Around the time my kids were graduating from highschool, she always made it seem like being a mom was this monumental task that no reasonable person could ever do well, just unbearably difficult so to cope you’d need to scream at and emotionally abuse your children or you’d never survive. There are two modes of mothering, ignoring your child or screaming at your child. My mom kept me fairly isolated and wouldn’t drive me anywhere despite living in along distance to nothing but other houses mostly filled with older couples so I never really got to see how “normal” families work or how other kids interacted with their parents, if I ever did manage to get an invite to a new friends house or an after school activity was forbidden from participating. Raising kids though, wow, such an incredible eye opener to just how easy kids are to love, how easy it is to raise children when you’re a sane and consistent parent. Motherhood isn’t inherently a screaming match between you and a child who never asked to be there that you hate because of their mere existence. Sure not everyone is cut out to be a mom, of course, but to present abuse as both normal and justified is evil. I don’t care how bad she had it as a kid, she was obligated to protect me from that just like I was obligated to protect my kids from the things she did to me. She was an early childhood education teacher and I’ve come to realize it’s because anyone over the age of ~4 is too much of a human being for her to handle, she only wants completely subservient, physically small children around because she can dominate them and any other social interaction that she’s not dominating the other person is intolerable to her. She’s a pathetic person truly