Reply
Esteemed Contributor
Posts: 5,296
Registered: ‎09-18-2010

@FancyPhillyshopper wrote:

 

Well, I hope those that feel they need the help are able to use the book for assistance.

 

I think it is very difficult to label a woman a "bad" mother if her children grow up healthy, educated, and able to fully function in society.  

 

I think many young women without good role models, a strong partner or a supportive family, or the financial or cultural assets may not even have known what it meant to be a "good" mother.  Additionally, expectations are constantly changing and what was done fifty years ago or more is not necessarily the same.  After all, Victorians used to say children should be seen but not heard.

 

I also think that people need to look at issues through the lense of time, and by trying to walk the experience of motherhood in their own mother's footsteps.  

 

Opportunities have vastly changed for women over the many past decades, and certainly sharing knowledge has improved and child-rearing information is more readily available.  

 

I also think patience, forgiveness and kindness are paramount when dealing with family, because all the relationships are so emotionally charged.

 

By the way, my mother and I love each other dearly, and we are very happy to be in each other's lives no matter the past.

 

 


My first realization that my friend was being abused was in PE, when we were in middle school. We had to change into t shirts and shorts for PE. I hated it. But not as much as "Sherry". We were both half way loners, we changed clothes in the same area, away from everyone else. 

One day, Sherry had a horrrible bruse on her leg.She didnt want to tell me what happened, but I kept on till she did. It was from being beaten with a cord. Like you plug things in with. 

I'm ashamed to say I didn't tell anyone. She swore me to secrecy, and I didn't tell and I regret it still. The physcal abuse seemed to end after a while, but Sherry lived with emotional turnoil till her mom died a few years ago. Her mom was vindictive, played her daughters against each other, had ocd. Everything had to be in its perfect spot or hell would break out. 

Sherry, however grew up to be a wonderful mother, a beloved grandmother and still one of my very best friends. She is a productive member of society, works hard at her job.

She and her sister took care of the abusive mother, who caused all kinds of trouble and played the girls against each other at the end of her life.

I have no problem saying my friend had a very bad, poor excuse of a mother. IN SPITE of that woman, she grew up to be a wonderful person. But she still has scars. Both physical and mental. 

 

There are many women who grow up successful, healthy, educated and fully able to function in society in spite of their mothers.

Honored Contributor
Posts: 9,048
Registered: ‎06-14-2010

Thank you , vsm, your words kind and meaningful.

Honored Contributor
Posts: 21,733
Registered: ‎03-09-2010

@vsm wrote:

@suzyQ3 wrote:

@FancyPhillyshopper wrote:

 

Well, I hope those that feel they need the help are able to use the book for assistance.

 

I think it is very difficult to label a woman a "bad" mother if her children grow up healthy, educated, and able to fully function in society.  

 

I think many young women without good role models, a strong partner or a supportive family, or the financial or cultural assets may not even have known what it meant to be a "good" mother.  Additionally, expectations are constantly changing and what was done fifty years ago or more is not necessarily the same.  After all, Victorians used to say children should be seen but not heard.

 

I also think that people need to look at issues through the lense of time, and by trying to walk the experience of motherhood in their own mother's footsteps.  

 

Opportunities have vastly changed for women over the many past decades, and certainly sharing knowledge has improved and child-rearing information is more readily available.  

 

I also think patience, forgiveness and kindness are paramount when dealing with family, because all the relationships are so emotionally charged.

 

By the way, my mother and I love each other dearly, and we are very happy to be in each other's lives no matter the past.

 

 


@FancyPhillyshopper, it's not your fault, but your post is like a punch in the stomach to me, so much so that I can't really go through and explain each of your sentiments and how they hit me. Again, I know that you meant no harm.


I wish you peace of heart, @suzyQ3 . Your posts on this thread are painiful to read.  I can't imagine how painful it must have been to write them.


@vsm, thank you.


~Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle~ Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
Respected Contributor
Posts: 3,554
Registered: ‎03-10-2010

Reading everyone's pain brings up a flood of my own.  Just knowing I'm not alone in having life long scars is in a weird way, comforting.  I often think in the wee hours of the night when memories haunt, that I should be able to have compartmentalized them into a tightly closed box by now.  That box's lid doesn't exist but I can usually shove it aside.


A positive, I tried my very best to be a different kind of mother.  As a result, all of my kids talk to me from their hearts, something impossible across a cold divide with my own mom that I didn't understandand, I accepted it as our normal.  Confronting would have been like opening a deep well of decades of emotional lack for which I had no tools and somehow it all would have been my fault.  I learned avoidance early on.

Highlighted
Respected Contributor
Posts: 2,392
Registered: ‎03-10-2010

@ECBG It sounds like you had a Father that was endearing to you and better than both parental figures that were cold and unfeeling. Your memories of McDonald's  comes to mind. 

 

My Dad was under my Mother's control so he bowed to her.  Neither of us  could please her, never good enough. He loved me uncondtionally so it helped. She was an emotional punisher. Threatened to not help or withdraw love.

 

It hurt her more in the long run than me. I found out  after she died she never wanted children. I was 35 yrs. old.  I felt relieved when she died and ashamed at the time to admit it. She didn't have a nurturing Mother as my Grandmother, a single parent was cold. She never hugged/kissed me, verbalized affection or complimented me. I was an only child .My Father had two children from his first marriage.

 

Avoiding your Stepmother makes a statement and good for you to remove the toxic feelings. I bet it bothers her to no end to be shut out. Glad your headaches are better. Thank God memories of Dad are nice.

Honored Contributor
Posts: 43,240
Registered: ‎01-08-2011

@Gorgf 

 

Thank you my Dear.  My dad was considered the "catch of the town".    He was very easy going, and her negitive behavior "amped up" quite a bit after I lost him to a rare form of brain cancer in 1989.  Our boys were 8 and 4.  

 

 

Honored Contributor
Posts: 8,736
Registered: ‎02-19-2014

@FancyPhillyshopper "I think it is very difficult to label a woman a "bad" mother if her children grow up healthy, educated, and able to fully function in society."

 

This had nothing to do with the mother. It's solely a testament to how amazing the children were at raising themselves on their own, in spite of cruelty and neglect. The parent gets no credit or pass for that.

 

"Well you turned out okay didn't you?" Is something abusive parents often say to their grown children in order to minimize their abuse.

When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.
"Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic." - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr
Honored Contributor
Posts: 8,788
Registered: ‎06-10-2010

I have read most of these. It is heartbreaking to know what some of you have been through and still go through. I have shed some tears reading these. I haven't been through this so I can only say, I'm sorry for what you went through and I hope that some day your hearts and minds can find some measure of peace.  Maybe there will never be complete closure but the knowledge that you were the innocents and  each of you hold a very special purpose in this life might help a little.  Love to each of you.  You are precious....hope you know that.    

Respected Contributor
Posts: 3,458
Registered: ‎06-10-2015

Our abusive mothers are owed nothing unless and until their victims have justice, which rarely happens.

 

The fathers who stood by while the women they married assaulted, abused, and scarred their children should be consigned to the same circle of Hell. They let it happen, if they didn't outright enable it. Mine did.

 

A mother who grabs the hair of her preschool-age children and knocks their heads together as punishment forfeits any right to understanding. A  mother who scalds a child, repeatedly, laughing at the child's screams, deserves only contempt.

 

I was that scalded child, my head was used to punish my sister, and that's just a couple of instances of my mother's sadistic behavior. I deeply resent the notion that I should value the possible traumas that contributed to her corruption over traumas she subjected me and my siblings to. That is invalidating, to put it mildly. Now that she's gone, I am nothing but relieved that she can't lie, manipulate, and otherwise pit us against each other, which were the practices she resorted to when physical abuse was no longer possible. It is only in the final absence of both parents that my siblings and I have formed a cordial, supportive, even happy unit. It wasn't allowed when they were alive.

 

I am truly glad for you if you had a supportive relationship with either or both parents. Be aware, though, that you lack the frame of reference awarded those of us who grew up in violence and chaos, without love or understanding, and never knew what was going to set off a maelstrom of abuse.

 

For reading, I'd recommend Alice Miller.

Contributor
Posts: 60
Registered: ‎10-18-2017

I found Peg Streep by accident several years ago.  Through her I found out that I was not strange.  There are many of us who suffered being raised by women who never should have been mothers.  I was a tremendous comfort to find out I wasn't alone....and that the abuse I suffered was not my fault.