Mother Load
Mon Mar 19, 2007 at 11:53:12 AM PDT
Ok Ladies (and Gent..) piggybacking on the post regarding the new book Baby Love, got me thinking about mother/child relationships and how many differing ways we experience that.
My relationship with my Mom was very volatile when I was in my early teens owing to my feeling unprotected by her amongst the dysfuntion of my siblings (two older brothers) both of whom were into drugs and alcohol creating havoc in my family for years. My father also drank and created huge stress in our family as we never knew how his temper would be once he ingested alcohol. His temper was legendary and often he could be heard saying "I'm going to cloud up and rain all over you." That phrase sent chills up our spines.
My maternal grandmother began living with us after my grandfather died when I was about 6, and my Mom began working during that time. My father was unsuccessful in business which added to our walking on egg shells along with his drinking and general moodiness.
There were lots of reasons for me to have felt angry and I sure did. I wanted out of my house and finally left to go to boarding school as a junior in high school. After I graduated, I attended a vocational school and worked and couldn't wait to be on my own for good. In hindsight I'm often surprised to realize that I separated from my family around the age of 15 and didn't really have a relationship with my Mom again until I was in my 20's. I realize now that my move to California from Connecticut at age 22 was to get away from my family. I was still angry, but much of that anger was tamped down until something would let it bubble up -- often that would be alcohol. I didn't experience a full blown issue with alcohol, but during those years when I was still feeling the fallout from my childhood, I would experience the emotions from which I was trying to hide sometimes when I would drink.
I tried more than numerous times to explain how I felt to my Mom, how it was for me as the youngest child to grow up with such chaos in our family, hoping she would hear me and tell me she was sorry, that she understood finally. I think it wasn't in her to be able to accept the truth of my experience and so she would often discount it, or try to explain it all away with her own view of my childhood and our family. Finally I was able to accept that I would never receive the apology I yearned for and was able to come to terms with that and forge a loving relationship with my Mom in my later 20's until her death when I was 42.
Now that I am a mom, and step-mom, mother-in-law and grandmother, I try hard to listen and hear what is being said to me about other people's experiences including and especially within my own family. One of the most important lessons I learned from my relationship with my Mother was how much it hurts someone else to discount an experience that person has had even if my perception or understanding differs. I railed against my Mother trying to fix my problems or discount what my reality was, often coming up with solutions of her own. What I really wanted was for her to hear me and accept that my life was mine to figure out. I just wanted her to be there, love me as I was, that's all. I wanted to be seen, not made to feel invisible.
What have you learned from your own experiences with your Mom? How has it changed how you parent? What would you ask your Mom to do differently if you could? Do you think Moms and daughters have more issues to figure out than Moms and sons? Why?
