For those of us with complicated mothers...
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The Reality of Mother’s Day
Society has reified the image of a mother. Maternity has been elevated to a state of sainthood in our psyches. Tibetan lamas would cry when they think of the care, compassion, and sacrifices their mothers have made on their behalf. The exhortation from society is that no matter what our mothers have done or not done, they are saints, blameless, and beyond reproach. As a psychotherapist and a keeper of many stories, I want to clear up some of the confusion this mythical mother can cause for people.
1) The first thing we need to understand is that behind the image of Mother is a real woman.
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Real women have real lives and issues. A mother is a woman who carried us and birthed us, raised us, and connects us to a family group. There’s a whole range of mothers spanning from real young ones to older ones, poor ones to wealthy ones, emotionally stable ones to emotionally unstable ones. To add complexity, these circumstances can change for a woman during her lifetime. Four siblings can experience very different parenting from the same woman, simply because her life had changed during those years. To further complicate this picture, the woman who birthed us may not be the same one who raised us. All this complexity points to the fact that a woman’s capacity to parent her child can change throughout her lifetime.
Becoming a mature person requires seeing things as they are, not as we want them to be. Can you accept your mother as a woman, rather than as a disappointment from an ideal?
2) Birthing a child does not automatically give you maternal instincts.
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There have been studies in pre- and perinatal psychology that document how the circumstances of a woman’s experiences with childbirth can support or inhibit the chemicals that create bonding between mother and infant. There’s an intricate biochemical dance between mother and child that happens during pregnancy, at birth, and moments after birth that lays the imprints of attachment and bonding. If these processes are interrupted, the oxytocin release for the mother gets interrupted and she is less likely to feel nurturing towards her infant. Also, the behaviors between the child and the mother can support good feelings towards the baby. If the child is chronically distressed or ill, this can severely diminish the feelings of love and protection towards the child.
Besides the early moments of life, there’s the lasting effects of how the mother was cared for as well. There’s a high likelihood that if a woman did not receive affectionate parenting from her own caregivers, she will likely pass on that same style of parenting to her offspring. This cycle can be interrupted when she experiences a nurturing environment in adulthood. That nurturing environment can come from a supportive network of friends, her adult love relationships, or a therapeutic relationship.
If your mother was or is not the maternal kind, it was due to difficult circumstances in her life. There's nothing wrong with you. The work is to find and connect with the people in your life now who can provide the warmth, love, and care you need today. You deserve to be loved.
3) Some women did not want to be mothers, or a mother at that particular time.
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I have met many people who were given up for adoption. The reasons were as follows.
A woman was simply not ready to be a parent at that time. She was forced to. She was too poor or lived in a country with an unstable government. She had failed to meet requirements to get sober and stable. Violence and rape. Women’s lives are often painful and complex, and that impacts their parenting choices.
If this was your mother, there's nothing wrong with you. She did the best thing she knew how at the time to ensure your safety and survival. You have every right to be here. There's a spiritual side to life that can only be understood when the time is right. Just because you don't understand it now doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.
4) Some women are not cut out to be mothers.
Photo by Engin Akyurt on Unsplash
By this, I do not mean the act of providing food and shelter to her offspring. Mothering in a psychological aspect includes activities such as paying active attention to your child, taking interest in their thoughts and feelings, and mediating strong emotions for them. Mothers scaffold how to respond both to the internal feelings as well as how to make sense of others for their children. Some women naturally do that for others while others do not.
Also, some women have psychological issues that may not have been addressed, such as trauma, addictions, or narcissistic personality disorders. These chronic conditions severely impact functioning in general, including the capacity to care for children.
If this was your mother, I'm sorry. It must've been very confusing for you as a child. As an adult, you have the capacity to understand now that what she did had very little to do with you. Like all children, you needed love, care, and attention. There's nothing wrong with you. You are lovable.
5) Some women aren't comfortable around children.
Society can accept that some men can feel awkward around babies, and grow to enjoy their children when they can talk and walk and express their personality. Somehow, there’s less acceptance for women who might feel the same way. However, these women exist and they may experience frustration, isolation, and guilt when they feel an aversion towards their own children. What women need is support, not judgment. Other societies, including Indigenous ones, spread the caregiving of children to many people, increasing the odds that the infant will receive quality care.
If you are a mother who's having a hard time, I hope you will seek the support you need. Your children will benefit from your increased sense of well-being.
If you are a woman who chooses not to have children, there's nothing wrong with you. A woman's worth is intrinsic and does not rely on having offspring.
The topic of mothers is painful for many people. If it is for you, I hope these words let you know that you are not alone. There are many people on this planet, and that inherently comes with many different experiences of mothers and mothering. Holding that complexity is much more kind to ourselves and to the real mothers in our lives.
