If your mum died when you were a child or teen how was family life then?

[butterflysummer]

I am interested in hearing about other people’s experiences. For me, I found it just broke down completely. My dad met another woman, moved out and that really was the end to family life as I knew it.

It came as a shock as I’d really thought my dad loved me - more than my mum.

My experience is similar to theflesheatinggirl. My mum died when I was 10 in the 1980’s. My dad provided well for my brother and I well, didn’t really have any girlfriends until we left home (and even then only one long term one who he would never live with and his sole focus in life is helping us financially as much as he can) but there was very little in terms of emotional support. My mum was literally never mentioned again, which as an adult I find weird and heartbreaking in equal measures.

If you’d asked me in my 20’s and pre-children how I was about my mum dying when I was young I would have said fine and genuinely meant it as I can’t remember life with her. Now I have two daughters I can’t see how my 5 year old would forget me let alone a 10 year old and it breaks my heart for my childhood self. I see my dad more since I had children but we will never be close even though he might want that. He is pretty socially inept. But at the same time I empathise more with how difficult it must have been for him to work and look after us (even if my grandmothers did all the housekeeping and holiday care!).

MiriAmmerman I echo what has been said, and send you strength and love. Bereaved children today have many more options for support, partly in that the death of a parent is something more openly talked about and acknowledged, and partly because there are many organisations that can support your wife and child, like Winston's Wish. I am a Primary school teacher, and have seen first hand the wonderful work they do with young children. As a school we are much more involved too, talking to families and children, sharing memory boxes and special books, keeping a close eye on children and offering additional help in whatever form is needed. Not a single teacher mentioned my Mum's death. I came back to school and carried on as if nothing had happened. I'm very glad to say it's not like that now.

Terrible and at best abusive looking back. My mum died when I was 9 and my parent's had been separated for some time. Looking back I really struggled as I was thrown into a new family where my SM really had no interest in me and my DF did everything she said and did little to support and protect me.

I came from seeing all my mum's family regularly to never seeing them again! I cannot remember anything from my childhood with my mum. I think I shut all memory of her away as a coping mechanism and now remember nothing at all.

My mum was never mentioned after her death and as PPs say the wounds run deep although I have a lovely family unit now.

I had a closer relationship with my DF when he split from SM and although he has died now I love and miss him a lot.

My Mum died when I was 4. My dad remarried within 18 months to my lovely step mum. She’s been just like a mum to me and is a brilliant granny to my DC.

Judging by this thread, we were very lucky.

My mum died suddenly when I was 14, she was 38 and 8 months pregnant at the time, the baby also died, a little boy/brother. My dad was already married to my (first!) stepmum. It has affected my whole life and always will, there will always be something missing. I hold a lot of anger towards my dad and always have discussions with my DH about the things I would want him to do for our DC if god forbid something happened to me. The first thing being bereavement counselling. I never spoke to anyone and I think that was a major fuck up on his part. I have a lot of issues that I don’t see ever being resolved. I do have a happy life with my DH and DC though, I feel very lucky to have them.

My mum died when I was 2, dad remarried within 18 months and my stepmother proceeded to emotionally and physically abuse me until I left when I was 18. He never once defended me and she cut off all contact with my mothers family.
I still hate both of them and have as little to do as possible with either of them. When she dies I will be relieved. When he does I will be sad for his inability to overcome his grief and care for me.
My mother’s family finally traced me a few years ago (they’d been trying for a long time) and the unconditional love they have offered me has gone a long way to helping me to heal.

My husband is likely to die whilst our children are pre teen and tweens. This thread is so upsetting to hear your experiences. My focus whilst he’s still here is to build a framework so that the children are loved and protected when he’s no longer here. Our finances and home are secure, my job is secure, Our families are making sure they build strong bonds with the children, we constantly tell them how loved they are.

My biggest hope is that they can say “it was utterly shit and I’ll always miss my dad madly but my mum and the family did everything they could to give us love and security”.

My mother died when I was 13. My father had a serious life threatening illness and he died 5 years later. He adored my mother and never had another relationship with a woman. (He was a very handsome man). I feel as if I raised myself as he was often at death's door. He was lovely tho. My grandmother took care of me and she was like a little oak tree so reliable and very kind. My mother was 39 when she died and my dad was 47. I now can't remember much about her which is very sad, but I see her in my daughter who looks like her.

MiriAmm and Amaa

I am very, very sorry about your situations. I want to tell you that even though my mum died when I was a teen, I still feel her presence very strongly in everything I do. In fact, I think she has had the most influence on me in my life. There is a poem which has a line "I have only slipped away into the next room" which for me is true. I feel like my mother keeps me and my family safe. I feel that she gives me wisdom. I know that I subconsciously run things through my mind and compare it to what she would have done. It's like I have an invisible encyclopaedia that I refer to and pick out her wisdom.

My mother was very kind and compassionate but would defend us like a lioness. This is how I try and live my life. People tell me I am a very good mother.

I am a resilient, fearless person who appreciates life. Even in the next room she is still able to bestow gifts on me. Even though she went 30 years ago, the porcelain skin, dark hair and blue eyes are still a very clear picture in my mind.

Once my lovely adopted mother died when I was 11 the heart went out of the family. The 'feeling' of those years, looking back, was empty and cold.

My adoptive father tried his best at that point, but he's an authoritarian and emotionally very weak man unable to provide any guidance and only a tiny bit of support. Admittedly I was angry with him for mum dying, which is deeply irrational.

Then he married his second wife and that was that. I was actively unwanted instead of a responsibility he didn't know what to do with. I was moved into being a scapegoat that he wanted to think badly of, I think to assuage his own guilt. It was bloody awful. Someone took me in after 18 months (bless them) and we've had only a very faint relationship since. He's never met his second grandson.

I miss my mum bitterly, still. Her and her love and warmth. I don't think it will ever stop. I also miss her guidance in the teen years so much.

MiriAmmerman I'm so sorry.

You will leave an imprint yes, and that will stay with him lifelong. I've looked into this in a lot of depth and the love that a baby receives in the first months has a profound influence on them for the rest of their life. He'll never know it or be able to define it of course, but it will be there.

amaa has your husband thought of memory boxes / letters? I would give anything to know mum's thoughts as an adult. To have something left of her.

My mum died when I was 11 my dsis's 8 and almost 3. My dad took care of us and was always there for us even now that we are all adults with our own families and life's he is still very much looking out for us . He has never remarried and I can't ever remember him being in an other relationship. Personally I think he is the best Dad ever.

As a only child I think it was extra hard my mum died when I was a teen (my dad had passed away afew years before) 2 aunts on dads side & my mums family aren't in England I haven't seen any of them since her funeral as a teenager. Incredibly lonely is how I feel.

I'm watching this happen and would love to know how I can make things better.

DSis was a single parent and died from brain tumours earlier this year leaving two teenage children. She was ill for five years and during that time had almost a total personality change. She had early onset dementia, lack of mobility resulting in having to use a wheelchair, epilepsy, panic attacks and rages. So in real terms they lost their mother five years before she died. She was only mid 40s and before she was ill had her own business, mountain biked, skied, and was very sociable.

They live 200 miles away from me and I do try to see them every two weeks. They seem to be coping well but I'm not sure they are. Both live separately on their own. Shit situation.

what incredible and inspiring people you all are. thank you so much for sharing your stories, it really does help to put things into perspective; and as a mum, makes me want to cuddle my little girl and never let her go. I'm so sorry for your losses and the difficulties you faced after losing your parents.

My father dies last year when i was in my early thirties, and so I did not have to try and cope with loss and grief at a very young age, like so many of you. But I still feel such sadness that he is gone, and find myself thinking of him all the time and wishing I could talk to him. He missed meeting my daughter, his first grandchild, by only a few days though; and it always makes me feel so sad when I think about him never seeing how much she looks like him.

for all of you.

My mum died when I was 21, my siblings, 19,18 and 15.
Ot was absolutely awful. We haven't got over it still, 11 years on.
My dad was in another relationship before she died, but did try to help as best he could. We lived together from then onwards.
I miss her so much, she was a brilliant mum. Caring and so loving.
My sister still finds it difficult and has very high anxiety in social situations even though she has a very good job. And my brothers went off the rails without the guidance of a mother.

I feel angry that she died. Our home fell apart really. It wasn't a home again.

Oh gosh sometimes a thread on mumsnet really resonates with you, I lost my mum when I was 24, she was the glue that held our family together, always organising family get togethers, siblings live in different parts of UK and would always come to visit. Mum suddenly died in the March, 6 mths later dad was moving his new wife to be and 3 kids into our family home, I was still living at home, they were married by the 1st Christmas of losing mum. I moved out, Stepmum never once mentioned my mum, happily lived in my mums house with all my mums stuff. They moved eventually then dad had a short illness and died.

Only today, on a lovely day out with my DD 10 she wished we had a bigger family living close by, my siblings and I don’t get together, one just isn’t interested, lonely is the only way I can describe yet I have friends but it’s when friends are all with their families that I feel lonely, envious I suppose of the extended family they have around to share Christmas and special occasions. My Aunt is so good to me but I still feel like an outsider at family events. And now having children later in life, not by choice, it looks as if history could repeat and my children could have the loneliness I feel even though I’m happily married. Big hugs to all on here with similar experiences xxx

It's true about always feeling like an outsider, especially at family events.
Once mum died, we never felt like we belonged anywhere and always seemed to be looking into everything from the sidelines.

Dh lost his mum suddenly at 24. With 3 months his dad was in a relationship with the women he had an affair with 15 yrs previous!

My mum died when I was 12. I still had two older sisters living at home with me (big age gap) and my dad. He ended up drinking and I believe he was a functioning alcoholic. He never met anyone else but it would have been better if he had as he expected my two sisters and me to step up and do all the household stuff despite the fact he wasn’t working.

Totally lost contact with my mum’s family and I’m not sure why.

I always remember thinking the wrong parent has died and I stand by this. My dad was emotionally abusive and preferred to sink into self pity rather than work and put food on the table. My older sisters helped me with periods and the like. He was just rubbish. I used to fantasise about what my life would be like if my mum was alive and he had died.

Now I have a great partner and lovely DD - can’t believe how lucky I am. I’m also determined that if she is left with only one parent then she will be the number one priority. I often tell DP that is I was to die he has to ensure he gets support from my family to ensure she has everything she needs. He’s a very different character to my father but would need the input from women for advice about clothes, hair, periods etc.

There’s no doubt my mum’s death has left a deep scar.

I don't have experience of this myself but two friends of mine both lost their mum when young. I always hear stories of how awful the new Stepmum treated them and you can see how it still effects them now. How anyone can treat a young child so terrible when they've already lost their mum is beyond me.