Letters to the Editor
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my father
i had the same sort of feelings of anger for my father, until i learned more about him: his boyhood, his young adulthood -- basically more about who he was before he became a father.
what i learned blew me away, and instead of resenting my father for his failings, i was in awe of how well he'd done despite the circumstances of his life. i don't know that i'd be able to be any kind of parent if i'd gone through what he had.
and that helped me to forgive. the upside (and to some, the downside) of forgiveness is that i couldn't blame everything on my father anymore; i had to take responsibility for how i'd let his actions affect how i dealt with my life.
LW should speak with her mom -- ask her mom what her life was like when she thought motherhood was decades away. anger will dissolve into sympathy, and your love just might become stronger.
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Let it go ...
We all need to pick our battles, but picking a battle about the past, about events that have already taken place and that cannot be changed, what's the point in that? Perhaps the LW should begin to distance herself from her mother. That is something she can do now. Actually, may be that is the real root of the LW's anger, that she is still sacrificing her desires and dreams to fulfill an image that her mother has of her?
In any case, it is time for the LW to ask herself what she wants to do with the rest of her life and how she wants to live it. Does she want to continue to feel blocked by her mother, to feel resentment and anger? Or, does she want to free herself and reach towards the image of herself that she, the LW, dreams she could be? And, does she really need to create a scene filled with anger and pain, or, can she breakaway quietly and kindly?
It will not be easy to breakaway quietly and kindly, but the LW says she has a therapist. If the therapist has helped her see how she'd been used by her mother, then the therapist ought to be able to help the LW move beyond those negative feelings and towards being who she, the LW, wants to be. But, before the therapist can help the LW move towards a more positive place, the LW has to want to move in that direction.
It may turn out that the LW can move towards that image of herself that she wants and still be a friend to her mother. Perhaps, if the LW, in time, is able to accept her mother for who she is, and is able to focus on changing herself, will the LW be able to move forward into the future, instead of fixating on the past.
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children are people, too
Brilliant response from Cary today, and many others.
We often make the mistake of assuming that parents control everything in relationship to children, when in fact there's a two-way dynamic. Of course, the parents are 'in charge,' but children actively contribute to the nature of the relationship.
I have two kids, who I love equally; they are by nature very different, require different things from me, and give of themselves differently in return. Nothing has amazed me more than experiencing how much of one's being is seemingly 'hard-wired' from the very start.
We all face various challenges and adversities in life, but each of us reacts to them differently. Be proud of what you've been able to handle, and learn from the things you've yet to master.
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Forgiveness solves nothing
and neither will talking.
About all you can do is wait for her to die, at which time she can be forgotten.
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It's All About Us
Baby Boomers will go down in history as one of the most self absorbed bunch of pampered under achievers in the history of american civilization, and I am ashamed to have to admit I am on the tail end of that demographic.
Some late in life individual has gone to seek out a pyschobabblist who has helped the LW find a way to blame their mother for their faults, shortcomings, or general "malaise."
Suck it up for chrissakes.
Your life sucks because of your mommy. Well, no matter how you slice it, your life is a whole hell of a lot better off than your mothers, because your aren't staring into the abyss of your own coffin at the moment. It would be so typical of self absorbed boomers to take the time when the old girl is near the end of the line to unload a lot of YOUR baggage onto her so maybe your life will be a little happier.
I have a boat load of issues in my own family. My mother was certifiably nuts with full blown manic depression, shock treatments, lithium, haldol and who knows what the hell else during her illustrious career. It can be argued she did a number on me.
So what? She did the best she could and operated without malice. For that she gets a hall pass. If I can't let go of what she did 40 years ago to me then the problem is mine and not hers.
For god's sake think about someone other than yourself for a while. Humor the old girl. She asks for an assessment of how well she did as a mother, lie for crying out loud and tell her she has nothing to worry about. Let her live out her final days thinking she was a good parent.
You want to find a way to blame others for your own misery, keep going back to the pyschobabblist for that nonsense. Hell, take this reply with you and blame me as well. It is, after all, what we boomers do.
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Let it go
Let it go -- that's all you can do. Make the best of what you have left. Don't poison yourself with hatred.
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This couldn't have been posted at a better time...
I am 31. Mom is 60. She drives me crazy. She never lived a real life. She always settled. And piled everything on to me (and my father but having to spend more hours with her than him in my childhood, I feel I got the brunt quantity-wise). Her life is completely empty...she's still in denial over that. God forbid she actually support herself mentally, emotionally or financially. She is poor (in all ways) with a "sense of entitlement" she puts on everyone, my father and me especially. If anything happened to either of us, I really think she would become a homeless crazy woman or at the least become one of those poor cases forced to live in a group home. And not for any disability other than refusing to take responsibility for her own life.
I am fed up with her acting like that is fine but we both damn well know (she does, she DOES) that it isn't. I am tired of her living through me. I am tired of the stress she puts on me. I am tired of not being able to be who I really am around her (the few times I have tried she looks at me like I am a stranger and I want to grab her and scream that the other person she molded and forces herself to see in my place is really the stranger.) I am tired of (every time) something going wrong and then being able to very clearly trace it to something she did or didn't do along the way in my life. I am tired of her asking me for advice on every little thing and then getting mad when I tell her, "I am not telling you how to live her life, I am just telling you to LIVE YOUR LIFE."
Just last night I raged because I realized I spent my whole life trying to be an unlike her as possible and while I haven't failed at it, her apathy about life in general and how everyone else is responsible for saving her still makes me sick and I worry she instilled the same in me as a secret, default mindset I might one day snap into. I worry because when things get rough in my own life, like they did last night, I start to fantasize about someome coming along to save me. I worry someday if I am ever lucky enough to be in the right relationship and have kids, I will be one of those people who has them just to create someone who is supposed to love you unconditionally....then continue the cycle.
And it makes me sick. And there's nothing I can do about it. So LW, please know, many, many, MANY of us are going through this situation with our mothers. I don't know what I am going to do, LW. I don't know what to tell you. I only know that I sense the rift getting wider every day and maddeningly, every day she becomes more and more ignorant of it. I wish there was a support group for children of parents who weren't criminals but who did their fair share to fuck up their kids lives, expectations and ability to function normally.