Are you close with your mum?

[SamanthaVimes]

I’m not particularly close with my DM. Not unfriendly but we don’t spend lots of time together and didn’t get on well when I was a teen.

I have 2 DC now and they’re only little but thinking about the future what have your DMs done to help support a close relationship?

Yes my DM is my very best friend. She is an inspiration to me and I only wish I was half the person she is, she is just a beautiful person. I am the only daughter of 4 siblings and she goes out her way to make us all feel equally loved but I know i am her favourite really! alongside all of her Grandkids who she would walk to the ends of the earth for.

Not very close, I feel like iv had a lot of resentment come to the surface over the past few years iv bottled up since childhood, my parents split when I was 10 and we lived with her, she drank a lot in those days and she is such a twisted person with drink. The things she would say to us and I always had to shield my younger brother. It's different now but those feelings have only came
To the surface in last few years. She has been great tho since iv my had my first child and iv seen a different side to her she completely adores him and I I think it's great.! I often wonder the same that I hope I have a great close relationship with my children and not parent the way I was

Yes, very close especially since Dad died 8 years ago. We speak at least once a day on the phone, every night we speak to say good night and I see her a couple of times a week.
I was so lucky to have a lovely childhood and reading posters’ experiences has only made me more appreciative of her. Money was tight growing up in the 70’s and 80’s and we never had much but we had enough.
Mum and Dad were devoted to each other and it was a happy home. We had home cooked meals altogether and many days out albeit done cheaply!
My home was a safe haven from the rest of the world and I have many warm memories of daily family life.
Mum is nearing 90 now and I’m constantly dreading the day I loose her. I honestly don’t know what I’ll do without her, in fact I’m filling up now!
I know I was lucky.

Not fantastically. We video chat once a week, and we see each other every couple of months. We live just over an hour apart, but I can't drive. I do wish we were closer, and I think she does too. Especially as my DD is her only DGD. But personality wise we're two very different people.

Yes. I’m close to my mum but we are very different.

I am. I adore my mum. She's great. She has been very present and endlessly patient and supportive, which meant that when I was a teenager/younger she probably bore the brunt of my emotional needs in quite a one-sided way. I don't know how she had the patience and energy but I'm very glad she did!

No relationship. I've just given up flogging a dead horse. The thought of meeting up fills me with dread.

No. We love each other very much but the relationship is difficult for many reasons. I wish it could be different. She's very old and very deaf now, so it's not as easy as it could be. Too much water under the bridge to fully repair things, but we rub along reasonably well.

Yes extremely close, I live abroad now but we chat nearly everyday. I see her probably once a month ....she visits or I go back to the UK. I'm an only child with no father figure, so it was just the two of us . Her only negative thing is, she's a control freak - she doesn't believe anyone can do any organising so has to be involved in everything, especially travel arrangements...but she knows this and we joke about it

Reading a lot of these posts makes me wonder whether these mums had the freedom to be the mothers they actually wanted to be to you all. Times were different in the 60s and 70s and to a large extent the family dynamic was still governed by the father (if he was present). Emancipation has come a long way since then and we're all very lucky these days to have the choice and freedom to be the Mums that we actually want to be to our children.

It wouldn’t have been the fathers governing my mum or grandmothers. They were incredibly strong forceful women. Child rearing firmly left to the women.

however, the judgement from other mums around them, even their own. MASSIVE.

To be fair to my mother, the time I was a child was a very difficult one due to illnesses, unemployment, siblings close together etc. I imagine she did not enjoy being a SAHM.
She also did not have a close relationship with her own mother Afaik and, like many of her generation was sent to boarding school at the age of 11 or 12.
But, I do not like being criticized, given the silent treatment etc regardless of the fundamental reason. My mother has the time and money now to go to counseling if she so wishes.
She doesn't, I don't think. She says it's just the way she is. So I don't want to be around someone like that

I'm not close to mine at all. Both she and my father were emotionally absent when I was very small. In different ways, they both pushed their anxieties onto me.

She was also not there for me when I was sexually assaulted as a teenager. I got zero emotional support and she made out that it was my fault.

These days we're... coolly cordial, I suppose you'd call it. I see her once a year.

We are incredibly close, I love her more than anything in this world apart from my daughter. We speak at least once per day and sometimes more (she lives in another country).

She thinks we’re close but we’re not. I don’t really like her very much to be honest. She’s a good grandparent though and my kids adore her.

I am NC with mine, and have been for many years.
She wasn’t maternal at all (although claims to everyone that she is). She was often spiteful, cold, controlling, manipulative, played favourites with me and my siblings, offered zero emotional support and had a horrible temper. She treated me like I owed her something for daring to be born, but didn’t really see her role as my parent at all. She seemed to think because she cooked me food and begrudgingly bought me clothes that she was an amazing mother. She did nothing to foster a good relationship with me at all. Even now when she occasionally attempts contact the primary aim is to say something horrible or to blame me for everything that she’s done wrong.

I honestly don't know how to describe the relationship I have with my DM. It's a lot better now

I'm NC with mine, she's a vicious narcissist.

...than it was. And there is unshakeable loyalty and support if the shit hits the fan. But it's not a hallmark mum and daughter relationship. It is what it is.

No, I ceased contact with her several years ago and have (sadly, in a way) found that it has been the best thing I could have done for my emotional wellbeing, I wish I had done it years ago.

That isn't to say I don't regularly wish I had a mother figure in my life, or don't desperately miss the idea of one, it just can't be her because she is not able to offer that and every time I have tried to give the relationship another go she exhibits exactly the same behaviours that caused the problem in the first place - she cannot help herself and will never change.

She was incredibly emotionally abusive when I was a child, often told me to kill myself or would threaten to kill herself( and subsequently storm out saying she was off to do it and not come home for hours before eventually coming home pretending nothing at all had happened and making fun and light of the fact I had been sat for hours by the front door crying as if that made me stupid. At other times she seemed to be a wonderful mum but it was never possible to know how she'd be at any given day or moment. Certainly in retrospect what went on was very very wrong and not a loving or healthy environment at all. It probably sounds ridiculous to some but in many ways it is only since having that distance that I've realised how abnormal it all was.

If I try to start a diplomatic conversation about that kind of thing as an adult, as I have many times all I get is told that I am the abusive one for bringing that up, holding a grudge and/or I've made it up and am evil and awful to her (depending on the day, on others she will admit it). There is just no point trying, and so for me there is no option other than no contact and learning to accept I don't have the type of mother I would need or want available to me.

Didn't expect for that to be such a long reply, apologies, clearly needed to get it out! Sad for those in a similar boat who are not able to have that relationship, but happy for those who are fortunate enough to have a loving mum in their life - give her a squeeze!

Thankfully she has been dead for over 20 years. I went nc with her when I was pregnant with DD1 and never saw her again. Didn’t attend the funeral either. Toxic narcissist and emotional abuser.

@dontgobaconmyheart ah the "grudge"

I've heard that so many times when I tried to work things through with my mother calmly as an adult.
Waste of time.
History rewritten

Yes, I’m another one who has heard “the grudge”, to add to the list - I’m apparently cruel for feeling hurt by my mothers actions and have “a very vivid imagination” .

I really feel envious of people who have good mothers.

My mum and I have been close all our
lives and spoke on the phone daily from when I went to uni thirty years ago. She’s a huge part of my children lives and was always fun kind patient and just very likeable. All my friends used to envy us.

unfortunately she is definitely fading fast and I don’t think she will be around for many years - I honestly think she has a year left tops.

The fun and spark left her v suddenly through Illness and she’s had to live in with me. Our relationship has completely changed - I feel like a carer and now she’s a frail old dementy demanding lady. She’s not good company now and I really do miss how she was. But we’ve always done right by each other and that gives me a lot of comfort. And feeling completely adored all my life has made me a hugely confident person - I know when she goes I will survive.

My Mum genuinely cares about us, but she is an odd and challenging character in terms of the way she thinks about things and people. This isn't easy as we get talked at about all her issues, if we can get a word in edgeways she'll usually dismiss our way of thinking immediately. Consequently we don't see her that much and I have to admit I'm jealous when I see others out with their DMs seemingly having a good time.