I grew up in a close-knit family of five in the seventies and eighties to such popular shows that reflected our lives like The Brady Bunch, Who’s the Boss and Different Strokes. Long gone were the days of Leave it to Beaver and mothers wearing aprons around the house all day greeting their working husband each evening with a freshly cooked meal and a smile. The seventies and eighties meant more liberation for women and the family structure changed right along with it.
My mother was always my biggest advocate picking me up off the ground when I fell, wiping the tears off my checks when I’d been dumped by a boy and loving and supporting me to follow my dreams. She also taught me to stand up for what was right and wrong and to always be humble, not proud. I followed her teachings and once I left for college our friendship and love grew into maturity.
Everything was wonderful for the next 12 years until the moment when everything changed. I became a mother.
At the time, I had no idea that anything would ever change between us. I thought our bond would grow stronger once I was a mother too. But I was wrong. Instead, our relationship has become filled with tension, confusion and stress. It took me a long time to realize and understand that our relationship had permanently changed and even longer to understand the reason why.
After the birth of my first child, I chose to breastfed. I was formula fed. When I struggled through severe, debilitatating Post Partum Depression immediately after the birth of my son, my mother said “I told you so”. When my son wouldn’t sleep through the night and had such severe sleep problems at age two, my mother said that we were doing it all wrong. When my daughter was born, it got even worse.
All of my parenting seemed wrong according to my mom and wasn’t the way she did it.
As much as my mother loved my children and me, after two days of visiting us she was miserable, angry and unbearable. You see, my mom is a control freak and sadly it took me over 35 years to figure it out.
Her mother was the exact same way and kept a tight rein over her family of nine kids and a tail-between-the-legs husband. What ever she said or yelled was law. No “ifs”, “ands” or “buts” about it. However, my grandmother never finished high school nor learned to drive a car or write a check. She was completely dependent on my grandfather, yet was the matriarch of the house.
A generation later, my mother completed a year of college, fell in love and eloped. She was the black sheep of her large Catholic family. She worked a year and stayed home to raise three kids. She was incredibly active in our lives and the community. Then when she became an empty nester, that was that. My parents retired to Arizona and well, retired. My mom never went back to work or began a new life for herself.
Where the trouble begins is when my mother and I talk. She always strongly enforces her point of view and mine is always wrong. I’m not raising the kids how she would, I’m spending too much time advocating and traveling, and I’m working out too much. Everything I do seems to be criticized. And boy it hurts. It hurts bad and it enrages me. I’ve argued and fought with her over and over again to the point where she won’t speak with me. But I realize that this is not how I want to live my life. I’m a middle child, I never like to fight. Yet oftentimes nowadays I feel like I’m being pushed over the edge always having to justify my actions and behaviors, and essentially how I choose to live my life. And my life is different than hers. Yes, I stay at home with my children but also I have aspirations outside of the family life. I want a career.
Somehow I have to learn how to accept that my mother will never change. Nor will I. Life is short. We love each other. But it still hurts.
Have you ever had problems with your relationship with your mother?
This is an original post for World Moms Blog by thirdeyemom. To read more of her posts, click here.
Photo credit to the author.
Oh my, this is a post and a half, Nicole. Thanks so much for your honesty and open-ness, this can’t have been easy to write. The only thing my mother and I have really strongly disagreed on, since I became a mother, is toilet training. And *that’s* a long story!
Thanks Karyn! I wish it was that easy even if it is a “long” story! 🙂
BIG HUGS, Nicole!!
I caught an Oprah Winfrey “Master Class” episode last year with Laird Hamilton. He talked about how he now has children and he still goes out and surfs the “dinosaur” waves of the ocean. He was asked if he’d calm down now since he has kids. His response was that it’s what he’s supposed to be doing. He wants to display the behavior to his kids to do what makes you alive.
You, my friend, are doing what makes you alive!!
Jen 🙂
Thanks Jen! Even though my mom thinks blogging and all my social good work is a waste of time and I should be spending it with my kids. Did she forget that I’m a stay at home mom? Thanks for this comment!
Dear Nicole, well done for tackling such an emotional and difficult topic.
I also want to thank you because my daughter is 17 and we have a wonderful, close and mutually supportive relationship, which I cherish above anything else in the world. I also can’t imagine it changing … but thanks for warning me about what not to do!!
I NEVER had a good relationship with my mother. In fact, when my son was around 2 years old she actually confessed what I’d always known. Her exact words were, “Now that you’re a mother you can understand. This love and bond you have with your son and I have with your brother and sister, I just never had with you.”
Is it better to have been loved and supported and then lose that closeness than never to have had it at all?
My grandmother was (to all intents and purposes) my actual mom (as she raised me for the first 5 years of my life). Even after my 22 years of marriage and having raised a son to adulthood, she constantly criticizes me for my lack of good housekeeping skills!
I also used to feel a lot like you do, and I also suffered with Depression … then something changed. I stopped taking what she said to heart! I finally understood that what I took as criticism was just her trying to show me she loved me in the only way she knew how! Now I just let her talk and agree with her … then go on and do what I want to do anyway!
With my actual mother, we now have a perfectly pleasant relationship. When I fully accepted that she WOULD NOT EVER change, and stopped trying to MAKE HER love me, things just improved tremendously! I DO actually love both her and my gran a lot, and I tell them so every chance I get. Everything else just doesn’t matter to me any more … and I’m A LOT happier because of it!!
The situation hasn’t really changed, the only thing that changed is how I now CHOOSE (thanks Susie!) to feel and react to what they say and do!
I’m sending you love and best wishes, Nicole. I just KNOW things will get better between you and your mom too!
Thanks Simona! Yes I think you are so right. It is hard to let her say all these criticisms to me but she is who she is. I’ve just got to not let it bug me and we will be much happier. 🙂
Oh, how I can relate to this so very much! Your Mom actually sounds lost. When you are a stay at home Mom and that is all you identify with, that is what you become, that identity becomes all encompassing. When you became a Mom, her identity shifted, she was no longer a Mother, but a grandmother. By you choosing a different path, in her eyes, you have rejected her choices and her beliefs. It sounds crazy, but I think in many ways she is envious of your aspirations.
Thanks for your comment! I don’t know exactly why she is the way she is. She also does it to my sister too. She thinks I spend way to much time blogging and doing things for me and that I should just be a stay at home mom. But I am. I just do both. That she doesn’t understand. Oh well.
I fought with my mom, well, as long as I can remember.
My parents weren’t very supportive mentally.
These days I think that the scale of our love and respect depends on the distance between us. The bigger the distance the bigger the love and respect.
Still, when I got married my mom wasn’t happy that I do not work and that I don’t look for job. Then I got pregnant and No.1 came along and she still was poking with questions what do I want to do with my life… she said: “stay at home? pff…”
Now when I have two kids and talk to her about my plans of getting a job she asks: “Are you crazy? What you gonna do with kids?”
Go figure!!!
So funny! Sounds like my mom. I think she would have disowned me (well not totally but I never would have heard the end of it ) if I worked. It makes no sense at all! I went to college and worked hard until that first child. Now I’m starting a new path and she doesn’t understand. It is frustrating but she never seemed to find a new path once the kids left home.
This is like group therapy! I love it! Nicole, Travel Lady seems to have hit the nail on the head, that makes so much sense! I have to say I was in tears reading this, it breaks my heart, your mom should tell you how proud she is of you (I am sure she is deep inside) and love and support you no matter what, the rest of the world is out there for critiques, and we all have to face plenty of judgement in general, but your mother should be the safe place where no matter what, she just thinks you are wonderful. My own mom passed away before I became a mother myself, and I never needed her more.
Yes she is a complicated women! SHe is like this to my sister too. Just always making comments that hurt. I know she loves me and is proud but if I’m not living my life how she thinks I should, then thats a problem. She thinks I’m selfish and insane to be going to India. SHe thinks I spend way too much time on my blog. What she fails to remember is that I am a stay at home mom! She never found a new path after we left for college. I think that is the biggest problem. Oh well. We’ll work it out. I just needed to vent! 🙂
Phew! I know that was hard to write. My issues with my own mother are numerous. Surprisingly, the only thing we’ve been able to agree on in the last 31 years is how I’m raising my son. So, she surprised me there!
For a laundry list of reasons, though, she isn’t really a part of my life and it took me a long time (and many thousands of dollars and years of therapy) to be able to make that decision. It hurt then, it hurts now, and even though I know it’s the best thing for me and my own sanity, I don’t think it will ever stop hurting.
I think the hardest part is letting go of expectations and accepting that they will not change. Easy to say, really hard to do, and almost impossible to live with.
Hang in there! xoxo