"When you are a mother you are never really alone in your thoughts. A mother always has to think twice - once for her self and once for her child." Sophia Loren
As I look upon Mother's day, I see my mother and I see me mothering. I see how mothering doesn't come with a clean slate, that the child doesn't make you a better mother depending upon his or her life, but rather it is all set in place by your life experiences.
What you fear will infect an otherwise normal response.
Where you are weak, will be challenged time and time again, urging you to shore up those weaknesses by choosing different...most often our failure is the most strongly felt by the child.
Sadly, we are asked to be the mother our mother's couldn't be, and tooled with dysfunctional tools she gave us.
When I seen the errors of my mother, I tried to do the opposite in hopes of sowing different results in my children; breaking the chain of dysfunction.
Dr. Maya Angelou says, "When you know better, you do better." Which sounds so easy...and simple. Stopping the harmful reflexes are not always easy.
Children who come from mother's who are still wounded from their own childhood, know that hurt people hurt people. You then begin motherhood hurt.
A hurting, wounded woman often looks to the child for comfort and happiness, to make her feel loved...the child's behavior then is to either make her happy or make her sad. They become the happy switch....or anger switch. They control the mother's life.
When others celebrate Mother's Day, I feel oddly detached and maybe shameful for having such a complicated, hurtful, detachment from my own mother...the flowery singing of phrases seems foreign to me. And, my own rocky mothering to my children don't fit the phrases either.
It is almost like it is a false holiday...a day where we overlook all the failures and hurt and concentrate on the good.
I guess I just have complicated feelings about mother's day.
When I look towards my mother, there is a mountain of twisted hurt....when I look at my mothering, I see transformation. But, at the same time I know the hurt I caused while not aware.
My reflections on mother's day are not in cards and quotes.
For those mother's out there who are trying to unravel or turn off the switch attached to our mother's feelings....I wish you strength.
The hardest job you will ever do is to unplug your self from your mother's happiness. To no longer be responsible for her happiness or disappointment.
This disconnection is crucial.
A mother who is unhurt will have plenty of space to allow her children the freedom to be who they were meant to be.
May Mother's Day be a day of unplugging and being free!
