I planned four blog posts in my head from yesterday to this morning… but right now I feel too lost to start any of them.
So today I have a question: What is your relationship with your mother like?
I’m opening anonymous comments for this one, because I can understand the desire to speak anonymously about this particular topic.
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My relationship with my mom has come a long way in the past few years. We agree on one thing. As long as we are not in close proximity, we get along great. Put us in the same room and we’re lucky to not be full-on catfighting within the hour.
But she’s also my confidant. I can tell her anything. She’s always encouraged communication no matter what’s going on. We have different views and are both willing to listen to the other’s point of view. Until we feel we are not being listened to or valued. Then we yell. Hence the catfighting.
Overall it could be worse. It could be better. But it is what it is and I am grateful I have a mom here. My mom lost her mom when she was 9 so she had to grow up without that role model. Considering, she’s done pretty well.
My mother and I have a relationship fraught with resentment, disappointment and misunderstanding. She expected me to be very driven, motivated and high achieving. Her family worships education. I turned out to be creative instead of driven, into entertaining people with humor instead of crunching books, and not really caring about social conventions & reputation. We get along for about 3 days a year, and beyond that, it’s always uncomfortable.
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My mom….she and I feel, at times, we’ve lived other lives together. Like past life sisters.
Which means, we make good friends.
But my childhood is littered with memories of a depressed, sad mom that I wanted so badly to save. I wanted so badly to help and more often than not I would find myself trying to be her “friend” as a child and not being able to achieve that role and it hurt. It was confusing when I was younger, feeling more like a friend to my mom than her little girl while the little girl in me needed that motherly figure.
She was my mom and I was her child, and that was all we could be even though that relationship never fit us, like a shoe that was too big.
But now that I’m officially a mother myself and an adult, we are able to have that friendship that we were struggling to comprehend when I was younger.
There are still moments when I want her to be my “mommy” and she tries. But we’re beyond that. She’s always needed a best friend and would share with me information that a daughter didn’t need to know. I know too much now to be just a daughter.
I love my mom and I know she loves me. But our relationship, though genetically is as a mother and daughter, works better when we are just friends.
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Complicated.
Very close.
Maria´s last blog ..a not so no good terrible very bad day
Complex. I learned a long time ago that my mother isn’t going to morph into a person that meets my expectations. Thus I have boundaries with her even though we live in the same house. I try to make sure that she’s mom and grandma (to my boys) with grandma being the primary relationship. She’s not really my “friend” though we can and do get along. She’s my mom and when I’m looking for a certain perspective I seek her advise. I’m her daughter so I’m certain I drive her to distraction with my “inability” to meld my way into her way.
Boundaries are their for both our protection. To much in my business leads to resentment on my part. To much in her business leads to her resenting our disruptive presence in the house. She likes her space and I respect that. I like my decisions versus the ones she’d make for me. So far so good….most days. There are still those days that I’d like to wring her neck and I *know* she has days like that with regard to me.
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I’m not going to be much help to you here. My mom is my very best friend, next to J of course! But the way I look at is she’s been there 25 years, he’s been there 6.
(Hell even Shadow has put in 16 years! LOL)
She was great with me during childhood, we laughed a lot. She was a single mom and that was super stressful for her, there was so much I wanted to do and couldn’t because of money and time…there was never enough of either. The teenage years were not too bad…she’ll tell you that overall I was a good kid and she would not change a thing. I won’t say I didn’t make it tough because I did things that let’s just say I’d never want my own (if I ever have) teenage daughter to do. But she was there, and even though we would fight we never stayed angry. I didn’t know it but at the time she was battling depression, work was becoming unbearable. Since then she’s seen a therapist, gotten on some medication, changed her work schedule, and reconnected with the love of her life (aside from me that is) and is all around much easier to deal with. There is nothing we can’t talk about (only in my life would my mom be excited to show me her new vibrator…lol) and we still laugh a lot. She’s very chill these days, never giving an opinion unless it’s asked for (which it always is. I run most things by my mom because I value her opinion so).
Truthfully, though I love my husband there are times where I miss the days when it was just her and I. Luckily she loves J and instead of just her and I against the world (black sheep of the family and all) it is now us three against the world.
From what I am gathering what I have is rare…and for that I am thankful. All I know is when she goes a part of me will too and if I ever have a daughter I hope she and I are as close as me and my mom are.
PS. And C I know your relationship with your mom is strained at best but I’m sure you, Cupcake, and Geeklet will be extra close and hopefully that will make up for the rest of the crud…
We’ve come a long, long way in the past 10 years. We’ve gone from broken home and abandonment to a real and caring relationship. We had to fix ourselves before we could reach out to each other. We’ve both had to learn a lot about forgiveness and letting go of resentment.
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Complex. Fraught. Frequently resentful but never, ever told.
I boil it down to the fact that she’s a teacher who’ll forever be stuck in being a teacher outside of school. And, sadly, she’s one of those teachers that are bullies when they don’t really get what they want.
It’s a bit of a sad affair, especially as I still have to wait another year to be able to vote — yet I’m already at the point where getting away from her is a wet dream.
And I think I’ll always hold a grudge against her over the way she treats my Dad. But hey ho. parents are always a luck-of-the-draw, lottery-esque affair.
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Mine is pretty good actually. Some days she bugs me, which is normal, but we are great friends. We’ve always been close and she understands me in ways that almost no one else does.
However I barely speak to my father and step-mother.
Issa´s last blog ..Not welcome anymore
I have no relationship with my mother. She chose alcohol over her children long ago. I grew up with a series of stepfathers, one who was abusive and spent most of my childhood either getting the crap beat out of me or being passed around to relatives or friends because she didn’t have the strength to fight her disease. I eventually went into foster care. One day, my mom told me she wanted me to come back home. I then went in front of a judge and told him that I wanted to stay in foster care until my mom quit drinking. She never did.
I spent much of my life feeling worthless because, really, if your own MOM doesn’t want you then you must be worthless right? Thank GOD for therapy. LOL
Sounds horrible, eh? Meh, don’t feel sorry for me. I made a choice to break this cycle. (Grandma was a drinker too.) I have a kick-ass husband and three kick-ass kids and they all know that I love them to bits and pieces. Oh, and I kick ass too, especially if I think someone even looks cross-eyed at one of my babies.
I take it back, you CAN feel sorry for me…but only because I’m home with a beautiful and teething baby boy who has Hand Foot and Mouth disease. LOL
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My mother and I…hum. I was adopted when I was about 1 so I was raised by my ‘mom’ but eventually I wanted to know the woman who birthed me and thus began that relationship. I was never close to the woman who raised me, she was my mom, but I walked away from her over a decade ago and I have not spoken to her since. (long story) The woman who birthed me and I became ‘friends’ and when she was just a distant part of my life we were great. Eventually I had children, allowed her to be their ‘grandmother’ and realized just exactly why this woman gave me up in the first place. She is self-centered and an alcoholic and I don’t want that in my life. We still talk, she still loves and is wonderful with her grandchildren, but we’ve lost a lot of the closeness we use to have. She has a big heart and I love her, but for all we are alike, we are so much more different.
~K
Kel´s last blog ..1st Day
My mom and I use to have a really strained relationship, especially during the teen years. As I’ve grown older our relationship has grown stronger. I don’t consider her my “best friend”, because there are some things that I just don’t feel comfortable talking to her about, but she and I are closer now than ever. Of course, I don’t have kids, and that may change things one day. LOL
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Honestly I adore my mother.
She gives me good advice. She’s there for me. She’s supportive. I love spending time with her. We’re not, like, confidantes or anything like that. She’s not one of those moms who’s your best friend, but she’s endlessly supportive and practical and constructively WHAT CAN WE DO TO MAKE THINGS BETTER. Since my youngest brother is 12, and she’s never not had kids in the house, she totally ‘gets’ kids and it makes her kind of the perfect grandmother. She’s my support system and I can’t imagine life without her.
I am endlessly grateful.
Sometimes I feel like everything I know, I know because of my mom: http://www.missdisgrace.com/2008/10/advice-from-my-mother.html
Miss Grace´s last blog ..So much it hurts.
so many mothers and daughters, so many stories. everyone here is so honest and brave to share! my mum is pretty cool, as cool as uncool mothers can be! i get my chocolate addiction and my organisational skills from her. the anal retentive control freak side of personality i also get from her, but i’ve toned it down over the years! my parents don’t live nearby but they always come stay with our girls when the hubs and i take overseas trips (not that it happens all that often!) and for that i’m very grateful. she’s an awesome grandmother too!
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My relationship with my mother is far from what I would ever want for my daughters & myself.
I walk on eggshells. She is controlling and wants to be needed. She makes passive aggressive comments and comments on my parenting. Really it’s a much longer and deeper story than that, but the one thing that hurt me the most was when I got pregnant at 19 and had my daughter at 20. I was back in college at night & working during the day. I would’ve had my BSN 5 years ago except my mother said “she was too busy” to watch my daughter 2 nights a week for me to do this while my boyfriend was in school with the electrical union. My mother never got to go to college so she was very negative and did not approve of me applying my senior year or considering student loans, etc.
Sometimes I think would just be happy to watch me struggle like she did. To show me how tough life can really be. It’s sad and I make sure each day that I am raising my daughters in a more positive & encouraging environment.
This is probably cliche, but I can definitely say that some of the things I deal with in life, from my self-esteem to the eating disorder I have worked through the bulk of my life, has roots that can be traced back to her. She’s not completely to blame, not that I want to blame her for anything, but there are traces there. Also, even at 41, there are moments when I am around her that I catch some kind of look or remark and I can be transformed to the 14 year old version of myself. It’s exhausting being around her sometimes. Overall, we have a guarded closeness.
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Isn’t that the mother of all questions? No pun intended, really.
Oh, it was so very compllicated. We loved each other, no questions. She was manic depressive, an attention seeker and a hypochondriac. I understand her childhood made her that way but couldn’t always cope with it.
She loved me unconditionally, but always needed that love validated. She drove me bonkers but I miss her.
She died 5 years ago under terrible circumstances and those intervening 5 years have let me view our relationship differently.
She never really understood who I was, or how being her daughter helped me become the stronger woman I am now, knowing how complex her early life had been. I wish I could tell her that.
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I’m SOOO tempted to not answer this question. But you asked, so I’ll try. It really depends on the day – there are days where the anger overwhelms me and I can barely stand to hear her voice. Other days I’m able to let that go and see her for who she is now, for who she tried to be, regardless of the fact that she failed.
I just take it on a day to day basis for now. And try to keep it at a somewhat surface level – nothing too deep. I’m not ready for that, and I might never be.
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I’m so sorry. I know what it’s like to feel lost. My mother happens to be one of the best things in my life – but of course, she battles some pretty serious health issues, so that’s a source of fear and sadness. I’ve said it before – everything that goes wrong with your mother will be another thing that you do right with your own daughters. That’s all you can really take away from the negative.
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It’s so hard to sort out the web of emotions surrounding a mother and daughter. I like FADKOG’s “guarded closeness.” That sums it up. I love my mom, I like spending time with her, but I don’t trust her entirely with my heart.
anymommy´s last blog ..Dear Entire World: I’m Sorry
We love each other and make each other crazy at the same time. I remember times when she was my best friend and I am glad that I like spending time with her. She loves that I let myself need her help sometimes. When I am frustrated with her I try to remember how I feel about my daughter and reverse engineer from there. It seems to help. No where near perfect, but under construction works for me.
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In the past, my mother has been a completely unreliable jerk. But lately, things have improved. I think being 600 miles away has really helped heal some wounds. When we see each other now, everyone is happy because we know that the reunions are short lived.
christy´s last blog ..Hmmmm?
I adore my mother, I feel so lucky to have her in my life. She cares about people in a way that you don’t see very often. But I do have a mother issue in my family, my mother in law. It’s raw, deep, and very complicated.
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