“It depends”, you say? If so, I think you’re right! There are so many variables that could be considered when attempting to answer this question. There are probably as many unique answers as there are humans on the planet. With that in mind, I’ll take the liberty to pinpoint three of these variables for the purpose of this conversation. Also, rather than to just rattle my personal experiences in each variable, I think it makes more sense to enlist the experiences of others that I’ve interviewed or worked with from the past two years to the present. (And since the responses, and permissions to reference past sessions have been so generous, I will outline my conversations about Dads, and about siblings, in separate articles).
Variable #1 – Your mother’s life stage when she became your parent could have impacted her psyche, affecting the quality of her choices.
Was your mother younger than 20 years… was she in her 20’s… her 30’s…or 40+ years old? Societal norms and moral expectations for human behavior, have varied from one generation to the next, but each generation brought its unique impacts. They each had an influence on the choices made, and actions taken by our mothers through history.
My mom and dad are on the very tail end of the Silent Generation but because the world seemed to come alive again some years after World War II, I understand why many of these individuals felt like legitimate Baby Boomers – they really lived the core of their childhoods and all their adulthood in the Baby Boomer era. I’m a baby boomer by date of birth. I was born within the last few years of the boomer generation, so, I’m what they call a ‘late boomer’ and I’ve lived in an era that was shaped by the mindsets of Baby Boomers. The concept is a bit unsettling to my mother who believes that “we shouldn’t be of the same generation”, and to this day corrects me by affirming, “You’re not a Baby Boomer! You’re the next generation!”, when in actuality she was born during the Silent Generation. The fact that we could have been of the same generation, had she been born just two years later, reveals the fact that there aren’t very many years between us. Mom was a very inexperienced young adult when she became my mother. This variable can be critical in understanding her judgment in decisions made, or not made, on behalf of a developing child. It is also a very significant variable in recognizing the courage, and grit that are required from a young woman assuming the intricate responsibilities of motherhood in an era replete with societal and moral judgments.
I recall a conversation with a lovely woman who employed my services a few years ago. I’ll call her [Joan] – she shared that she believed she’d done the best she could with the knowledge and resources she had when she had her daughter. She was 20 but felt as ready for the responsibility as a 15-year-old. She wasn’t married (not a judgment) - and her initial mate, was no longer her mate when she had her daughter. When she learned of her pregnancy, she was enlisted in the military, in the process of fulfilling a dream she’d hoped would come true since she was very young. Her dream to be a soldier and make military service her career, grew as she witnessed other family members achieving this goal. Yet, having her daughter made her realize that she was not able to manage both responsibilities simultaneously. She indicated she loved her daughter “too much to raise her part-time”. A year after her birth, Joan chose to let go of her original love for the military, to focus on her daughter’s growth and development. Life is never linear, however. Joan experienced many challenges, and many setbacks. As Joan indicates, her daughter always had her essential needs met, with occasional assistance from family members. “I know she has always felt my love and commitment to her”, she asserted, but as she grew into her teenage years, she often had to disappoint her daughter. She couldn’t supply all the luxuries her daughter desired. Being fairly young herself, she didn’t understand at the time that this wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Not being able to provide what she felt she should, was stressful at times. Having her daughter express her disappointment in her parenting abilities created quite a few unpleasant confrontations and hard feelings over the years. Joan’s daughter felt her mother could have done better and felt no qualms about expressing her feelings to her. “If she had been more focused on getting ahead, and less focused on her emotions, we could have gotten farther along!”. Joan’s daughter didn’t seem to understand the sacrifice her mother made to care for and nurture her. Could Joan have done more for her daughter to ensure a more stable future for her? Over time, Joan modified, fine-tuned, and strengthened her methods of parenting, simultaneously improving her own development. Her success is evident. Her daughter is now a college educated medical assistant and is doing well. Perhaps she continues to believe her mother could have handled numerous challenges differently, but by many standards she has been well cared for.
I see many lessons in Joan’s journey. She is one of so many women who have struggled through life to raise honest, capable, and productive citizens. Before young mothers are judged and discouraged from embracing their journey, we must all remember the strength and resilience required, of a woman of any age who loves her children, to face adversities and stay on course.
Considering the other end of this age pendulum, I now reflect on certain individuals I’ve worked and interacted with, who reported to have become parents in their 40’s. Their decision making could be categorized as methodical- about every decision they made for that first offspring. For these ‘forty-something’ first-time moms, intentionality is the norm in every aspect of their planning and execution of child rearing. But their offspring, as with the ‘20-something’ mothers, don’t always recognize the results of their parents’ efforts, in their day-to-day living.
According to the New York Times, the number of women conceiving in their forties has been increasing by 3% every year since 1982. Today, this trend is becoming a choice rather than an unexpected life event.
Now, if you, as a Baby Boomer, or a Generation X’er, have or had parents who were considered older by you and your peers, you probably also heard your parents refer to the age difference between themselves and your friends’ parents. You have potentially heard the differences referenced when you asked to engage in group activities that might involve them.
There’s a good chance that you then became accustomed to navigating the parent-child relationship a bit differently from peers who were raised by younger parents. There’s a pretty good chance that your mother was in her middle to late fifties by the time you were a teenager. If your mother displayed less energy for your various sports events, or diminished interest in gatherings with the ‘30-something’ mothers of your girlfriends, the generational differences were probably a strong factor. And perhaps, you were experiencing a few generational divides with mom, of your own.
I’ve been fortunate to walk several mother-daughter duos through this process. An honest and patient heart-to-heart conversation with this type of mother is likely to answer many mysteries that you may have felt you had to ignore or live with over your developing years.
Variable #2 – The quality of the relationship Moms had with their parents
As baby boomers we may find that our Silent Generation parents had limited access to their parents, who had to live through the World War II and the Great Depression. Despite the economic recoveries experienced in the US and many countries managing the aftermaths of the war, those improvements were slow to trickle down to working- and middle-class families. Working hard to make a viable living for their families was the typical priority. Relationship quality was regarded as a second or third priority for many. That mindset or some variation of it was passed on to our mothers. In turn we have been affected by the life expereinces of these two previous generations.
Overcoming the challenges of those eras was often grim and dire. If you were blessed to sit with your grandparents, you were potentially afforded one or two stories about the ways they overcame many of the challenges of their times. Limited food and finances, limited medical advances to facilitate their health and overall wellbeing, and limited to non-existent educational opportunities, were some of many trials they went through to raise their families. The resulting children from those hard-living families, learned hard lessons to later become equipped and be our hard working and very able parents.
Understanding this generational history and the average home environment of the time helps to clarify the way in which our mothers interacted in the past, and perhaps continues to interact with the adult that you are today https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/blaming-your-parents-hurts-you-most-0311134 .
Women also dealt with highly sexist expectations of the day. You may be facing a mother who in her senior years doesn’t understand how women’s personal lives and dreams could take priority over serving the needs of men first, and offspring second. Whether you felt nurtured or not by your interactions with mom, chances are you didn’t get to fully voice those sentiments – you may have had to “just deal with it”.
If by chance, you had slightly more liberal parents – the “go-go” adults of the 1950’s or the most liberal “hippies” of the 60’s who felt it was best to allow their children to learn to make decisions early in life – there’s still no guarantee that your relationship with them met your approval. I’ve heard from clients, that these freedoms given by their parents were often “an excuse” to give them additional ‘big-sibling’ responsibilities. After all the duties assigned to them, they weren’t enjoying all the supposed freedoms.
Others expressed that they truly had an easy relationship with their folks and to this day, truly interacted more as parental friends. “My mom was more like a big sister; she didn’t really feel like a mom” was a (paraphrased) comment more than once, expressed to me.
There’s yet another type of mother-daughter relationship influenced by the teaching of a client’s grandparents: that is the one in which the rules were strict but the amount of love and communication between mother and child was so consistent that you were okay and grateful for the rules and habits that have formed you into the adult you are today.
We were or still are the children of parents born in the 1930’s and 1940’s. I think it is fair to say they had limited choices about the way they interacted with their socially and economically struggling parents. For these reasons, how they interacted with us might require a careful and thoughtful, and more objective assessment.
With these generational considerations, no matter how strict or liberal your grandparents may have been with your parents, their determinations and life decisions for you, were probably final- not much room for you to negotiate them. Your evaluation of how well they have done as your parents, is inevitably going to contain both, some dislike, and some praise of their performance as well as that of their parents.
Variable #3 – The quality of your mother’s relationship with her partner when she became your mom affected the way she saw the world.
When a woman is expecting her first child it can be the most beautiful season of her life. If she can count on the support, love, and partnership of her mate through the completion of her pregnancy and further through the growth and development of her child, it can be the most impactful and formative experience for the three of them. This however does not mean that every woman needs or wants the biological father or a partner to be present during her pregnancy or in her child’s life. It simply acknowledges the fact that this absence will have some repercussions in either her life or both, hers’, and the future life of her child.
Studies recorded in the Journal of Family Psychology https://doi.org/10.1037/a0028332
confirm that a mother’s perception of a loving and supportive partnership with her mate is also likely to produce a child who is well developed- physiologically, psychologically, and emotionally.
When both, mother and father are in harmony and are equally willing participants in the raising of their child, the mother-child relationship is further enhanced. My hope is that a
positively similar version of this condition has been your background and developmental experience. The manner in which these bonds are formed with our mothers in our developmental years, further influences the relationships that we have with them in our adult lives.
But life can be perfectly imperfect, and it is very seldom linear or with all 500 pieces of the puzzle perfectly in place. Many relationships end before the birth of their child; others end at some point while raising the child. Often other relationships may form as a mother-to-be or new mother seeks support and understanding, with someone where it is viably available. A new mother in any of the latter scenarios may struggle to properly and fully bond with her child, and studies also show that a child may experience their own signs of distress if the mother’s relationship with her partner is significantly dysfunctional https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/being-your-best-self/202012/what-do-when-parents-dont-meet-your-emotional-needs .
Relationships can evolve and sometimes go wrong for multiple reasons, at any stage in the relationship. The conditions of variable #1 and variable #2 can also be factors that can lead to a deteriorated relationship while expecting a child.
If a mother has had to endure these type challenges, she may transfer a measure of her distress to her relationship with her child, and these can morph into a challenging mother-child relationship over the years, and through that child’s adult life.
These are all, very delicate and complex life conditions that are often best managed with the assistance of capable professionals who specialize in family relationship management.
So, what can you do to manage the effects of these relationships today for the benefit of your future self?
- Practice mindfulness – This may sound cliche or generalized. It truly isn’t. Examine your emotions about it all – understand that what your parents did or did not do, doesn’t have to determine what you’ll do moving forward! Many adults have lived less than desirable childhoods and have transformed their own philosophy of parenting and practices with their children.
- Practice forgiveness –Even if your mother has truly fallen short in the care taken to parent you over the years, forgiveness is a necessary measure for you to begin your true healing.
- Practice gratitude – If you believe your parents have done all that they could to increase your chances of developing into a viable and prospering adult, make every effort to let your parents now how much you appreciate them. If your parents are no longer living, you can write a gratitude letter, or a gratitude entry in your personal journal.
- Practice self-care and edification – Learn as much as you can about self-care practices that suit you, and practice what edifies you the most. Also learn best practices for the enhancement of your relationships with family members and other significant persons in your life.
- Practice being a conduit of self-discovery and growth for others – Sharing great tools and the resources that you acquired for your emotional development with others who are in need, will foster a feeling of moving it forward and overall fulfillment.
If you’re finding that any of these scenarios reflect your life experiences and you want to conquer the negative effects they may still have on your present life, contact me to begin your transformation and ultimate healing at:
mas@leaderswithmandy.com or go to the “contact” page of this website,
and let me know that you’re ready for your transformative experience!
Despite unfortunate events in our life histories, we all deserve to live the life we’ve always wanted to ourselves and our families. That includes you, and yours!
Coach Mandy S.
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