.
Her grandma tried to take care of her, she explained, but she was also getting older, which required the granddaughter to take on caretaking responsibilities. She also worked really hard. She went to a good school then moved to France for work. "By then my grandma has passed away, my mom already had pretty much no contact with me, and her kids thought me as the orphan that their grandma used to raise, so I didn't even tell her that I moved to france," she explained.
She is financially secure, but doesn't feel obligated to help.
The woman now lives in the United Kingdom and feels financially secure. Though she is capable of helping her mom, she doesn't want her mom to move in with her. She asked Reddit users to make sure she wasn't being too harsh.
Some say getting a plane ticket for her is nice — and maybe too much.
Many of the Reddit users who responded sided with the woman, saying that she doesn't owe her mom anything. Several pointed out that buying her a plane ticket is a nice gesture, but even that is not necessary.
"You don’t even owe her plane ticket but I get that’s probably culturally hard to do," one person wrote. "You’re a good person OP, and I’m glad things worked out for you."
Others think she should point out what kind of relationship they have.
Since her mom did not act like her mom, many Reddit users said that the woman should remind her mom that they don't truly have a mother-daughter relationship.
One person advised: "Ask her if she remembers when she told everyone you aren’t her daughter ? Ask her how can you owe your mother anything when you don’t have one ?"
Since relatives side with the mom, they should be happy to help.
The OP mentioned that many relatives sided with her mom and not with her. Since they side with her mom, many Reddit users pointed out, they should also be happy to help the mom with the issues that she's facing. "If other family members are on her side let them help her," one person said.
People acknowledged that cultural expectations can be difficult to navigate.
So many people sided with the OP, but a lot of them still understood why she had doubts about it — because of cultural reasons. One person pointed out that it makes sense that the relatives would support the mom due to cultural norms about children supporting their parents.
"That is to be expected," the person admitted. "It is easier to burn the bridges with them and ditch your mother (which i personally agree with), it will be difficult to retain some like minded, friendly cousins whose support you may require while dealing with your mother and the fallout in the future."
But people assured her that taking care of her mom does not sound like her responsibility.
"She abandoned you, and has only come back now because she wants something from you," one person pointed out. "Ask yourself, would she help you in this way if the roles were reversed? She's not your mother, she didn't raise you, she's a stranger looking for money."
People congratulated her for her success in life.
Overall, people felt that the OP was being generous, and they were also impressed by her resilience and the amount she was able to accomplish despite being left without parents at a young age.
"Congratulations on holding it together, overcoming difficult circumstances, and doing so well," one person said. "Not everyone would have had the strength, intelligence, or perseverance to overcome such a troubling background, but you did."
These stories are based on posts found on Reddit. Reddit is a user-generated social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website where registered members submit content to the site and can up- or down-vote the content. The accuracy and authenticity of each story cannot be confirmed by our staff.
