My daughter is back home from her freshman year of college because the school year got cut short because of corona. Her being home reminds me of what an ungrateful kid she is. A few days ago I was going to ask her to help cook dinner when I walked into her room and heard her in the walk-in closet (that mind you WE gave her instead of us).
This is unusual for her, so I wanted to hear what she was doing. Turns out she was calling a therapist (her school offers its students free therapy over Zoom). She was telling the therapist she was scared of living at home because of her so called “abusive” father (my husband). She described my husband as emotionally and physically abusive and said living with him in quarantine is stressful for her. This is a complete lie. My husband has never been emotionally abusive and the very few times he has crossed the line physically (yes we do believe in corporal punishment, it’s normal for us Koreans) he has apologized every time and promised not to do it. In fact, my husband hasn’t touched my daughter in three years.
I’m so angry my daughter is ungrateful for every single thing my husband and I do for her. And before you ask, no he’s the biological father and not a step dad or anything. He pays for her expensive private college tuition and tutored her in math for hours every single goddamn day of high school. Abusive parents don’t do that. My adult daughter is so ungrateful for everything we do for her and I’m so angry that she decided to lie and manipulate her therapist (that she never told us she was seeing).
Does anyone have any experience dealing with an ungrateful, manipulative daughter like this? Thanks in advance.
As far as you know, your husband hasn’t touched her in three years. But maybe he has. Or maybe she’s still afraid that he might do that again.
You should tell her that you overheard part of her conversation, and that you want to get family therapy with her so that the time you are quarantined together will go more smoothly. If she isn’t interested in family therapy, then you should help her find a place to stay where she can feel safer.
This isn’t about you being a bad parent or her father being a bad parent. It is about her mental health and her need to feel safe. If she does go somewhere else for the quarantine time, all of you can continue to work on your relationship with a bit of distance and that will be a good thing.
She didn’t lie. It is that HER experience of your husband and family life is different to your experience. What you feel is OK, she may not: example, you think corporal punishment is fine, she clearly doesn’t. We all have our own versions of reality. You can either be angry with her for having a different experience, or you can listen to her and get her the help she so clearly needs.
I assume your daughter is 18 or over and may decide to see a therapist without clearing it with you. It was unethical of you to listen in, whether its your house or your closet or hers, and it sounds like you eavesdropped for quite a while. Presumably, after walking in without knocking. The ethical thing for you would have been to leave the room, pronto.
Clearly, your daughter feels she has no privacy whatsoever in your household and it appears she’s right. Being eavesdropped on after hiding in a closet!
Apparently she doesn’t feel safe, either, with parents who maintain that physical punishment is part of their cultural belief system. Clearly, for her, the threat remains. Whether it’s ”cultural” or plain physical abuse may lie in the eye of the beholder, meaning that the daughter, who is after all the one being hit, may have an opinion about it which ma be different from the one the person who is doing the hitting, or the person the hitter is married to, has.
And yes, tutoring someone for hours every single day of high school, if the student was forced to submit to the tutoring despite not wanting to, may be emotional abuse. Very much depending on how your daughter felt about that.
I agree for the need for family therapy, so your daughter can feel safe with you and you can work though your feelings of being manipulated.
I am going turn it around a bit by asking you why do you think your daughter would lie to her therapist? What would be her motive? What outcome do you think she was looking for?
As others have said, maybe she was just telling her therapist how she felt. If that’s the case then you should listen to what she has to say. As parents, our intend/action can often be misinterpreted by our kids. It must be disappointing and shocking to know your kid felt she has been abused, but once you are over it you should try to fix/work on the situation.
I don’t see any problem at all with your daughter. Sorry. I see a huge issue with you and your attitude. There is some cultural issues here like tutoring everyday by a father that is known physical /emotional abuser. Sorry, let’s call it what it is. That alone is cultural but also not right. Your attitude expressed in this post is hatred toward your daughter. That must come out in different ways when speaking to her. Your resentful she has the walk in closet…
Your daughter is doing 100% the correct thing. This is not about you. I tell my kids that if they need to see someone on campus for help to please do so. They DON’T need to tell me about it but just go get the help they need. Student suicides are up at most colleges. With your home situation she is ripe for that. She is being the adult here and you are the child. Sorry to be so bold.
You and your husband need some intervention and anger management like now. Allowing your daughter to be physically /emotionally abused makes you no less responsible. Maybe there was sexual abuse you don’t know about?
This is really a serious problem that your not seeing. Get help now. Let your daughter talk to whomever is helping her. If your husband or you touch her you both can be thrown in jail. Don’t use paying for her education as an excuse for the abuse she suffered. Sorry, you wanted advice right?
Between this post and your other about your disappointment in your daughters “lack of direction”, you aren’t painting a picture of a loving supportive family.
I would encourage you to consider counseling for yourself. It sounds like you need help transitioning to parenting an adult.
Your daughter is entitled to all her feelings and you had no right to eavesdrop. I’m super glad that she’s getting support from her school counseling. Sounds like she needs it.
My advice is to use this as an opportunity to grow closer. It’s hard to hear criticism of ones parenting but remember, she didn’t intend for you to hear her. What she said should have been in confidence with her therapist. Now that you know she’s unhappy think about how that could change. What could you be doing differently to help your daughter feel supported and valued?
I wish that I had read this post before I replied to your other one. And I agree with the other posters: the best gift you can give your daughter is to stop and re-evaluate how you are managing this relationship.
You grew up in one culture, your daughter- by your choice! - grew up in a different one. You want her to respect your culture - but that goes two ways. Where is your respect for her and the culture she grew up in?
Because all of the responses have turned this back to being an issue of yours, not your daughter’s, you may decide that it is because many (not all!) of us are American and/or not Korean- so what do we know? What we know is the culture in which you chose to raise your daughter, and she is inevitably part of that culture.
Your daughter is legally adult, but she is still becoming an adult. How you and her father handle the next 2-3 years will shape the relationship you have for the next many decades. It is hard- very hard - to stop and say ‘am I wrong? how could I be wrong when it worked for me and it’s all I know?’ ‘what did I not understand?’ ‘if I don’t parent my daughter this way, how do I?’.
That is why people are suggesting family counseling. If you love your daughter and your goal is to help her grow up into a young woman who can build a happy and successful life, and with whom you will share the joys of family over the decades to come, acknowledge that what you are doing isn’t working, and isn’t going to get you there.
So, tell her that you are realizing that as she gets older how you relate to each other as mother and daughter needs to evolve, and that although it goes against everything you were raised to believe, you value her more, and you are willing to make a serious effort to work with her. Then do it. You might start with the therapist she is talking to at school.
Since the cat is out of the bag, are you able to share with your daughter that you overheard part of her conversation, and you are upset that she is so sad and scared. If she will talk to you, then LISTEN. Do not defend your husbands actions.
Perhaps Ask if you join her in a session with her therapist. One goal is to understand your daughter better.
Maybe there are things you don’ t know? I’m sorry but if your husband has been physical with your daughter in the past, that experience just doesn’t go away.
This quarantine is difficult for everyone. It sounds like you all need some open dialog. Everyone else has given you some good advice how to go about that. Good luck.
OP, apologizing after physical abuse and promising not to do it again does not undo the abuse. It is actually very, very typical for abusers to do this. Paying for college and tutoring also does not make one immune from being an abusive parent.
Being stressed about living with parents now also doesn’t make your daughter ungrateful. This is a very, very stressful time for all. I think most or all of us here would say that our kids who had to come back home from college are stressed out about it, and the parents too. It’s a disruption to the normal developmental cycle where they were taking steps to adulthood and then got abruptly thrown backwards back in to the parents’ home, with no options for a job or socializing or even getting out of the house to take off some of the pressure. Same for parents…sure I missed my college kids but now that they are back and in the house ALL THE TIME it gets to be a little much sometimes. It is stressful for all and we need to find ways to manage the stress so that it doesn’t just go out on our other family members.
So I will add something in defense of OP. It is indeed possible that her daughter is mentally ill and lies. My bridesmaid was my neighbor growing up, and I spent an enormous amount of time at her home, every single day for 8 years. Hours every day. Often spent the night. I knew her family very, very well, and was thus as shocked as they were when the youngest, who was always a bit spoiled, at age 35 weaved a tale of abuse and neglect growing up. The siblings were dumbfounded, the parents horrified, the neighbors speechless. I do not know what motivated her to make up her story, but I did learn that people are not always truthful to their therapists.
@roycroftmom - I obviously don’t know your neighbors but just want to say that many families are super good at hiding their secrets. My childhood friends, who were over at my house all the time, had no idea my father was an alcoholic, verbally abusive, and aggressive when he drank. My mother made it very clear that it wasn’t something to talk about and she kept up a good facade to the outside world. I grew up in an upper middle class family - nice house with outwardly sociable and outgoing parents who were the life of the party. They had tons of friends. No one knew what happened day in and day out when it was just the four of us. It wasn’t until I was in my 30s that I was able to say the word “alcoholic” out loud. Once we started talking about it, family members confessed to knowing and feeling powerless to help. Some friends continue to think that I exaggerated. And some people think that because we were financially taken care of, that’s all that mattered. Took me years of therapy to work through all the emotional baggage and fears I carried from childhood. And to let go of other people’s judgements.
Yes, I am sure in some situations it is easier to hide, but I do not think that was the case for my neighbor. Small houses, lots of kids, shared rooms, everybody in and out of each other’s homes all the time without knocking ( all homes unlocked). Maybe spent 40 hours a week there. Traveled with them on camping trips, etc. I always did think the youngest was a bit unstable.
Just as I do not doubt there are many hidden cases of it, I also do not doubt some disturbed people lie.
This is why eavesdropping is bad, particularly eavesdropping on a child talking with their therapist.
You daughter is describing HER experience of her family. Whether or not her perceptions are fully accurate is much less important than her feeling that she is safe to disclose anything and everything to her therapist. A good therapist will help her explore her feelings and her view of her family and her place within it. Given time and space it might be possible for her, with the help of her therapist, to reframe some of the way she currently feels about you and her dad. You listening in will certainly work against that.
We all need to vent at times. Haven’t you ever complained to your spouse about your daughter? Would you want her to hear everything you’ve said?
The transition between child and adult can be very challenging. That challenge is compounded by the situation we’re in now.
I once received this piece of advice, which I found to be very helpful: Think about the relationship you want to have with your child as an adult and act accordingly. IOW, five years from now do you want your child to be calling home to tell you about her life or do you want her to be avoiding you because she’s worried you’ll criticize the choices she’s made?
Of course it’s hurtful to hear a daughter talk about you and your husband that way when it sounds like you tried hard and did what you thought was right. That’s painful.
But there’s nothing you can do about what an adult tells their therapist. That’s confidential and out of your control.
You can try to build up your relationship with your daughter yourself by expressing interest, doing fun things together as much as you can during quarantine, listening without judgment, etc.
It’s sad to read this thread because what’s really going on here is a major cultural clash between traditional, non-American parents and their American child.
OP, that’s what happens in many immigrant families. At some point you have to accept that your children aren’t LIKE you because they have absorbed the values of the country they’re growing up in. Your daughter isn’t Korean. She’s an American. And according to the values of this country, parents do not hit their children. In fact, children get to have some say in how they live their lives. They are encouraged to be independent. Which can create conflict in all families, but especially in immigrant families.
Family therapy might help you bridge these divides. If you don’t want to go into therapy, start accepting your daughter as an individual who wants respect. Expect her (and her therapist) to be upset that you listened to her conversation. Both will perceive this as a huge invasion of privacy.