Welcome to the Mother-Daughter Relationship. Show the podcast for mothers and daughters who want to build stronger bonds, deepen their understanding and transform their relationships. I'm your host, Brittany Scott, licensed therapist and mother-daughter relationship coach. After years of working with hundreds of daughters. And mothers. I've developed strategies that help break generational patterns, heal wounds, and create the loving relationships you've always wanted. Each week I'll be sharing insights from real clients, expert interviews and practical tools you can use immediately to improve your mother-daughter dynamic. Whether you're struggling with communication breakdowns, navigating major life transitions, or simply wanna take your already good relationship to the next level. The show is for you. And yes, the transformation I guide my clients through can be yours too. I'll share more about how you can work with me. It's time to experience the relationship you both deserve. Are you ready? Let's dive in. Hi, welcome back to the Mother-Daughter Relationship Show. I'm your host, Brittany Scott, a licensed therapist and mother-daughter relationship coach. Before we dive into today's episode, I wanna share something really exciting with you. I just launched my first digital product and I'm really proud of it. It is called Break the Cycle Healing Painful Mother-Daughter Dynamics, and it's a comprehensive therapeutic workbook I created specifically for women navigating complicated relationships with their mothers or daughters. Over the years in my practice, I kept hearing many of the same things from clients. I love my mom, but. Being around her drains me. I feel guilty every time I set a boundary. I'm terrified. I'm going to do the same thing to my daughter that my mom did to me. And I realized there wasn't a simple resource out there that addressed the unique complexities of mother-daughter relationships in a trauma-informed, practical way. So I created one break. The cycle is a six part journey that takes you from understanding why these relationships can be hard or difficult, all the way through creating sustainable transformations. It includes fillable worksheets, assessment tools, how to see what behaviors may have been passed down in your family. Boundary setting scripts and strategies that work, whether your mother participates in the healing process or not, it's fully interactive. There's journaling prompts. There's things for you to think about and there's like dropdown lists and things for you to kind of fill in and fill out to address your own wounds and your own healing and have a place to store all the information you can grab the Break the Cycle workbook at. Break the cycle dot Brittany and scott.com. I'll leave the link in the show notes, of course, and it's $37. It's an instant download, but also you will get access to an online portal so you can see some videos from me that I have created and left for you. But if you just wanna take the book and go, you absolutely can. You will get the links to download it. But you can start healing within like five minutes. So I'm really excited. Just wanted to share what I created and let you know that it is available if it's something that interests you. Alright, let's dive into today's episode. I saw a story on social media recently that absolutely broke my heart. A daughter was getting married and it should have been the happiest day of her life. Well, one of them, we have many of them, but one of the happiest days of her life, a day where she's celebrated, surrounded by love and starting a new chapter. But her mother couldn't let her have that at the wedding. Her mother was bringing up her other daughter who had died. She needed everyone to recognize her grief, to acknowledge her loss, to send her her pain, basically on her living daughter's wedding day, instead of celebrating her daughter who was standing right there, getting married, trying to have her moment. Her mother made it about herself. I can't imagine how painful that must have been for her daughter to have that one day. That should have been all about her, turned into a stage for her. Mother's need for attention and control, this is what we're talking about today. Mother-daughter, conflict in public in front of others because public conflict hits differently than private conflict. It's not just about what was said or done, it's about who witnessed it. It's about shame, embarrassment, and exposure for daughters, it often confirms that their mother will prioritize her own needs over her daughters, even in the moment that should have belonged to the daughter. Today we're gonna talk about the different ways public conflict shows up, why it's so damaging, what to do in the moment, when it's happening, and how to protect yourself moving forward. This episode is primarily for daughters, but if you're a mother listening and you recognize yourself in some of these patterns, I want you to stay. There's healing here for you too. So let's dive in. Let's talk about why conflict in front of others is so much more damaging than conflict behind closed doors. When your mother criticizes you, dismisses you, or violates your boundaries. In private, it hurts of, you know, of course it does. But when she does it in front of other people, it exposes you and your pain. It puts your pain, the dysfunction, and your family wounds on display for others to see. And for daughters who have spent years trying to manage their mother's behavior, trying to keep the peace, maybe trying to make everything look okay on the outside. Public conflict, shatters that illusion, everyone sees it. Now, the family members who always said, your mom is so great, or you only get one mom like they see this. The friends who don't fully understand why you keep your distance or. Fully understand the dynamics of your relationship with your mom. They witness it. Your partner who may finally get to see what you've been trying to explain for so long, they get to witness it. Public conflict can also carry a deep sense of shame. Not shame about you or what you did as a daughter, but shame about what's being done to you. Shame about being treated this way in front of other people. Shame about not knowing how to stop it. Shame about your relationship being this broken. When conflict happens in public, you can't just process it and move on. You have to manage other people's reactions too. You have to see the look on people's faces. You have to field the, are you okay questions. you have to deal with people who wanna mediate or take sides, or even pretend they didn't see it and looked the other way. Public conflict can also include an element of control, when a mother creates conflict in front of others, she's often doing it because she knows you are less likely to set a boundary or call her out when there's an audience. When public conflict becomes a pattern, trust erodes. You stop feeling safer around your mother, especially in public settings. You start avoiding gatherings. You make excuses not to come to family events because you're terrified of what she might say or do, or you just don't wanna deal with it. You might develop anticipatory anxiety. Even before an event happens, you're already anxious, already bracing yourself for conflict, already planning your escape routes, and the relationship fundamentally changes when someone repeatedly humiliates you in front of others, it's hard to maintain closeness. It's hard to trust them and it's hard to be around them at all. Let me normalize something for you. Let me normalize a few things for you actually, if you feel anxious before family gatherings because you're anticipating conflict with your mother. That's normal. That's a normal response. That anxiety is your body remembering what happened before and trying to protect you. If you feel embarrassed or ashamed after public conflict, that's also a normal response too, and if you're starting to wonder whether attending family events is even worth it anymore. That's also a completely reasonable response to being repeatedly publicly humiliated. Your feelings are valid. The fear is real, and your mom's behavior, that's not normal and that's not okay. I. Now let's talk about the specific ways public conflict shows up in mother-daughter relationships. I'm gonna walk you through four common scenarios and I want you to see if you recognize your mother or yourself in any of these. Scenario one. We started with the wedding story, but this pattern shows up in all kinds of celebrations. Your graduation, your promotion, your baby shower, your birthday moments. That should be about you. But your mother finds a way to center herself. Maybe she dominates the conversations with stories about herself. Maybe she brings up her own struggles or tragedies to shift focus. Maybe she criticizes something about the event in front of everyone. Your dress, your choice of venue, how you're doing things, et cetera, et cetera. Maybe she creates drama that requires everyone's attention. The common thread here is that on a day that should celebrate you, she needs to be the center of attention. These are milestone moments, and that makes these scenarios particularly painful. You only get one shot at a wedding day. You know, nobody redoes a wedding day. That's impossible. They're expensive. You graduate one time. There's one ceremony. You have one first baby shower for that first baby that comes. It happens once. And instead of these memories being about joy and celebration, they're marked by your mother's need for control and attention and. Scenario two, criticizing you in front of your partner or friends. And this one is incredibly common and also deeply damaging. Your mother criticizes your parenting in front of your partner. She makes comments about your weight or your appearance or your choices in front of your friends. She tells embarrassing stories about you that you've asked her not to share. She contradicts you or corrects you in front of people trying to treat you like a child. This undermines you. It can signal to people in your life that you're not capable, not worthy of respect, not an adult who makes good decisions and that. Maybe your mom knows best. On the flip side, this puts your partner or friends in an incredibly awkward position. Do they defend you? Do they stay quiet? Do they laugh it off? Do they pretend they didn't hear it or notice it? What are they supposed to do in this situation? I hope they protect you or stand up for you or defend you, but really the situation is awkward. Some people won't know what to do with that. For daughters, it can be humiliating. You're trying to be seen as a capable adult. You are a capable adult. You're trying to make your own life decisions, and your mother is actively working to undermine that image in front of other people whose opinions probably matter most to you. Scenario three, sharing your private information. The scenario is about boundary violations. You tell your mother something in confidence. Maybe you're struggling financially, maybe you're having relationship problems. Maybe you're dealing with health issues, and then she shares it. With the whole family without your permission or with all of her friends, without your permission. Or maybe you didn't even tell her. She just knows things about your life and decides everyone knows. Should know it too. Did you hear that my daughter is having trouble getting pregnant? Oh, my daughter and her husband are in counseling. My daughter got fired from her job. Can you believe it? Like these are your private struggles, your private life, and they become public knowledge because your mother couldn't keep your confidence. Sometimes mothers do this out of concern. They're worried about you and they're looking for support or advice from others. Like, they go to their friends and they wanna share because they want support from somebody else. And I get it. I, I get it, kind of, but it doesn't really matter why she does it. The impact is the same. Your privacy is violated, your trust is broken. And now you're dealing with other people knowing things about you that you didn't choose to share. So whether she was seeking support or not, whether I understand it or not, it doesn't really change the impact that it has on you. And it doesn't change the fact that this isn't okay if you don't want this stuff shared. If you didn't give her the permission, then she doesn't get to share this with everyone else, except you probably have a mother who does it anyway. And this damages the relationship. You can't trust her. And so you stop sharing information with her. And also you ask other people to stop sharing information with her, and that can be really difficult to manage. Scenario four, undermining you in front of your children, and this one might be the most painful because it doesn't just affect you, it also affects your kids. You set a rule for your children and your mother contradicts it in front of them. Oh, one more cookie won't hurt. You don't have to listen to your mom about that. Your mom is just being too strict or she criticizes your parenting in front of your kids. I never would've let you talk to me that way. You're just spoiling them. When you were little, I did things differently. It's like, okay, mom. Got it. But what this does is undermine your authority as a parent. It tells your children that your rules don't matter, that your mother knows better than you, that they can go to grandma and get around your boundaries and get what they want. And it puts you in this impossible position. Do you confront your mother in front of your kids? Do you engage in this and start an argument and maybe let it escalate? Do you let it go and just address it later in private? Do you enforce your rule and look like the bad guy in front of your kids? Which one feels better also, maybe you do all three, but on different occasions, I don't know. I do hope that you enforce your rule and just be the bad guy for your kids, even if they don't like it. I mean, that would be my hope. But managing these things can be really hard and also really frustrating. All of these scenarios have two things in common. They're about power and control. Your mother is asserting her dominance, her importance, her right to be centered at your expense, and she's doing it in front of others because the audience gives her more power and makes it harder for you to push back. I. So why, why, why would a mother do this? Usually it comes down to two things, control or attention. Some mothers need to maintain control over their daughters even when their daughters are adults. Public conflict is a way to of reasserting that control of reminding you that she still has power over you. Other mothers need attention. Constant validation, constant focus on them. And when something threatens to take that attention away, like your wedding, your success, your life, your new baby, you get the idea. They create conflict to redirect, focus back to themselves. And sometimes it's both. They want control and attention. Most of the time though, it's not about you. It's about her, her unmet needs, her insecurities, her inability to let you be separate from her. But even though it's about her, you are the one dealing with all of the consequences and that it's not fair. That's infuriating. I, so what do you actually do when public conflict is happening right now? When your mother's creating a scene, violating your boundaries, or criticizing you in front of others, the single most important strategy is don't engage. I know every instinct in your body wants to probably defend yourself, explain yourself or shut her down. But engaging almost always makes it worse. When you respond, you give her what she wants. Your attention, your reaction, the conflict continuing. So what does not engaging actually look like? Don't respond to her. Don't defend yourself. Don't argue with her. Don't try to correct her or explain your side when it comes to her. Just really don't say anything. And I know this might feel impossible because you want to say something or you want to stop her. Or even the scenario I gave in the beginning where. You don't want to maybe look weak or, or like you can't defend yourself and so you don't say anything. And that gives her more validation that maybe she's right. Like all of this can be so difficult and the emotions that come with it can be really hard. But when you engage it just, I'm willing to bet things continue to escalate. If you stay silent, it may feel like she wins, but silence is actually your power. It takes away any fuel, anything you add to it's fuel for her to keep going. If you remove that and remove any responses, you take more power back. If you feel like you have to say something, maybe because other people are watching and waiting for you to respond, I want you to keep it simple and firm. This is not appropriate right now, and I will not engage with you. That's it. You're not explaining, you're not justifying, you're not inviting. Further conversation. You're stating a boundary and walking away from the conflict, and I will not engage with you. You are removing yourself from this. She can talk to herself. Also, I want you to maybe talk to other people and not her. If you're at a gathering and you can redirect your attention to other people, do that. Turn to someone else and start a conversation. Move to a different room. Physically distance yourself from your mother. This does two things. It remove you from the conflict and it signals to others that you're not participating in whatever drama she's trying to create. If you can leave, I'd recommend leaving. If the situation allows for it, don't stay in it. Go if you can. You don't owe anyone an explanation. You don't have to stay somewhere you're being disrespected or humiliated, excuse yourself. Go to the bathroom, step outside, or just leave the event entirely. Your wellbeing is so much more important than keeping the peace or making other people comfortable around you. Now if the conflict involves your children, if your mother is undermining you in front of them or contradicting your rules, you have to address it directly with your kids, even if you don't address it with her in the moment. Take your children aside, away from your mother and talk to them. It can sound like, I know Grandma said you could have another cookie, but I'm your mom and I set the rules. The answer is still no or. Sometimes grandma and I disagree about things, but I make the decisions about what's best for you reassure them that you are the parent. You set the rules, and those rules are there to protect them and keep them safe. You're not asking them to take sides. You are not bad mouthing their grandmother. You're just calmly reasserting your authority and helping them understand that what Grandma says doesn't override what you say. All of this is harder when you're already anxious, already activated already in fight or flight mode. So if you can take a moment to regulate yourself before you respond, take a deep breath, ground yourself and remind yourself, this is about her, not me. I don't have to engage. I can leave. Sometimes just giving yourself that five second pause can help you respond from a place of calm instead of reacting from panic or anger. What if she escalates? Maybe you're thinking, okay, Brittany, I hear you, but what if I don't engage? And she still escalates. What if she gets louder, more dramatic, more insistent? I want you to let her, I know it's uncomfortable. I know you want to stop it, but her escalation is not your responsibility to manage. If she escalates and makes a bigger scene that reflects on her, not you, other people will see that, and sometimes people need to see it to understand what you've been dealing with all along. Your job is not to control her. Your job is just to protect yourself. Okay? Before you go to a family gathering where you anticipate conflict, pick someone who can step in if things get bad. Maybe it's your partner, maybe it's a sibling, maybe it's a trusted friend who's attending with you. Tell them ahead of time, if my mom starts creating conflict, can you help redirect? Can you step in so I don't have to engage? You don't have to handle this alone, and you don't have to be the one to manage your mother's behavior. Having someone else who can intervene. Someone who can change a subject, move your mother to a different conversation, or even directly tell her to stop, take some of the burden off of you in the moment of public conflict. Your goal is simply don't engage, protect yourself and remove yourself if needed. You're not responsible for managing her emotions, her behavior, or other people's comfort. You're only responsible for yourself and and if applicable, how does that word sound? So weird. Applicable. I think, um, if it applies, you're also responsible for protecting your children. Okay. So the public conflict happened. You got through it. Maybe you engaged and it escalated, or you didn't engage and it still escalated. I don't know, maybe you left. Maybe you just survived it. Now what, let's talk about the aftermath of public conflict and how to navigate what comes next. You might feel embarrassed, ashamed, angry, sad, or even confused about why this keeps happening. All those feelings are valid, but the behavior you experienced was abnormal. Your mother creating public conflict, violating your boundaries, undermining you in front of others, that's not normal or acceptable behavior. Your feelings of embarrassment or shame are normal responses to abnormal behavior. You didn't do anything wrong. You don't need to be ashamed because your emotional response to it makes complete sense. So give yourself permission to feel whatever you might be feeling without any judgment or criticism. Now, one of the most annoying parts of public conflict is dealing with people who witnessed it. You might have family members reaching out to ask if you're okay or trying to explain your mother's behavior, or worse, trying to get you to understand where she's coming from. You don't owe any of these people, an explanation or a conversation about what happened. If you feel close to any of them who witnessed it and you want to talk about it with them, do that. Sometimes it helps the process with people who saw it and can validate your experience, but if you don't feel safe or comfortable talking about it with certain people, you don't have to. You can say, I appreciate your concern, but I don't wanna discuss it right now. But sometimes people who witnessed it finally understand what you've been experiencing all along. Maybe you've tried to explain to your partner or your friends what your relationship with your mother is like, and they didn't quite get it. They thought you were exaggerating or being too sensitive, or they just couldn't imagine what a relationship like this would look like. But now they saw it and suddenly they understand. That can be validating, but it can also be bittersweet because you shouldn't have to be humiliated in public for people to believe you. Either way. If people who witnessed the conflict are now offering support or understand something they didn't before, that's okay to accept. You don't have to say, I told you so just let them see you now. Okay. Let's switch gears and talk about a specific type of public conflict that is becoming increasingly common social media. If your mother posts about you without permission, shares, private information online, or airs grievances about your relationship publicly. Here's my very simple advice, block her if your mother is violating your privacy and boundaries on social media. Trying to engage with her about it or get her to stop is a losing battle because you can't control other people's behaviors. You can't control what she posts, but you can control. If you see it, just block her. Don't engage with the post. Don't try to defend yourself in the comments. Don't ask her to take things down publicly. Maybe you can send a text or something or call her or ask her in person or remove it, but I wouldn't comment that. Just remove yourself from that space entirely. And if other people see and send, send you screenshots or tell you what she's posting, you can ask 'em to stop. Tell 'em you appreciate them looking out for you, but you'd rather not know you blocked her so you don't have to see or engage on those posts. It's healthier for you to not see it. It's just gonna frustrate you and it's gonna bring up lots of emotions and probably anger. Also, just block her. You don't have to have her on your social media and you don't need to see her. Repeated public conflict ruins trust and safety in a relationship. When your mother repeatedly humiliates you, violates your boundaries or undermines you in front of others, something fundamental inside of you breaks you stop feeling safe with her, especially in public settings. And once safety is gone, it's really hard to maintain closeness. You might start making decisions about how much contact you want to have with her, whether you want to attend family gatherings. Whether the relationship is worth the cost of your mental health and peace. If you're at the point where you're considering not attending family events anymore, or limiting contact with your mother, whatever choice you decide on because it's the right choice for you is a valid choice. You can make that decision at any time. There's no right time to set those kind of boundaries. If you feel unsafe or uncomfortable, you have options. Don't go to the gathering. Go with someone you feel safe with, someone who will support you. Set a time limit. Go but only stay for an hour and then leave. Only attend certain events and skip others. There's no rule that says you have to keep showing up to places where you're being mistreated. Behavior like this will likely fast track estrangement. And while no therapist or coach or anyone out there that is working with moms and daughters no one in this space should be. Helping a daughter choose estrangement or helping estrangement to happen, that decision is solely on the daughter and solely on the person who has to be a part of this relationship. It's not for me or anyone else to suggest, and I never would. But if estrangement makes sense for you, if it's what you need and you know that you need it, make the decision. You get to protect yourself and you should protect yourself, and you shouldn't put her comfort above yours. If you're uncomfortable, if you feel unsafe, if you can't trust this relationship to protect you, then don't be a part of the relationship. You have decisions and you can decide what that looks like. You get to decide how much you tolerate and what you can't. You get to decide where you show up and where you don't because it's not worth the anxiety that it's going to create. It's not worth your mental health being shot and you having to to work through everything that came up and all of the emotions and your body feeling dysregulated like you're left to do with that all by yourself. You don't have to do that if you don't want to. You get to decide how much contact feels healthy for you. And prioritizing your wellbeing over other people's expectations. You don't have to justify your decisions. You get to just make them. I also know that none of these decisions are easy. I just want to remind you that choices are there now, the emotions and how you carry out these choices and what all of that looks like. It's really dependent on who you are. And what your relationship dynamics are with your mother, but the choice of what you need is a choice that you get to make. As we wrap up today's episode, I wanna leave you with a few final thoughts. Public conflict with your mother, like being criticized in front of your partner, being undermined in front of your children, having your celebration turn into drama. None of that is normal or acceptable. If this is happening to you, you're probably not overreacting. You're not being too sensitive, and also you're not alone. This is a real pattern that causes real harm and your decision to protect yourself is valid and a choice that you get to make at any time that you need to. You don't owe your mother access to you in spaces where she repeatedly disrespects you or hurts you. You don't have to keep attending family gatherings where you feel anxious, unsafe, or humiliated. You don't have to sacrifice your peace to keep other people comfortable. If you're feeling anxious before events, dreading family gatherings, already planning your escape routes, that's your body. Remembering what happened before and trying to protect you. Listen to what your body is telling you. There's lots of information there. You deserve to have your celebrations be about you. You deserve to have your boundaries respected and you deserve to be treated with dignity. Especially in front of other people, and if your mother can't give you that, it's okay to create distance if you need. It's also okay to create boundaries that are gonna keep you safe. It's okay to just step back a little bit. There's many lanes here and how things look and what you need and how you protect yourself. It's okay for you to choose yourself. Now if today's episode resonated with you and maybe you're realizing you need support in navigating this relationship, I wanna remind you that break the cycle, the workbook is created specifically for daughters who are dealing with complicated mother-daughter dynamics. It includes boundary setting scripts for situations exactly like the ones we talked about today, how to handle public conflict, how to set boundaries before events. How to protect yourself when your mother won't change. How to actually build out a boundary that supports a need that you're trying to get met, like it's going to teach you all of these things. It also walks you through understanding your relationship patterns, healing attachment wounds, managing relationship anxiety, and breaking generational cycles. The part that I love about this book that I created is that. You can do this if your mom is willing to heal with you, and if your mom cannot be a part of that with you, she doesn't have to be a part of it. For this to work. Your healing doesn't depend on her changing. It doesn't depend on her apology, and it doesn't depend on her acknowledgement. It depends on you deciding that you're not gonna send her other people's comfort anymore and you're going to heal for yourself. So if you're interested in the workbook and this episode resonated with you, I wanna remind you that the link is in the show notes and you can go and see if this is the right purchase for you. It's an instant digital download, and I'm offering a five day money back guarantee. So if it's not what you need, just email me and I'll refund you immediately. Your healing doesn't have to wait for her to change. I want you to know that it can start today. Okay. That's what all of this is for. I do my best to make sure that every episode leaves you with something you can take away, leaves you with a new way to phrase things, leaves you with validation of knowing that you're not overreacting and you're not being too sensitive, that these are abnormal behaviors and that you're responding to them in a very normal way and leaves you with things that you can do differently, things that you can change, and ways that you can protect yourself. And if your mother can't do that, like you're allowed to do that for yourself, and you're allowed to create spaces and boundaries and situations that protect you and only you if that's what you need. So thanks for being here. Thanks for being a listener and going on this ride with me. I really enjoy making these episodes for you and being able to bring you this kind of healing. Even just listening through your phone and just listening to the audio, my, my goal is that you walk away with something from every episode. So I hope that this episode did that for you. Thank you for being here and being a listener, and that's all I got for you today. I will catch you in the next one. That's all for today's episode of the Mother-Daughter Relationship Show. Thanks so much for spending this time with me. I hope you picked up some valuable insights that you can start using right away in your own relationship to create deeper connection and understanding. If something from today's episode resonated with you, don't keep it to yourself. Share it with the mother or daughter in your life who needs to hear this message. And while you're at it, please consider leaving a rating. And review so we can reach more families and transform the way mothers and daughters relate to each other. For those ready to take the next step, you can visit my website to learn more about my private coaching programs and my program designed specifically for mother-daughter pairs. Whether you're dealing with communication challenges, life transitions, or just wanna strengthen an already good relationship, I'm here to help. Thank you so much for listening. I'll see you in the next one.