Do you (adults) have a difficult/disappointing relationship with your mother?

Parent Cafe Parent Cafe
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<p>Cheers, I assume that you are addressing my post since you referenced belt buckles a couple of times. I did not state that any poster here slapped me, figuratively, with a belt buckle. I did say that I felt slapped in the face by the admonition in a follow-up post, and that I was reminded by this thread of the physical and emotional abuse that I endured for many years. I do not know the poster or his/her life history, and I did not judge the poster. I did, however, feel judged and found lacking because I clearly do not continue to interact with my own mother in the manner preferred by the poster. It would not surprise me if some others feel that way as well. </p>

<p>This is what I was reacting to:
"How you deal with a difficult mother is to be patient and kind and give as much as you can and then politely say," I have to go now mom. I love you. Thank you for this conversation. It made my day! I really appreciate you so much." And if you lied, so what. Move on. Buy a nice nail polish or lipstick.But also buy her a funny or silly card and send it to her. You will know you did the right thing. You will sleep well and feel proud of yourself. Nothing is to be accomplished by arguments.</p>

<p>This is my opinion of the overwhelming number of negative posts here concerning mothers . Your mother is the one who gave you life. She is not perfect. She deserves a certain amount of respect and consideration just because she was your mother."</p>

<p>My mother made it clear that the only reason she gave me life was because she felt that she had no other choice. In addition, after being forcibly raped at 13, I attempted suicide. When my mother found out, she beat me. According to her, the rape was my fault and I was going to ___ for the suicide attempt. I spent decades trying to find a way to win her love and failed. But I still tried for my father's sake, and at the end of his life she treated him horribly. That killed whatever shred of feeling I had left. I do not treat her badly, nor do I wish her any harm. I've tried to intervene on her behalf to get her the care that she now needs, but I'm not the child with Power of Attorney. She has continued to lie about me to my siblings and others, and some of them choose to believe her. At some point, we have to consider our own sanity and the well-being of our own families. My husband and children suffered because of the time and energy my mother drained from me, all of which never amounted to any good. </p>

<p>I apologize for personalizing BHG's reply. It was surely not directed at me personally, and I should not have reacted as if it was. Perhaps he or she does empathize with those who related their childhood abuse, but I didn't see that in the post.</p>

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<p>I had an abusive father but was fortunate to have a lovely mother. She became emotionally absent from us when I was 8 due to becoming schizophrenic. I left home, and in fact the country, when I was 18..this helped. My mother passed away 20 years ago and I miss her terribly, even though her medication meant she was emotionally flat for a large part of my life. I speak to my father on the phone fairly often...and when he tells me he loves me, I lie and tell him I love him too...but at age 50 I cry far too often when I look at pictures of the 8 year old child who should never have had to go through what she did.</p>

<p>I am happy and immeasurably thankful my children have had the happy childhood I saw on tv.</p>

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<p>Robi. My skin is crawling. Jesus. I feel for you. You sure sound OK for having gone through all that.</p>

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<p>Berurah, thank you. It's silly of me, but even now it helps to have someone affirm that I did not deserve to be treated that way.</p>

<p>I think there are many walking wounded who successfully hide their pain. Most of the folks I know who feel a void in their lives lost a parent due to mental or physical illness, divorce due to spousal abuse, or other tough circumstances. I am impressed with how they've overcome their loss and created wonderful lives with their spouses and children. </p>

<p>Alumother, I'm more "OK" than I used to be, but not as much as I hope to be.
I am determined to make the next 50 years a lot happier than the first 50. I faked it for a long time, largely because of my children, but lately I'm finding it easier to really feel it.</p>

<p>I do want to offer thanks for my MIL. Sadly, dementia has recently taken its toll on her. She had a hard life, as far as material things, but she radiated love and nothing really mattered to her except her family's happiness. When I became frustrated with my children, I'd ask myself how MIL would respond and that made all the difference.</p>

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<p>Robi:
I got the same feeling about BHG's first post...he/she was more empathetic in subsequent posts. Had I gone through what you have been through, I don't think I would have been as polite as you were in your response. It was not offering an opinion as one poster surmised...it was being judgemental and glib. This is such a personal topic and there are a lot of damaged psyches...none of us are qualified to say how anyone should have handled their experience.</p>

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<p>Hey! All I did was post a comment on a forum.I skim the posts, frequently not reading everything. I didn't know ABUSE was involved. Look, I don't know anyone here.All I did was make a comment not an attack. Look I DON'T EVEN READ HALF THE POSTS ON ANY THREAD.Geesh.</p>

<p>In fact, I'm really sorry some people have these horrible , horrendous experiences with family. I really really am. However, I never had something THAT bad happen to me and I am therefore charitable towards family and their bad days, hectic lives, misinterpreted words, etc, etc.
Let me tell you, when my mother and father died (not at the same time) they suffered.And they were nasty and b------ and cranky and said nasty things to me and had unrealistic expectations and it was a terrible and trying time for me. So, the advice I offered was in relation to THAT. I wish to high heaven you never have to experience the suffering of your dying parent.</p>

<p>And let me tell ya, I'm STILL not going to read all the posts on any thread.That'
s how I am here.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
even now it helps to have someone affirm that I did not deserve to be treated that way

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Robi, you most certainly did not deserve to be treated that way.</p>

108

<p>Sjmom asked, a few pages ago, that we try and see ourselves as our kids do, and suggested we might not look so great. That is a good idea. We boomers certainly have made parenting mistakes, though generally not the same ones our parents made; we were trying pretty hard to avoid those;)</p>

<p>One thing I notice is that I was brought up to be afraid of my parents, and my mother can still really throw (frighten) me. Because of that I often keep quiet when perhaps I should stand up for myself. I have raised my daughter to be strong and assertive, and she has no problem telling me when I am getting on her nerves. Because of that, I think our relationship is healthier. </p>

<p>Sometimes I think we are the "low self-esteem middle" between our parents and our kids. An author I read several years ago, I think it was Fred Leebron, wrote something to the effect that we baby boomers "were raised as second-class citizens and we are determined to be second-class citizens to our kids." Yikes.</p>

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<p>Wow,what a lot of pain. To the original poster, if you're still a child at home, tough it out as best you can through high school, then get out at 18, go to college (on loans if necessary) and minimize the 'mother' time thereafter. Once a person is on their own, the mother/child relationship can improve if for no other reason than the fact that you can get up and leave. You can establish the amount of intimacy that makes sense to you.</p>

<p>My mother was impossible (mental illness), and often still is. I can really empathize with those of you who have had so much to overcome. My Dad (who has disappointed us with his own issues) and I once fought her to the floor (she had a knife). Not pretty, not something to share with others. Lots of shame. Fortunately my friend's mother was a wonderful woman who died much too young, and I got to see what 'normal' looked like. There and on TV.</p>

<p>I once took a class where the teacher read a script in which we were asked to visualize our great grandmothers holding our grandmothers as infants. We were asked to visualize ourselves as our great grandmother, to stare into the baby's eyes and send love. Then we were asked to switch perspective, be the babe in arms, stare into our great grandmother's eyes, feel love and her loving touch, etc. This process went from great grandmother to grandmother to mother to finally us as babies in our mother's arms. This was unbelievably powerful. By the end of the exercise there wasn't a dry eye in the room, judging by the steady sound of the teacher walking around the room pulling tissues out of the box.</p>

<p>Hugs to you all.</p>

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<p>BHG -- I could tell that you never experienced the types of abuse that some of us have, of course. And your advice is very good for dealing with regular people. Yes, illness can cause personality changes. I saw that with my Grampa. He was a great man, very loving, and very loved, but he became impatient and irritable, and finally demented before his death. It was sad. I wish my kids could have known my Grampa when he was younger, I have such good memories. Because of who he was before he became ill, no one reacted to his decline in anything but a loving way. He's been gone for awhile, but I cherish my memories of growing up in his home. And I would never have had that experience had my mother and step mom been different -- that's the silver lining in my case. I was lucky, lucky, lucky to have the grandparents I did.</p>

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<p>Robi...you are one of those survivors. You have risen above those horrible experiences and given your family joy and happiness. Cyber hugs to you.</p>

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<p>I am so very sorry for the horrific pain that many of you have experienced- emotional and physical.</p>

<p>In my own case, I witnessed a truly narcissistic and very cold maternal grandmother treat my mother much like what some of you have described. I and my five younger siblings were afraid of my grandmother, and hated her cruel behavior, dreading her visits.</p>

<p>Remarkably, my mother not only survived this treatment, but wound up lovingly caring for her mother for fifteen years in my childhood home as my grandmother slipped into the debilitating stages of Alzheimer's disease. I have very vivid memories of every stage up until the end, when my mother held her in her arms when she died at home. I was in med school at the time, and that experience has helped shaped my skills as a physician. My mother has always been my hero and role moldel.</p>

<p>Someone asked how we prevent becoming self-absorbed as we get older. I know how, because my mother is the best example of this that I have ever seen. Continue to do for others.
She is eighty now with a number of health problems, but she teaches prisoners to read, helps run a soup kitchen in the inner city, volunteers in an inner city hospital as a family liason for ICU patients, serves on the hospital's ethics committee, is a Eucharistic minister, cleans the church weekly, and runs a religious education program- and the list actually goes on.</p>

<p>I am so very blessed to have her, that reading these posts made me angry at the mothers some of you survived. I sincerely hope that the scars those women caused continue to heal. My mother, as are many of you, is a living example that it can be done.</p>

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<p>some interesting reflections on mothers in this week's Mother's Day edition of postsecret: <a href="http://postsecret.blogspot.com/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://postsecret.blogspot.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>One of the saddest things is when your parent , in their morbidly old, feeble and demented state, change personality. It's so upsetting. Within the law, there is nothing you can do. Nothing. So you (I) went to tremendous lengths to comply and pacify and do, and do, ........all the while taking grief, belligerance, listening to tirades against other family members, life stories, crankiness and depression. And that's it.They won't take your advice. They love their muck and mire and the fact they have their grip on you because they are hanging an estate over your head. And they are miserable. I stopped at washing my mother. And in return, after being furious she could not boss me further after over 25 years of me self sacrificing for her, she left her ENTIRE estate to my brother because "he was a failure, (divorced at 55) and taken to the cleaners by x wife. " Meanwhile, said brother never did a thing for her, feeding her a line of dismay and woe, and was given the ENTIRE estate. </p>

<p>They are fragile mentally when very old. They believe stories and get confused easily. They make unwise decisions and do it because they just don't give a darn because they are dying and the rest of the world be darnned.They just don't care and don't care who they hurt.And meanwhile, you , the caretaker, gets depressed and nervous and upset. Just from dealing with it all.</p>

<p>NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED.</p>

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<p>I have started a comment on this one so many times but had to stop - WAY too hard for me. I've very recently started reading "Children of the Self Absorbed" and the raw emotions I feel as I see myself so perfectly described there is overwhelming. My childhood was not as hard as some of yours though; many of you have overcome a lot of nasty stuff and my hat is off to you.</p>

<p>What was it about so many of the moms of us baby boomers that made them so "difficult" and "un-motherly"? Oh, on the surface it was very important that our little family look just right. But inside the house - watch out. That was a different story. Not much physical harm (though my mom had a fast hand on occasion, my dad preferred the belt) but the emotional scars are very deep. </p>

<p>As my own children reach young adulthood, I guess the emotions get a little edgy again as I see what it should have been like in my mind. Or at least how I wish it could have been. Currently I have a very superficial relationship with my parents. To this day they continue to find ways to inflict their own special kind of hurt. If it doesn't serve their interests, they really aren't interested in what is going on in our lives. Okay, that's as far as I can go without spiraling to a place I really just don't want to go.</p>

<p>I take heart in knowing I have worked very hard to do better by my children. I don't always get it right, but I know how to apologize and ask for forgiveness when I think I've messed up or over reacted. They know they are loved unconditionally. </p>

<p>Baby steps forward. I've been holding a lot in for a lot of years.</p>

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<p>Dying often means a self-absorbed retreat.</p>

<p>As Doris Lessing has so carefully delineated, boomers were raised by the children of World War II. Our parents couldn't be as attentive as we are. For one thing, their frame of reference was overwhelmed by the horrors of the war, the horrors of the holocaust and the shadow of the depression.</p>

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<p>I just want to make the point I always loved my parents. I always gave and did the right thing. But in the morbid elderly something new takes hold of them.I think it is the brain in decline.</p>

<p>My mother was depressed. She would not tell the doctor she visited regularly she was depressed. I didn't know how bad it was, in fact I didn't think she was depressed. While she was dying she half heartedly tried to commit suicide by slashing her wrist, just a scratch, nothing at all.In the hospital the psychiatrist prescribed medicine to lighten her mood. She would not take it.Although looking frail and ill she was sharp as a tack, sometimes, and a good talker.I think she enjoyed arguing with the doctor about the medicine. I think the reason she would not take the medicine was becasue she wanted to maintain control. If a patient refuses to take their medicine there is nothing anyone can do. I remember approaching the doctor in the hall and saying that my mother is depressed, her behavior is bizarre and not as it usually is, she is acting differently and she won't take the medicine. I remember he just looked at me and srugged his shoulders. </p>

<p>I remember reading a book once describing the fact that in the Middle Ages there became the concept, along with chivalry and courtly love, the concept of dying the good death. Death in battle was a good death. And that it was considered bad form to not put your house in order or die with impatience, anger or loss of dignity. Well, my parents obviously were not familiar with this concept! They did not die a "good death"!</p>

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<p>You know, both my parents were brought up by servants. My father by many servants, my mother by a cook and a nanny. So they didn't have good parenting models. But they had resources, intellectual and physical resources. And somehow from those resources, they created emotional resources in themselves to allow themselves to be not bad parents. Don't get me wrong. My psychologist brother can point out every shaming conditional love moment with my father, and every too needy moment with my mom. But still, they did OK. </p>

<p>I try to separate who my parents are as people - and what kind of job they did as parents. In my case, I guess I am grateful because they did their best, given their backgrounds, to be the best parents they could be. It was a real goal of theirs - beyond just their own selfish needs - especially my mom. </p>

<p>I often wonder if my parents would have been much worse parents had we not lived with the resources they had. But for now, despite the fact that my parents have been divorced for 25 years, the family seems to have worked. We four kids still spend Christmases and 4th of Julys and Thanksgivings with one or the other parent and look at it as a good thing. Of course, we are always REALLY glad to have our siblings there to act as buffers.</p>

<p>In fact my mother will complain that when we all come down together she doesn't get time with any one of us. Well, yeah:). </p>

<p>So if I feel my parents failed here or there, well, um, I am sure my kids will feel I failed here or there. That my kids may not love me or look up to me as much as I wish they would. But I am hopeful that they will love me and look up to me enough. Like I hope I am a good enough parent.</p>

<p>I think the world of good-enough parenting is completely different from the world of non-good-enough.</p>

<p>And in the world of good-enough parenting, I look towards the next 10-20 years and I realize that my parents, aged now 74 and 76, will probably die. And I am very sad for that. And glad that they have lived as long as they have lived, reading over what you all have written here. Thank you for sharing. Makes me remember again to be good to my mom and dad. At least good enough:).</p>

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<p>We had a classic moment with my mother yesterday at D's graduation from high school as a valedictorian. </p>

<p>As we were standing in the traditional graduate-between-the-parents pose, my mother held up the camera and said to my husband, "Could you try not to look like you're standing in front of a firing squad?"
.
.
.
I smiled a little more and thought of this thread.</p>

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<p>Good one, Mary. </p>

<p>I've made a mental list of what not to do as a MIL and grandparent....</p>