When the parent rebels!

[manik_kat]

I was just wondering if anyone out there has been put in a situation where they feel their parents have let them down.
I'm 21, my mum is in her late 50s but has always had a very easy going attitude to things and quite a youthful outlook. We have a pretty open relationship, basically if she asks me something about my life (boys, drugs etc) I'll tell her but I don't rub her face in the stuff I think she won't want to know. But recently I've discovered a side to her life I didn't know about and it's made me very uncomfortable. It's like, this is the woman who taught me right from wrong and now I've grown up she doesn't realise that I find it quite distressing to hear about her 'off duty' life. I know that she has her own life, but is it unreasonable for me to expect a certain amount of respect and only hear select stuff about her lifestyle?

[Ethel]

Just tell your mother firmly she is your mother, not your friend, and you don't need or want to know about her private life.

Make it clear that if she needs you, you will support her, but if it's just 'girlie gossip' you don't want to hear it.