How’s your mum?

[Toddlertalkslots]

Just something I’ve been thinking about recently, more since I had my own child.
How involved/caring is your mum? I know my mum loves me and don’t doubt that, but she’s always been quite removed from me, I noticed it as a child and even now as an adult, she’s not how I hope to be with my adult daughter.
For example, I’ve had long covid since March and have some days when it’s quite bad. If she messages to ask how we are and I mention it, she never replies anything about it, doesn’t give any advice or sympathy..nothing really, just ignores it.
I’m in another country to my family, but they visit quite a lot (well, pre covid) they stay for weeks and she’s never once offered to sit with baby whilst I have a break or helped with dinner, which I make every night. They normally stay with us for DD’s birthday. I put a lot of effort into it as I enjoy doing all that, pinning up surprise balloons, preparing food etc, she just sits looking at me, I don’t need help, just I think if it was me, I’d want to?
When I had Dd, I think, looking back I possibly had some pnd, Dd had bad colic and I was away in another country alone for most of the day. She never offered any advice or even really engaged with me when I joked about how hard I found it sometimes, I think my dad offers much more help!
I have a vivid memory of going away for the first time with Brownies when younger, it was quite a big deal for me as I was a shy child and none of us had stayed away from home before. When our parents arrived, they all ran up to give a cuddle to their child and I remember my mum just walking up to me, no contact, nothing, we just walked to the car.
I realise everyone is different and there was perhaps less affection in those days, I’m not sure, I just want my dd to always know she’s loved and am very affectionate, it’s just a natural thing to me, because I love her 🤷🏻‍♀️
How’s your mum?

She died of leukemia 3 years ago. Up to then we had a good relationship and she loved my DD. She never met DS, I was 24 weeks pregnant with him when she died.

@Eeeemac But this was when I was a child also

@Oysterbabe
So sorry 💐

@Minimamame So sorry 😞

Mine is a classic raging narcissist. I've only realised this since having DC of my own. Spent all my life trying to get her seal of approval and attention, but a few events involving DC made me realise what she's really like. Insanely jealous mother who doesn't want to see her adult children thrive and constantly trying to play everyone off against each other. She has no friends and all relatives shun her (and by association my DF and my siblings). My childhood was mainly made up of witnessing her tantrums. Still in touch with DPs but she mainly ignores me now. I can't be bothered to battle against it. Just maintain a distanced contact for DF and DC's sake.

So maybe as a pp suggested therapy could be useful to you.

Just because someone can't give us what we need in the way we need, it doesn't mean they don't love us or that we're unlovable. But we might have to find ways to make peace with that.

It's not unusual for there to be a mismatch between a parent and child's personalities and relational styles, which means what one side thinks they are communicating is not what is understood by the other.

You've described parenting your DD effectively as if you were re-parenting yourself to meet the needs you felt were unmet as a child. Maybe that approach will turn out not to have aligned with the child your DD actually is, maybe it will, who knows.

Your mum is alive and - from what you've said - willingly present in your life. Be careful not to allow this to fester and damage your relationship.

Always there for me and cheerful during childhood. A bit removed in the years after. I realise now she was somewhat emotionally neglected at times in her childhood and can be quite sensitive but doesn't show it. She eats her feelings or retreats to bed tired or ill, somatising, I think. But happily we have grown closer over the last ten years. I try to spoil her a bit on birthdays because of an incident in her childhood. What I love about her is that she gets excited about the kids achievements as much as we do and even about mine.

Mine died last year from dementia.

She had been diagnosed eight years previously but (with hindsight) had clearly had symptoms for several (possibly many) years before that. So I'm not entirely sure where her personality ended and her symptoms began. (In my 20s).

However even before that, she had issues with alcohol so wasn't always as supportive as she could be. Always drunk of an evening - I'd pretty much stop talking to her from about 6pm as I'd not get much sense out of her. There was a point that I just stopped confiding in her completely (mid-teens) and I never started again. My dad was also an alcoholic and abusive with it and she was so submissive, I never felt protected by her.

Though as a child, she was the most naturally maternal (much more than I!) loveable mother one could hope for.

It's why I find it so hard to reconcile my feelings for her. I didn't really grief much when she died as my relationship with her had ended many years before that.

My mum is the opposite. When I had my children she stayed for a few weeks and did everything, brought food for us, cooked, filled and emptied the dishwasher, folded clothes that I'd washed, took the baby out a walk so I could sleep, played with my eldest when i had my second etc. She is probably overly involved in my life, to the point where she wants to know everything about everything although we are not one of those families that are in contact constantly. We speak maybe once a week but text every other day. We go on holiday together. She tells me she loves me and the kids often. She is missing us all desperately at the moment. She is there is help practically and emotionally when I have got health struggles but again can want to know all details of every doctors appointment etc.
I'm sorry about the emotional distance with your mum - is she like that with everyone? And I'm not sure that hearing this will help you. It sounds like you are changing things up with your own children though so hopefully you can have that close relationship with them

Mine died when I was 2. I’m 52 now. I very quickly had a stepmother who was cold, unloving and cruel I envy anyone with a loving mother 💐

@Carysmatthews

Mine died when I was 2. I’m 52 now. I very quickly had a stepmother who was cold, unloving and cruel I envy anyone with a loving mother 💐

This is one of the saddest posts I have read on MN. I hope you have found some happiness as an adult

Don't know, don't want to know and really don't care, if she dropped dead tomorrow I wouldn't bat an eye, The woman is evil through and through.

My mum is my best friend. She is the best mum and grandma. She does so much for us and is always willing to help. We speak daily, see her at least 4 times a week (she's my childcare provider). My DS loves her. She has been through a lot health wise and she's not even 50. At one point we nearly lost her and that was the worst day of my life so far.

I honestly don't know how I'd manage without her!

my relationship with my mum is amazing, as is her relationship with her mum. we’re a very close family and have always been very loving. my mum had me at 16 so she’s always been a mum and a best friend in one. she dotes on her grandkids and they all adore her (and my dad). every week she has both mine and my sister’s kids to sleep over so that we get some time alone with our partners. we speak every day, and saw each other every day pre covid, and every night before bed she texts all her kids saying she loves them. i’m sorry about your relationship with you mum, op. growing up i saw quite a few of my friend’s mums that were emotionally distant and it always made me so sad that other mums weren’t as supportive and loving as mine.

My Mum is without a doubt, the greatest woman I know. I'm very blessed that I'm very very close to her even though we live 500 odd miles apart, but I cannot think of a single thing in my life I've needed help with that she's not helped me fix - most recently, at the start of COVID and my fiancé and I both lost our jobs, she paid our rent and sent food shops to the house to help us out. If I'm half as good a parent as her when I have kids, I'll be doing incredibly well.

I have noticed that some women are naturally better mothers to children, and some are better mothers to their adult children. I think these two are a majority.

Then you have some who are good mothers both to children and to adults (I call these multi-instrumentalists, they have a talent that the majority of people don't have)

And then there are those who suck at both. I like to think these are a minority, just for my own sanity.

If your mother is/was type 1, 2 or 3 you are not hard done by, really. If 3 you've hit the jackpot. If 4 you are sadly unlucky.

Amazing. A strong, professional woman who taught me manners, strength, compassion, love.
I had a wonderful childhood and now as an adult I still speak to her on the phone everyday.
I am very very lucky to have her as a mother.

My mum’s great but she’s never been particularly cuddly, apart from when we were small children. I’m the same really, I’ve never been a hugger of friends or relatives. I do like cuddling my 3 year old but I expect as she gets older I’ll stop. My mum’s also very sensible and rational and calm. I remember talking to a friend of hers without my mum there when I was 18 and about to move to University. The friend was saying ‘I bet your mum will cry when she leaves you there.’ I said I was sure she wouldn’t, the friend insisted my mum would. I was right, as I knew I would be. My mum was very caring, took me to uni, made sure I had everything I needed, visited regularly etc but she never cried. I think I’ve only seen her cry twice. Once when she ran upstairs after an argument with my dad and I came out of the bathroom and caught her going into her room in tears. And once when a doctor had told her my dad didn’t have longer than a few days to live. She came back into the room looking a bit tearful but wasn’t openly crying and didn’t cry as he was dying or afterwards. In front of me anyway. Yet she visited him in the hospice every day, held his hand and talked him calmly through panic attacks. She’s a good person to have by your side in a crisis as long as you don’t want a cuddle! (Which I generally never do!)

@Eeeemac

See? There are so many posters here with bad things to say about their mothers without realising their children might do the same to them when they are adults.

One day your children will be adults judging your every move.

My mother left me home in the cold and dark alone, whilst she was fed and and had company elsewhere. She often had other people's husband's over, and thought it was funny. She often told me I was a fat and useless person who didn't deserve friends. She dug her nails deep into my skin whilst staring me straight in the eye and saying she hated me - I have the scars to prove it. Never touched alcohol, drugs or had a diagnosis of a mental health condition, it was just who she was.

So if my children are thinking so badly of me in their adulthood, I would be quite shocked as I don't have the morals or emotional range of a flea. All parents make mistakes, but children can move on from those even if they don't forget them. They don't forget (or forgive) cruelty, coldness and rejection.

My mum's lovely but we're not close. There's a distance between us, I find it quite difficult to connect with her or to even talk to her. She's clearly Autistic but undiagnosed, and talking with her is like a wall of stream of consciousness and she never actually listens to what I actually say if I ever get a word in edgeways! She also lies constantly, it's not malicious at all (she is genuinely lovely!), just constant little white lies for no apparent reason. It's very wearing and I find it hard to believe anything she says, which makes me quite sad. I think she lies as a coping mechanism (I think she just needs to have something, anything to say sometimes!) and it seems to be getting worse as she gets older, I don't think she really knows or understands she's doing it sometime!

My mum is very cold towards me I'm not sure why. Think it was how she was brought up. Never told me or my brother she loves us, never hugged us, I've never ever sat on her lap, she never read us a bed time story. Nothing. Always made sure we were very well dressed though and our hair was immaculate. That to her is raising us well.
She is 70 now and still the same. Won't ever change. I have 2 DD and they are her only grandchildren. She couldn't care an ounce about them, never asks how they are, or how they are doing at school. Just not interested.
I actually think she doesn't like children very much. When my friends have had babies over the years she's never asked about them or asked how they are, their names etc like I'd expect someone to.
I think she had me and my DB because that's what she thought was expected of her in the 1970's not because she particularly wanted us. Like she thought her vocation in life was to get married and have children.
I can't understand it otherwise. I had children I suppose you could say later in life, dote on them, tell them everyday I love them and literally would do anything for them. That to me is parenthood.

Reading some of the stories about not so great mums makes me realise how lucky I am. She's a bit of a doh ball but an absolute gem.

@user13752257

Instead of making hints and jokes and hoping she reads your mind, why don't you try directly asking her for what you need?

I don’t think you need to be able to read someone’s mind to know that when someone says they’re unwell, you ask how they are.

I am very close to my own DM and we are involved in each other's lives.

She can be a bit full on but her DM died when she was a toddler so I think some of her insecurities come from that.

We text daily

I have a similar relationship with my mum, there have never been cuddles or "I love yous" and she can be quite emotionally abusive. I'm not close to my dad either, like you I know they both love me in their own way but I've always been envious of other peoples relationships with their parents. My therapist thinks a lot of my anxiety and self esteem issues stem from my relationship with my parents so I'm very conscious of that now I am a parent and have a very loving and tactile relationship with DS