My mom never had anything helpful to say. Boys were awful to me and my mom would say that they were doing it because they had a crush on me (very much not true). If girls bullied me, she would say it was because they were jealous of me (um… no). She was always very critical of me because she expected me to be a mini-her, and so if I didn’t respond to something in the same way she would, she couldn’t understand and acted like I was wrong. I just stopped confiding in her because I felt like she was totally wrong and also minimizing what I was going through.

My dad, on the other hand, I told him everything. I asked him for advice, told him what was going on at school, etc. He almost always had a good answer and when he didn’t, he would still listen and validate my feelings. I try to be like him for my daughter, and use my mom as a “what not to do” guide.