Why didn't my mum love me the way I love my daughter

[Flossy2021]

Hi everyone, this is my first post on here so please bare with me.

I am 27 and had my first baby two months ago a little girl. I can't even begin to describe the way I feel about her words just arnt enough. I love the bones of her absolutely everything about her. She is my entire world. I could just sit and watch her for hours and the feeling of love that rushes over me is so overwhelming it makes me cry.

However recently I've found myself unable to sleep and laying awake with all sorts of thoughts running through my head.

One thought that will never go away is why my mum (or dad) didn't love me the way I love my daughter.

A bit of background (long story short) my parents didn't bring me up i was taken into care by social services at a very young age due to alcohol and prescription drug addiction and eventually placed in the care of other family members.

As I grew up my parents would always miss supervised visiting, they wouldn't call to cancel, nothing they just wouldn't turn up. They never even sent me a card for my 16th birthday... safe to say I cried that day. But then when I did hear from my mum she would cry down the phone about how much she loves me and misses me but she would never put in the effort to turn up to see me or show people she could be the mother I needed.

As I got older I did have a relationship with my mother but it was extremely strained we argued constantly (mainly fuelled by booze on her part) I would overhear conversations between her and my dad saying really awful nasty stuff about me really negative stuff no parent would say about their child and when I walked into the room and asked her to say it to my face she would clam up, lie and say it wasn't me she was referring to even though I'd heard the entire thing from the other side of the door. I've seen messages between my mother and my sibling talking about me again in a really awful way it's liteally as if my mum just hated me so much.

She constantly lied, hid the truth about her boozing even though I knew exactly where she hid her stash and what she was doing as I could smell it the minute she was around me.

It even went as far as one day she took me out in the car and crashed it. She was arrested at the scene for being way over the limit. She admitted to drinking several bottles of wine the evening before. ... what sort of mother takes their daughter out in the car knowing they are putting them in extreme danger ??

Anyway...

My mum recently passed away from terminal cancer and although it was tough and very sad I still have such a feeling of anger and resentment and I just can't stop wondering why my mum didn't love me the way I love my daughter

I'm sorry that this happened to you. My father was/is an alcoholic and I recognise much of what you describe. I now have my own daughter and had these same thoughts when she was born. I don't have any answers, I'm sorry.

Like you, I loved my little girl from the second I saw her and will keep her safe at any cost. My dad does not know about my child, I have not seen him since I was 16 years old (20 years ago now), and don't intend to see him again. I try to be the best Mum that I can be and cherish the things with my children that were missing for me in childhood.

It must feel very raw at the moment, but for me, it has become easier with time. My eldest is 9 now and I feel much less sad about it. I don't think of him much (if ever) and my rage has settled again.

Be patient with yourself and be proud for the future you will give your own daughter.

Big hugs

Galaxy stars... its strange really because as much as I wouldn't want anyone to feel the way I do when I think about my parents it's actually quite comforting to know there's someone out there that understands.

Like you say I guess the best way to deal with it is to concentrate on being the best mum i can be and try my damn hardest to make sure I give My daughter the things I was missing out on in my childhood.

Thank you ❤

Firstly - congratulations ! Isn’t it wonderful you have this little person and you can love them …. A d they will love you . That’s wonderful

As for your mother and you
I can’t second guess
But alcohol abuse turns people inside out
Luring to themselves and to the ones who love them and you need specialist help to navigate it as a child who suffered
The alcohol becomes this terrible demon that overcomes the instinct to parent . It is an illness, a mental illness .
You know this
You know she didn’t have the skills or strength to fight it and be honest with you or step up for you
She instead turned some of her self hate on to you - as a defensive mechanism probably
Seeing this beautiful vulnerable child she had abandoned must have ripped at her heart and been unbearable - and she turned it round on to you

You know it wasn’t about you
Not really

I am so sorry you had such a tough time . I am sorry it won’t improve with her
But you have a nee chance with your daughter

Enjoy it !

Sending love 💕

Op I think the key here is addiction. Sometimes it’s just so strong that everything else comes second. 🌸

I feel you. I know what you mean. I tell myself that any psycho can have kids. You need a licence to drive a car, you have to be qualified for jobs but ANY psycho, pedo, lunatic... ANYONE AT ALL can have a child. My parents shouldn't have had children. Many people shouldn't. I know that it feels like your parents should have loved you, but some people just aren't capable of that. Having a baby doesn't stop shitty people being shitty people. It's the luck of the draw and we drew short.

Some people are broken - so badly affected by their own lives they aren't able to be loving parents to their children.

None of it was your fault, it wasn't about you, even though you suffered the fall-out. You are and were as worthy of love and care as any other child.

Find a therapist. It might take a while to find the right one, and you might need several courses of therapy over a number of years. Talking with a therapist will help you adjust to what you now understand to have been problematic circumstances.

I'm sorry you had such a poor relationship with your mum. I daresay she couldn't help it - addiction to alcohol is a terrible affliction - but knowing that does not help how you feel.

However, isn't it wonderful that you feel so much love for your baby? She will grow up feeling so secure with you and in time, your sadness will fade.

Congratulations.

My mother died at the end of 2016 after chain-smoking, drinking and denying herself nutrients for 70 years. She was an abusive, horrible mother, and on her deathbed she didn’t mellow at all - she became more hateful and spiteful towards me, even though I had flown from the other side of the planet to nurse her. (She scratched me and bit me and spat in my face, and also said hurtful, evil things to me when I was lifting, bathing or changing her… Even with witnesses present.) This threw me into a huge depression and I had a breakdown. I also compared my relationship with her to my own feelings for my kids.
Some people are just broken. They choose to wallow in their addictions and their abusive, angry thought patterns. They don’t want to change because to do that they have to be accountable and it’s too frightening and painful. They see themselves as victims rather than perpetrators.
No matter their background, it’s still down to the excuses they tell themselves and others and the choices they make.
You had a really rough start and you could also have been a dreadful mother, but you’re not. You chose to evolve and break that cycle. You did that all by yourself, without the entitled expectation that someone owed it to you to sort it all out for you. (Another mindset of the abusive parent.) I’m so very proud of you.

OP just a handhold here. I'm currently pregnant and I've been having a lot of emotions about my father who walked out on our family.
He's back in my life and trying to have a relationship with me and I have so many feelings as to how he could leave his children behind and never see them; no child support either.

On one hand I want peace and just have a relationship like he wants. On the other hand I want to tell him: you are a stranger to me.
X

Good morning everyone,

I just wanted to say thank you for all your replies I'm reading them all. Slightly embarrassed to say they made me cry. It makes me sad to know so many other people went through similar or even worse situations then I did as a child. I really hate the thought of other people feeling the way I do. I wouldn't wish these feelings upon my worst enemy. This is such a supportive community and I'm so glad I've come across it. The advice and support is so helpful and I'm taking all of it on board.

Thank you to each and every one of you ❤

OP you answered your own question - addiction.
No doubt your parents loved you when you were first put into their arms but addiction allows no room for anything else and is particularly cruel on children.

That doesn’t help you try and understand why the
Parent ‘chose’ alcohol or drugs over you as that goes against every mothering instinct you might have.

However you should be very proud of the fact that you have managed to come out of this and become such a great mother

OP, I also had an unloving mother, although mine was a toxic narcissist, rather than an alcoholic.
You cannot change the past, but you can certainly alter the future. As you are doing, being a loving mum to your own DD.
You may find that giving your own child the love that you were denied is in some way healing for you. You are breaking the cycle of abuse.
Talking with a therapist might be helpful for you, to come to terms with your experience.
I think when a toxic parent dies, you grieve - not for them, but for the loving parent you never had, and now never can. While they lived, there was always that faint irrational hope that they would one day apologise and love you. Once they die, that hope is gone.
As well as loving your baby, OP, practise loving your own “inner child” too. Give yourself the love that you missed out on. When your child is a toddler, enjoy doing child things with her - splash in puddles together, get messy finger painting, have teddy tea parties. Be a child again yourself, in a way. Relive your childhood, but in love, not abuse. God bless.

Without going in to detail I will say my parents were not good parents, they were incapable but what it did do was make me determined to be better than that, I used their parenting as the rule book on how not to parent.
I wasn’t perfect but nobody is, my now adult and mostly adult children often tell me I was a good parent, how much they appreciate every effort I made and we must have a good relationship because they are never off the bloody phone

had my first baby two months ago a little girl. I can't even begin to describe the way I feel about her words just arnt enough. I love the bones of her absolutely everything about her. She is my entire world. I could just sit and watch her for hours and the feeling of love that rushes over me is so overwhelming it makes me cry.

That's wonderful, I'm so happy you have such love in your life now you really deserve it. I think it's really important that you don't place any blame on yourself as your mum's inability to show you that same love has nothing to do with you - it's about her.

Alcohol addiction is all consuming and almost always a coping mechanism that people fall into due to poor self-regulation skills/shitty up-bringing/past trauma. It's not an excuse of course but may be helpful to understand so you can let go of some of your (completely understandable) anger.

Even without the alcohol addiction etc. having a baby can be very difficult for some women who are just not equipped to cope for a myriad of reasons. For instance I was 100% convinced that I would feel like you when I had my first child. She was very much planned for and wanted. I dreamed about becoming a mother and always thought I was very maternal/loving by nature and yet when she was born I felt none of those feelings you have for your DD. I had a traumatic birth which I imagine was the catalyst but there were other reasons too. My expectations were too high and so I felt the whole thing was a massive let down, I realised I have a low tolerance for stress and I'm probably a lot more selfish than I thought so I resented the selflessness that comes with having a small baby, couldn't bear the boredom and the sleep disturbance. Yet my DD was an excellent baby, a dream really by most people's standards. I can't stress enough how it had nothing to do with her, it was my own inadequacies I was dealing with. I was protective of her but I definitely didn't love her in that overwhelming, joyous way you describe. If I hadn't had huge support from my own mother I could have easily spiralled into being a really shit parent. I look back in horror at the dark thoughts I harboured and how much I regretted having her. Thankfully it all came right in the end and I love my DD immensely now, but it took a lot of time and support and faking it til I made it. When people don't have the support structures I have there can be very different outcomes for everyone.

I'm sorry you did t get the start you deserve but you are doing amazingly well to break that cycle with your little one

Just sending a hug. You sound like an amazing mum and you can cherish your DD in all the ways you weren’t. Be kind to yourself and maybe some therapy to talk everything over with a kind, intelligent person will help.

❤️

I recognise what you are saying completely op

I was brought up by my mother but she was abusive, and allowed her husband to be abusive.

I left as soon as I could and have no relationship with her at all.

Over the years I did try to get her to accept what she did, and I felt if I had an apology my life would somehow be better.

She never apologised, she blamed me.

When I had kids I felt very triggered, why wasn't I worthy enough to have love in the way I loved my kids, as various ages passed and I remembered things that happened to me at those ages it hit me all over again.

After a lot of years (my oldest is now 20) I realised that nothing she could ever say or do would fix my past, nothing that happened could make me feel loved back then, and I'm now in control of how I feel about it.

Now I'm at the point where I'm glad in a very odd way, of my abusive past, because it has made me into a great mum, those negative feelings I had have been turned into positive parenting techniques on my part.

I'm not saying it was easy to get to that point, but I got there.

What I will say op is that your past says nothing about you at all, it wasn't your fault, you weren't in control and you had to make the best of the shit hand you were dealt.

Now you are in control you've become a loving mum to your little girl, and you're her everything, and you will become exactly the mother you needed. Its not an easy thing to pull through that kind of childhood op, you're actually amazing

Addiction is incredibly damaging. It isn't an excuse, but it is an explanation and a reason why people end up unable to be good, loving parents. My late husband became an alcoholic later in life and he destroyed his relationship with his DDs in the process (as well as our marriage).

You are living proof that history doesn't need to repeat itself - you should be very proud of what you've achieved.

Now I'm at the point where I'm glad in a very odd way, of my abusive past, because it has made me into a great mum, those negative feelings I had have been turned into positive parenting techniques on my part.

This can be very much a "strength". My own mother had a horrendous upbringing - alcohol abuse/lots of physical and emotional abuse and it made her so determined to do things completely the opposite. She was and is the most incredible mother we could ever wish for and we have an amazing bond as adults. Im sure it will be the same for you and your DD

Some people just cannot give of themselves. My father was like this, and he wasn´t an addict of any kind. Not sure if that makes it better or worse. Stone cold sober and he just couldn´t show it. Throw addiction into the mix and the result is what you and all the others are describing. Your daughter is lucky to have a mum who adores her and shows it too. I do the same for my little one, she should never be in doubt that she has her parents unconditional love.

OP your post breaks my heart, but I am also beyond happy that you have a wonderful child of your own!

I work in child protection professionally & am also estranged from my abusive parent/s.

I hope you know the lack of love from your parents was never about you.
It was always about your mum (& dad).

Some people, through addiction, their own abusive backgrounds, mental health or personality simply cannot see beyond their owns needs. They are so consumed and preoccupied by meeting their highly dysfunctional needs, they can't see you.

The failure to attend contact & the car crash must feel heartbreaking. But it wasn't a reflection on you or whether you were good enough to love. You were just a two-dimensional character in her life - like an actor on screen. You exist, but only to the extent that it helps her or that you can play the role of someone she can abuse or blame to excuse the excesses of her addiction.

You were not unlovable; she was unable to love.

You (& me in my family) play a critical role of breaking the cycle of abuse in families - sometimes where the following generations repeat the mistakes of the past.

She wasn't the mum you deserved.

You also don't have to be a perfect mum to your child.
I know I felt a huge pressure never to fail or let my son down.
Realistically, you will!
Being a perfect mum isn't possible.

Your child will throw love, light & laughter into your world & it will help soften the pain of your relationship with your mum.

I found therapy enormously helpful in mourning the end of my relationship with my mum.
I hope you can find someone to talk to about this professionally.

@StopStartStop

Some people are broken - so badly affected by their own lives they aren't able to be loving parents to their children.

None of it was your fault, it wasn't about you, even though you suffered the fall-out. You are and were as worthy of love and care as any other child.

Find a therapist. It might take a while to find the right one, and you might need several courses of therapy over a number of years. Talking with a therapist will help you adjust to what you now understand to have been problematic circumstances.

This is spot on. Unfortunately as kids we interpret such behaviour as due to some defect in us. It's not, it's really not got anything to do with us. It's hard though not knowing this or realising it until an awful lot of hurt has been done. As this poster has suggested, you need to process the trauma you suffered as a child with a therapist so that you get to the point whereby your subconsciously and consciously can accept that none of it was down to you in any way x

@DishwashDogsDickens

Firstly - congratulations ! Isn’t it wonderful you have this little person and you can love them …. A d they will love you . That’s wonderful

As for your mother and you
I can’t second guess
But alcohol abuse turns people inside out
Luring to themselves and to the ones who love them and you need specialist help to navigate it as a child who suffered
The alcohol becomes this terrible demon that overcomes the instinct to parent . It is an illness, a mental illness .
You know this
You know she didn’t have the skills or strength to fight it and be honest with you or step up for you
She instead turned some of her self hate on to you - as a defensive mechanism probably
Seeing this beautiful vulnerable child she had abandoned must have ripped at her heart and been unbearable - and she turned it round on to you

You know it wasn’t about you
Not really

I am so sorry you had such a tough time . I am sorry it won’t improve with her
But you have a nee chance with your daughter

Enjoy it !

Sending love 💕

This is really insightful and helped me too, thank you.

Flossy, your thread helped me too, thanks for posting and for articulating something that is so difficult to describe. Big loves xx

It's funny how becoming a parent yourself makes you see things differently. It came dig up hurt and pain. My mum was not at all a cruel mum. But she was absolutely rubbish at emotional support. She made me feel silly my whole life for feeling emotions such as sadness. She never ever hugged me. She never supported me ad a teenager. She battered my confidence growing up..

I remember feeling like you with my first baby. I was resentful, hurt and overthinking many of my mums behaviours. Even with my pregnancy she had created problems and voiced her opinions. She literally couldn't stand me enjoying my pregnancy and made me feel belittled and small for the little details I wanted like a 3d scan and to find out the sex. She wanted me to do things exactly how she did.

I found time healed me. Time and knowing what I wanted! Doing what I wanted. I found walking with my pram helped clear my mind. I stopped ringing her as much and learned to stop sharing stuff. Then when I had my son I thought I had something she never had. I had a boy. That strangely helped me move away from her more emotionally. I thought I have something now she can't say she has already had.

Perhaps you need someone to talk to. Or you could look into books etc. What I have.learned in my 7 years as a mum. Is time and living your way and giving your children things that you feel are important. The fact you love your daughter so much. That's such a positive wonderful thing. You are doing amazing!

Always remember it was her own demons. It was never you. You were never the problem. She was too wrapped up in her struggles. Xx

I can completely relate to you. When my daughter was first born it just floored me, I remember crying and wondering what was so wrong with me that my parents couldn't love me the way that my daughter is loved by me and her father. Overtime I've realised that it was nothing to do with me, their behaviour says far more about them than it does me. I'm so sorry for you op, there are others like you and me, and we understand eachother. Focus your energies on being the woman that you needed when you were growing up, not just to your daughter but to yourself too. Enjoy this precious time with your new family ❤

Breaking the pattern of being a neglectful or abusive parent is difficult and complicated. OP your love for your daughter is so perfect that you have realised what you need to do and not do to be a wonderful mum and that is HUGE.