My mother, Margaret Evelyn, seems to have erased me and my children from her life. Alone, I struggle between two little ones who demand constant care, while she, their own grandmother, won’t lift a finger to help. The weight of it gnaws at me, and I can’t shake the loneliness and resentment.
Why does she act this way? I’ve no answer. We grew apart when I left home at eighteen, moving from Sheffield to start my own life. Since then, our conversations have dwindled to the occasional call. I’d hoped my children might bring us closer, but every time I ask her to visit or simply listen, she cuts me short: “Emma, I must go—things to do.” What could matter more than family? I don’t understand.
Mum always said she wanted me to stand on my own two feet. In my youth, she’d insist I learn self-reliance. But at eighteen, when I left, I had to claw my way forward—hunting for work, renting a shoebox flat, counting every penny. I managed, but at what cost? Now that I’m a mother myself, I long for just a scrap of her support. Yet none comes.
Instead, her time is swallowed by men. Like some lovestruck girl, she flits from one suitor to the next, chasing “the one,” though she’s past fifty. I don’t begrudge her happiness, but when it leaves no room for her own grandchildren, I can’t stay silent. The children ask why she never visits, and I’ve no reply. Each time, she offers fresh excuses: too busy, too tired, or “meeting someone rather interesting.”
Recently, I snapped. After yet another refusal to come round, I rang her and poured out every ache: “Mum, have you no shame? At your age, you ought to be with your grandkids, not gallivanting about!” She fired back: “I gave you my youth—worked myself ragged raising you alone! Now it’s my turn, Emma. The children are your duty, not mine!” Her words stung like a slap. Yes, she sacrificed for me—but does that mean she abandons us now?
I watch her drift further away. In the last two years, we’ve met barely once a month. She’s grown distant, a stranger. Even her voice lacks the warmth it once held. I don’t ask her to give up her life—just to visit now and then. Sit with the children. Let me catch my breath. But will there come a day when we’re no longer family at all?
How do I make her see that life isn’t just candlelit dinners and new admirers? That family—her own blood, her grandchildren—is what truly lasts? I’m tired of quarrels, tired of feeling unwanted. Sometimes I think: let her find her “prince,” settle her affairs, then remember us. But deep down, I fear “later” may never come.
I don’t want to lose her. Yet how do I keep hold when she’s the one pulling away? I drown in responsibility, while she scarcely notices my burden. Am I selfish? Or has she forgotten what it means to be a mother?
