I'm a first-time expectant mom (25 weeks pregnant) and I've been lurking here for awhile. I wanted to post here because this is something that I would never discuss with anyone in real life besides my husband. I apologize that this is so heavy and long.

Being pregnant for the first time makes most women more understanding and appreciative of their parents and closer to their mothers, but for me it's the opposite. I'm an only child of parents who didn't really want to be parents and weren't good at it. Growing up, our family was not a healthy or loving environment; my parents' marriage was a disaster, there was physical and emotional abuse, and both my parents were distant, angry, and generally immature people. I'm glad to say that I broke free from them and became a much better person than they raised me to be. I now have a wonderful husband and we are so excited to welcome our baby into our loving family.

My parents got divorced after I moved out of the house and while I haven't spoken to my father since I graduated from college several years ago, I still have a relationship with my mother. She has always been in denial about the part she played in making my childhood miserable, and I allow her to maintain the illusion that she was/is a good mother. What's done is done, she's not a significant part of my life anymore, and I don't want to cause her extreme pain by severing ties completely. We talk once or twice a month and see each other once a year or so.

Since I've become pregnant, all I think about is how much I love my baby and the kind of childhood I want her to have. It makes me feel increasingly resentful towards my parents, especially my mother. Now that I know what it feels like to be a mother, I have even less understanding or sympathy for the choices that she made as a mother. I don't want to talk to her at all. She is excited about her first grandchild and wants to visit us and spend lots of time with the baby after she's born. We actually will really need help with the new baby, but I will not accept it from her. Besides the fact that it's hard for me to spend time with her, I don't trust her to take care of my child. I know that as my husband and I have more children and they get older, my mother will want to spend even more time with them and be a presence in their lives, and I cannot fathom ever trusting her to care for the physical, emotional, or moral well-being of our children.

Unfortunately I also cannot fathom ever telling her this. She thinks we have a really close relationship, that she did a great job raising me, and that she will be a wonderful grandparent. I'm fine with letting her think all of these things, but I do not want her to play a role in our children's lives or for them to be influenced by the values that she raised me with (selfishness, lying, being mean to others). So how do I keep her from being a big part of my child's life without telling her the reasons why? Is that even possible?

Even if you don't have any advice about this, I would love to hear anyone's experiences of becoming a parent after coming from a less-than-ideal family background. Just because I'm pregnant and still talk to my mom sometimes, people assume that she's a great resource and that we must be close, and that really frustrates me.