I felt the same when I became a mum, that I had this almost instant, overwhelming love and feeling of needing to protect my child. And I felt it so much at that time that clearly, something went very wrong with my mother because she obviously didn't feel that with me.
To my mind, and those who know the situation of old, she is very mentally ill, dangerously so. But agencies have been blind to it when she was causing me issues which for anonymity purposes I can't speak about here. But they are huge, appalling issues which, when someone independent looked into them years later (when I was caught up in a review due to another individual going through similar and suing for vast damages), I was told they messed up. I could've sued but I just couldn't because it would've opened up more opportunities for abuse by her. I was told that actually, rather than being seen as the problem, it was all her.
However, as I say, it's my Dad I'm the most angry at. She's unstable and has packed the help she needed and which could've stopped it all. The system failed her (and by default my sister and I) as the system does.
My dad was just selfish. He didn't want to be twice divorced due to embarrassment. He is intelligent so he must have known she was out of order. But he ignored it.
Now, my sister is dead, my mother won't see that she is probably the root cause indirectly (because obviously I don't know what the cause was until there will be an inquest this month, but most of us who know what she is like all reckon there is a massive chance she did something to cause my sister so much pain and upset that she contributed to her death).
There are so many triggers which you see that what you went through as a kid wasn't normal. But because schools and agencies looked for a "type" or looked for bruises and I was a fed child with clean clothes and shiny shoes, rather than underfed, dirty and wearing raggedy clothes, I slipped through the net. And the rare times when teachers did notice signs that things weren't right and agencies got involved, she would put on a show, as a middle class parent, in a two parent family in her M&S twin set and no benefits household, and they'd believe her that I was an attention seeker. I was made to go through family therapy where one of the people there said I got bullied at school for attention because I enjoyed it! Who shouted at me for saying no, that my mother was abusive, and called me a liar.
It's horrifying actually, when I look back on it all.