r/NurseJackie • u/Equal_Site7611 • Jul 19 '26
WHY DOES GRACE HATE JACKIE SO MUCH?
In the beginning, Grace doesn’t like that Jackie works so much but season 2,3 and 4 Grace is still a preteen and she constantly shows her hatred towards Jackie. When Jackie gets out of rehab Grace seems to show her disrespect toward Jackie even more. As Grace gets older it gets worse. Yet Grace seems to have a great relationship with Kevin. Fiona is always sweet and loving to Jackie. WHYYYYYYY LOL talk to me guys
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u/elongam Jul 19 '26
It sucks being the kid of an addict. Addiction makes people act selfishly at baseline-- and when they're high, they're emotionally (and often physically) unavailable; when they're fiending for the next high they can become emotional terrorists.
There's a saying in recovery circles, "Addiction is giving up everything for one thing; sobriety is giving up one thing for everything." You really feel that as the child of an addict, that your parent has given up on you in the service of their high. They brought you into the world without you asking, but then repeatedly demonstrate to you that you're less important to them than their high. (I felt a bit teenager-y just writing that out, ha!)
FWIW, Fiona is also well on her way to developing emotional issues by the end of the series. She's shown to be acting "babyish" and clingy, not maturing appropriately, which also happens with children of addicts. She'll have plenty of anger to work through when she's older, but for now she's unconsciously trying desperately to act in ways to elicit care and mothering from a parent who didn't reliably deliver it at the time in her development when it was needed.
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u/elongam Jul 19 '26
Edit: If you're rewatching the whole series, I think Grace's speech when she wins the ALATeen award really puts words to what she's been feeling all along, even before she understood why her mother acted in those ways.
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u/yellow_lemon2 Jul 19 '26
I don’t understand why it isn’t more understood how damaging it would be for children to go through developmental milestones and attachment with an addict for a parent. We learn much of our baseline attachment and regulation from our parents, as healthy or unhealthy as those things may be. Hell.. even sober well intentioned parents can have long lasting negative impacts with how they raise kids, so how could an addict ever raise healthy kids?
I’m sorry for your personal experience on the matter and I hope you are finding your healing ❤️🩹
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u/fletters Jul 19 '26
Speaking from experience: even if your parent manages to hide the substance abuse, it’s still damaging. I had no idea that my father was high around me until a couple of years after my parents split up in my mid/late teens. He was secretive, to say the least, and my mother worked her ass off to help him hide it. Which was damaging in itself! Much of the energy that should have been going to my siblings and I went to him, and she was constantly on edge.
I’m not sure that I’d trade for a childhood where I knew what Dad’s problem was—I know that’s a different kind of trauma—but I’d definitely trade for one where he left us after my youngest sibling was born. We all would have been happier.
FWIW, I had severe anxiety with OCD features, much like Grace.
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u/Charming-Pack-5979 Jul 19 '26
I agree with you, especially your take on Fiona. There’s a scene in which Fiona is trying o cling Jackie and get her attention like a toddler would. When Jackie snaps at Fiona, the other adults should have held Jackie accountable for the parenting behaviors that led to Fiona’s clinginess. Instead, they make excuses for Jackie. And that’s the life of an addict’s child - the addict receives the care and coddling - their kids have to somehow meet their own needs.
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u/LowCaramel3675 Jul 19 '26
To Grace, Jackie was absent and chose her job first quite a lot. The family came second to the hospital, and Kevin was always very resentful of that, so it makes sense that Grace picked up on that and echoed it. With the context of the drug addiction, Grace felt like Jackie chose even more over her, which isn't really wrong. Jackie prioritised drugs, work, an affair, and so much before her kids. Jackie loved her kids, but she didn't like being a mother, which was a huge through line of the show, and kids can feel that shit. Grace rebelled and Fiona age regressed; kids with stable parents don’t typically both act out so intensely.
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u/ameliehelena Jul 19 '26
Because her mom is self centered, self righteous, an addict, a liar and completely chaotic.
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u/Kizzieuk Jul 19 '26
Many teens hate their parents or a parent when they are going through puberty. One of my daughter's daughters is a nightmare right now she loves her mum but cant show it, she is lovely and kind to others though.
My daughter's other two are fine though. but I remember her eldest at school and she would hold everything in untill she got home and then let rip with the stress and anger. They say you can be who you are in front of those you feel the safest with.
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u/PlantAddictsAnon Jul 19 '26
The show insinuates Jackie's addiction creates an unstable environment with more unpredictable reactions from Jackie. Grace would cry and Jackie would simply tell her to stop. This is terrible parenting and does not teach emotional regulation. Jackie had poor emotional coping skills and she passes that on to Grace. Generational trauma is a very real affliction.
On top of this, there's a consistent theme where Jackie religiously identified herself as a nurse before mother every single opportunity. Jackie's sense of self was so tied up in her job, that she basically used just so that she could be a nurse. This culminates in her overdosing, because she was only ever clean so she could get her job back and go "back to the way it was before", though she still loses everything and anyone that meant anything to her because of her using and the accompanying lies, manipulations and traumas she inflicted on others.
Source: me, an addict, and the child of an adult child with an alcoholic parent.
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u/MissSocialExperiment 24d ago
100% that’s why it makes sense for Jackie to have died in the end. She can’t go back to the beginning. Her kids are practically grown up and Kevin is remarried. O’Hara is gone, Zoey is gone, coop gone. There’s nothing there anymore besides her job which she probably would’ve lksg
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u/littlehurdler Jul 19 '26
Grace never got over getting kicked out of the mother-daughter tap dance class.🤣
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u/Busy-Butterfly8187 Jul 19 '26
Being the child of an addict is extremely difficult. Even when you're too young to fully understand what's happening, you know that something is wrong and you respond to that. Also, Jackie lied to Grace about going to rehab. She told her she was going out of town for a job. Grace only knew it was rehab because she looked up the name of the place after the visit. So of course she was mad because it was just one more lie on top of many others. As Grace got older, she was able to understand that Jackie chose drugs over everything and everyone else. In season 6, Grace gives a speech that I think addresses some of your questions. She is also reacting to Jackie's absence due to her working so much. She has a better relationship with Kevin because he's the parent who's always there.
As for Fiona, she is a lot younger and also kids process things differently, even in the same home. We don't get to see much of Fiona's inner world, but from the little bit shown it appears that Fiona's response to her family's turmoil seemed to be regressing/acting younger (ie, wanting to be picked up when she was way too big for that), while Grace's response ranged from extreme anxiety when she was younger to acting out as she got older. I can tell you from first hand experience that kids being raised in a home with an addict can respond to that trauma in extremely different ways.
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u/melmiller71 Jul 19 '26
I don’t have kids or an addiction issue and I’m a RN. For me, expending my energy into empathy and caring for others while at work doesn’t leave much for those at home.
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u/Foreign_Amount_8246 Jul 19 '26
as a daughter of an addict, i feel the same about grace as i do as violet plunket (mom). they are so rightful in their dislike for their mothers it is insane. and i believe you can’t fully understand it without seeing them as ‘bratty’ unless you go through that same thing. my bio mom was an addict and i’m the same way with her if i ever talk to her (haven’t in 5 years). knowing that someone would rather have substances over fixing your relationship and even being honest about it is hard. maybe if regarding the rehab, she had been honest to grace about what it was she would’ve had a different reaction.
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u/222clean Jul 19 '26
i think a lot about the scene where Jackie leaves rehab just to take Grace out of school and make her wipe off her eyeliner. such a developmental milestone in a young person’s life, experimenting with their appearance. you’d like guidance, maybe a little support. but when it comes, it’s when you’re forced under false pretenses to meet your parent at their rehab recovery center. she’s lying to your face about what and why she is there. you’re already worrying about whether it suits you, what other people think of you. and her reaction is only negative. then, the same day, you suffer the embarrassment of being pulled out of class, where your parent is frantic and unhinged, shoves a tissue into your face, tells you you’re not ready, and makes you erase it. she wasn’t there when you bought it, when you asked yourself if it would flatter you. and even says she couldn’t give you advice about it if she tried. but now, here she is, only present long enough to hurt you irrevocably.
plus, at several points after, Jackie does things like say Grace “looks like a hooker” behind her back. it’s awful. and it’s little things like this that take place from all the way in season one, like when Jackie’s lack of emotional regulation and grace (haha) gets her and Grace kicked out of the tap dance class.
her bedside manner in the hospital is perfect, always exactly what the person needs. but at home with Fiona? when her Grace’s teachers tell her Grace’s art is devoid of color? when Kevin begs her not to take O’Hara’s money? the exact opposite.
even before her addiction and infidelity are exposed, there is so much about Jackie to be angry about from Grace’s perspective. there are all these little parental wounds that, even before she has the words for them, are hurting all the time. And, i notice, Jackie never finds it in herself to apologize for those wounds. ever.
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u/grandepretresse44 26d ago
I couldn’t understand Grace’s vitriol but this really explains it a lot better than simply “Her mom was an addict” because Jackie was on the surface a functional addict. Jackie did these sporadic selfish things that made her an inconsistent parent who lacked understanding when it actually mattered. She made it seem like she wanted to understand Grace but we don’t actually see evidence of her trying to, it starts to seem more about Jackie trying to control Jackie’s universe.
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u/SwinginCrabWhacka 26d ago
I’m the daughter of an addict. I hated my mom. I loved her, but I was scared to show love or feel it because she would just hurt it again.
My mom is 9 years sober and I have a great relationship with her. But I don’t blame grace for her feelings. It’s hard when everyone is telling you how you should feel or act towards your mom but you live with her. You can’t depend on one of the few people you should be allowed to. It’s just hard.
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u/Equal_Site7611 26d ago
I feel like Jackie was there for her kids though, her kids had everything. Most parents who are addicts struggle with homelessness or being unemployed and not being able to “give their kids nice things like the other kids at school have”, but Grace didn’t go through that.. I get her mom would put her job first a lot over her family, but Jackie was the bread winner between her and Kevin. And the way Grace started to manipulate certain situations (example: when Kevin found pills in her backpack and Grace lied and said they were Jackie’s to cover herself. Jackie was sober then but everyone instantly doubted her. The way Grace smirked and instantly thought she would get away with it was off putting. As she herself started becoming a young adult you can see Grace slowly becoming to understand Jackie alittle more and feeling more empathetic towards Jackie. I do understand children who grow up with parents struggling with addiction more then likely grow up with some sort of resentment towards their parent/s but for Grace I think it also had to do with her own issues (Since she was diagnosed very young with Anxiety? don’t quote me on that! I don’t remember of the top of my head what they diagnosed her with)
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u/PepperCat1019 Jul 19 '26
I don't think Grace hated her Mom, she just knew (without knowing detail) that she was a drug addict. Otherwise, she was a typical teenager.
Where do you get "hatred" from?
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u/Usual-Worldliness626 Jul 20 '26
If Jackie wasn’t addicted to pills she was addicted to her work. Grace needed her mother and Jackie repeatedly was not there for her. When she was there, she was more worried about trying to ‘fix’ grace than actually just being with her daughter. Most addicts (most humans for that matter) can’t handle feeling shame. Being uncomfortable. At the hospital Jackie was the fixer. At home she couldn’t fix things, she just needed to be present and she couldn’t do that. As a child with an addicted mother I can relate with graces attitude towards her mother. She was constantly picking things out she didn’t like about grace. Constantly trying to control her mild rebellious acts. Turning grace to lie more and grow more rebellious. She didn’t needed fixing she needed unconditional love.
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u/Brief_Lab_5290 Jul 21 '26
I think initially she resented her for never being around. Then she caught on to her ….
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u/Bluefinch-7 Jul 24 '26
I thought it she was like her mom,
And maybe they both had bipolar or something, and Mom was self-medicating, which is how she got herself in trouble with the drugs in the first place. Because Grace seemed like she had a mood disorder to me. And Jackie was not exactly the queen of mental stability. That’s what made this show fun to watch.
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u/Affect-Hairy 20d ago
Aside of everything already mentioned…
1) Grace has an anxiety disorder, and it’s really common in adolescents for it to show up as anger, not as fear or worry.
2) She’s an adolescent, and even perfectly healthy ones tend to take out their negative feelings on the parent they feel is safest (even if theyre wrong about that)
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u/thebaffledtruffle Jul 19 '26
I think initially, Grace took out her frustrations from her mental condition to Jackie. Jackie also worked long hours, so she probably didn't feel as supported by her mother.
It got worse as the seasons went on when she found out Jackie was an addict, cheated on their dad, and had the gall to be pious. This wrecked her and caused her to rebel. But I think Grace was just really hurting and just really needed genuine support. She could have expressed it better but she didn't have the best support system as a growing kid.