Brad Pitt is like a golden retriever. Cute, loving, and tends to run into closed glass doors. He’s never struck me as very bright.

The mother is sending multiple texts and placing at least one call a week (for 5 minutes, ha!). She couches all her hurt in terms of,’we’re paying for college’ and I’m going to behave like a child and give her the cold shoulder over Christmas and not give her presents. This is massively immature behavior. Any adult…

THANK YOU. My mother called me literally every day when I left for school, until I mentioned it to my dad (I didn’t know that he didn’t know) and he made her stop. She’d get mad that I never called her, and then got madder when my answer was that she called me every day so why should I call? She’d also get mad that I…

This isn’t projecting a personal experience upon other people’s lives,though. This is all about a narrative written by a parent who multiple times mentions money as a stick-and-carrot tool, because she is convinced that her kid isn’t responding to her unwanted attempts at communication. We don’t even know why her kid…

The sad part is that I can think of two people in my extended family who are exactly like that. One of them (an aunt) tried to do that exact same thing to me.

She was in charge of the fund my grandfather set up for all the grandkid’s education. I wanted to attend a technical college that has courses directly relevant…

How is she being blatantly rude? Venting to your sister in confidence about your mom being annoying isn’t being blatantly rude, it’s just surviving an overbearing parent. Calling your family when you have a reason to instead of just to chat also isn’t blatantly rude - some of us just aren’t phone chatters.

20 years ago when I was in college and cell phones and email were not so common, there was no contact with my family more than once a week. Current technology is a game changer- and not necessarily for the better. Going to college is a time when you’re supposed to break away from your parents, and if mom’s sending a…

I think so, too. And this is despite having a mom I cut out of my life six months ago and in-laws I cut out three years before then. I’m pretty firmly in the “You owe no one a relationship ever” camp, and this reads like unresolved projection issues to me. I think it’s reasonable to expect a return phone call, barring…

Yep. I posted a comment, but I think it bears repeating: Using financial dependency as a tactic to emotionally manipulate your child is abuse. And typically it’s not the only issue in the relationship. As a survivor of parental abuse, the mother in this piece raises major red flags all across the board.

Yeah. Like she’s a grinchian mastermind. She wants to have no contact with her daughter so the daughter won’t know what’s coming. She’ll be all wistful about the cookies and the decorations and having some good ol fashion Christmas time with her family then boom! Christmas morning hits and baby sister and elder sister…

No, she’s not. This mimics my parents to a T. They were financially manipulative my whole life. Parents like these are usually emotionally abusive in every sense of the term. Using money as collateral is rarely the only problem. This is not an original story.

You can think “man. Fuck Sarah. I pay for her college. I pay for her beer she doesn’t know I know she buys. She can’t even call me back? No gifts for you, young lady!” and still be an okay mom. When you write into a very popular advice column asking if you can give everyone but your ungrateful teen daughter a great…

I mean, the teenager is being bratty but the mother’s reaction of thinking it’s a good idea to not give her daughter Christmas presents because of it is at least ten times brattier (without even taking into account that she is a grown-ass woman who should know better), so . . . we know where the daughter’s learning…

I disagree. A young adult should be able to communicate with their sister without fearing an invasive parent. A child is not obligated to response to every call and text message, just like any other person is not. It is disruptive to have someone contact you at random when you are trying to write a paper or study for…

She’s venting to a national advice columnist, though, not to her friends. I’m generally wary of LWs who can’t self-edit a bit in that format. If that’s what comes out when she’s sat down to write an email, I’m curious what’s been said in other contexts

I don’t agree at all. I was very bothered by this mother using money to manipulate her adult child. And she has so many ideas on how to do it. That’s not difficulty adjusting, it’s being a really shitty parent.

And, of course, we don’t actually know if any of these women have survived domestic violence and not gone public with it. Imagine how painful it would be to see your face photoshopped with bruises if you were a survivor.

Oof. Another problem with domestic violence awareness like this is folks assume it looks like your face is all bruised and cut up. As one of my clients said, “I preferred the beatings. The bruises heal, but I still can’t get the words out of my head.”

Yeah for sure. The best part is when he’s sort of reconsidering the $10 campaign contribution of spilled pennies “yeah you know what, I will take these”. And then they leave him to go get some Arby’s. These boys are big fans of Between Two Ferns obviously.

This is pretty funny