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I froze in horror but there was no doubt about it: the photograph on the group chat was of me.
It was an unflattering shot of me wearing a padded gilet and straight-leg jeans, accompanied by a message that read: ‘She dresses like a teacher on inset day.’
Everyone else in the group had reacted with laughing emojis. Humiliation spread through me as I read the taunting messages, my hands gripped on the iPad left casually unlocked on the kitchen table.
It was exactly the sort of mean teen girl behaviour I hated. Except I thought I’d left such teasing behind when I left school 30 years ago.
What made me feel truly sick was that the bully who posted this cruel picture was my own daughter, Emily. Sadly, this sort of behaviour towards me was not an isolated incident.
I was reminded of that degrading day while watching the new BBC drama Wild Cherry. Following a group of glossy private school girls and their ridiculously glamorous mothers, I thought I was in for an hour of escapism.
Instead, as I watched 16-year-old Allegra reduce her mother Juliet to tears with a series of cutting words that targeted every insecurity with laser-like precision, I was depressingly reminded of my own situation.
Emily is 19 and at university now. Tall, beautiful, clever and effortlessly cool, I’ve no doubt she will go far in life.
She has always been the Queen Bee of her social circle. When she likes someone, she pulls them in. When she goes off them, she drops them just as quickly.
Even as a little girl, I recall overhearing her tell a friend she must rename her doll because she preferred another name.
More recently she made a girl return the bracelet her parents had bought her for her 16th birthday because Emily had decided she wanted the same one. The girl took it back – only for Emily to change her mind, leaving neither of them with it.
In a particularly mortifying incident, a fellow school mum pointedly said to me that Emily should publish a list of boys the rest of the girls were allowed to date after her own daughter was frozen out for liking the wrong lad.
But what this mother didn’t know is that Emily is as casually cruel to me as she is to her supposed friends.
While she was sweet and affectionate towards me until she was 13, something shifted when she hit adolescence.
And when your own daughter, someone you’ve always tried to protect, treats you as someone beneath her, it leaves you feeling very small.
I confess I breathed a small sigh of relief when she left for university. But even though she’s no longer living at home full-time, I can’t escape it.
The last time she came back she brought two friends with her. I made lasagne because it’s always been her favourite. She took one look at it, then turned to her friends and said: ‘Oh God, she’s gone full Nigella again. So cringe.’
They giggled and I felt a flush crawl up my neck.
Later that evening, I went upstairs to ask if they needed a lift into town. She looked at her friends, tilted her head and whispered, just loud enough for me to hear, ‘This is what I mean’. I could hear them laughing as I closed the door.
Some of her behaviour these past few years – refusing to be seen with me in public, never giving a please or thank you, assuming her every wish is my command – can be written off as being a typically thoughtless teenager. But Emily’s behaviour goes beyond that. And, far from being thoughtless, it feels ruthlessly calculated.
She is an expert at homing in on my insecurities.
I stopped wearing bright colours three years ago, aged 48, when Emily, then 16, looked me up and down and said pink was a bit much on mums my age. I also stopped wearing lipstick because she laughed and said it made me look like I was trying too hard.
She once told me I stomped around the house like someone in slippers in a care home. I started walking more quietly, though I did hate myself for it.
And I know it’s not just to my face, either, as proven by that cruel photo of me posted to her friends, encouraging them to laugh at me. I saw it last year when she left her old iPad – which is synced to her phone – charging on the kitchen worktop, the messages popping up on the screen.
I didn’t mention it to her. Like all bullying victims, I fear she would just tell me I couldn’t take a joke and I’d feel even worse.
You may wonder why I let her get away with it all. Close friends tell me to stop being such a doormat and, of course, I now wish I had taken a stronger stance when she entered her teens.
But unless you have lived with someone who can turn so cold so fast, it’s hard to explain how paralysing it can be.
Another factor is that Emily’s an only child, a much-wanted IVF baby after two failed attempts. I think that made me softer with her.
When she turned on me initially, I convinced myself I should be understanding, because I hated feeling judged by my strict mother. I always hoped I’d have a closer relationship with my own daughter – yet my approach seems to have produced the opposite result. I sometimes look at mums and daughters in cafes, laughing easily together and have to look away. These days, if I ever try to draw a boundary, it only makes things worse.
The last time I asked her to help clear the table she exploded. She accused me of nagging, then stormed upstairs.
She didn’t speak to me for two days, while remaining sugary sweet with her father. He insists she is feisty, not mean, and that her strong personality will help her later in life.
If I tell him she hurt my feelings, he says I’m being over-sensitive. When I dare tell her off, she accuses me of overreacting and he stays quiet.
Some of my reactions go back to my childhood. I was always on the edge of the popular group, wanting to be accepted and feeling I didn’t measure up. Seeing my daughter hold that kind of power over others unsettles me and being on the receiving end of her contempt reminds me of my 13-year-old self.
Of course, Emily has good sides. When she is warm, it’s lovely. Occasionally, we’ll sit on the sofa watching a film and she’ll lean her head on my shoulder. Those moments feel so precious.
But I am always waiting for the mood to switch. That’s where her power lies – the knowledge she can withdraw all affection in a heartbeat.
I still hope things will change as she gets older.
That she matures and develops some empathy.
And I hope, more than anything, that one day I will sit in my own kitchen without the fear of being turned into a joke by my daughter.
- Jenny Jones is a pseudonym. All names and identifying details have been changed
- Have you been bullied by your daughter? Email us at femailreaders@dailymail.co.uk