Okay…I give up…how could it be Sunday night/Monday morning already…not that I”m complaining because it means I only have 3 more nights to work. It could be the Facebook Pirates game which has become an addiction for me…good grief!!
I had an interesting email conversation with an old childhood friend…she was revealing some truths about life with her mother and it sounded very much like my relationship with my mother – afterwards, I began pondering what it is with my generation and their mothers…it seems I know very few 50 year old women who have fond memories of their childhood and their mothers in general…and I probably shouldn’t generalize but this just seems to be true with the women that I personally know and personally talk to. Is it the generation…hard to believe because my mother is much older than most of the mother’s of my peers…also this friend of mine has a mother about the same age as mine. I hope it is the hardships of their generation that caused them to be mean, acid tongued-bitter women..rather than just a typical mother/daughter thing. Even though my daughters and I don’t see eye to eye on everything, we at least like each other…. Perhaps women who came of age in the 30’s have an axe to grind about the way they were brought up – although my mother was raised by her father and step-mother and a very conservative group of preachers and their wives..my mother is obviously narcissistic but I’m pretty sure if she didn’t have that personality flaw, she would still be iron fisted and no patience for change of any kind…I guess we will never know but I find it very sad that there are a bunch of over the hill post menopausal women still running around trying to please their mothers or as I do…just tolerate my mother until I can find peace in her death…
Those are my thoughts for this morning…some may find them offensive but they are my thoughts….
Until next time….
Ninasusan 
@tracy – you may be on to something…Phil and I have always talked about the fact that image is everything with my mother….interesting
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@tracy – That is interesting. I think you have a point — it must have been very hard for those women who were brought up to care about appearances to have daughters that didn’t care about that sort of thing.
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ooo, see now it’s interesting to go up the comments and read them.
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@skanickadee – You asked for it, you got it. I did it before reading any one else’s comments so it will be intersting to see if we all agree. I think there is a large group of women of a certain age who harbor a lot of resentment towards their female children. My mom was probably around the beginning of that group of children and I think it’s a very typical example of a whole bunch of women who were born in the forties and fifties with probably some carryover into the early sixties. My grandmother was raised very harshly, and everything was about image. How things looked was the final verdict, not how things were. My mother was raised to look correctly, and to behave correctly no matter what the cost. So while at home her mother was telling her how to be proper she was learning from society some very different lessons. Teenage girls were learning to be free and independent. I bet this scared the bejeezus out of my Grandma and I bet she thought that the rest of society would “blame” her for my mothers actions. So she resented the heck out of my mother and thought she was a horrible person. She spent a lot of years trying to regain that control so that the world would see that she (my grandma) had succeeded in raising her daughter correctly. All through her life she thought everything my mother did was just to spite her and make her look bad. I think that unfortunately this is a very repeated pattern especially for women who grew up as independent strong people despite their mothers.
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So interesting to read your thoughtful blog, and the comments that follow. I could run on and on about mother/daughter relationships, mine in particular, but I think Neppykate said a lot of what I feel. I know my mother always seemed to be in competition with me, to the extent of sleeping with men my age when I was in my late 20s/early 30s. More than once I found myself (found out later) dating someone who had screwed my mother on a one night stand. Talk about weird! Even now, at age 77, she is very self-centered and narcissistic. I would like to say I feel sorry for her, for the way she grew up and the way she was treated; I’d like to, but it is difficult. Mostly, I try to tolerate her when I am with her, and enjoy the things about her that I can.A wonderful, thought provoking entry.
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@tracy – I’s sure be interested to hear your thoughts on this.
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I had a long distance relationship with my mother as she left when I was an infant and came back into my life when I was 13. She was an alcoholic and she left me with alcoholics. Many of my acqaintances who are my age, (60), have had the same thing happen to them. My Mother passed away at at 57 from diabetes and alcoholism. I have sons, no daughters and my relationship with them is very close, and the same with my grand daughetrs and grand sonI don’t find your thoughts offensive. I find the, food fo rthought and reflection.
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I want to also make a quick comment on the fact that these women have no one to control besides their daughters. You don’t often hear about the men of your generation following your path. Why? Because they are men, and controlled their mothers via their father or even themselves. I can’t imagine not having any control in where my life is going, let alone getting water-boarded in the backyard by my husband while everyone else just ignored my gargling. Having a daughter means you get to treat her just as poorly as you were treated because that is the pattern and the cycle. Aside from their mental illness, they need to break free and control SOMEONE’S emotions. You don’t see her treating dad the way she treats you because she’s afraid he’ll backhand her or push her down the stairs. She just came programmed this way, unfortunately.
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I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that most women grandma’s age were brainwashed, controlled, beaten by men and given no rights. From their births, they did not have a taste of what it would be like to be “free” to experience and act on their desires and dreams. Then comes your generation, a bunch of young, vibrant women who were doing what they wanted, experiencing their youth and changing the world. Of course there’s some resentment that comes along with that. These women are most likely jealous of their daughters who are younger, prettier and have more control and freedom than they could have ever hoped to have when they were young (this is not new: have you seen Snow White?) Also, please don’t disregard that, either from birth or because of their brutal upbringing, most of these women, like grandma, are emotionally and mentally disturbed and were never meant to be mothers of the new generation. In their minds, nothing is wrong, because this is how it has always been. Now we have a bunch of 50-something-year-old-women wishing for an apology, refusing to give their mothers an excuse such as mental illness, and thus reliving trauma because they can’t accept that there was nothing they could have done wrong.All you folks can do (and did) is change the way you parent. That’s what parenting is all about– recognizing the wrong done to you so that you can make another life easier.
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This background is great! I have a whole big complicated comment for this, but I’m distracted so I won’t. But I do think some of it is generational.
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Hey are those dandelions on your background? Come late April I should have a bumper crop of those in my yard. Not to excuse any bad behavior by mothers but I think a lot of women were abused in some form or another as they were growing up. Doesn’t narcissism mean self love? Perhaps that would be a reaction to growing up in an environment where you are told to deny your self which would be the type of environment that you would have if you were raised by a bunch of preachers.People who are abused often times become abusers.My mom died when I was 24. She had been sick for several years. Our relationship was average I guess. I don’t feel like I really knew her before she died.
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Love your new background. I’m going to have to give facebook pirates another whirl when I have time.
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Wow. I guess I’m one lucky person then. At 51 (almost 52) my 86 year old mother is my best friend. I can’t imagine what I’m going to do when the time comes that I no longer have her. I feel really bad for women who did not have the same experience with their moms. By the way — I love the new background.Niki
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That is crazy that you blogged about your mom and before I read this I was asking you about her……I wonder if my mom and her mom would get along if she were still alive…….
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