The sad truth about mothers is that some of us love them and some of us don't. It's not about the love-hate stuff people always talk about. That's a nonsense.
You can love your mother and still occassionally get annoyed, or frustrated, or impatient. You can love her and still disagree. Those moments are not hate. Believe me. I have one of those sometimes tumultuous relationships with my daughter (we are both mediterannean drama queens). We can bicker and disagree sometimes (though less so as the years roll on), but the love is always there. Do you know how I know? I know because neither one of us enjoys the rough moments - and they are moments, not days, weeks or years....
But the hating of a mother is something very serious, something deep in your core, something immovable, something that came not easily but stayed. Nevertheless, you can hate your mother and still be a good and dutiful daughter. You must be a good and dutiful daughter for 2 reasons:
- To retain your own humanity
- To set a good example for your own children
I am a good and dutiful daughter but I am a better mother. I have willingly made all the sacrifices for my kids that were never made for me. I have given protection to my kids from harm, not life, that was never given to me. I have spoken words to them that every child needs to hear and which were never spoken to me. I have made apologies to them, for mistakes and decisions I have made which affected them, which have never been made to me. I have held them and consoled them and stood by them in ways that were never done for me. And I have held them - mechanically and deliberately at first and then protectrively and lovingly and sometimes desperately - as I have never been held.
Do you know what the most hurtful words any wounded child could ever hear are?
She's your mother. You have to forgive her.
No.... I don't. And any friend, who truly is a friend would never ask such a thing. I have truncated several friendships in the last decade because of those words.
Now before you get all preachy on me let me say a few more things:
Firstly - I am not a vindictive person. I am damaged yes, but I have made it my life's mission to be a different human being from the models I was exposed to growing up. I believe I have succeeded and have daily proof from friends, colleagues, husband and especially from my two children.
Second - Not forgiving or forgetting the injuries inflicted on me through all my formative years, and beyond, validates the harm and the pain I suffered. To tell me otherwise is ludicrous. Do we forgive the murderers, the thieves, the rapists, the abusers? No, we punish them and we tag them for life. And some of them are parents, just not ours.
So, I will not forgive or forget. I cannot invoke a punishment, but do not tell me to forget or forgive because that is like telling me it never happened. That, to me, is abuse of the victim.
I see a lot of crap on the TV on Talk shows about not being able to move forward unless we forgive those who trespass against us (thought I'd throw in a religious reference). Stuff and nonsense. What we should be telling people and helping them with is growth from the past. Tell us to use those experiences to be better. Vindicate us as human beings, validate our lives and experiences by acknowledging them. Sympathise with us, empathise, condole for our lost youth, help us to analyse it. Don't tell us to forget. And forgiving is just implicit retrospective permission for bad behaviour.
My very dear friend Kim (aka Hopeful Writer) said to me many times and again last night that all those things that have happened in the past have made me the woman that I am. She didnt mean that what happened was good. She meant that I grew strong out of them. And the subtext was that they should never happened...but they did and I have done an amazing job becoming the me of today. Thank you Kimmy. That is what a true friend is.
Today I love my life. I love my children and admire them so much. I love my husband just for being able to live with me (that's a joke peeps). I love my home, my books, my garden. I love my true friends. I am happy.
It took 50 years to get to this point. But that's Ok. It's Ok because I made it and I never thought I would.
Don't feel sorry for me. Just understand why I cannot relate to people who love their mothers dearly and miss them dreadfully. Kimmy and Tracey, I can't feel what you feel and sometimes I am almost envious. But I know what my kids will feel. I know now what it is to truly love a child and be truly loved in return. I now know how that feeling drives you to do anything, at whatever cost, to protect them. My children taught me that lesson - ironic eh? And that is good enough for me. My heart is open and my conscience is clear.
Don't judge....learn.
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