Dear Prudence,
My mother married and had me while she was in high school. She is the bravest woman I know, and she raised my brother and me by herself, put herself through college, and has finally married the love of her life after divorcing my alcoholic father and waste-of-space stepfather. Recently, she discovered she was pregnant again at 41. I am 23 and three months pregnant with my first child. Everyone else in my family, even my younger brother, is happy about our concurrent pregnancies, openly celebrating and making jokes. I feel so weird about this. I get flashes of jealousy and resentment toward my mother and her pregnancy. She obviously is very focused on her own health and family right now, but I feel abandoned. It’s as if this baby has cheated me out of having a mom, or my mother has betrayed me by getting pregnant. I hate myself for feeling this way. It is irrational and petty and hateful, and I can’t even tell anyone about it! I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if it is hormones, or if I have always been an awful person. My husband has commented on the mood swings I have after I talk to my mother, but I lie and just say I am tired. I feel trapped. How do I stop this? How do I get these feelings under control and out of my head? My mother and I are both pregnant, married to lovely men, in good health, and happily employed. I have nothing to be upset over, but I am, and I hate it.
—Pregnant and Resentful