Difficult Mothers, Adult Daughters. Karen C.L. Anderson
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to my sister (same father, different mother), to my stepkids. I was harsh, critical, controlling, and downright mean sometimes. I believed I was justified. I was treating others the way my mother had treated others, the way she had treated me…and the way I had treated myself. Being “in conflict” was the norm. I was used to it.
I’m not blaming my mother, or her mother, for the patterns. What was passed down was the unconscious pain of being a woman in a culture that does not equally value women. This is the pain of “not good enough” and of harsh self-judgment, criticism, and unworthiness.
This pain has been passed down, woman to woman, mother to daughter, for centuries.
They told us “just be yourself,” but they taught us (via example) to be someone else. Conform. Standardize. Comply. Obey. And if we didn’t, we were often accused of being selfish, or being a show-off.
Think about it for a second. Centuries ago, women were burnt at the stake, stoned, and drowned (literally and metaphorically) for being their true selves, for expressing their true selves. Especially when that self was deemed to be evil, magic, wild, intuitive, inappropriate, too sexual, too thin, too fat, too much, too smart…you get the picture.
Fast-forward to the beginning of twentieth century and instead of being murdered, women were labeled as “hysterical,” thrown into institutions and locked away, told that it was for their own good.
Today? The murdering and locking away still happens, especially to women of color, but mostly it takes the form of being shamed, harassed, and threatened in the media.
It makes sense, then, that our mothers (and grandmothers and great-grandmothers), scolded us for being anything that might make us unattractive or ineligible for marriage, because for most of history women could not survive on their own.
Thus, generation after generation, women have had two universal (and often unconscious) conflicting needs: (1) I must be my true self…I must express my true self. (2) I must protect myself from being burnt at the stake, so I will squash and mold and contort myself so I “fit in” and am deemed “okay.”
So of course our mothers felt the need to protect us, while at the same time trying to model independence, while at the same time trying to protect themselves, while at the same time being pressured to “do it all”—perfectly—while at the same time, perhaps, turning to addiction or becoming mentally ill or, maybe, just being jealous and pissed off.
By itself, this generational pain is one of the most significant sources of dysfunction in our relationships. Those beliefs and patterns are running in the background of our lives, and we often have no clue that they’re there at all. We just know that we’re not as content as we’d like to be. Our relationships aren’t fulfilling and rich.
The good news is that we don’t have to take what is handed down. It’s not something to blame our mothers or fathers (or ourselves) for, it’s something to understand, accept, and work on. Meanwhile, we come to know that we can do hard work without suffering—that it can be one of the most joyful, affirming things we ever do.
By being honest and aware of how, at first, I chose to believe that I was not good enough, I opened the door to healing. In deciding that I didn’t want to believe it any more, I released it, not just for me, but also for my mother, her mother, and on and on, and walked through that door.
Doing this work heals—not just you, and not just in the present—but also past generations (although I believe doing it just for you is perfectly okay). It also changes the future for the better.
When we choose to focus on and heal our mother stories, we transform them from something that wears us out and causes us to suffer into something that is a source of wisdom, creativity, and peace. We go from believing we should be happy all the time to being alive and awake. We go from thinking we’re broken and needing to be fixed to knowing we’re complete and whole as is.
And that is the number-one reason to take an honest and compassionate look at your relationship with your mother and to ask yourself what you’ve chosen to take from her and what you’re passing on, and if it’s not what you choose, then to heal it.
World peace does indeed start inside each and every one of us.
Chapter 6 “So, Tell Me about Your Relationship with Your Mother.”
Classic, right? It’s what every therapist I’ve ever seen, traditional or alternative, has (eventually) asked when I sought help for various issues (from weight loss to anxiety).
And then there are all the books I’ve read. Books about toxic families and “bad” mothers.
While I found great comfort in telling my story to therapists, and in realizing that I am not alone when I read those books, none of this insight or experience did anything to bring me true and lasting freedom and peace. And that’s not the therapists’ or books’ fault.
While identifying and understanding our mothers’ issues is helpful in being able to provide context for pathology, it doesn’t always give us a path forward. It can actually limit our growth and potential.
It can be a relief to have an explanation, but it can also validate us in feeling angry, sad, bitter, disappointed, and reactive. On one hand, it felt good—exhilarating even—to tell negative stories about my mother in the various online “support” groups I discovered, and to read other women’s similar stories.
On the other hand, those groups seemingly supported me in staying a lesser version of my self, which, ironically, is often what happens between mothers and daughters. So many women share that it’s only when they’re struggling that their mothers seem to pay attention, and when they’re thriving, their mothers display a range of behaviors—everything from ignoring them to lashing out at them.
I experienced something similar and then went deeper into an unhealthy “blame” mode because I believed it shouldn’t be this way.
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