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My mother and I were just not compatible personality-wise. She might have been a great mother to someone else and I might have had a great relationship with a different mother, who knows. You can pick your friends but you can't pick your relatives. As for mothers in general, and putting aside mental issues, many non-maternal women were forced into motherhood because of societal or family pressure, or lack of legal abortion. The idea that it's just fine for a woman to remain child free is fairly recent and prior to that, it was very difficult to veer from the norm. So even women who didn't want kids didn't have much choice in the matter and many of them probably did their duty, but not much else.
I experienced with complete displeasure a foster mother who was extreme. Her kids she favored one daughter and actually showed nurturing skills. For her other two bio kids and the four of us foster kids,she gave exemplary distain and underlying methodical antics (gaslighting) a common occurrence. She didn't wince at her eldest son (13) being beaten by his marine step dad. I still have trouble with that memory. Maybe that explains how little regard I have for adults who thrash their kids and say they turned out fine. Most of us who witnessed such terror rarely could justify the action.
This lady though,endured a traumatic event when she was 19. So to her anything milder then what she endured was considered ok. She never did get help. And our foster system doesn't vet foster parents ...so long as they got a bed for the kid...the check is cut.
I wouldn't say my mom was abusive, but she certainly wasn't emotionally supportive or nurturing or loving, at least in the traditional sense. We're not estranged or anything, but I'm not particularly close or affectionate with her.
The idea that women are naturally more nurturing and kind, is a false one. They are not that way, any more than men are. My mother had a diagnosed personality disorder. She could be evil and cunning.
It's funny, women are by default viewed as being loving and nurturing, especially mothers to their children, but certainly not all of them are. My mother was the antithesis of it and it really caused many issues. I have even been in therapy for it, and rarely speak to her.
My mother had many good traits. She imbued in me a love of learning, concern for the less fortunate, etiquette, literature, and so much more.
She was beautiful and accomplished for a woman of her generation.
However, she probably should not have had children. She didn't like the suburbs, and was angry that she gave up her career for marriage and children.
She was not terribly affectionate. Sometimes remote or cold. I can't say that she was emotionally nurturing.
My mother died when I was in my early 20s. With all of her flaws, I wish that had not happened.
She was very cordial towards guests and outsiders, who all thought she was warm and wonderful.
I think all of us who did not have wonderful Parents, both Mother and/or Dad have suffered from
how we were treated.
Looking back I don't think my Mother had any idea of how to be a Mother at all. I do know that her Mother died when she was 16 but she never went in to detail. I was the oldest so I got all the
trials and errors.
My Father came from a family of 12 kids. He was farmed out to neighbors tobacco fields, along with his sister when they were kids. His life turned him in to a man who hated women because of his Mother. Why they got married and had kids I don't understand.
Me, I decided never to have kids early on because we end up treating our own children how we were treated. I refused to let that happen and I have never regretted it.
It's sad how much damage our family can do to us....whether they realize it or not.
Yes ,my mom was a brilliant artist but suffered greatly from mental illness. With my therapist help, I broke off from talking to her about 10 years before her death . I hated to do it but my health had started to suffer . I have her ashes here with me as my sister refuses to have any . No winners in our case for sure .
My mother was never nurtured by her mother and didn't have a clue what a mother was supposed to be like, so she was also non-nurturing. She never wanted kids. I was an accident and so were my brothers. After that, the pill came along and she always says she wished it had come along four years earlier.
We kids raised ourselves. She just sat back and watched. I remember being upset once and saying I wished she had made me wear my retainer when I was 15. She said when I was 15, no one could tell me what to do because I thought I knew everything, so why should she have taken the trouble to fight with me? I said all 15-year-olds think they know everything and it was her job to make me understand I didn't. She had absolutely no idea what I was talking about because the idea of being involved in her kids' lives was something she never thought about doing.
My mother did the best she could with her resources at the time. I’m not too close with her now, when I look at the overall big picture of how she raised. Forced religious childhood indoctrination, buying idiotic things she couldn’t afford on credit, charging me rent while I was awaiting to enlist in the Air Force, using my old room for storage as soon as I left, refusing to clean it once I arrived, calling up everyone for a family dinner to celebrate me visiting then fronting me and only me with the bill, etc.
I do believe she loved me and for the most part did her best. But the forced religious indoctrination of always going to church every Sunday still bothers me, this wasn’t once or twice it was years. She did apologize but it was only after I confronted her about it.
I was powerless living under her. Now that I’ve lived on my own since moving out 8 years ago, I have my power back. Maybe one day I’ll be on good speaking terms with her again.
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