Do you think I handled this correctly, or should I have done something different?

Your daughter not having a father has made her want the approval of all men (not just good ones), to her own detriment. I know because I was the same way for most of my life. She can change how she reacts to them and can be in control of the situation if she chooses to do so, but a lot of women can’t shake the ‘approval’ thing, a daddy fixation that requires a man to be around all the time.

Was she wrong, of course. I’m sure she knows it.

The only thing you can do is to take the kids as much as you can, talk to Alisa about managing your temper and making good choices, give her a better example of interpersonal communication than she currently has.

Believe it or not, hearing and seeing her mother and how ugly it all is, may be what makes her do the opposite. That’s what I did.

Oh, yes. I recognize that in her. I know that she got pregnant each time after the guy professed his love and she thought that would be the quick road to get the happy family she wanted.

I take a lot of hope from hearing that you grew up with that, and didn’t automatically follow suit.

Like I said, she’s a GREAT Mom, in every other aspet.

I think you told her how you feel, and gave her something to think about re her behavior in front of the kids.

Let it go now unless she brings it up.

@Windmill It’s difficult until you learn why you do what you do, you should tell her, it changed my life learning the psychology.

On the other hand, I didn’t have children and am a control freak (because my childhood was so out of control.) Do you know how powerless it makes a child feel to see their mom so visibly enraged? To see physical confrontations?

I know you love your daughter, but if she’s not putting her children’s well-being and mental health above her own, she has potential to be a great mom, but may not be there quite yet.
She did this in front of you, so that means it gets worse when you’re not around, do you see my point?

If I understand you correctly, you sent the above criticism to your daughter on FACEBOOK ?? I don’t go on that site at all, but isn’t it open for others to read ?

If that is the case, and you were not comfortable saying these things face-to-face with your daughter, it might have worked better (and been less publicly embarrassing for her) if you simply printed-out what you’ve said here today, handed it to your daughter, and told her that you are always available to discuss it with her, whenever she wants.

If I am misunderstanding what took place here, I will be very happy to be wrong….

Thank you @marinelife.

Also, @KNOWITALL, when she started hitting puberty I forewarned her, and her sister, that not having a father might cause them to put an excessive amount of importance on having “someone who loves them,” and they could be more prone to giving in to what the guy wants to keep his love. I guess I did what I could then. I think she recognizes it now. In fact, she was SO MAD at herself for “doing the same damn thing AGAIN.” She has since had her tubes tied.

I’m pretty sure Alex is not allowed to come to her apartment complex. I’m pretty sure she keeps her interaction with him at an absolute minimum now. It’s just so hard for her because right now he’s her only source of money for the baby….diapers, etc.

Maybe she thought meeting at my house meant she could get verbally abusive and Alexis can’t. I mean, if he’d started cussing at her like that, I would have sent Alisa in the house and I would have been out on the street. She had to know that what she did was NOT ok, just because I’m on her side.

In spite of that being a clear example of redacted, no.

@OneBadApple No, in messaging on fb. She doesn’t have an email address, so I have no where else to sent her a note and I didn’t want to address it verbally.

@Windmill Ah, I understand better now. Good for you both, recognizing that early.

So they weren’t married so there’s no child support decree right? Which means there’s no court ordered visitation? If he doesn’t pay, won’t the State take him to court and she can just get her money for the baby from the State? Then she doesn’t have to deal with him at all ever unless he takes her to court to see the baby.

No, but SRS is “working on it.” However, he has threatened to just quit his job if she’s awarded child support. But she isn’t backing down.

There is no court ordered visitation.

He is the worst of the worst. I personally think she’d be far better off if he wandered out of Zach’s life. But she’s torn. She doesn’t want Zach to grow up to not know his father.

@Windmill I’ve never known my dad and it does leave a big question and a hole in your heart, so I understand that.

I never had that problem. I only recognized it, but I couldn’t FEEL it, deep down, the way my daughter does. All I could do was imagine, and try to be there for her….that’s a whole different thing, though.

I’m not that much older than your daughter (29, 2 kids, 3rd on the way, 1 of a diff father than my other 2) so I would not respond well, either. Obviously, she knows that she let curse words slip in front of her children esp since she was angry. I don’t know her very well but she could for example talk it out with them later. Curse words are not the worst thing on earth to happen to children and you say they’re happy and she’s a good mom. It’s important that they know that their mother is a human being who CAN get angry and CAN curse and CAN explain it to them later, if she so chooses.

I would prefer she set an example of self control.

@Windmill As I’m sure she does, pretty much most of the time. Self-control is a concept, you could approximate it but doesn’t mean you can never break it, in times of stress. Did you somehow not learn that from life?

Everyone has a breaking point, and sometimes we break at inopportune times (like in front of our children). Hopefully, she just lost her cool and this isn’t something she makes a habit of doing in front of the kids.

If I felt I had to address it, I would have talked to her in person, and not in an accusatory way.

I started thinking and I realized I have no kids, no girlfriend etc. at the moment and my advice was just a rehash of someone else’s. So I’m just going to say yes I think you handled it well, maybe you could have done it better but I don’t think my opinion on the subject carries much weight in retrospect.

I’ve never broken in front of my children in such a way, @Simone_De_Beauvoir. If necessary, I would / could postpone the rage, do what I had to do to get the anger and frustration out of me in some way, at some time, but not in front of my kids. Yes, I’ve broken down big time, crawling on the floor, crying, but never in front of my children.
Is this kind of restraint something you somehow never learned in life?

For those who say I should have talked with her in person…she’s volatile, especially when she thinks she’s being criticized, and she was enraged at the moment. I didn’t want to have that kind of “talk” in front of my granddaughter. Would not have ended well, for anyone. She would have only screamed, she would not have heard.

I wanted to ask Jackie today how she would handle the following scenario. Say she and Alex had been separated for about 6 months. Alex had the kids every other weekend, Saturday to Sunday. She hadn’t gone anywhere, done any thing in those 6 months, even on the weekends she didn’t have the kids.

She had a meeting to go to after 5:00 and hired a babysitter. She thought she might take that rare time off to go visit a family member afterward. She told Alex her plans, exactly where she was going, and that she planned to visit her family afterward. Alex made her promise to be home by 11 p.m. You didn’t have a problem, because 11 p.m. is really late to be out anyway when you have kids.

About 11:00 you are visiting with your family, saying it was time for you to go, when the phone rings. A family member answers the phone, just listens with strange looks crossing his face. He hangs up and said, “It was Alex. He said to tell you you broke your promise and he’s taking the kids and you’ll never see them again. You tell Jackie that she can just go live on a desert island with all her boyfriends like she wants, and never have to mess with any of us again!”

At that point you know Alex is going to your house, dragging the kids out of bed to take them to his house….I wanted to ask her, what would she do?

What would you all do?

Just to clarify, I don’t think you should have talked to her in person right then, while she was still so agitated. I meant at another time, when things are already calm.

@Windmill So you’ve never broken in front of your children, so what? Did that teach them great self-control? If yes, what went ‘wrong’ with your daughter?

I have totally lost my shit in front of my girls. Not proud of it, but it happens. Good communication afterward is important.

Yeah…

So she had to put up with the asshole ex, and instead of some words of support from mom, she gets an accusatory letter on Facebook.

Yeah, you might have handled it differently.

Sorry, but people get mad and yell at each other. Kids don’t need to live in a bubble. I think It’s better they learn early on that life isn’t always sunshine and bubblegum.

Maybe, next time you see your daughter, have a discussion about what happened and about your FB PM. If she gets mad and doesn’t want to hear it (as I probably would if I were in her place, but I’ve never been in a situation like she was, though), she may tell you she doesn’t want to hear it. Even if she does say she doesn’t want to hear it, hopefully whatever you say to her will sink in and she’ll think about it on her own.

To me, your FB PM brought up good points. It would be helpful to the children if she learned to control her anger more. Yes, life is not always made of bubblegum and sunshine, as @flip86 points out, but children don’t need to be exposed to screaming and drama/trauma either. The ex seems to really set her off. It would be nice if she could be aware of that and try to maintain more self control in the future.

She’s a good mom, give her a break. Next time talk to her in person.

@jca Thank you. That’s how I feel.

This isn’t a question of simply getting angry, or even just screaming. It’s about totally losing control.
A question for all of those who say it’s OK to totally lose your shit when you’re mad: Would it be perfectly fine for her daughter to get angry with her mom and scream “You fucking bitch!” at her? She’s going to be a teenager in a few years. Is it OK for her to lose her shit on her mom, her brothers, everyone, just because she’s mad?

Would it be OK for Zach to scream “You fucking cunt!” at his mom when he’s mad?

@Seek_Kolinahr Not everything a person does is “OK,” just because you love and support someone.

One last point: No matter how angry I was at my ex, if he was getting ready to take the kids, I never, ever provoked him. I kept absolutely as calm as possible, shamelessly flattered him even, no matter what. I gave him no excuse to jump in his car and drive off in a blind rage with my children in the car, and perhaps to lash out at them later, taking his anger at me out on them. Wouldn’t that scare the shit out of you? Isn’t that at least worth controlling yourself?

There are much worse things in the world than saying “fuck.”

Things like being so full of pride at your own perfection you can’t see how hurt your daughter likely was at being insulted by the one person who should have been on her side.

There are @Seek_Kolinahr, such as a man / woman driving maniacally in a car full of children. But, you know, if they’re mad, that’s OK. No need to control yourself.

Also, your comment above leads me to believe that your answer to my question, “Is it OK for Alisa to scream “You fucking bitch!!” at her mother is “Yes”? For Zach to scream “You fucking cunt!” at his mother is OK too?
Is it OK for Jackie to scream “You fucking prick/bitch!” at her kids?
As long as everyone is really mad, anything goes, right?

@Seek_Kolinahr: It does not sound like the daughter’s tirade only consisted of only saying a bad word. It sounds like her tirade was explosive and therefore, would be scary to the kids (and as the mom points out, bad for the kid who was then a passenger in the dad’s car). Also, as you probably know, when children observe behaviors, they often will then grow up believing that those behaviors are acceptable. If the kids see the parents acting out of control and screaming at each other, they may grow up thinking this is how people in relationships act.

I think the mom is on the daughter’s side and made good points. I think if I were the daughter I wouldn’t want to hear it, but if a tiny part of it sinks in and the daughter realizes that she should maintain a bit more control in the future, at least in front of the kids, it would be a good thing.

Google the term “criticism sandwich” and you’ll see where I’m going with this.

Thank you @jca. Yeah, to see Alisa’s little face kind of frown in worry and in fear (I remember always being afraid when my parents fought, and they never even used terms like that)...it was just so heartbreaking. And I know for a fact that if Jackie was an observer and was watching her daughter’s reaction, she’d be heartbroken too. I know she does NOT want to do that to her kids. Remember, before she launched into her second tirade on the phone, she sent Alisa back up on the porch with me. I think maybe she thought we couldn’t hear her. I thought she might want to realize that we COULD hear her. Alisa heard it all.

Yes, I’m on her side @Seek_Kolinahr. That doesn’t mean that EVERYthing she does is OK.

I looked at your “criticism sandwich” site. It’s pretty good. Actually, I did it in just that order. I appreciate the third one, though I had to think for a bit to come up with the response. It’s good to keep in mind what you want the criticism to accomplish, and I’ll remember it.

1) First, Start with Something Good. I did. In virtually all other respects she’s a great mom.

2) Second, Add the Criticism

3) Third, Add a Positive Closer. That would be, she does NOT want to hurt her kids in that way. Not that she “shouldn’t” but that I know she does not WANT to. Bringing it to her attention that she DID hurt the kids would, hopefully cause her to fight to exercise some self control, and that will be a win-win situation, for herself (she’s not hurting them any more) and for her kids.

A few years back she told me, “You know Mom, when I was a teenager, I know I yelled a lot and acted like I rejected everything you said but….I really DID listen to you. I heard everything you said.” We’ll just have to see how it all plays out.

@Windmill Everyone has pretty much been told ‘When you have children it’s no longer about YOU at all, it’s about THE KIDS”, but we’re all only huma, we’re bound to make mistakes.

I admire all of you that chose to do the hardest job in the world, being a parent.

Thanks @KNOWITALL. (Can I retire now??!! It’s harder now than it was when they were growing up!)

In all other respects she absolutely puts her kids first. She’s amazing. She just has this emotional impulse control problem.

I was just remembering how, in some shows, Cops, or some movies, the parents are fighting violently, whether with words or actions, and the kids are huddled in a bed room or a closet, clinging to each other. The sounds of someone fighting instinctively mean “danger,” to them. .... And the people who are supposed to protect them are the ones who are being dangerous. What a horrible feeling of helplessness.

@Windmill Yeah, and even some of those really young memories stick with you forever, trust me.

It occurred to me that there is a practical solution that might prevent this situation from reoccurring. Instead of having the parents meet at your house to do the exchange, have the one who has custody at the time drop off the child at your house, and the other pick the child up a little later. That way, the parents don’t have to interact in person at all.

Back to the original question…is it okay to yell and scream and cuss like crazy in front of your kids? No, it’s not okay. It’s also not the end of the world if it happens on occasion.

It would be interesting to see how things would go if they dropped them off and picked them up at the police station instead of at Grandma’s house. Would they get into it the same? Probably not, especially the part where the dad drives off mad unless he’s flat out stupid. That usually involves reckless driving and speeding.

What if, the next time there’s a drop off/pick up situation, you did just that? Arrange to meet them in front of the local police station. Can I come? I’d like to be there to watch the fun.

I guess this is going to sound selfish, but the pick up and drop off times are at 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. on Sundays. My husband and I do a lot of stuff on Sundays…go for drives, go fishing, visiting friends. If they were to drop the baby off with me, it would mean I’d be tied to the house on Sunday’s for the next however many years, or I’d have to rush to get home by 3, and that would really upset my husband (he’s not real supportive of any of this.)

Jackie has suggested the police station, but Alex throws a fit. He says she’s just trying to get him set up to be arrested…which is REALLY stupid. She could have had him arrested so many times now! I did re-suggest it last week, but I don’t know if they discussed it again.

Also, the police station is certainly no guarantee of good behavior. About a year ago my son and his ex were exchanging their daughter there and his ex went apeshit, started kicking and beating on the car, screaming bloody murder. A cop saw it, and just went inside. Didn’t do a thing. (My son has video of it, btw. :)

Jackie and Alex tried doing the exchange at a local convenience store. Alex was late showing up (as usual.) Jackie went in to use the rest room. Alex drove up just as she was coming back out and he got enraged. He was convinced she was in there telling all the clerks and anyone who would listen what an asshole he was. He was screaming. Again, nothing, no one even stepped out to make a presence known.

It just sucks. Sucks, sucks, sucks.

@augustlan I know it’s not the end of the world, but man. That kind of violence and language is a bit off the grid in my opinion.

so that’s two kids with dysfunctional domestic situations coming out of a home in which the mother bent over backward to never express anger… I’m sensing a pattern, something related to never learning how to healthily express negative emotion…

Interesting conclusion you’ve come to there, @Seek_Kolinahr. Do you mind if I ask how you came to it?

I never suggested getting angry, or even showing anger was wrong. I never said I never got angry with my kids, or other people. I never said I never yelled at them. I did try to keep yelling, in general, to a minimum because it’s the least productive form of discipline.

What is absolutely wrong, in my opinion, is to revert to a raging, mindless, wild animal state that goes far beyond mere yelling or “expressing anger,” and that serves NO purpose other than to enrage other people and frighten children. It’s neither healthy nor productive.

May I ask what your idea of expressing anger in a “healthy” way is? Does self control fit into your philosophy anywhere?

PS, regarding my son, yes, that woman is wildly dysfunctional, and my son got out of that relationship very quickly because of it. He made a mistake, he corrected it. If he hadn’t corrected it, if he was still with her, that would be a different story.

Oh, BTW, a little back ground. My mother used to revert to that mindless, wild animal, raging, blind anger on a regular basis, sometimes over absolutely nothing…because I forgot to put salt in the potatoes I was boiling or something. It was horrible. I have a feeling it wasn’t nearly as bad as @KNOWITALL‘s world, maybe because my father was very level headed and rarely lost his temper, but living with my mother was so horrible most of the time. When I was about 14 that song “Mother and Child Reunion” by Paul Simon came out…well, I just sobbed every time I heard it. I still cry. I wanted a “re union” with my mother, but it never happened. She’s dead now.
But you know what? She never screamed cuss words at me. She never called me vile names. She called my father a “bastard” once, and it really shocked me. One time she kicked the dish washer and yelled “FUCK!” and I headed out the door. I’d never heard her use that word before. Most of the time she just….screamed.
I made a conscious decision I would not do that to my kids. It wasn’t easy. It’s what I was raised to do, so I had to fight it. I think I was fairly successful.

Many of us have had really, seriously, crazy-pants screwed-up childhoods. My mom used to choke me and threaten me with homelessness. My stepfather played the guilt-trip game. Neither one cursed at me, neither drank. Neither will ever meet my son.

From your story, I see a girl who has had a really hard time with romantic partners. She is trying her damnedest to be a good mother, and that is hard enough at the best of times, with a supportive partner. Now, I don’t know who starts what or whatever, but your daughter absolutely does NOT have the responsibility to absorb abuse and smile through it. She is allowed to be angry.

Curse words aren’t magical. They’re just words. They aren’t worse than other words. In fact, they become almost meaningless over time, unless you ascribe some kind of power to them.

Your daughter would have been angry regardless of whether she used the “f-word”. Personally – and understand this is my opinion – I think it’s more healthy for her daughter to see the honest emotion from her mother, than to see her bottle it up to save face, and then find some other person to redirect it on. You can only swallow so much pain before it forces itself back up. Take it from a formerly abused child and self-harmer.

” ....your daughter absolutely does NOT have the responsibility to absorb abuse and smile through it. She is allowed to be angry.” I agree 100%. But neither does she have the right to dish out abuse.

Both of my girls have relationship issues. Their father abandoned the family when they were little. My son has relationship issues, too, but he takes it in the other direction. He would NEVER leave his kids, ever. He plans to be the best father in the whole world! That’s part of the reason it took him longer to get out of the horrible relationship he was in with the baby’s mother than it should have. Not only was she pg, she has two small boys, and my son could hardly bear the thought of leaving them even though they weren’t biologically his…but he did. He had to.

You mentioned “healthy” ways to express anger. I’m trying to figure out your thoughts on what you consider healthy. Do you do things differently than your abusive parents did them?

Of course. I would never cause physical or psychological harm to my child if I can help it.

As far as my own parenting choices, that’s something I’m working on as I go. I don’t exactly have a good example laid out for me (who does, right?).

What I can say is that bottling up pain and ager doesn’t work. I mean, it might in the short term, but eventually it eats you up inside. I still get the urge to hurt myself physically when I’m stressed. Talking about it helps, so I’m pretty open about it. I’ve learned not to be ashamed of my feelings.

Ultimately, the question at hand was did you (not she) handle the issue appropriately. Her actions happened and you had no part in that.

What you did have part in was that letter that you sent by Facebook. There was no “criticism sandwich” in that letter. You did not open with “You are a wonderful mother and I love that dress she was wearing today!” You opened with “You said bad things in front of your daughter!”. You did not close with “Remember I’m here for you if you want advice or just to talk about what’s troubling you.” You ended with ”...control what comes out of your mouth.”

She is an adult now, not a child to be read her lessons. That time has passed. Your place as a mother of an adult should be more supportive and less instructive. If you are finding your own ire being brought up when confronted with these situations (as it clearly was), you should suggest alternative meeting places for your daughter and her ex to exchange the child. You’ve already mentioned there are things you would rather be doing than hosting this exchange. Tell her that. Kindly.

@Seek_Kolinahr it’s true, I didn’t do the sandwich thing in the note I sent her. I wasn’t aware of the concept then.

I did suggest alternative meeting places for those times I couldn’t be home. I outlined those above. Other than that, I don’t mind hosting the exchange at my house.

My whole point was, that Jackie would never want to hurt her kids. I don’t think she realized her daughter could hear her. So should I have just allowed that misconception of hers to continue? I honestly think she would rather know…be pissed off for a while, to be sure…but she’d rather know, than not know, so she can be aware next time.

There have been times in my life as an adult when another adult, including my parents, gave me their thoughts and opinions on certain subjects that changed my way of thinking, so I don’t get where the “reading her her lessons” like a child comes in. As her mother, I’m not to intervene when I see something really wrong? Only her friends or co workers or other adult, anyone but her mother, is allowed to intervene, to give an opinon?

I mean, that’s what you and I are doing right now, @Seek_Kolinahr, offering our opinions, and disagreeing, as one adult to another. From what you said, though, if you were my mother, you should not be allowed to do that,just because you WERE my mother. That really doesn’t make sense.

It was not the intervention, it was the method used. By all means have a conversation. Preferably in person. The letter came across as a reaction made in anger, like you were telling her to go to her room for breaking curfew. Not, I assume, what you were aiming for.

I was aiming to bring her attention to a problem, which I think I did. We will see.

She didn’t talk to me for the rest of that day, and half of yesterday, but we’re all good now. I think if we’d had a face to face conversation, it would not have ended well (it hasn’t in the past, anyway) and the silence (although not necessarily unwelcome for a couple of days!) would have lasted much longer.

I prefer writing. It gives people a chance to“think before they speak.” Believe it or not, there were a lot of things I stripped out of the original version of the note I sent her. Originally it was about a page long! It took me a couple of hours to get to the final draft.

And she IS responsible for what comes out of her mouth. No one “forces” her to say what she says. I’m not big on sugar coating. Hmmmm. I would think you would appreciate that @Seek_Kolinahr! Tell it like it is! Say exactly what you feel! It’s OK to be upset and it’s OK to let people know!

Wow….Jackie just posted a pic on fb that said, “Note to self: Just because it pops into my head doesn’t mean it has to come out of my mouth.” :) :) :)