What is it like to have a good mum?

[cheekycee]

what is it like having a Good mother?
I mean this wanting 0 sympathy etc please don’t get me wrong.
it’s just I sat down this evening and thought… well I actually have no one to go to with my problems or to vent to. But is that not usually your mum? Then I thought, I wonder what’s it’s like to have the feeling of having a “mum”. My mum is alive. In fact I live with her (temporarily due to fleeing DV) but she doesn’t speak to me (not important).
im a great mum to my kids and always will be as although I don’t know what it is like to have a good mum I definitely don’t want them to wonder what it is like also.
is it really like having a best friend? Does your mum help you out? Give advice etc? Make you feel loved etc?? Just curious :)

I absolutely LOVE this!!! Well done to you and your mother!!! Xx

It’s the best. I am so lucky. My mum is the most selfless, loving human being. She would do anything for anyone and supports absolutely everything I do. I can tell her anything and she will never judge me.

Both my parents are just incredible. I count myself incredible lucky to have them and to have been their daughter.

I was raised by my grandparents but don't ever remember having any negative feelings/emotions towards my Mum as I've always known she loved me.
She had me young, went off the rails, dabbled in everything going but when I was born she knew, in fairness to her, that she was in no position to raise a child.
She dropped me - literally!! on her parents doorstep and left. She went completely no contact with all her family/friends but my grandparents knew she was still in touch with someone, though they never knew who at the time, as she sent me birthday and Xmas presents every single year and they were thoughtful and well suited to my current interests/hobbies.
I had a wonderful childhood surrounded by the most loving family but when I had my first, at 20, I felt the loss of having her for the first time. My husband died when my child was 7mths and I was 5 weeks pregnant with our second. I now know that was when she went into rehab for the 6th, but final time. She waited several years, living clean and sober and re-training, and after my 2nd marriage plucked up the courage to reach out and was back in my life for the birth of my 3rd child - seeing her hold him with tears streaming down her face, as was I😭, made me realise how much she had sacrificed to give me the life I had and how much she had missed out on.
She's an amazingly strong woman, we talk weekly, she travels over monthly(not in the same country) and is planning on moving here this summer.
My children are my world and they know it every single day - just as I did even though it didn't come from my Mum

I'll just pop to the next room and ask adult child......

Back. They asked me if I was on mumsnet again.

It's knowing someone always has your back and will support you. I know she would do anything for me. She'll drive an hour to mind a child for me for an hour if I asked her to because I really needed a break. She's listened to countless tales of heartache with friends and boyfriends. She's fought my corner with teachers.
She also can be really quite annoying, snobbish and petty. But those things just make her a human, not a bad mum. I remember realising mum was also a person at some point during teenage years!

Was your mum a good mum when you were a child?? Have you fallen out?? Mine was very physically strict. I'd like to think I was a warm , safe and loving mum but feel I get so stressed out and then feel guilty

My mum sadly died 4 years ago. she was so nurturing, caring and empathetic. she made me and my sister feel so important to her. even when we had children we were still her priority. i felt safe to tell her anything, any problem just sharing it with her made everything instantly better. sadly she died a couple of months after my ex husband left for someone from work. she was diagnosed with cancer and died 8 days later. i really miss her but know she’d want me to live the best life i can. she wasn’t into money or materialistic things. loved the beauty of nature, cooking home cooked meals and giving her us time. she was also really fun and opinionated. very spiritual. feel like she gave me the blueprint to be a good mum. it’s about time and being a constant present rock in children’s lives and not about things. i feel lucky to have had her. she loved a red lipstick and sunglasses, she was naturally really beautiful inside and out. like other posters she was just my biggest cheerleader

I wouldnt know what it feels like to have a mother.
She loved us enough not to let us die i guess thats where it ends with love.
I have no feelings for her never have i dont even hate her she is just not important enough to me.
Now as an adult i have no feelings like others would you could chip ice off my heart.
In my next life i want loving parents.

I think that if you're worried about it, you're probably doing okay. It's not a foolproof argument - you could be doing something wrong and be worrying about it, but then you'd know what the thing was. If you can't think what you might be getting wrong but you're worried anyway, then you're probably a thoughtful mother who consciously parents a certain way. I hope that makes sense, it's what I think anyway x

Offnut hope you are OK. Look after yourself. Make time for something that improves your life - yoga, mindfulness, marathons. Whatever it is. 💞

Thank you i do have a good life now thankfully.

I often wonder this too. It must be amazing to have a lovely mum who thinks you are great and wants you to be happy.

A decade ago, I would have thought I could answer your question OP, but over the last few years, I've realised that my mum is actually quite toxic. Other mothers mentioned on here seem to fall into either the good or bad categories but mine seems to be more in the grey area.

Her intentions - very good, she definitely wanted to be a good parent, loved me, went out of her way to give me a good life. She's kind by nature and definitely wants the best for me. But her idea of what's best is often different from mine, which is fine and normal, but her lack of boundaries is not, and the pressure she will put on me to do what she wants can be intense and has caused me extreme stress at times.

She's also very impulsive and single-minded, which has led to some incredibly poor decisions, many of which have impacted me massively, sometimes catastrophically.

My sister is disabled and my mum has pretty much dedicated her life to her, which is admirable. But it has complicated our relationship because my mum seems to resent things I have that my sister can't have...it's obviously more complex than that but I'd be typing all night.

Essentially, she is on the surface a very nice lady and a loving, supportive mum. But her behaviour is bonkers at times. I don't feel she's my best friend or someone I can really rely on. I feel very stressed out in her company.

I still have a pull to be around her though...maybe as I'm often vying for her approval as she's incredibly hypercritical of me. And when she's gone one day...well, I will struggle with the loss, I can't imagine it really.

Sometimes, mothers are complicated!

to answer the question…. I asked if me and my siblings could visit when I was a teen, she wouldn’t have even had to have paid for our tickets. She said no. I can’t remember why but I never asked again.

I have just come to understand that she is not just my mum but an individual and that individual is messed up in her own mind. Whether that’s due to her upbringing or the way her brain works or a bit of both but just because she became a mum it doesn’t make those issues magically disappear.

Some people just aren’t cut out to be parents and they only realise that once they actually become a parent.

My Mum is the most generous, loving, caring, and gentle Mum on the planet. She has a brilliant sense of humour, and we laugh hard together. She made my childhood so memorable, and has been behind me in all my good, and terrible, choices. She is my number one supporter, and there's not a thing she wouldn't do for me. I couldn't have asked for a better Nannie for my children. If I'm half the Mum she's been to me then I think I'll be doing a good job!

She had a massive stroke last year, and although she survived, she is now bed bound and living in a care home. I miss her terribly, and know she wishes she could still be here with us.

What a fascinating thread but also hard to read for those of us who didn't have very good parenting. Thank you to the people who have shared how wonderful their mothers are/were, and in what way. It's hard not to be envious of people who struck it lucky.

I agree with the pp who said that some mothers are complicated. Mine was pretty awful in many respects - narcissistic, oblivious to our emotional needs, apt to play favourites and very, very conditional with her approval, and yet she made profound sacrifices in the pursuit of what she thought was important for us, for which I am grateful even though much of it was misguided.

Both my parents are dead now and it's quite liberating in a way. You try to break the cycle, but as long as people are in your life - even by dint of their weighty absence if you're NC - it's hard to have the relationship with your own children that you want because your parents are always part of the context. I didn't really understand how rubbish my parents had been until I was a mother myself, and that was too late really.

It is like knowing my comfort blanket is always within reach.