Vault: How Does She Open Up To Her Estranged Mother?

Summary

The Bert Show – Vault: How Does She Open Up To Her Estranged Mother?

Episode Date: April 8, 2026
Hosts & Participants: Bert, Kristin, Abby, Cassie, Tommy, and guest Brittany

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Episode Overview

In this candid and insightful episode, The Bert Show invites Brittany to share her complex relationship with her estranged mother. Brittany had recently visited her mother after years of limited contact. The hosts and Brittany discuss family wounds, emotional boundaries, personal growth, and the realities of connecting (or struggling to connect) when a parent remains emotionally unavailable. The conversation strikes a balance between empathy and humor while confronting difficult truths about family dynamics.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Brittany’s Family Background

• [02:20] Brittany: Not raised by her mother—her grandparents stepped in instead.
  • "I wasn't raised by my mom, I was raised by her parents. And I was sort of in touch with her on and off my whole life."
• Limited physical contact: She’s only seen her mother “half a dozen times” since she was 18 or 19.
• Last major visit was in the summer of 2004, described as “okay, you know.”

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2. Visiting Her Mother – Cyclical Patterns and Emotional Challenges

• Visitation pattern: Generally, the first few days are fine, then tension escalates into a blow-up.
  • [02:43] Brittany: “The third day we have some giant blow up fight and everybody's reduced to tears. And she says, I'm sending you home.”
  • This time, however, "No tears this time though. I have just... it's a little thing."
• [04:09] Brittany: “She just doesn’t know how to do it [be a mom] at all.”

Arrival and Initial Interactions

• [03:49] Brittany: Her mother didn’t pick her up at the airport and was awkward at greeting, even when Brittany asked if she could offer a hug.
• Her mother's discomfort was palpable: “...the whole first day... she kept saying, 'Well, you really shouldn't have come. You should've stayed home...'”

Brittany’s Growth and Shifting Perspective

• [03:15] Brittany: “Yeah, I've learned to deal with her a lot better. That's basically what I learned from this visit is that I personally have grown up a lot, even if she hasn't.”
• The visit wasn’t remarkable, just “very superficial.” This time, Brittany reflects more on her own capacity for acceptance.

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3. Understanding Her Mother’s Emotional Limitations

• [04:46] Brittany: “She's always been uncomfortable with my interest in her... if she's uncomfortable with being a mom and I'm looking at her and going, be my mom now… She feels like I am, and she doesn't know what to do.”
• The mother frequently made self-deprecating comments: “She kept saying, 'Oh, you probably hate our house.' Every meal it was like, 'Oh, you probably hate this food.'”
• [06:53] Brittany: Her mom resented feeling “ambushed”: “Well, you just sprang yourself on us. Well, you just showed up here uninvited... I asked you if I could come. You're my daughter, what am I supposed to say?”
• Brittany, this time, managed not to take things personally:
  • [08:16] “Now I can look at her and see she's just really uncomfortable. She's just really self conscious... It's not about me, it's about her.”

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4. Coping Mechanics and Emotional Boundaries

• Bert [07:29]: Draws parallels with his own parental struggles, talking about lowering expectations.
  • “I keep lowering the bar for my parents... to a point to where like, it's not acceptable anymore... it’s not acceptable for them to hurt you.”
• Brittany: “Anything you're gonna do at this point and you can't. Whatever. Well, you know, I don't know.”
• Cassie [08:38]: “It’s a really mature perspective.”
• F [08:46]: “You're the grown up and she's the child.”

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5. Relationship Reality and Acceptance

• The relationship remains largely “superficial;” meals, TV, little meaningful conversation.
• Departure: Brittany noticed her mother was sad as she was leaving.
  • [08:48] Brittany: “I left and I could tell that she was sad when I was leaving… I saw a Twitter message from her when I got home… 'I don't know why, but every time the kid leaves, I cry.'"
• Host analogy: Bert compares this dynamic to golf, where "one good hole" keeps you coming back despite 17 bad ones.
  • [09:32] Bert: “It's almost so unfair to you... It just keeps bringing you back.”
• [10:13] Brittany (memorable/funny moment): Her mom observed she’d been “lonely all week because she hadn’t had me online to talk to... I'm right here.”
  • The group jokes, "Maybe you should have iMed her from the other room."

Future Outlook

• [10:22] Brittany: Concludes that an online relationship is best for now: “From now on, at least for the next couple years, it's better for us to have, like, an online relationship.”
• Open-ended hope: “If in another five years, I feel compelled to go visit her again... then I'll probably go visit her and see if anything's changed.”
• Realism: “I don't know that she is [going to change]. I'm not expecting her to. At this point, I'm just leaving the possibility open... I went. I did what I could do.”

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• [02:43] Brittany: "The third day we have some giant blow up fight and everybody's reduced to tears. And she says, 'I'm sending you home.'"
• [04:09] Brittany: "She just doesn't know how to do it [be a mom]."
• [07:29] Bert: "I keep lowering the bar for my parents... to a point to where like, it's not acceptable anymore."
• [08:16] Brittany: “Now I can look at her and see she's just really uncomfortable... It's not about me, it's about her.”
• [08:48] Brittany: “I saw a Twitter message from her when I got home... 'I don't know why, but every time the kid leaves, I cry.'"
• [10:13] Brittany: “She told me that she had been lonely all week because she hadn't had me online to talk to... I'm right here.”
• [10:22] Brittany: "From now on, at least for, you know, the next couple years, it's better for us to have, like, an online relationship."

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Important Timestamps

• [02:20]: Brittany summarizes her family history and relationship with her mother.
• [03:49]: Description of emotionally awkward reunion and mom’s discomfort.
• [04:46]: Discussion about parent’s inability and discomfort with parenting roles.
• [07:29]: Bert relates to Brittany’s experience with his own family.
• [08:16]: Brittany articulates her new perspective on her mother’s discomfort.
• [08:48]: Brittany shares the impact of leaving and her mother's emotional message.
• [10:13]: Humorous moment—Brittany relaying her mom’s preference for online interaction.
• [10:22]: Brittany decides an online relationship is best for now.

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Tone and Language

• Language: Open, honest, thoughtful, sometimes wry.
• Tone: Empathetic but realistic, with moments of both humor and poignancy.

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Summary

This episode provides a raw, heartfelt exploration of what it means to seek connection with an estranged, emotionally closed-off parent. Listeners will find Brittany's journey relatable, as she balances acceptance, personal boundaries, and the yearning for a deeper family connection. The discussion is compassionate, sprinkled with levity, and ultimately lands on the importance of self-care, maturity, and accepting what loved ones can—and cannot—give.

Transcript

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[Brittany]

What's going on? Welcome out.

[Bert]

You're in one piece, at least physically.

[Brittany]

It's like a rocking music bed. I really like that there. Hey, what's going on?

[Bert]

You tell us, man. This is going to be stressful for those that weren't listening the Friday you took off, just give a. I know it's a complicated family history, but if you had to do it.

[Brittany]

I wasn't raised by my mom, I was raised by her parents. And I was sort of in touch with her on and off my whole life. I've been a lot closer to her since I was about 18, 19 years old, but not. I've probably only seen her half a dozen times since then, you know, and I'm 30 now, so the last time I saw her was in 2004, the summer of 2004. I went and visited her and that went okay, you know.

[Bert]

What do you mean by okay?

[Brittany]

I think usually what happens when I go to see her is the first day goes fine, the second day goes fine. The third day we have some giant blow up fight and everybody's reduced to tears. And she says, I'm sending you home. And then somehow we work it out in the rest of the visit. I'm sending you home.

[Bert]

Sounds so 7 year old.

[Brittany]

I got that again. This time it was good.

[Bert]

She threatened to send you home.

[Brittany]

No tears this time though. I have just.

[Jeff]

It's a little thing.

[Unidentified Female Guest]

I'm dismissing you.

[Bert]

I'm sending you home. It's like when you're at camp and you do something wrong, they send you home to your parents.

[Unidentified Female Guest]

If you wear the right school. Yes.

[Brittany]

Yeah, I've learned to deal with her a lot better. That's basically what I learned from this visit is that I personally have grown up a lot, even if she hasn't. So I wish that it was a more exciting story. I wish I had some like, huge, like this happened and then I said this and she said that. But it wasn't. It wasn't a great visit, but it wasn't a terrible visit. Nothing awful happens.

[Jeff]

Was it about three days in when she was gonna get home?

[Brittany]

It was, yeah. It always is. The thing is, you know, as soon as I got there, I knew she was real uncomfortable. She was really uncomfortable the whole time.

[Unidentified Female Guest]

Well, she didn't even come to the airport to pick you up?

[Brittany]

She didn't come to the airport to pick me up. And you know, the funny thing is I got there to their house and I got out of the car and I went up and I was gonna give her a hug and she turned around and walked into the house and I was like, what? Okay? And then I walked up to her in the house to give her a hug and she was saying something else and I'm like, Can I hug you? And then she was like, oh, right. You know, she just doesn't know how

[Unidentified Male Guest]

to do it at all.

[Brittany]

No, she doesn't know how to do it. And that's the thing, you know, she just. It just makes her real, real uncomfortable. And, you know, the whole first day that I was there, she kept saying, well, you really shouldn't have come. You should have stayed home. I got a new dog. I got a new rescue dog. She kept saying, you should have stayed home with your dog, and you should have done that, you know? And I don't know why you wanted to come here anyway, because you're just gonna be bored. And I'm like, are you trying to still convince me to not come because I'm here?

[Bert]

I mean, here's what you told us about your mom is that. I mean, she's always been uncomfortable being a mom. She doesn't know how to do it. So if she didn't know I said this to you before, she didn't know how to do it then, why would she all of a sudden know how to do it now?

[Brittany]

Yeah. Well. And because of that, I think she's always been kind of uncomfortable with my interest in her. You know what I mean? Like, if she's uncomfortable with being a mom and I'm looking at her and going, be my mom now. Okay, do it. Which I'm not, but she feels like I am, and she doesn't know what to do. So, you know, the whole time I was there, she was really uncomfortable. She was very self conscious. She kept saying, oh, you probably hate our house. Every meal it was like, oh, you probably hate this food. And it was like, no, it's probably.

[Jeff]

It sounds like a combination of

[Brittany]

not

[Jeff]

wanting to be emot and then still caring about what you thought, though. I mean, I think it's like this really weird mixed message.

[Brittany]

Yeah.

[Unidentified Male Guest]

You know, to me, it sounds so alien life form that I'm fascinated by how in Bert's mom's life, like, there are a lot of people that think she's really normal, like in her career life and all of that kind of stuff.

[Bert]

Like her patients.

[Unidentified Male Guest]

Like her patients.

[Brittany]

Patients.

[Bert]

Yeah.

[Unidentified Female Guest]

Oh, Lord.

[Unidentified Male Guest]

Do you know what I'm saying? But in your family life, I think she's so alien. So is your mom in the same way?

[Brittany]

No, no. Nobody really thinks she's that normal. I don't think.

[Bert]

Well, what my mom has done, it's a little bit. That's a little bit misleading because in my opinion, my mom has surrounded herself with people just like she is. So if you're an alien amongst aliens, then you're the normal one.

[Brittany]

You're normal. Okay. My mom has done that to a degree. But the thing is, she doesn't. You know, I used to think that there was a possibility she would come visit me here. And a lot of times I'll think, oh, I should take my mom this place. She would really like this. She'd really like to come and meet all my pets because she loves animals. But. But after being there, I don't think there's any way I'm going to see her.

[Unidentified Female Guest]

But you said she is.

[Brittany]

She's not going to come visit me at all. When people come, my stepfather has friends around in the area in the neighborhood and things. When they come over to the house, she goes upstairs. She doesn't want to talk to anyone.

[Unidentified Female Guest]

She's got social anxiety of some sort, right?

[Brittany]

Yeah, she does. Yeah, for sure. So she was just uncomfortable the whole time. And then she started saying things like, well, you just sprang yourself on us. Well, you just showed up here uninvited, you know, And I was like, well, I asked you if I could come. And she said, well, you know, you're my daughter. What am I supposed to say? Am I supposed to say no?

[Bert]

And I said, what else? The words literally came out of her.

[Brittany]

Yeah, I said, well, you could have told me it was a bad time. If it's a bad time, you could have said that and I wouldn't have come. That's why I asked you in the first place, you know, but all of these things that she says, you know, in the past definitely would have really upset me, you know, telling me that I was there uninvited. And this time I was just like,

[Jeff]

yeah, whatever, because she's consistent with it and this, like this defense mechanism.

[Brittany]

And she never stopped the whole time I was there and she, she would be so uncomfortable. I actually spent a lot of time just hanging out in my room, just reading and doing other stuff, you know, and I would give her a generous amount of time every day to just be by herself.

[Bert]

Here's the problem. Like you and I are going through sort of the same thing with our parents also. I haven't talked too much about it on the air just because it's so complicated and it just feels so 17 year old. But like I keep lowering the bar for my parents. Lowering it and lowering it and lowering it to a point to where like, it's not acceptable anymore.

[Brittany]

Ye.

[Bert]

Like just because they're your parents, it's just not Acceptable for them to hurt you or you can't lower it so much to where you're like, okay, go ahead, do it. That's just who you are. Go ahead and hurt me and my family.

[Brittany]

That's absolutely how I feel about my dad and I think my mom. I've just gotten to the point where I'm like, I accept anything you're gonna do at this point and you can't. Whatever. Well, you know, I don't know.

[Unidentified Male Guest]

Does it hurt you? I mean, when she says things like this and, you know, like, that's where interaction happens.

[Brittany]

Well, in the past, if this were five years ago and I was there and she said something like, well, you just showed up here uninvited, I would have felt really bad. I would have felt like, oh, my God, I'm here and they don't want me here. But now I can look at her and see she's just really uncomfortable. She's just really self conscious, you know, she doesn't know how to act. She doesn't know what to say. She doesn't know what to do. It's not about me, it's about her. You know, and I can just go, okay, well, you need some time to yourself.

[Unidentified Female Guest]

It's a really mature perspective.

[Brittany]

There's only.

[Unidentified Female Guest]

So there's no place on this show.

[Bert]

Yeah. We would have known this was your take. We would have never.

[Unidentified Male Guest]

You're the grown up and she's the child.

[Brittany]

Well, and the sad thing is that, you know, I left and I could tell that she was sad when I was leaving, you know, and the whole visit, I was there and we didn't. We talked a little bit. We didn't really talk a ton. It was very. I mean, it was very superficial kind of visit. Like, we ate every day and we watched some tv and then I went home, you know, and like I say, I gave her a lot of time on her own every day, and I left. And I saw a Twitter message from her when I got home that night that said, I don't know why, but every time the kid leaves, I cry. Or like, I sob for an hour straight. And it's like, well, that's really sad that she cried after I left. But why wasn't she more.

[Jeff]

Well, she might have said that Jeff was saying is that she doesn't know how to interact with people when they're one on one in front of her.

[Bert]

It's almost so unfair to you that that's a little bit like using a golf analogy. Like, you play 17 holes of golf and you suck, suck, suck, suck, suck. And then you play one hole where you do it just so well, and it keeps bringing you back. Like, you weren't even having fun for five days. It was awful. And then when you leave, you see the pain in your mom's eyes. So all of a sudden you're like, well, I got to.

[Brittany]

But at the same time, it wasn't terrible. It wasn't like I hated it. I wasn't that uncomfortable. Even though she was uncomfortable. I was like, well, I'm just gonna be here. And, you know, my stepfather is. We get along fine. So I would just talk to him, and at least I can, you know, commiserate with him a little bit. And she did say one thing she said that was really funny before I left was that she told me that she had been lonely all week because usually her and I talk online every day. Huh.

[Bert]

So you're right in front of her.

[Brittany]

She told me that she had been lonely all week because she hadn't had me online to talk to you. I'm like, I'm right here.

[Bert]

Maybe you should have iMed her from the other room when you were sitting.

[Brittany]

Yeah, totally. So. But, wow. It wasn't terrible. It wasn't great. I think that probably from now on, at least for, you know, the next couple years, it's better for us to have, like, an online relationship. And if in another five years, I feel compelled to go visit her again or try to make it work out again, then I'll probably go visit her and see if anything's changed, you know?

[Jeff]

And then you get to the point you realize she's not gonna change, so you work out.

[Brittany]

I don't know that she is. I'm not expecting her to. At this point. I'm just leaving the possibility open. And I don't know, you know, like, I'm fine with it. I went. I did what I could do. I'm an effort. And.

[Bert]

Yeah, you did what you could.

[Brittany]

Absolutely.

[Jeff]

Congratulations.

[Bert]

If you. If you want to talk to Brittany, she's on after 10 o'. Clock. Or you can Facebook her also. Or you can go to our website at Q100.

[Brittany]

You can Twitter me. Q100, Brittany. You can IM me. You can call me on the phone.

[Bert]

The bird show.

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