MotherMayI
These thoughts were triggered by my need to transmute my ‘Mommy Issues'…
A girl gets the majority of her confidence from her mother. IMO, it’s a mothers job to impart confidence and it’s a fathers responsibility to reinforce it. Unfortunately, many mothers view their daughters as competitors instead of children..so that confidence can quickly turn into insecurity if the onus for imparting it is placed in the wrong hands. I had a mother who put emphasis on my flaws and never acknowledged any of my positive attributes. She attempted to once, on my 31st birthday, when she got me a card with wording that spoke to the beauty of the cardholder and I shed real tears because it was the closest she had ever come to saying I was beautiful. Words of affirmation clearly isn’t her ministry.
Her behavior suggests to me that when a woman has a daughter and the father of that child, or the father of any of her other children, don’t stick around like they expect…the opportunity for projection is readily available. The sentiment projected is usually unworthiness and it can be acted out in many ways. My mother chose to project her feelings of worthlessness through imparting self-doubt in me. So whenever she saw a flaw, she was quick to acknowledge it…with a smile… without giving me any context on why she was bringing it to my attention. That left me the task of trying to understand why her inflection about the subject sounded like these things were something I should feel ashamed about. I told this to one of my therapists once; back when I used to indulge in having professionals validate the unspoken assumptions I was too afraid to make beliefs. The next session she brought me a book called: Will I Ever Be Good Enough? Healing the Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers by Karyl McBride, Ph.D. This helped substantiate my belief system.
As a child, my confusion about my mothers motives deepened when she would go out of her way to embarrass me about the same ‘flaws’ she was doing nothing to help me overcome. This is what I refer to as her ‘Pavlov Conditioning Camp’. She dug deep into my psyche and implanted an unwavering sense of self-hatred before I even knew it was possible to love myself. And she ‘conditioned’ me the most when I was in a good mood. This birthed a level of subconscious insecurity in me that I am still trying to overcome. For the sake of sounding impartial I’ll say I don’t know if she did these things on purpose. But for the sake of telling the truth to any mother reading this who displays the same competitive spirit towards a seed you chose to force into this world…I have to be truthful and say your child will eventually grow up and realize that your inability to value yourself is why you were unable to acknowledge their value. That realization will birth many different emotions in your seed and if you are lucky it will birth empathy. I have empathy for my mother because with a mother like hers…she had no choice but to become the emotionally detached maternal figure I have been battling my whole life. That, however, doesn’t excuse the fact that her inability to heal left her children motherless.
If I was given the privilege of having my own mother acknowledge me, I would ask her what the purpose of birthing a child was if she was just going to abandon the emotional responsibilities that come with the job title. That abandonment made me feel like it was my job to pacify her ego by reinforcing the fact that she did the “best she could”. But if the “best you could” caused emotional trauma in the kids you decided to mandate to this existence…you failed at a job you chose. Many of you guilt trip and excuse away your toxic behavior because it’s socially acceptable. So that requires most to ignore their ‘Mommy Issues’ and chastise anyone who openly speaks on the topic. Parents have been put on such a high pedestal….FOR A JOB THEY CREATED THEMSELVES. If your child isn’t able to hold you accountable…that is indication that you may have filled your child’s childhood with the misconception that they were always the problem. Which suggests that your expectation of being celebrated on days like Mother’s Day, by a child you obligated to give you this title, is rooted in your need to validate your own worth more than anything else.
Love,
Choosy
