I’ve got this friend, my best friend since second grade. I’m not a social person. I don’t like interacting with a bunch of people all at once. The thought of having tens of friends just sounds tiring to me. I have three really, truly great friends, and that’s all I need. But this friend, if I’m being completely honest, above the others, is my best friend. I love her.

When she was ten years old her mother remarried and started having more kids. Do you know what it means to be a ten year old sister to a new born brother? It means babysitting. All. The. Time. And her mother is the type to think that the elder sister who, in her formative years, when she’s supposed to be out having fun with her friends and living her life before she heads off to college and real life gets in the way, is instead spending all of her time watching her three little brothers, her mother thinks she should be happy that her newest little brother will be born on her birthday! That’s the type of person she is. She doesn’t take into account the actual feelings of others, she just assumes something, and if it isn’t so, it’s not real. She is, in a word, self-absorbed. Selfish. Self-serving. Inconsiderate.

So. I’ve got this friend. My best friend. Really the only person who can get me to go out and do anything. The person who pulled me out of myself after I hid there after my dad died. And she’s stuck at home all the time, baby-sitting her little brothers. I try to go on like normal. I try to make plans, less of them of course. But after a while a trend becomes apparent. Every time I make plans, her mother says she can’t go. Because she has to say home and watch the kids.

Three or four years gone, I’ve given up. I’ve planned birthday parties, random get-together days, Christmas, thanksgiving, anything I can think of, to try and find some time to hang out with my best friend outside of school. Almost every time she suddenly can’t go. At one point my mother went up to her house, went up to her mother, and asked her if she could come over for a day, just a day, so we could hang out and play some video games or whatever. Of course her mother said yes, you can’t say no to someone who comes straight up to you like that, but then she went and yelled at her daughter for it, like it was her fault and not my mother just fed up with her.

My sixteenth birthday, I don’t even remember. I’m pretty sure I went out for dinner with my mother, just like every other year, and maybe she came along. And then she went home. Her mother probably picked her up at the restaurant because that’s the sort of thing she does. At sleepovers, when we’ve stayed up all night drinking soda and playing video games, she comes to pick her daughter up at seven o’clock in the morning. My mother wasn’t even up. I seriously don’t even remember my sixteenth birthday.

My eighteenth birthday. My brother and his girlfriend had more fun. Guess what I did? I went to dinner with my mother. Both my friends had to pull out at the last minute.
This year was my nineteenth birthday. Two days ago in fact. A couple days before I went to dinner with my mother. I didn’t even plan anything for the day off. The only gift I asked of my mother was a $12 book.

Then, out of nowhere, my other best friend says “She and I are planning to take you out for your birthday on Saturday.”

…

You can’t even imagine what that meant to me. I was so happy, I could have cried. The year I officially give up, and she decides to have a party all on her own. If she’s planning it she has to come, right? No way her mom can tell her she can’t go, it’s her own plan. I was so, amazingly, happy. You can’t even understand. A few months ago I went to Japan, and since then I’ve been pining after it, wishing with all I have that I could go back, dreaming about it almost nightly. This party, with my friend was nearly comparable.

A couple hours ago I got a text form my other friend:

“Her mom said she can’t go so it’s just me and you”

What. The. Hell.


So I’m sitting here wondering if I should post this (I haven’t decided yet). I wonder if it would help me to hear you guys say stuff like “her mother’s completely insane” or “she totally shouldn’t have done that” or even “dude. It’s a party, get over it.” Or maybe just posting this will help me, in some sort of a cathartic way, getting my thoughts out without expecting anything in return. It’s typed, the words are outside of my head, and they aren’t blazing across the inside of my skull and keeping me from sleeping. Would one more step help? I don’t know, I still haven’t decided. Let’s find out.

Well look at that, I do feel a bit better for posting this.

lol I'm glad you feel better. and your friend' mother is nuts in a way.

For one this I have this best friend as well, I'ma say her name b/c she's not even on this site and its a TOTALLY common name, so i doubt i'll get any thing overly flax about it.

Jessica, my best-friend in high-school, has a mother that has books on "how to tell if your child is lying" i kid you not.

Some parents just don't get it. One day your friend is either going to break or snap, one or the other. She will always cow to her mother or she will eventually grow a backbone when her mother pushes her too far.

I'm sorry that this comes at the expense of your birthday, BTW HAPPY BIRTHDAY! anyway, but try to remember that sadly she probably doesn't have the ability to stand up to parent and walk away if she wants to. Being teen - 20 is a bit of a rough time in the way of independence. Some parents are also users.

Honestly it sounds like her mother doesn't like you, or possibly, that she's a control freak that doesn't trust the world. : She could also just be mean, and resentful to her oldest b/c she's not the current hubby's kid. hopefully this doesn't make you feel worse or anything :[ i'm just saying don't feel bad, and that its not your fault!

I would first like to apologize if my reply to this thread has a lot of spelling mistakes or what have you. I'm half asleep and using my cellphone to type this(I could turn on my laptop but it takes ten minutes for it to get started and I want to go back to sleep ha)

I have a few questions: how old is your friend? Is she an adult? Do the events you mentioned bother/upset her just as much as they do you?

Sometimes we are not given the best hand of cards at life, it happens and we just have to deal with it until we get a better hand.

So your friend always has to babysit?

Next time you make plans with her, try and plan an event her younger siblings can join in on and will have fun with, sure you wont be alone with her but at least you will be able to spend time with her.

While her mothers behavior seems selfish, one has to remember that every person thinks and feels differently. Perhaps she trusts your friend a lot?

Also, and I don't mean to sound mean, but if your friend feels the same way about these events as you do, she should grow a back bone and stop letting people take advantage of her and living her life for her.

She needs to stop being a shadow and talk to her mother. Its rare that someone can read another persons mind so she cant know how your friend feels unless she talks to her.

I am sorry that you have had to tell with a friend's mother like that.
I too have dealt with parents of friends and have lost most of my friends do to that reason alone.

I had two girls that I considered my sisters from another mother, we were friends since kindergaten. In my junior year I started to dress 'gothic' and listen to metal, in front of everyone I had one of my friends walk up to me in the cafe and say "My mom says I can't be your friend any longer because you have let the devil into your life."
After that she took to making rumors about me and what not, it got to the point of me having to transfer.

I though still had my other friend but when I was 18 and fresh out of highschool I got married to my highschool sweet heart who was in the navy. By this point with only one female friend I had taken to hanging out with male friends, when my then husband went on a 4month deployment I hung out with these male friends and so whenever I came to get my friend a male friend was with me.
One month after my then husband left my friends mother approached me and told me that her daughter was no longer allowed to hang out with a 'whore' who cheats on her husband. Ever since then its been a fight between me and the old friend...she had even posted threads about wanting to beat me.

-shrugs and hugs you-
I hope everything gets better for you though with your friends, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY <early I know>.

I am glad you posted this. Probably because I am just like your friend in a way. My mother got remarried and when I was nine I received a baby sister. Now don't get me wrong, I love my sister. But I was the one to take care of her. I had to change her, feed her in the middle of the night, babysit. Basically I had school and then babysitting to the point that I had to give up my life. If I wanted to have a night out I either took my sister with me or snuck out while others slept. But r0o is right. After a few years of this I snapped. I left and had a life of my own and I regret that I didn't do something about it sooner.

So you could leave things be and see if she snaps, or you could see if you can get her to face her mother and put her foot down. Sure for a while my mother wouldn't talk to me but it only lasted a little bit because my mother said "I won't lose my daughter over something so stupid."

I can't say things are going to go like that for your friend, but if she is willing to take a chance then I suggest she take control of her life, before she misses out on even more great moments she could have experienced.

( I hope I'm not out of place saying this .... and that it helps.)