When this woman’s mom offered to help out after she gave birth, who could have predicted it would end in old canned goods and a list of demands.
As someone who comes from a long line of alcoholics and addicts, I’m very familiar with distancing yourself from an unwell parent as a form of protection for your mental health. I rarely discuss my childhood because I learned many years ago that most people simply do not possess the understanding and vocabulary required to not make me feel worse about a thing I cannot control. Furthermore, those same people used to try and convince me to just “patch things up” because “they are your family.”
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I have an update: They were people long before they were family and you simply don’t owe a hurtful person anything, especially your time. While watching Courtney’s TikTok about what her mother did when she came over after her daughter gave birth, I find myself 100 percent in Courtney’s corner. What did this unhelpful mother do while her daughter was in the throes of postpartum? Believe it or not, an entire package of bacon is involved. What kind of person turns bacon into a bad thing?
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What is this woman going to do with nearly expired canned goods?
Courtney, who goes by @courtneyb_says on TikTok, took time out of her busy schedule of raising humans up right to drop a TikTok about how terrible her mother was after Courtney gave birth. She listed four ways in which her mom was “wildly out of pocket” but I get the sense there were many more.
First of all, Courtney had a C-section which means her body suffered quite a bit of trauma and needed some extra healing. Thankfully her dysfunctional mother was available to only make things worse. While in the hospital for a week due to complications from the C-section, Courtney asked her mom to please bring some food. Technically she did?
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“She brought me canned food from her pantry that was about to expire,” explained Courtney. Again, this is at the hospital. Courtney has an incision on her stomach which was the result of a baby being lifted out of her body. Is she opening up a can of old corn and chugging it like it’s beer?
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When Courtney was finally home with the newborn, her mom came to “help for two days.” Obviously her mom just had to cook an entire package of bacon immediately upon arriving. She also had to leave bacon grease on the stovetop as well as the floor, without cleaning it up. Nothing helps care for a baby more than puddles of bacon grease scattered around the house.
I saw this one coming from a greasy mile away. Courtney’s mom raided the liquor cabinet and got plastered. As Courtney wisely put it, “Every baby that has just gotten out of the NICU needs a mom that can barely get out of bed and a drunk grandma on the couch.” As someone who was once a baby, I can say with confidence we don’t need that.
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Grandma couldn’t go out without an encore performance and this one was subtle yet legendary: “She handed me a list of demands for her next visit that included a wall clock for the guest room, softer hand towels for the bathroom, and an electric can opener.” My first question is, what does she need the electric can opener for when she’s giving all her old canned goods to Courtney?
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Does Courtney still speak to her mother?
In the caption of Courtney’s TikTok she made sure to say that she hasn’t spoken to her mother in three years but that didn’t stop people from asking why they still talk. In a follow-up video, Courtney explained why someone might speak to a parent who did something like this.
So many people put on their victim-blame hats by suggesting Courtney shouldn’t have been surprised by her mother’s behavior, so why bother calling her? Well, Courtney grew up in a chaotic environment which means her idea of “normal” is not what others might consider the usual. Her baseline is most people’s 11 out of 10, which I fully understand. Essentially, she has a high tolerance for this kind of nonsense.
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She also added that growing up with an unpredictable parent means you’ll do whatever is necessary to keep the peace. Maybe that means allowing them to irrationally make an entire package of bacon without saying anything. Children of difficult parents learn to become chameleons as a survival skill.
This is why Courtney didn’t “cut her mother off” when she turned 18. Doing so could trigger even worse behavior from her mom. Thankfully, she hasn’t spoken to her in years and is absolutely creating a better life for her own children, with reasonable amounts of bacon.
Source: https://www.distractify.com/p/unhelpful-mother-postpartum
