Pregnant Person Unblocks Their Estranged Mom To Tell Her Exactly Why They're Refusing Any Baby Gifts From Her
"Stop buying anything for us, donate what you've acquired, and… accept that you will not be a part of your grandkid's life."
Netrun78 | Shutterstock It's a deeply sad sign of our times — families, especially parent-child relationships, are being torn apart amid wave after wave of estrangements. If life were like the movies, the arrival of a new baby might be a healing factor for a family.
But for one TikToker who is expecting, it has instead solidified their commitment to keeping their volatile mother at arm's length, and their story will feel all too familiar to many people.
They unblocked their estranged mom to refuse her baby gifts.
It's not just a perception borne of the content in your social media feeds; family estrangements have skyrocketed in recent years, with one national study finding that 27% of Americans are estranged from at least one family member and 10% estranged from a parent or child.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, these rates are even higher among LGBTQ+ people — roughly a third reported being estranged from a parent.
Nat, a TikToker who is bisexual and genderfluid (and uses they/them pronouns), is one of them, and recently shared screenshots of text messages that ensued when their estranged mom, an extremely conservative Evangelical Christian, came out of the woodwork wanting to send them gifts for their baby.
They tell a story that will be heartbreakingly familiar to many.
Nat's mom has repeatedly espoused anti-LGBTQ and racist beliefs, despite Nat being genderfluid and their husband being Black.
I'm 31 wks pregnant and my mom has been stalking me more than ever since she found out," Nat wrote in their TikTok caption. "I first cut contact in 2014, had low contact from 2016-2018, and have had her blocked everywhere for the past 6 years."
In the text message exchange, it is easy to see why their relationship fell apart. After firmly telling their mom that her baby gifts are not welcome because she "had every opportunity" to work through her "homophobia, transphobia, and racism," but chose not to do so.
She has directed this bigotry by rejecting Nat's genderfluid identity. "You have intentionally misgendered and deadnamed me every time I've seen you since I came out as genderfluid," Nat wrote.
But on top of that, Nat's husband being Black and the racial identity of their child together has done nothing to curb their mom's "racism" and "white nationalist politics." Understandably, this has left Nat feeling like they "would never trust [their mom] to have a relationship with my kid."
Nat's other reasons will be familiar to anyone who's gone through estrangement: Their mom has shown no willingness to even listen, let alone change.
In fairness, we're only getting Nat's side of the story, but Nat's experience nevertheless reads like a textbook case of estrangement between older parents, often of the baby boomer generation, and their millennial, Gen Z, and even Gen X kids. As a gay man with parents of similar beliefs and political alignments myself, I speak from experience.
"You have had nearly 20 years of feedback from us about what would be required to improve our relationships," Nat wrote, "and you have repeatedly chosen to ignore or misunderstand our requests, then center your own pain and grief ad nauseam."
That will feel instantly familiar to anyone who's struggled to be heard by their parents — especially for children of baby boomers, who, along with heaps of plain old bigots, predictably reacted like petulant children and outright animals to Nat's post.
But what people like Nat's parents and those who'd take her side never seem to acknowledge is that Nat, even having made an effort to salvage their relationship with their mom in the first place, given her open bigotry towards both them and their husband, is an extraordinary act of grace and forgiveness — and one far beyond what their mom is apparently willing to extend to them.
The bottom line is that when you refuse to even listen to or accept what your child tells you about the way you've made them feel and impacted their life, let alone own up to it and change, you give the relationship nowhere to go. And that is a choice you make.
For Nat, they have to think of their child's well-being, too, which makes the stakes even higher. As they put it in their texts, "do what you need to do to accept that you will not be a part of your grandkid's life. It is a privilege that you have not earned."
When you refuse to resolve issues with your kids, you give your child two options: walking away or remaining in a relationship with someone who has shown conclusively to not care about their feelings, experiences, or, in Nat's case, the basic safety of them or of their family.
Nobody owes anyone that kind of grace, not even their parents.
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice and human interest topics.