Woman shames sister for starting new family after abandoning her daughter. AITA?
"AITA for telling my sister she knows she was a bad mother and created a do-over family when she even said having her younger kids was her chance to do things right?"
ObjectiveWinter8390
My sister had her daughter, Asha, when she was 25. Asha is now 21 and she has nothing to do with my sister. My sister was never really a good mom. Not when Asha's dad was alive, not when she became a young window and not when she decided to focus on herself after losing her husband.
Asha did not have an easy time with my sister and my sister went through a lot as well. She was stable in her job, she had support from friends and family, she had a house, she had any number of resources at her finger tips but she still chose to be a checked out mother who really didn't give a crap about her child.
Asha spent most of her time with her paternal uncle because of the connection to her dad and their shared grief. He was also amazing to her and stepped up where my sister failed. But Asha still saw me and my parents a lot and I was the person she went to for more motherly things.
She knew it was a waste of time asking my sister so she found ways around everything, where my sister's advice or guidance wasn't needed. But it wasn't easy on her.
She used to say how embarrassed she was at school when everyone was talking about their parent(s) and she couldn't talk about hers because her mom never made time for her, never said nice things to her, etc.
She didn't even know how old her mom was or what she did for the longest time because my sister was so absent and never shared. She asked my parents one time at their house because she needed to answer for homework and was called lazy by teachers previous years for not answering.
Asha cared less over time and focused more on a life without my sister and, by the time she was 18, Asha had a solid plan and moved out. It was also by that time that my sister was remarried and expecting a child with her current husband.
My sister's husband appeared to have this belief that Asha would be engaged in the life of their child and he was super shocked when he realized Asha was leaving and wasn't staying in touch.
But he knew who he married and he knew how bad of a mom my sister was. My sister even said their first child together and their second were "her chance to do things right". She has frequently said this.
Which is why I brought this up last week when my sister had complained that Asha has not met the kids and blocked her after calling her husband and kids my sister's "do-over family".
My sister took huge offense to that and she claimed Asha was lacking in sympathy for how hard it was to be a young widowed mom. I told her she knows she was a bad mother, she knows this is her do-over because she even said the kids were her chance to do things right, not to do things better, but right.
I told her that her words show she knows she was no mother to Asha despite many people trying to help in past years, me included. My sister told me I had no right to judge her and she told me to stay out of her life. AITA?
Here were the top rated comments from readers:
churchofdan
NTA Your sister sucks. Grief can only beget so many excuses. She abandoned her kid. She doesn't have an older daughter.
The OP responded here:
ObjectiveWinter8390
Exactly and she was a bad mother to Asha before she was grieving her husband so her point about that falls flat. She has argued she was so much younger then, which is true, but she wasn't so young that she was incapable of being a good mom.
SuccessfulLeg9898
NTA. Someone needs to look out for the girl that doesn’t have a father, and mentally absent mother. You stood up for your niece, so obviously your self-centered sister took offense to it, as she always will.
If it was me, I would double down and say her dead husband would be rolling in his grave seeing the way she treats their daughter. And then add that everytime she looks at her new child, she’ll feel the burning guilt of abandoning her first daughter in the back of her mind.
Which, by the way, is the only reason any new motivation to be a good mom might be coming through. It’s not healthy and I think this new family will fail as well because she hasn’t fully healed mentally.
blueteamoon
NTA. You gave her a dose of reality when she came complaining to you, that’s what family should do. Your sister is clearly aware of being the guilty party here, but perhaps she hadn’t fully realized that everyone else is aware as well.
It’s not unusual for someone like her to cut off anyone that reminds her of how majorly she messed up. She’ll regret it when she’s older. Empathetically speaking, it sounds like she might have had postpartum depression and then just full blown depression? I hope she’s in a better place now and doesn’t do it to her new kids.
GothPenguin
I’m sure it was difficult to be a young widowed mother but I’m even more sure it was extremely difficult and traumatizing to effectively be an orphan with a parent who was very much alive.
If your sister wants sympathy you should give her the same words of wisdom my grandmother used to give others like your sister. You want sympathy? You’ll find it between shit and syphilis in the dictionary. NTA.
Fuzzy-Pin-2414
NTA. If someone doesn’t want to be called a bad mother by their own child, they should actually attempt to be a good mother. I don’t give a dang how hard it is to raise kids as a single mother, you still need to do it. Good for you, most people just enable poor parenting.