Did anyone else's Mum not hug them when they were children?

[AjasLipstick]

So painful to ask this.

I know she loves me and did love me.

She had some sort of issue though. I remember one hug...one. I must have been about 8 or so and I was walking down the hallway one afternoon and she sort of stopped me halfway and hugged me awkwardly.

There weren't others. I remember longing for a hug. My Dad hugged me and my Nan did as well as one of my sisters. So I wasn';t completely neglected.

But why couldn't my Mum hug me? I don't remember her hugging my siblings either.

Now I live abroad and only speak to her every few days. I've started to tell her I love her. She's old and might not live that much longer. I feel such enormous pain though. At the child that I was...going through that. No Mum love. :(

I don't remember being hugged much, i do remember being loved tho. I'm not very huggy tho, i hug my kids constantly and my husband but beyond that I'm not keen - the idea of getting a massage from a stranger makes me feel physically sick. Some people don't hug because they're cold but some people show their love in other ways.

Neither of my parents were very huggy but I'm not either so I don't remember it being an issue. They showed love in other ways. I do hug my own kids quite a lot but that's for their benefit not mine really.

Neither of my parents were tactile in the slightest and neither am I. I had a very contented childhood and a very good relationship with them both (sadly my dad is dead but I am entirely secure that I was enormously loved by him). On the other hand, dh comes from a very emotionally expressive family and my children are all huggy. They are even huggy with my mum who has relaxed into it with them but it would, quite frankly, be weird if we were to start hugging and I wouldn't like it one bit. Again, I am very comfortable hugging my children and will do the socially required hugging of e.g. on meeting my ILs but otherwise ... it's ok. It's not something I need to know that my parents love(d) me.

The only physical contact i had with my parents after babyhood was being smacked or hit. Probably the same for many of my generation. If you had a generally good relationship with your parents and felt they were decent parents you probably wouldn't be bothered by it, but if you didn't it it was probably one more negative thing that didn't help

Mine wasn't a hugger but for some reason I don't think it bothered me. I wasn't a particularly demonstrative child. I quite like the fact that they respected this - unlike certain relatives who didn't respect my boundaries, and I actively disliked and avoided.

Gosh no... Not hugged at all by my mother. My father was more tactile but rarely home during normal waking hours as he was a workaholic. I was in great need of love and affection. I dreamt of being rescued by Prince Charming.

Dd is very tactile and cuddly like me. She’s 10. She snuggled up to me yesterday evening and said she hadn’t been with me all day. I have taught her even if we are arguing or dh and I are cross with her she can always have a hug. Love/ affection and discipline (I don’t like that word btw) are separated. It is important to reject the behaviour not the person.

InsomniacAnonymous
That is so sad. I felt the same before having therapy. I was planned. But my mother as an adult told me she so wanted a girl and then she got me. I didn’t take it as a compliment.

I read your comments and you are definitely valued here. ((Hugs))

Never ever -

I actually remember the last time I tried to hug her, at my Nans funeral when I was 13 - she pushed me away so hard I flew into the wall - was the last time I tried too

My mum can only ever hug me with one arm. It feels really awkward and half-hearted. When I asked her about it she said she finds hugging uncomfortable because she was never hugged as a child. She would certainly never say she loved me either although it is evident in all of her actions. I did used to find it upsetting and worry it meant she didn't love me when I was younger.

I'm 44 and do not ever recall being hugged or being told I was loved. I find it really awkward to hug or have any physical contact with my parents now.

I hug and tell my 9 year old that I love him every day. I don't want him to grow up the way I did.

Our whole family is like this. I'm trying not to replicate it with my DD but I find hugging and saying 'I love you' awkward.

My Mum didn't really hug us as children or say she loved us. I do know that she loves us as she is kind and thoughtful. I'm 46 so wondering if it's generational? In the 70s Mum was always seemingly busy doing 'housework' & never really paid us that much attention. For example in school hols she always had the car as Dad took bus to work - but we never really went anywhere in it.
I make a lot more effort with my own kids & hug them lots and tell them I love them. However I don't think I hug DH enough & I think this is learned behaviour from childhood as there wasn't any hugging going on in our home. So I'm working on that one!

My parents didn't hug and we don't say I love you as a family. Even before reading this thread I'd always vowed to be a lot more tactile with my kids and say 'love you' a lot more. I was with my friend in summer and she rung her DH and kids, the amount of times she said 'love you' in that convo to her kids was more than I ever remembered growing up. It's made me feel a bit sad reading this, I don't know whether or not I should start introducing hugs to my mum?!

My mum didn't hug me as a child either. But then, her mum didn't hug her. There weren't 'I love yous' either. It just wasn't the 'done thing'. But there was no doubt that Mum loved me, or that Gran loved her. It just emanated from them, it was in everything they did for us, every word of sympathy or advice. The care and concern for us. They showed they loved us daily so it never bothered me. Just because your mum didn't hug you, it certainly doesn't mean she didn't love you. Love can be shown in a myriad of ways. I'm sure if you look back to your childhood days, you'll see that your mum expressed her love in different ways.

As a teen I fell in with a very 'huggy' crowd (this was the late 60s/early 70s hippie era) and I found I liked the physical emotion of a hug, so I started hugging my mum, whether she liked it or not! And after a while, she found that she did like it! Our relationship didn't change and I didn't feel 'more loved' because she learnt to love a hug, it just added a dimension to it.

Our parents never hugged my brother or I as children, and don't as adults either. There was always a sense of awkwardness over them showing any kind of affection, both physical and emotional. Any conversations about feelings were quickly shut down. They never told us they loved us. I used to get very upset about it as a child, especially when I saw my friends parents being loving towards them. I used to dream about my 'real' parents coming to take me away. It was a very sad and lonely childhood.
They're not affectionate now we're adults either. I don't doubt that they love us, as they're really very supportive in other ways, but I can't pretend that it hasn't affected me. I hug DD as much as I can, and tell her I love her every day.

I’m 25 and don’t remember my mum ever hugging me. She’s just not an affectionate person, never has been. So not necessarily generational as she’s not much older than you...
My boyfriend says that side of my family is nice but quite cold and apparently I can be sometimes. I’m working on it.

No, mine never did. l don't remember my dad hugging me either, but he used to play with me a lot, he had a wonderful daft sense of humour and we both loved animals, he was the one who always made sure l had pets.
When my dad died, we had to go and tell my mam, she was crying, obviously, and l put my arm round her, she sat there as stiff as a board. l felt so useless and embarrassed, she used to call people who were tactile 'gushy' yet she'd make a point of telling me if one of my cousins had hugged her, and how nice they were.
l do think it was a generational thing in part, also we never really bonded for several reasons. She also never told me she loved me, her cousin's son had said that his mother never told him that she loved him either. My mother told me that she'd said to him that she'd never told me she loved me, she "didn't need to!"
Conversely, l've gone the complete opposite way. l hug my friends and stepkids, once when one of them was suffering badly with period pain, l got her a hot water bottle and a blanket and snuggled up with her on the sofa. Her dad told me later that her mum "would never have done that". l chose not to have children because of the way my mam had been with me, and l was so fearful of being the same way. Yet all my friends and stepkids have said l'd have been an amazing parent.
lt's such a shame whatever the reasons. l take great comfort in hugs and affection, and l'm ludicrously soft and daft with my pets. l tell my rabbits every day that l love them, and it brings me such joy. l just feel that though l'm sure l was loved, l didn't always feel it. So now, as previous posters have said, any affection is a huge bonus. A hug sets me up for the day.

My parents weren't demonstrative when I was young. My dad was more 'aware' iyswim but not a hugger.

The first time my mum hugged me I was 17 and it was fucking weird and felt so false because it was just after she left my dad for someone else.
I'm 46 now and I've never had a close relationship with her, she would be more attentive when I was on my own, but as soon as I was in a relationship, she backed off because I apparently didn't need her anymore.
I only spent time around her because she adored my youngest son.

I was overly hugged.. Think hug overdose to which now am reliant on physical contact from dh all the time, I need this form of affection too much making me mega needy.

The only negative of overdose hugging

Never hugged.
Never cuddled.
Never kissed.
Never told 'I love you'.
64 years old, parents still alive. Both reject any form of affection. Both had very disfunctional childhoods.
😢
Absolutely opposite of me and my DCs thank goodness!

Yes, my mother was not affectionate and would hardly engage with me. Over the years I wondered if it was depression but she had a knack for 'turning it' on for strangers. Think that's the most upsetting part of it. I remember sitting in a sandwich shop and trying to have a conversation with her and all she would do was nod- no other response at all. There were a mother and daughter in the corner having, what appeared, a lovely time. It made me cry.

Definitely would love to have a mother-in-law who is involved- might be like having a second chance.

Luckily, my dad was great.

Read nothing into this. Some people are natural huggers, others hate it. Some people are brought up to express love verbally and others think it cringeworthy. Does it mean someone doesn't love you? Of course, it doesn't. I would lay down my life for my adult children but I never hug them. Lots of hugs for little children but less physical as they grow. Some of this is cultural, not lack of love

Can I join too. My mother has never told me she loves me and didn’t hug or kiss me as a child. She was sometimes hit me quite hard but on the whole was a reasonable parent. I was amazed last week when she told me that she was proud of me as I’d been going to yoga for almost a year but then she added “because usually you’ve given up well before now”. I’m 50.

I’m 35 and my mom never hugged me or my sister. It was obvious she loved us but she could never show physical affection. She has never told me she loves me either.

I have a good relationship with her, as does my sister, but she freezes up if we so much as even pretend to give her a hug.

My parents never hugged us or told us they love us. We'll have an awkward sort of hug when I visit them, but it's an air hug where our bodies never touch.

I never felt unloved. My parents were and are amazingly giving & generous people who provided a wonderful childhood and lifestyle, the likes of which they never experienced as children. Having a Dad who worked so hard at his very intense career and yet when he came home from work each day would spend his entire evenings and weekends devoted to playing with us, telling us stories, ferrying us around and helping us with homework was without doubt more important to me that having a dad who could tell me he loves me.

It's only now as an adult and beginning to see my friends interact with their own children that I feel the slightest bit of sadness about never being hugged.

My mum never hugged us or showed any affection, unless she was drunk.
Tries to do it now but it just feels awkward