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Life

25th Oct 2016

One woman has asked for help with quite a tricky situation regarding her mother

This is awkward!

Rebecca Keane

As much as mothers want to help us, sometimes they can borderline on interfering.

One woman has opened up on Reddit about the disagreement she and her mother are having all because of the contraception she has chosen.

User birthcontrollingmom asked the internet for advice on approaching her mother, who is extremely pissed off over her daughter changing her form of birth control without telling her.

The woman writes:

“I am a 21 year old female in a committed relationship with my [21M] boyfriend of 6 years. We are seriously planning a future together, which includes a home, marriage, and (eventually) children. Being college students, however, neither of us feel that now is the best time to take any of those steps.

“Previously, we were always very careful about sex — he used condoms and I used the pill. However, I wasn’t happy on the pill and decent condoms can get pricey. So, after going back and forth for a while, we decided I’d get the copper IUD and we’d seek advice for alternatives to condoms at our local Planned Parenthood.”

Following her decision to get the IUD, she was surprised at her mother’s reaction.

“Well, I had the ‘procedure’ (if you can even call it that, it was so quick) this weekend, we got some information from a very nice counselor, and went on our merry way. I spend the weekends at his dorm/on-campus suite, and commute to school from my parents’ home during the week. When I got home Sunday night, I mentioned the IUD to my mother, expecting a mostly neutral reaction.

“Boy, was I wrong. She was pissed. She tore into me, saying it was disgusting to put something like that in my body and that my boyfriend ‘wasn’t worth’ what I was doing to myself. Most of all, she kept coming back to the fact that I had perfectly good birth control, the pill. She is offended that I wanted to stop using it.”

She explained why she forewent the pill

“Here’s the thing about that pill. It was prescribed to me by a dermatologist when I was 14, to help with my acne. For months, my mother had been pushing me to ask for it at the dermatologist’s office even though I really wasn’t comfortable with the idea. I didn’t really know much about “the pill”, and I’ve never liked using pills in general unless I have to.

“Eventually, I caved, and I was miserable afterwards. I told my mom about my issues with the hormones (mainly the bouts of nausea, heartburn, and breast soreness I was experiencing), and she completely ignored me. She thought there was no issue because my acne was clearing up and I was just a hormonal teenager causing problems where there were none to be found. I thought she was minimizing my problems, so I stopped telling her about them.”

Despite the simple decision of changing contraception, this small conflict has lead on to bigger problems in the relationship between her and her parents.

“I started dating my boyfriend a year later, at 15, and we began having sex at age 17. I stayed on the pill because I thought it was the only free birth control method covered by my mother’s insurance (based on what she told me), and resigned myself to it. Once I found out there were other free and easy options at PP, I jumped on it. Now my mother is angry that I didn’t trust her judgment and that I value my boyfriend’s thoughts on my reproductive issues more than her own.

“She’s also very disrespectful of our relationship in general, and really doesn’t like that I spend most weekends with him. I think that he deserves to be in the loop on these matters more than she does, because it’s our sex life and our future that all of this is about. She is now actively shunning me and threatening to tell my ultra-conservative dad, who I’m sure will react just as positively! Joy.”

The writer has asked for advice about her situation,

“I am NOT going back to the pill for the sake of her ego, but what else can I do to help her understand I was trying to make the responsible choice for me and my bf? Is there any resolve to this, or am I going to be made miserable for this until I can finally move out?”

What would you do?