Mothers and Daughters: Day 15
I am always curious and intrigued by the connection mother and daughters have. It’s much deeper than say, a mom and son or father-daughter one. Even a father-son one can’t compare to the connection a mother and daughter have.
Women are nurturing, kind, and thinking of others. They make sure everyone is doing okay, putting others first. Yes, others can be manipulative, cruel, and divisive. They are quick to cut down a person without a trace of guilt.
So why do we, as daughters, care so much about our dynamic with our mothers?
I am thinking about this because I think about my connection with my mother. Yes, she nurtured me, is my biggest cheerleader, and is always looking out for others. She considers me her best friend.
And for a time, I considered her mine.
But dynamics change.
Why do they change for others, while some stay the same?
The change in the relationship began about a few years ago. I harken back to about 2016 when she had a string of health issues that forced me to look at death earlier than I wanted to. Thankfully, she made it past there, but it made me harden up. I guarded my heart more than I had ever done. I didn’t open up as much to her.
While she was getting better, I still wanted to go back to when we were very close. But I became more than just a daughter. I was a driver to appointments, an errand runner for medications and food.
But most of all, I was an ear to listen. I was the one to hear hours upon hours of stories of how she felt so lonely despite always being talkative. Chalk it up to being the youngest child is my guess.
But, as opposed to hearing these stories as a young adult, in my thirties, it got to be a burden.
And so the dynamic changed.
I began to discuss my grieves first with my husband, then to a therapist. This change of dynamic began to bother her a bit.
“Are you okay” and “Are you mad at me” were questions I’d get on a constant basis. No, I’d say, nothing is wrong, I’m just not in a talkative mood.
In reality, I just got tired of being the bearer of her weight.
Going back to the dynamics of a mother-daughter relationship. Some say the relationship a daughter has with her father is the most important one she’ll have, but I disagree. It’s the mom.
We are conditioned (either through visual aids or just social observation) that our moms are responsible for everything in the house, and that we should strive to be the same. Over time, however, women began to shift. They were soon looking out for their own selves. They got jobs and grew to be independent.
And, if you were growing up at this time, you’d see that this dynamic meant that daughters should go to school, then to college, get a degree, get a great job, THEN think about kids and marriage.
So, whether you’ve seen the homemaker mom or the working mom, this dynamic was very important in a young girl’s life.
As that girl got older and had responsibilities of her own, the dynamic can go one of three ways:
She sets out on the path her mother went because she is connected to that.
She goes the complete opposite because she wants to stray far away from that.
She starts one way but shifts towards the other, with a slight built of resentment filtered in from the mother.
I fall into category #2.
For years, my mom would say that her goal in life was to be a wife and mother. That is because she saw that. That’s what she attained when she got pregnant with me at 19. She wasn’t married, but she was going to have a baby. And a daughter at that. She would tell me countless times how blessed she was to have a daughter and how she would be able to have a best friend.
Looking back, it seems a bit creepy, right? To be that lonely and feel so alone that having a child would make everything better?
Anyway, so we were close, and our dynamic was great.
It kind of all changed as I dated and finally met my now-husband. At first, it stayed the same. But over time, the conversations I had with him and my therapist, I realized I almost sabotaged my relationship because I was too dependent on her opinion and even going with things that I felt weren’t the right call. Also, telling her everything about my relationship, especially when it hits a rough patch, will not help solve the problems. It makes it worse. They meddle.
In hindsight, I see why he doesn’t talk too much to his mom about any issues we have. My mother-in-law is almost the same way as my mom. Always trying to fix, but not realizing that we can fix things on our own. It creates more problems than it solves.
Now, if there are mothers and daughters out there who respect boundaries of relationships and are close, I applaud you for making it that way and wish I had that.
So, eventually, the dynamic had to change. Not because I didn’t love my mom, but because I did. I needed to work out my problems on my own and also learn to not absorb everything she says about her loneliness. It is like a broken record that won’t get fixed.
So, now the dynamic is me being there to help with errands and occasionally listening but for no more than 30 minutes. Any more and I either tune out or interrupt by saying I need to do something (which I actually need to do 90% of the time). I know it frustrated her to have me pull away. I wish she can understand that it needs to be this way.
Our dynamic is no longer that close mother-daughter that it once was. It’s a combination of the illness (she has MS), the repeating of the problems because she has no one to talk to, or both.
Do I wish it was the same? I don’t.
I don’t want to be exhausted from listening to her. I don’ want to be like I can’t go anywhere or try things because she worries something will happen. I don’t want to make sure I fold towels right and put them in the closet the right way (yes, this is a thing and it pissed me off).
I want to be able to sit and chill with her. I want to talk about more than the news because that’s depressing. I want to talk about cool books and movies and debate on life philosophies. I want to pick her brain about ideas for my blog and website. I want to have a mom that is not needy and dependent on me.
Of course, I didn’t get that, and I won’t get that. I’ve accepted it. But I do know that this dynamic has changed me in more ways than I imagined. And it still changes me. I still want to be more independent. I want to be successful. I want to forego having kids and travel. Most importantly, I want to enjoy life.
The crazy thing is, this is exactly how I saw my mom growing up. I saw my mom be a strong, independent single mother who took her daughter on trips and had fun. We’d laugh and have a lot of fun. I do think the MS took a lot away, and it made me upset. I also think about her second marriage, and how I did feel that dynamic shift a tad bit and felt like I wasn’t needed anymore. She had her husband and kid (my sister is 17 years younger than me), but then it was taken away from her. I don’t think she ever recovered from that.
That had to fucking suck. To have what you want, but it didn’t go the way as planned. She will be the first to tell you she shouldn’t have married this person. That she should have kept looking. I think it haunts her. I think she thinks if she would have kept looking, maybe she would have had someone who’d be there when things fell apart with the MS. Then again, the first marriage she did it because she was in love, but with a monster.
I wonder if our dynamic is because of her and my grandmother’s dynamic. My grandmother is a bit of the word that rhymes with witch.
My mom always made it a point to bend over backward to make sure my grandmother was taken care of, and all she did was give thanks to the Lord. She never said she was proud of my mom, or thank you for getting the food or paying a bill. Always the Lord that did it. I think that lack of love translated to an overabundance of love she poured on me.
So, now I’m at a point where I don’t want to give nor receive that kind of love. I want it to stop with me. I don’t want to burden a child I have with my problems and over attention, and I don’t want to seem selfish and cold. So I decided that not having a kid is the best solution.
Do I blame my mom for this change? No, not really. I could have found solutions and still be close. I still can. But I’m not there yet.
Now, do you think that a mother-daughter relationship is important?
I don’t have a simple solution or answer to this. I know relationships change, are fluid and always in motion. They are never stagnant. But I do know that it is a crucial part of life, and whether it’s there or not makes a big difference.
