A quick look on Amazon brings up all kinds of titles for my perusal, if I should wish, on the topic I'm about to embark upon: How to Manage Your Mother, When You and your Mother Can't be Friends, Children of the Self-Absorbed, Adult Children: the Secrets of Dysfunctional Families... and many more like it.
But none of these really really do it for me somehow. I'm not looking for a self-help manual that focusses on the negative in an attempt to find the positive. I'd prefer something more wholesome, holistic, absorbing and engaging. But then that is my bent; it is not my mother's.
Mothers and daughters. Is it a truism that they cannot get along? Is it just a matter of which shade of grey you fall into along the length of the card of mother-daughter relationship failure? Does Attachment Parenting make for better bonds in later life? This is my hope; my main reason behind my instinctive need to use AP with my own children is to ensure a life-long lasting bond, and one which will stand true even in the face of fundamental differences.
And yet, and yet... I also feel it shouldn't really matter the parenting style as long as you can communicate. That's the real key. I talk to my mother and my mother talks to (often at) me; we don't communicate. I've tried over the last decade to create some kind of bond between us but our relationship has declined steadily. I've tried to ignore it, to accept it, to gloss over it, but with children of my own now the issue has become the elephant in the room. Strange, how on becoming a mother we often feel more vulnerable and more in need of mothering ourselves... I feel the absence like a phantom limb; she is there and yet not there.
There is no support, no love like a mother's. When it is present we are encircled in a safe zone, a return to the womb. When it is absent we feel cold, alone, vulnerable. We seek shelter elsewhere, but it's not quite the same; there is a rent in the fabric that no patching will cover.
I send my love and support to all you wonderful attached mammas out there. You are doing a superb job and you should rightly feel very proud.
But none of these really really do it for me somehow. I'm not looking for a self-help manual that focusses on the negative in an attempt to find the positive. I'd prefer something more wholesome, holistic, absorbing and engaging. But then that is my bent; it is not my mother's.
Mothers and daughters. Is it a truism that they cannot get along? Is it just a matter of which shade of grey you fall into along the length of the card of mother-daughter relationship failure? Does Attachment Parenting make for better bonds in later life? This is my hope; my main reason behind my instinctive need to use AP with my own children is to ensure a life-long lasting bond, and one which will stand true even in the face of fundamental differences.
And yet, and yet... I also feel it shouldn't really matter the parenting style as long as you can communicate. That's the real key. I talk to my mother and my mother talks to (often at) me; we don't communicate. I've tried over the last decade to create some kind of bond between us but our relationship has declined steadily. I've tried to ignore it, to accept it, to gloss over it, but with children of my own now the issue has become the elephant in the room. Strange, how on becoming a mother we often feel more vulnerable and more in need of mothering ourselves... I feel the absence like a phantom limb; she is there and yet not there.
There is no support, no love like a mother's. When it is present we are encircled in a safe zone, a return to the womb. When it is absent we feel cold, alone, vulnerable. We seek shelter elsewhere, but it's not quite the same; there is a rent in the fabric that no patching will cover.
I send my love and support to all you wonderful attached mammas out there. You are doing a superb job and you should rightly feel very proud.
From my experience, it has little to do with childhood, rather your mother's ability (or lack of in some cases) to accept you are your own person with your own ideas on life; that you may make mistakes, but that's how you become yourself; and her ability to ignore her own views on these matters and just be there when you need her. I appreciate it can't be easy to sit back and watch your children make mistakes, but it's usually the only way to learn...Kirstee xxx
ReplyDeleteI'm in the midst of dealing with some major complications in my relationship with my mother right now. So, I appreciate this post very much. It is difficult to walk the line between figuring out what is theirs, yours, and where your version of truth remains. It feels good to break the cycle with my own children, but it is an active struggle to figure out where that leaves my own mother and her relationship with my children and myself
ReplyDelete@Kirstee: I agree with that of course, but I think attachment is not only about childhood - if it's ever there it lasts the course of time in one way or another even if you end up disagreeing/following very different paths.
ReplyDelete@Zoie: I defnitely hear you about the grandparental relationship - my mother won't even allow herself to be called such because it makes her feel old! She seems proud and pleased to have them, and yet so very distant at the same time. Very hard.
xxx
I'm in the midst of dealing with some major complications in my relationship with my mother right now. So, I appreciate this post very much. It is difficult to walk the line between figuring out what is theirs, yours, and where your version of truth remains. It feels good to break the cycle with my own children, but it is an active struggle to figure out where that leaves my own mother and her relationship with my children and myself
ReplyDelete