Mothering your Mother

My dad died 2.5 years ago. I loved both my parents but I hadn’t always had an easy relationship with them. It improved as I got older. The first couple of years after my dad died were tricky - my mum is a bit of a hypochondriac and it was tiring listening and trying to be sympathetic to a litany of (mainly) imagined, illnesses. I realised it was part of the difficulty of adjusting to being on her own, but in her early 90s, she’s still in remarkably good health.
She has never really been very affectionate, and can be quite spiky. And not very supportive at times. She also told me (quite out of the blue) that they had planned to have me adopted and only changed their mind a few weeks before I was born! She had made no preparation for my birth at all and already discussed adoption with the hospital. My dad hadn’t wanted children at that stage but seems to have changed his mind at the last minute and she just went along with those decisions! I really didn’t know what to do with that information - or why she thought she would share it after all these years. But I thought it explained some things about our relationship.
But about six months ago, she seemed to go through quite a change - settling better into life on her own, but also becoming more openly grateful of what I do and much more affectionate. I get proper hugs when we say goodbye now, which I have never had. She gave me a little plaque she found in a charity shop with sentimental words about a dear daughter - she said she saw it and thought it summed me up perfectly. I was taken aback and very touched.
I am better able to enjoy time with her now than I’ve probably ever done, and am trying to make the most of it. I suppose my take away as that it’s never too late for a relationship to change - this has been an unexpected blessing.

You are not her mother. You will only ever be her daughter. Mothers don't come with manuals as to how to be a mother- we are all people with faults.

I was never that close to my mum- but when she got older and I spent time with her I did begin to see her as just another woman who had tried her best despite some enormous struggles.

The irritation she caused me to feel didn't disappear, but I learned to see it as part of who she was and could therefore deal with it.

I am so glad that we became much closer as she aged and that I came to respect her much more, and eventually loved her funny ways and admired the way she had dealth with life.

Those few years are good for me to look back on...I hope you find a way to get close to her and just have some fun together.

Don't think of her as a child...but look at what she has dealt with over the years and you may even learn a lot from her, as I did.

Mum’s here looking over my shoulder, literally, but anyway I truly have to say she’s the best in the world😃

crazyH

Littleannie - how awful! I don’t want to pry but why oh why would a son send such a hurtful text , as you say, for 40 years ?
That’s a very bitter son…

Mental health case I suspect.
Littleannie 💐

So many of you really loved your moms as i did, which is lovely. One of mine estranged and the other doesn't think I need any time. They both definitely know how much they were and are wanted and loved. It won't change.

Madmeg how lovely that you saw her (briefly) as your dad knew her.
That is something to treasure I think

Growing up my mother was just "there" to me - little personality, matter of fact (I recall sobbing uncontrollably when, at 18, a serious boyfriend ditched me and her response was "get over it" - no sympathy or cuddles.

It was much later in life that I realised how much I owed here in bringing me up - teaching me to read and write, make things, do the right thing by and to others, but she was still matter-of-fact.

When my dad (who was AMAZING to me) knew he was dying, he said "look out for your mum, she is losing it", I told him that I would. I knew he would have, if he had lived. So when she developed Alzheimers, I did just that. We tried allowing her to stay in her beloved home of nearly 60 years but eventually she had to move into a care home. I had EPA so sold her house to pay the fees and suddenly saw a totally new mother emerge, one who was fun, a good friend to others in the home, spirited and lively. I could suddenly see why my dad had loved her so much and had so much respect for her. My fondness for her grew immensely in that last year till a sudden unforseen illness took her and my sadness at her going was hard to bear.

Older cousins at her funeral recalled their own memories of her and it was an eye-opener for me. She was a "get on with it" person through and through and now I realise I am much the same. Thanks mum, for all that stability you gave me.

I’m old at 82 but I try to show my deep love for my daughter by enjoying and supporting my granddaughters and grandson whilst giving her the space and freedom to be a strong and independent thinking mum to this grown up family of hers. My own mum died when I was in my early thirties …..and even now after all these years I still remember the guilt I felt when she died so suddenly. Up to this time in my life I was never sure how to cope and respond to the love she obviously had for me.She adored our two children and throughout my life was a kind and generous mum - but independent and outgoing too. In hindsight I say it was a blessing she died when she did because it gave me a clear pathway to make my own decisions and mistakes from my thirties onwards without always thinking I had to seek her approval. My hope is that I try and take the best memories of my mother and build on them to be thought of as a loving but independent aging mother and to become a memorable grandmother to my grandkids.

Yes I really understand the clingy mum. I had one too. It’s one of the most difficult things I had to deal with. I was never good enough either, I didn’t visit enough,do enough, or be enough in any shape or form.
Looking back, although I was very loved as a long awaited only child I didn’t live up to expectations. Think mum would have preferred a boy.
She once said she loved her two grandsons more than me. That hurt, and I never got over it.
The only way I got through the last ten years of her needing help was to set boundaries in place. I decided on a set amount of days and tasks that I felt I could do and let social services do the rest, apart from emergencies of course of which there was plenty.
It’s impossible to do more when you have your own home, DH DGC working etc. mum never understood.

Yes Franski it resonates with me. In all the time I knew my Mother I never experienced a kiss or a hug and there is definitely no exaggeration in that statement.

My mother died suddenly when I was sixteen and it was only when I had teenage children myself that I recognised what a remarkable parent she had been, warm and interested but never demanding. I think I was very lucky, and miss her still, nearly seventy years on.

Yes I understand. Although my Mother is 92. But she's always been a kind of "old toddler "...I think true to say rather a Narcissist. I've always longed for a real grown up Mum . Too late now! Big Hugs because I totally understand. X

I had my mum for 64 years most of them good! She did leave us when I was 14 so that was hard but we reconciled and I grew to understand why she left ! She was bright, clever, funny, stubborn, opinionated and loved us fiercely ! Cancer took her 10 years ago and I miss her but wouldn’t want her to see the world we have now !

My mother had a hellish childhood including a cruel stepmother, but somehow she became a wonderful mother and grandmother. She wasn't faultless but all of us daughters are proud of her and know what we owe her.
Thanks Mum. I think of you every day and if I have a problem I ask what you would do.

I look back on my childhood with lovely memories of my parents. Dad built me a sweetie shop and played shops with me for hours. He died when I was 6. My mum was always hugging us and we never went to bed with a kiss and being told she loved us. My Gran and two aunts were the same, always left with a hug, kiss and I love you.

My children were treated the same way and my 2 precious DGDs always kiss us goodbye and the eldest always shouts as she’s going out the door love you the most.

Life wasn’t always easy growing up in60’s in single parent family, but my brothers and I knew we were loved.

Littleannie - how awful! I don’t want to pry but why oh why would a son send such a hurtful text , as you say, for 40 years ?
That’s a very bitter son…

Littleannie

My son has sent his usual Mother's Day text - "Why don't you die Mother. The sooner you're dead the better as nobody will miss you ".

How very upsetting and hurtful 😢

When I was a child, teenager and young adult my mother was one of the best mothers anyone could imagine or have. She loved me, surrounded herself with interesting friends, cats, dogs, cage birds, hens, ran her own business and was my father's (a busy GP) receptionist as well.

I realised early there was another side to her - my sister had a completely different relationship with our mother, and even as I child I saw, but did not dare admit, that our mother was unfair to my sister,

Sometime around my 30th birthday, I realised that my dear mother, I mean that, actually had dominated us through kindness, so she got her way, we did what she said, etc. My sister, not having been adored in early childhood as I was, saw that much early and got out as soon as she was legally an adult.

In old age Mother became a bitter, grumpy old woman, and we ( my sister, father and I) had to be at her beck and call, No matter that neither my sister nor I lived right round the corner, - we had made very sure of that, early on- we were expected to drop everything to run errands, come and help etc and was Mother cross if one of us said we could not take time off work to help?

So, yes, I too know how hard it can be to mother ones mother.

I have a good friend who rarely if ever complimented or said well done to her children, her explanation was that s he was she didn’t want them to get spoiled or ‘big headed’ and she was brought up that way. (50 s/60s).
She shows her love in different ways and I hope they realise that she does love them. Those were the days when this sort of parenting was fairly normal. Children were not the centre of the family, as perhaps they are now. Different days different ways.

My mum is much more clingy now. She insists I text her when I get home after a visit even though she lives nearby otherwise she ‘can’t settle’. I’ve noticed she often puts on an act that she can’t do things too, so I have to help her. I love her dearly but I do need to grit my teeth sometimes. It’s like she’s a toddler in lots of ways who needs watching.

Littleannie

MOnica it's the only way I have of knowing my grandchildren are OK.

Oh, Littleannie, how dreadful. Can you not block his number for the mother's day weekend?

Marydoll, as you say, so sad, but I think it was that generation, I sometimes think it was the price our parents generation paid as the children of parents who lived through WW1 and had coped with the loss of so many near and dear to them.

As a child, I knew rather than felt I was loved, because nothing was ever said and my parents were not tactile. The only break came when they were in their seventies when my younger sister was killed in a road accident, then for a few months we cried and we hugged, but then things moved back to normal.

I only ever received one compliment from parents, my father, specifically, - and that came second hand. He said something to my praise to a friend, who told me, quite lightly, in conversation.

After his funeral, my mother died first, all his friends told me and my youngest sister, how proud our parents had been of their 3 'girls' and how they talked of our achievements and talked about their grandchildren and how well they were doing- but never to us.

Thank you silverlining. I have had it for 40 years so I should be used to it, but it still hurts.