Estranged Mom Reveals What She Said To Her Son’s Wife That Caused Them To Go No Contact With Her
We all hold versions of our own truth.
fizkes / Shutterstock Families can be a crucial source of support and guidance, yet our families can also cause deep heartache. As our first structural system, our relationships with our family members teach us how to see ourselves, how to relate to the rest of the world, and mostly, how to love.
When a relationship turns toxic, it’s totally understandable to take some space from someone, even if that person is your parent.
An estranged mom revealed what she said to her son’s wife that made them go no-contact.
In her TikTok profile, Dawn refers to herself as a “fired mom,” noting that she’s a “narcissistic abuse survivor learning to redefine [her] life.”
She creates content specifically geared toward parents who are estranged from their adult children. In a recent post, she shared what she said that led to her first estrangement from her son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter.
“It was the first time that I was holding my granddaughter,” Dawn said. "She was a few months old, and this was due to COVID restrictions. They were wonderful parents in honoring everything that their pediatrician had recommended, which was no in-person visits until she had had all her immunizations, which I think was three months, three and a half months.”
“My daughter-in-law was across the porch. We were outside on their little deck, and she was across the porch, and she had a very sad and forlorn face, pretty much the entire time," Dawn continued. I tried to make light of the situation, to make her smile, and I did a poor job of that.”
At the three-month mark, newly postpartum moms are dealing with fluctuating hormones and a tenderness that accompanies having a baby. It’s entirely normal for them to feel like they’re on shaky emotional ground and haven’t quite found their standing legs.
Dawn described what she said as an innocuous, light-hearted comment, made to cut the tension, that ended up doing the opposite.
“I said, ‘Does it [expletive] you off that everyone says she looks like her dad?’" Dawn recalled. "I said that because she did look just like her dad ... As soon as I said those words, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m sorry, that sounded horrible to say.’ That was my immediate response. As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I apologized.”
Despite Dawn owning her initial behavior, her son and daughter-in-law felt she’d crossed a line.
She apologized a second time after she left, sending a message to her son through Facebook Messenger.
“They had discussed, apparently, what I said, and the way that was repeated was not the way I repeated it," Dawn added. "I didn’t say it in a nasty way. I was trying to make her smile,” she said.
“In hindsight, I should have asked her, ‘Hey, are you OK, are you feeling OK?’ I should have been more compassionate and caring… But we didn’t really have that type of relationship," she continued. Our relationship was not very close, and so it felt like I’d be overstepping some boundaries if I asked her really what was wrong."
Looking back and reconsidering the ways we should have acted is a common reaction to saying the wrong thing or hurting someone’s feelings. While apologizing is always the right move to make, no one is required to accept an apology if they don’t want to.
“When I apologized the second time, my son came back at me with anger that I had said that, that I wasn’t thinking when I said that,” Dawn shared. “It wasn’t until a couple of days later that he said to me that ‘We’re going to be taking a break from you.’”
She explained her son’s reasoning for taking a break: “He said that I always make jabs at his wife, which I didn’t realize that I did. Nothing was intentional, but that was what he said, and I did not see my granddaughter for 5 more months.”
She said that her daughter-in-law “stated publicly that they were just going to take a break for a couple of weeks, but I said that she was too sensitive.”
“She says that I said in the message that he needed anger management. I don’t recall saying that. I was, however, still deep on very strong antipsychotics, deep in the recovery from my psychosis, and still recovering from my concussion, so I may have said those things,” Dawn admitted.
Dawn’s struggle with her mental health is a topic she discusses in other videos on her TikTok page, and it offers some context to her own emotional well-being at the time of estrangement.
The ‘fired mom’ explained that she shares her mistakes on social media so that other estranged parents can have a guide for what not to do.
“When they took a break from me, I should have just done nothing,” she said. “I should not have sent her cards, I should not have sent anything for my granddaughter, I should not have reached out to my son.”
“For estranged parents or parents on here whose children are low-contact, if your child says we need a break from you, hands off, all the way," Dawn advised. "Zero communication, because you will dig a bigger hole by trying to fix things, and this is why I share what I did wrong, is to help other estranged parents not to make the same mistakes I did."
Making the decision to go low or no contact with a parent is never simple or entirely abrupt. Often, adult children come to recognize patterns of behavior that feel harmful and take space away to reevaluate the ways in which they want to exist around their parents.
Children don’t owe their parents a relationship, especially if that relationship cuts them down.
Lucy Blake, PhD, shared insights on estrangement on the American Psychological Association’s podcast, “Speaking of Psychology.”
She noted that estrangement is a research topic that’s just beginning to gain traction, referencing a German study that posited that 20% of adults will go through a period of estrangement with a father, and 9% will go through estrangement with a mother.
Blake explained that in the last ten years, more studies have been conducted to define the causes of estrangement and how it impacts people’s lives. “But I think we know less at this point in terms of published data about what are the conditions for reunion and what helps family members get back in contact again and become closer again.”
She believes that getting professional therapeutic guidance can help navigate the murky waters of estrangement and that listening to people’s personal experiences with estrangement is helpful in understanding how repair can occur.
Estrangement is a painful process for everyone involved, yet knowing how and when to set boundaries is crucial to caring for oneself.
“Estrangement is not something that I’m proud of,” Dawn said in a separate since-deleted post. “It’s not something that mothers enjoy being a part of, but it does help other parents when they find that they are not alone because being estranged is very isolating and excluding.”
She revealed that she’d been estranged for two years before she began sharing content on TikTok, which she does in order to offer guidance and a supportive space for other parents in the same situation.
Ultimately, no one except Dawn and her children fully knows the nuances of what happened between them. Therefore, no one outside their family has any real right to judge them.
We all hold our own versions of truth, and all our emotions are valid, even when they don’t line up with someone else’s experience. Everyone deserves to heal from traumas they’ve carried, even when they’ve harmed others. Everyone has a right to inner peace, no matter how they get there.
Alexandra Blogier is a writer on YourTango's news and entertainment team. She covers social issues, pop culture and all things to do with the entertainment industry.