Azalea and her Mama. Rarity and Azalea were very close when Azalea was a little girl. Rarity was a stay at home mom for the majority of Azalea’s childhood, with Rarity taking a break from the hustle and bustle of her design business. While she still designed clothes, she mostly sent out completed prototype garments and patterns to her second-in-command, Sassy Saddles, rather than go in to her boutiques to make the clothes herself. Going hands-off was hard for Rarity but she was so happy she did it as her children grew up and she and AJ had more kids. Azalea was always a well-dressed child, sporting her mother’s designs and getting to play dress-up all the time as a girl. The two of them remain close to this day and even when Azalea’s relationship with her family was strained, she always wrote her mother letters.

Applejack and Azalea when AJ was pregnant with the twins. Azalea was the eldest child, and while she resented her baby brother, Gingham, by the time Cider Sugar and Lavender Cream were born, she was pretty cool about it. AJ and Azalea are very similar people, with both women being stubborn and deeply passionate people. This leads them to butt heads pretty often since both are unstoppable forces AND immovable objects. AJ, despite being the one to carry and give birth to all the Rarijack kids, did not want to be a stay-at-home parent, and her workaholic nature got the better of her. She stayed home for a little while after each of her pregnancies, but she had no real interest or desire to stay home more than that, much to Rarity’s frustration.

While Granny Smith is no longer living, she was alive for a good portion of Azalea’s youth. The two of them did not get on well. Granny, a sour and unkind woman by the time Rarity and AJ got married, was not entirely fond of their firstborn. While she dandled the baby on her knee, and watched her from time-to-time, as Azalea grew up and her passions and desires strayed from the traditional Apple family way, Granny grew to dislike the girl. Granny, who always expected AJ’s first born to inherit the farm, was deeply disappointed when Azalea got her cutie mark in a decidedly unacceptable talent, floristry. Granny, who by this point was showing her age and beginning to show the signs of dementia, was often antagonistic towards Azalea, making unkind comments about her talent or loudly discussing her disappointment whenever she could. It did not help that it was around this time that Azalea began to show the signs of her depression, something she inherited from Rarity. The pressure and feelings of inadequacy began to weigh on the young girl.

by the time Granny Smith passed, Azalea’s depression had finally began to negatively affect her life, and her relationship with her mother. While Rarity, who was familiar with her daughter’s struggles was sympathetic and tried to help, AJ was entirely unhelpful. Applejack’s coping method for all her problems was to compartmentalize and never deal with it, and thought that this same coping method would help her eldest child. It did not. With Granny gone, Applejack was in charge of the farm, and expected Azalea to begin thinking about her own future as heir to the farm. When Azalea finally told her mother that she had no desire to inherit the farm and work there forever, Applejack was genuinely shocked. While she knew that her daughter’s talent was not in apple farming, she still expected her to take over one day. After the initial shock, she got angry. She couldn’t understand why Azalea didn’t want to work on the farm and then take it over. When Azalea expressed in no simple terms that she wanted to actually move away from home and experience new things, AJ was speechless. While Rarity gave her approval, AJ made it clear she did not. Azalea and her mother had a horrible fight one summer afternoon, where Applejack said that a real member of the apple family would stay on the farm and inherit it one day, and by morning Azalea had packed up her things and was gone. After the initial feelings of betrayal and anger, and after seeing the depth of Rarity’s sorrow at Azalea’s departure, and her anger at Applejack for hurting their failing their child, Applejack only felt ashamed. She does not even know where to begin to change, and how to reach out to the a daughter who grew up feeling that she was never going to be good enough for her mother.