Never “just wanted your mum”

[LegDayAgain]

My DD and I were chatting (she’s 15) and she hadn’t been well over the weekend when she was with her dad. She told me “you know when you just want your mum?”
when you’re feeling rubbish.

And I felt totally blank. My mum was cold, neglectful, physically abusive and utterly disinterested in me and I never saw her (or my dad - also abusive) as a source of comfort.

much as I love the fact my dd does feel this way about me, it really struck me how much I missed out on as a child.

Anyone else relate?

Yes. Mine did her best, but she was a very poor parent, and my first lesson (and I learnt it so well I don’t open up to anyone to this day) was ‘Don’t ask anything of your mother other than the basics of food and clothes — she isn’t able to deal with it’.

She was herself the product of a household which was deprived and dysfunctional, and had no idea there was more to parenting than feeding and clothing. Plus she had far more children than she could afford, financially or psychologically.

All this goes for my father too.

Mine was the same, when we were ill it was just 'go to bed and come back downstairs when you feel better.' Oddly enough it was the GM who admitted she didn't like me that came up to check on me and bring me cups of tea. I can't recall one instance of being a child or a teen and thinking 'I want my mum.'

I can relate to this. I wanted my mum when I was a kid, but she lost interest in me when I became a teenager and I learned to cope without her support. Neither she or my dad helped me with anything really. She died before I gave birth to DC, but I wouldn’t have wanted her support anyway as I was used to not having it. My sister cries still about how she needs our mum, I don’t feel the same and must seem incredibly cold.

Never understood any of it - making mothers day cards and having to write 'I love you Mummy' in it? Why do I have to? asked 5 year old me. The answer was all about how Mummies love you and give you cuddles and keep you safe.

Then there were the kids on the year 4 residential who were homesick. Why? Why on earth would you cry for your Mummy? Isn't this a break away with people who aren't allowed to hit you?

The assumption that I'd be visiting her when I was grown up. Oh yes, she'll look after me, she says. Oh no, I won't, I think. But by 8 years old, I knew it wasn't worth saying stuff like that out loud as I would pay for it.

And then you get people preaching at you that you only get one Mum and that you'll regret not being a better daughter when she's gone/they'd give everything just to see theirs again. Just as well there's only one of them, really, as I wouldn't wish her on anybody else. But erm, sorry for yours dying, even though that was something I kind of dreamed of when I was a kid so that I could be safe from her.

So much resonates here.

I spent my childhood planning my escape. I'd starve myself to save money to have an escape fund.

The idea that I'd ever want a hug from her is incomprehensible to me.

I can't imagine what it feels like to experience unconditional love.

But I have forgiven her even though the damage from the emotional abuse is unfixable.

I recognise she's autistic and had a neglectful/abusive childhood so was just never fit to parent.

I wished so much someone would come along and adopt me but it never happened.

I'd be removed if I was a child these days.

I wouldnt even have wanted to maintain any contact as a child if I'd been taken into care.

I see myself as fundamentally unlovable as if my parents never did who else ever would?

This was the first thing I thought when I read your post too, OP. Your DD is very lucky!

It really does all become clear how shit the parenting was when you move up a generation, doesn't it? It allows us to see our own position more objectively. I often think 'How could they do/say that to me? I was only tiny!' but I couldn't see it that way until I was an adult talking to tinies myself. Until then, I felt myself to be a tiny-at-fault. It's a big mindshift we can thank our children for!

Yes, I'm the same OP.
My DD recently described my mum as "cold as ice". My mum isn't mean or nasty, she's just... not really there.

@LegDayAgain You are totally right though. I chose every single day to love my daughter and make sure she knew it. It just took me by surprise that she loves me in a way I can’t understand at all.

I can so relate to this and it makes me sad everyday. My mother left when I was 4, I did see her once a week throughout my childhood but she never once explained why she’d left, no one spoke about it, (this was in the 70s).
I have two DDs now in their 20s, Ive spent all their lives showering them with love and affection, telling them how wonderful they are (and they are!). I remember once DD1 was going out and shouted “love you mum” as she left, I broke down (after she’d gone) because i couldn’t understand why that amazing 15 year old would love me.

I know it all stems from my childhood and attachment issues and just thank god I’ve broken the cycle.
You should feel so proud you’ve done such a great job with your Dd.

Me too op.

I have had therapy over the course of my eldest child's life (15 years) to try and manage the big hole inside me where my Mother's love should be.

My son is loving and wonderful but I sometimes catch myself marvelling at how secure he is.

People who are loved grow up stronger. People like us are like flowers who never got enough sun.

I cried on my 50th birthday because I still don't have a Mum.

However I have three beautiful children and a husbands who loves me and my Mum has very little left emotionally.

I can totally relate to that. My own mother was very cold emotionally, quite neglectful, selfish and sometimes just mean! I didn’t know any different when I was younger, didn’t understand/know what I was missing. It’s only now that I’m a mother myself that I truly understand how awful my childhood was.
I’ve made it my life’s mission to be the most loving and supportive Mum I can be to my own children and it gives me so much joy to see them happy, secure and thriving. And the relationship I have with my own children has fixed a little of the pain. But I often feel sad thinking about the lonely and neglected child I was - I wish I could go back in time and give her a hug and mother her. I told this to my sister a few years ago and she said something that really struck a chord with me - even though you don’t have a Time Machine, you can still mother your own “inner child”. If I’m ever feeling a bit low emotionally, run down, stressed out………. I stop and take time to care for myself. Run myself a bath with a cup of tea, stop and read a book for a while, ask my husband to have to kids for few hours so that I can go have a little me time. I know it sounds simplistic but it really helps me to think that way.

Those of you who had mothers like this and went on to have kids, how did you feel confident having them, and then go on to do differently?

I'm choosing not to have kids because I can feel elements of my mother's parenting so deep in my bones that I'm terrified of inflicting it on a child and not being capable of avoiding it.

I'm so impressed by the courage of people who choose to try, and who manage to break the cycle as brilliantly as you seem to have done, OP.

Oh my, I resonate with everything said here. OP congratulate yourself on being the cycle breaker but that doesn’t make it any easier. It’s the same for me. My Mum fed and clothed me but not much else. She wanted for me what she had for herself and her mother before her. I can see the example set. But I was a late baby, born unplanned in a different generation and I had different ideas for myself.
She never could praise my achievements without claiming some of the credit in a weird, so subtle way. She still does it, most recently with my son who did well in his exams and her comment was ‘takes after his gran’. I understand she has so many unfulfilled needs in her own life and seeing me and my family do well and do things she never could or would rankle with her to the point that I no longer tell her anything as she seemed so uninterested.

I have vivid memories of following her around the house when I was little, even to the toilet, and sitting beside her in the chair. I think I was actually desperately searching for validation and connection. Once I learned to read, I lost myself in books. She rarely came to parents nights or took an interest in what I wanted for myself. I was pretty much left alone from the age of 14 whilst she and my Dad went to the caravan for the weekend. At the time I thought great, and it made me hugely independent and resilient but looking back how bloody neglectful and selfish. It’s only reaching certain milestones with my kids and seeing how much I have their back that I realised how absent she was.

Yet the same old platitudes get thrown around about the mother daughter bond. No. Not for me or any of us. I never had a birthday party, or was taken to extra curricular activities. When I finally threw a party for myself on a big birthday, she never even came. And secretly I’m glad but sad at the same time. It would’ve made her so jealous that I have so many friends most made through my many hobbies.

I too recoiled once when she publicly picked a stray hair off my collar. I remember my own daughter observing this. I remember being in hospital having given birth to her and my mother coming in to see her and me for the first time. I remember the feeling I had seeing her come in and look round the ward for me but it wasn’t a lovely feeling. I can hardly describe it. It was a feeling of detachment and possibly hoping she didn’t see me and just go away again. I don’t know but it certainly wasn’t the overwhelming wanting my mum at one of the most significant points in life.

She is very elderly now, and I do my duty looking after her but I don’t like doing it. Probably karma!

I had kids because it was what I was brought up to think was the right and natural thing to do. I’m ashamed to say that. It was the blueprint from my mother, it was what was expected of me.
I love them unconditionally but it wasn’t a conscious decision. My mother was patriarchal and you had kids to be a wife and mother and please your man. And that’s what I did. Fortunately I had the good grace to do a good job of mothering but it was hard for me because I had been given a parenting blueprint that I knew was wrong so was fighting against it. Like being given the wrong map for an area but finding your way through instinct alone.
I have had counselling too. In still desperately seeking that attention, I choose men who aren’t great at giving it. My DH is a good man but we don’t have that emotional connection I so desperately crave. All the boyfriends and first DH were the same. The only thing that attracted me to them was that they were initially attracted to me and made me feel wanted.

To the posters on here with Mothers who revel in their achievements as if they are their own, I hear you. Classic narcissist behaviour I’m afraid.

I hear you

Such an alien concept to me

Yep 100% me too. Great that you broke the cycle though.

I can relate. My Mum was never abusive but she is completely unemotional in any positive way. Most times I felt distressed my main memory is of her telling me not to be silly.

I, like you am close to my DD. My DM also manages to show complete love nd affection to her Grandchildren (all adults now). Lots of hugs and I love you. She has never told me she loves me. I can't lie, it stings when I hear her say it to one of them.

My whole family is emotionally stunted. There is just me and one cousin who feel like we are completely different. We both love a hug, we talk about how we feel sometimes. I have suffered with anxiety and depression in the past but my parents and sibling would never know, nor would they 'get it' or try and be supportive.

I feel very lucky to have my DH who is able to give me that safe space and unconditional love. And like @VoluptuaGoodshag (great name!) I constantly felt a need to parent very differently.

she loves me in a way I can’t understand at all
Do you think, as another poster said, that you have buried that feeling, because you knew it was not worth feeling? It's too painful to feel it?

My mother was not as bad as yours but she was extremely difficult. I remember once in school a bully mocking me by saying something about me wanting to go home to my mum. I replied "I hate my mum" and was honestly surprised the bully looked shocked, as I thought most people hated their mum at that age.

When I'm ill or fed up, sometimes I'd still like to just have someone come and look after me, taking away all my responsibilities and giving me permission to just get better. I spent five days in hospital once and it was weirdly lovely - I was in pain but also wrapped in cotton wool, with nothing to do. Can you relate to that at all?

This as well! The people who break the cycle of dysfunction are absolutely the best strongest people and amazing

My mum isn’t even that bad, just bad tempered and with difficulty (it seems to me) dealing with emotions, but I relate to you OP. It was always my dad I wanted when dad or hurt, even now if I have good or bad news to share I’m glad if I get hold of him as he’ll share my emotions. My mum will usually say something irrelevant or harsh. I don’t think she means it and she may send a nice message days later, I think she’s just emotionally stunted by her own childhood. Eg if I told her I was pregnant she might say something like “isn’t the world overpopulated enough?” But then 2 days later would ring or write to say how pleased she is and other nice things. No surprise I usually feel that longing for my dad if anyone, since he’d do something normal like say congratulations and give me a hug.

*when sad or hurt

This chimes with me, and it's something I've been thinking about more in recent months. I've recently been through a miserable, life-changing period in my life, and I haven't told my mum about any of it. I don't need or want her support, I never have.

Sorry to hear about your experiences as a child .You are very strong to have come through this though ,and be such a lovely Mum to your DD .She obv loves you very much .Maybe counselling would help you ?

@natura i chose not to have a child with my first DH as I was terrified I’d repeat the cycle as frankly it had been a mistake marrying him. I knew he adored me but he’d had an overbearing mother and I needed an equal partner who’d had a good mothering experience themselves to have kids with. I never confided in him the real truth of my childhood either. It was all kept internally. Essentially I needed someone to catch me if I was failing or to call me out if I vaguely displayed the same traits as my mother with my DD. My DH is the man who showed me unconditional love and gave me the confidence to try.

If you want children, as this thread has shown, it is possible to avoid repeating the cycle with the right partner. My PILs have also been wonderful GPs.

I want a mum occasionally but I never want my mum. I have a complicated relationship with mine and I learnt early on that she wasn’t going to help because in her eyes my struggles are always my fault. I do envy friends with mums who visit and celebrate their achievements or lend a hand when times are tough or they need childcare.

My big sister has modelled unconditional love and good parenting for me instead. She still calls me her first baby (13 year age difference) so I’m very lucky, even if that is a bit dysfunctional!