The internet is fuming after a toxic mother declined her daughter’s expensive purse gift because it wasn’t coupled with a matching wallet in our latest story in our series, Tales From TikTok. TikToker Arlene Hickey captured her mom’s reaction to her late Christmas present, a Brahmin bag from Belk, which costs over $200, and posted it on New Year’s Eve, Dec. 31, 2023.
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Hickey pulled out the Brahmin bag, shocking her mother.
“Oh, my God! This is the one I was looking at,” the mother commented with a smile. Hickey assured her it was the bag she wanted.
Hickey’s mother asked if she got the wallet to go with it, and her daughter disclosed that she hadn’t splurged on the matching Brahmin wallet., saying she only bought the purse. At that moment, she turned sour when the relentless mother refused to accept the purse until she got the wallet.
“I can’t wear this strap with no damn wallet. I need the wallet,” the mother said repeatedly.
Hickey’s mom held the purse away from her toward her daughter in disgust.
“You are so ungrateful after you showed out on me on Christmas day,” Hickey said. “And I’m still trying to kiss up to you.”
The matriarch urged her daughter to return to the store to buy the wallet.
“It’s pretty, though,” she said. “But I want the wallet. I need me something else to go with it.”
She compared her daughter’s opposition to buying the wallet to asking dirt to walk. She then suggested her daughter buy the wallet and put $200 inside it.
Fed up, Hickey responded, “Mama, I don’t owe you anything! Why you feel like I owe you something? I don’t owe you nothing!”
The older woman exclaimed she did owe her after going through hell and deserved more than the purse.
“You do owe it! I’m worth more than that,” she exclaimed.
Hickey explained the purse was more than she could afford and said she couldn’t afford her mother.
“If my mama were living, she wouldn’t have to worry about it ’cause I would [buy her] what she wanted,” the older woman stated, implying her daughter treated her man nicely and could do the same for her as well. Hickey decided to return the bag and not give her ungrateful mother a “damn dime.”
Commenters were disgusted by Hickey’s mother’s reaction, with many urging the daughter to take the bag back. A small percentage of commenters advised her to buy the wallet because she was her mother.
“Omg, please tell me that your mom wasn’t serious,” one commenter said.
“Go get her the wallet. I miss my mom so much,” another person wrote.
A TikToker affirmed that walking “away from toxic relationships,” including families, was okay.
“That bag would go back, and she would get a trip home!”
There’s not much talk about the toxicity that reigns in Black mother-daughter relationships.
Some Black women have endured years of oppression and generational trauma (neglect and assault) that has damaged them mentally and emotionally, which carried into their mother-daughter relationship, according to a Liberty University dissertation by Bernadette Denise Ward.
Black women have had to navigate margins and oppression while trying to survive and raise families and sometimes themselves. As these women transitioned from girls to women, younger women were trapped by overbearing or cold moms, creating complex mother-daughter relationships like the aforementioned story.
The Black daughter may strive to explore opportunities but is gaslit by her mother, which is often a mother protecting her offspring from potentially falling on her face or the mother acting out of jealousy because their mothers prevented them from pursuing better, according to political and social commentator Yvonne Sam. The neglect and abuse mothers and grandmothers endured from their matriarchs are inflicted on their children, continuing the generational trauma, like guilt-tripping and discouraging words.
Sam highlighted the problem of the Black community, excusing Black mothers and grandmothers’ narcissistic behavior toward their daughters and granddaughters. And as the behavior persists, it eventually breaks them down mentally and emotionally.
We’ll catch you later with another story from Tales From TikTok.
