A Lucky Cow

Posted by Brooke | May 6, 2009 | 27 Comments

It’s a phenomenon more puzzling than a Sunday crossword, but more certain than the stars. In fact I could set the compass of my last few years by it: the sticky whirl, the push and pull, the confusion and wonder of a mother daughter relationship.

My mom and I get along great, but I’m no exemption to the hashing out of should-haves, would-haves and why-didn’t-she’s on dates with my journal and dates with my husband. One in particular of which I’ll tell.

Friday. Winter. Sushi. My husband was all ears while I played with my chopsticks and waited for my spicy tuna to arrive. It was a regular scenario, but one that seemed especially pungent with my distress. And maybe wasabi. And a little pickled ginger. A heady sensation really, as I stumbled into a realization. Stripped of the pseudo confidence of my 20’s, and now puzzled at raising kids, I seemed to have entered a second phase of adolescence with my mother in which I started to—like SO many of my peers it seems—psychoanalyze her to try and define myself.

I went over and over it out loud; words and questions that made no sense. Suddenly I heard a song, it was the Beatles (my mama loves the Beatles), and they were singing And I Love Her, and I started to cry.

Because I loved HER.

And what did that have to do with me?

And with each flickering bite of fish and heat, here’s what I swallowed:

-Heavenly Father’s wisdom is divine: He sent her (the Beatle lover) here to be the mom, and me (the sushi lover) to be the daughter. (There might be a parable in there: bugs and fish and food chains? GO.)

-My family was inspired in its construct for us to grow how we needed to.

-I abide by commandments that command I honor her.

Did I forget these? Did I forget that back then my mom was just a girl like me—but new to the Gospel—and doing her best? Or was I just doing something inherent to our relationship by questioning? By analyzing?

I very recently heard Sister Beck tell a story about her own mother visiting a dairy farm, talking to… someone (farmer? dairy master? cow guy?), who relayed this to her: “The goal is to have every mother cow raise a superior daughter.” To which her mother replied, “That’s the goal of every mother.”

Even my mother. And now, even mine. And so I strive to be the superior cow, to raise a better couple of calves and in the process, not forget that maybe this betterment should include

forgiveness

and

unconditional love.

Because my mom wasn’t perfect.

(My dairy Master—and my kids—know I not perfect either.)

When it comes to your own life, a life that hesitantly/brazenly emulates or brazenly/hesitantly diverges from your mother’s chosen path; do you find yourself understanding her more? Or questioning more? Do you ever wonder why she raised you like she did? If she was spiritual enough? Or too spiritual? Why she clung to certain rules? Why there were no rules? Do you parent with the intent of being the opposite of her? Or of becoming her?

Which really means: do you fear someone saying, “You’re just like your mother!” Or do you welcome it?

I’ve decided that should the day ever come, if I’m ever that lucky, I will take that statement as a compliment. And out loud I will say “Thank you,” with pink-cheeked pride.

And inside I’ll say “Mooo.”

Comments

27 Responses to “A Lucky Cow”

JM
May 6th, 2009 @ 6:41 am

maybe someday I will get to where you are, I hope I do, but right now I am struggling. I really don’t want to be like my mother. I love her, but I want to be a much better parent. It was easier when she lived far away, but now that she lives so close (even in my ward) it is really not good. It’s stifling for me and I struggle more than ever.

We are commanded to honor our parents, but how do we do it? Is it enough to love her because she’s my mother, to go over and fix her computer, to paint her house, etc… do I have to be close to her, too? Because that just is not in the cards, it never works. And so I struggle.
Claudia
May 6th, 2009 @ 6:53 am

Thank you for forgiving and loving your mother unconditionally. You are truly a surperior cow.
Brooke
May 6th, 2009 @ 7:02 am

i think in any case, it is enough to love. fixing her computer and painting her house sound like love to me!

and i didn’t even think of how the struggle would be different by living so close to your mother. i haven’t lived near my mom since 1995.
jenny
May 6th, 2009 @ 7:17 am

Oh, mothers.

I do love my mother. And I honor the good things she does/did and I am an obedient daughter. But it’s hard to describe my relationship with her without people getting the idea that I don’t love her. I am slowly working through the grieving that in this life, I will never have the mother/daughter relationship with her that I have always desired. It is just NOT going to happen. I have to get rid of those expectations (properly mourn them and put them to rest…I’m working on that) and focus on the good that I can make of the relationship that we do have. None of this will make any sense to anyone unless we could have a face to face real conversation. Because lots of things my mother does/did are really wonderful. All of her 8 children–married in the temple, all active in the church. 5 served missions. 31 happy grandchildren and still counting. But trust, intimacy, friendship, confidence-keeper, not things we share together, her and I.
It makes me ashamed to say I would not like it one bit for someone to tell me I was just like my mother.
I can’t help but feel jealous of close mother/daughter relationships I see. And mostly, as I am growing and cultivating my own relationships with my children, especially my daughter, I am sad for her that she doesn’t have that mother daughter relationship with me. It could have been great.

So as I am on this mother-journey now, I am both understanding AND questioning her choices in mothering. It has opened up insight and pain all at the same time. She did a lot of things right, so I take those things and build upon them with my own children; the ones she never got right, I can only hope to create a new pattern of mothering for my own children.

And then hope my children will still love and forgive me for my mistakes.

I do love my mother.
I do.
dalene
May 6th, 2009 @ 7:46 am

Lovely post Brooke–as per your usual. Thank you.
Ardis
May 6th, 2009 @ 7:56 am

There is no higher compliment in my book than when someone says I remind her of my mother. She had flaws, but they weren’t the kind that tended to leave scars on me. And I suppose that her passing nine years ago accounts for some of the rosiness of my memories.

But still, tell me I remind you of my mother, and I’m yours for life.
kshaw
May 6th, 2009 @ 8:27 am

No one where I live knows my mom, except my husband. She lives 3000 miles away, and while I love her, I do see her flaws, and have kind of always been second on her roster. She sacrificed a lot for me when I was little, but then gave up the church for a man. After the torment I went through around the time of my wedding (telling her I was getting married in the temple, and my Stepdad telling her she could not attend, changing plans to be married by the bishop so she could come, and then finally making the right decision and getting married in the temple. can we say DRAMA?) I realized that I was on my own as far as family goes. I have come to realize that she loves me, but needs a man in her life to validate her. Going through health struggles, I have also realized that I can’t depend on her to understand the severity of things, that I just let it ride with her.
She has done the best she could to raise me, and I had to start standing on my own two feet pretty quick! I am ok with that. Most of the time.
My mom is a fantastic lady. I love her sense of humor, and her feirce love for my kids, even the one she hasn’t met yet. I am really not a whole lot like her, but that is ok. She shaped who I am, and made me stronger then what she was raised to be.
Sorry for the slight rant, but you know how it is when we get into “mom issues”
Merry Michelle
May 6th, 2009 @ 8:35 am

Wow. This is a very timely post, because I just had a reconciling talk with my own mother yesterday. Our main struggles came from me getting married and confiding in someone else. I have puzzled to know what’s appropriate to share and what isn’t–and had kind of cut off communication all but completely; which in turn made her pry and drove me crazy!

I now know that for me it is still improper to share certain things (like disagreements w/hubby), but that she wants to know how I am and what is going on in my life. I can’t control what she thinks, but I can love her, share with her, honor her, speak kindly of her and to her, and spend time with her.

Motherhood has often reminded me of a quote from “The Living Christ”; “He went about doing good and was despised for it.” I’ve started being easier on my mother since I became one myself. Hey, we’ve all done the best we can with what we know.
christine
May 6th, 2009 @ 8:40 am

Oh Jenny, it makes perfect sense to me even if we’ve never met face to face! I am struggling with my mother (AGAIN! and I am 41 years old!) I love her, I do and she’s done so many things for which I am grateful and give her honor. The constant struggle for me is how to not to enable her insecurities. She has anger issues and when I see them affecting my own children I am torn between my responsibilities as her daughter and as my children’s mother. It infuriates her that I “always pick my children” even though my husband thinks I allow her way too much leeway in our lives. My parents literally hate each other (divorced now over 22 years, dad remarried for almost 20) so for me when I hear “you’re just like your mother” or “you are just like your father” it is the ultimate insult hurled at me many times in anger by the opposite parent. My dad and his wife recently came to town and we had a lovely visit during which time they told us that they had decided to retire and move nearby in order to be closer to the grandchildren. My mom always has a fit when they come and is bitter and angry for weeks following. When she heard they were moving here, she just about went crazy. I know she feels insecure but she does it with such anger and vitriole that it is nigh unto impossible to help her with it. I find myself setting very clear (and harsh boundaries) just to get through it. At this point, I’m not even sure she’ll come for the Mother’s Day Dinner we have planned. It breaks my heart that we can’t have the relationship we both crave but I can’t help her until she is willing to help herself (or seek professional help) Sorry for the long post, you can tell what has been haunting me for the last several days.
watermelanie
May 6th, 2009 @ 9:34 am

I absolutely needed to read this today. Starting from when my parents picked me up from my mission in Spain 13 years ago, I have judged my mom, in particular. I have pinpointed her as the source of so much of my baggage in my life. But that isn’t quite fair. I think it is the phenomenon that seeing your own vices in someone else makes them bug you more. Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Shouldn’t struggling with those same things make you more compassionate and understanding? I want to unconditionally love my mother, but I think that I need to love myself first. There is so much in common that I can’t do the former without working through the latter.

merry michelle–i can so relate to the “what can I say” dilemma with my mom. I can be very open and it has bit me in the bit more than once. I can’t trust that she wants to know how I am for just that and not to pity me or fight my battles or enable me or whatever. I just don’t feel quite safe. If I felt like she was as protective of my husband as she is of me, I think I could share more.
Dovie
May 6th, 2009 @ 9:55 am

I remember going through that psychoanalyzing phase. For me it happened much earlier in my mama life. Now I am so humbled by the task that was hers, left alone with three little children. Then four. The profound loneliness, the sadness. The scorn she endured from every side.

Dragging us each week to church. So we could learn to crave the Spirit. So I newly baptized could take the sacrament even when she couldn’t. I wither when I think what a difficult daughter I was, when adolescence was upon me, the things I said the things I did, mean hurtful things, but still she loved me she loved all of us.

The greatest gift she gave to me be it from her nurture or her nature was that love. That powerful love. There were crazy mishap parenting adventures sure, but every thing informed by that love. Freely given to us in her own hearts desolation.

I feel like I have been so abundantly blessed. All of my relationships are and have been filled with so much love. I have never loved in desolation.

Sometimes I catch myself in a judgmental moment the could have, would have, should have place, all I have to remember the stage I am asked to perform on is so different than hers. I and so blessed because of her. The petty regrets, accusations, supposed deprivations, melt away with a little shame at ever visiting them. I was and am because of her a very lucky cow.
Katie
May 6th, 2009 @ 10:00 am

Most of my life has been defined by trying NOT to be like my parents, especially my mother. I still associate with them but we are from having any kind of close, loving relationship.

However, I also realize that part of the reason I am so quick to criticize my mother is because she was so quick to criticize her own mother. I very rarely heard anything good about my grandmother. I don’t want to pass that on to my children so I work to talk about her respectfully and to show that I am grateful that she gave birth to me and didn’t leave me in a ditch somewhere.

About honoring your parents-I struggled with that question as a teenager. Several times I had to choose between doing what was right and doing what would make my parents happy. I figured out that the best way I could honor my parents was just by being the best person I could. I figured out that I would never be able to truly please my parents, and that trying to do so would just cause me grief and sorrow, so I resolved to live my life to be the best that I could. After all the father of my spirit is Heavenly Father, and that parentage is much more important than my earthly parentage, so honoring Him is the greatest thing I can do.
Melissa M.
May 6th, 2009 @ 10:40 am

Several months ago I had to teach a lesson in YW on honoring parents, and it was difficult to prepare, because I still struggle with this myself. Having parents, particularly a mother, who made choices I haven’t respected, has made it more difficult to truly “honor” them. But I’ve come to the conclusion, like Katie, that the best way to honor my parents is by striving to live a good and righteous life myself. Mother/daughter relationships, in particular, are complex and often difficult to navigate; when I was pregnant with my first child and found out I was having a girl, I thought of my own conflicted relationship with my mother and felt overwhelmed, wondering how I could nurture a healthy, loving, and close relationship with my daughter–the task felt daunting, indeed. But I have found great comfort in trying to give my daughters (and sons) the things that were missing in my mother’s mothering, and there has been healing for me in my own nurturing of my children. I have also come to accept through the years, after much grieving, that, like Jenny (comment #4–so much of what you said resonated with me!), I will never have the kind of relationship with my mother that I would like to have in this life, and I’ve found peace in letting go of my expectations.
Tay
May 6th, 2009 @ 10:49 am

I want to be like my mother, but I also don’t want to be like her. I love her lots, she raised me as well as she could, and she is a great example of faith in the Gospel. However, I want to be more conversational and open with my children, and not about just the crazy MIL (her situation, granted, is much worse in that area). I want to be more open about life, love and the acceptance I have of the people my child(ren) will become. She didn’t really have a good example of a mother in her home, so it’s fantastic that she does so well. But if somebody says that I’m just like my mother, it better be about a quality that I admire.

And Michelle, when your parents throw around the “you’re just like [opposite parent],” you just let them know that yes, you are. you are that person’s child just like theirs and you are proud to have both parents in you because you love them both. It is not right for them to say that as it really is more of a personal attack than an attack on their former spouse. Maybe they don’t realize that? Good luck!
Blue
May 6th, 2009 @ 11:20 am

once upon a time, when i was a struggling teenager who was attending institute, my institute director called me in to his office. he said he’d been prompted a number of times recently to see how i was doing, and to share something with me.

this man and his family had been one of the brightest spots in my teen years. i adored them, and routinely escaped my home to theirs as often as possible. though i never discussed my home situation, i think he sensed enough, and with the wisdom borne of working with the youth and young adults of the church for his career, he shared something that changed my life.

“one of the biggest lies that people spread around is that if you want to know what a girl is going to be like someday, just look at her mother. that’s completely untrue. just look at (his wife), who didn’t grow up in the church, who came from a broken home. she’s a remarkable woman” (so true…she was one of my favorite people). “you can pick out qualities you like in the people you admire, and just watch them and pattern yourself after them. you can become whoever you decide to be”.

this talk completely revitalized me. i didn’t HAVE to turn out like my parents! it wasn’t my destiny to become like them. and i began watching people i admired, from every stage and walk of life, and trying to model my life after the things i admired about them. it was a major turning point for me.

i’ve struggled for many years to find a way to have a healthy, rewarding relationship with my parents. i tried to “honor” them for years, even when i was deeply uncomfortable with them. one day my sibling told me honor is something that isn’t forced…it’s a natural biproduct of being worthy of being honored. that by making myself treat them with honor, when i wasn’t feeling that feeling genuinely, i was doing myself a disservice, and that it wasn’t actually honor.

i’ve thought a lot about that over time. i tried my whole life to “honor my father and mother” because of that commandment. in the midst of abuse and dysfunction and abandonment, i pretended to esteem my parents. to be a “good daughter”. i hid my discomfort and true feelings about them, and lied to myself about how i felt all those years.

the wise reader will realize that this can work for a season, but ultimately will fail. and now i’m in the throes of trying to sort it all out.

i’m not actually in contact with either parent at the moment. i’m trying to sift through my life and heal from the things that have been holding me back. perhaps as i go through this process the lord will create a space in my soul for the healing and forgiveness that needs to occur for us to be in a healthy relationship. that’s my hope anyway. i know the only person i have control over is me, and that there is little chance at this point in the game that my parents are going to change. they’ve been who they are for so long now. figuring out how to love them may take me the rest of my life…but i am able to feel grateful for all the things they did right. and i’m even grateful for the bad things that they DIDN’T do. life could have been much worse, and i recognize that.

with my mom’s birthday which just passed, and with mother’s day around the bend, i’m never far away from thinking about this topic. i’ve been consoled by the tender talks in conference that deal with the subject. and it’s nice to know i’m not the only one who is wrestling with this matter thanks for your thoughts!

♥
Kay
May 6th, 2009 @ 12:35 pm

I cannot even begin to say how I feel about my mother. Our relationship was complicated and difficult. She did not like me, let alone love me. She criticised me frequently. She abused me as a child. She would not even speak to me when I visited her in her dying days.

How do/did I honour her? She died just over a year ago. Last month I went to the temple to have her temple ordinances done. I went with a friend because I did not feel I could participate for her myself. Part of me felt guilt over Margaret doing her work while I was alongside doing a stranger’s work. Part of me felt relief that it was done. Part of me did not want to do it at all.

I tried as a daughter, I know I did. Sometimes harder than others. As a child I was terrified of her, and left home at 17 just to get away from her. The further away I lived, the better I felt. We were never close. My husband did not meet her until the night before we were married, as I thought he would be put off by her.

As a mother myself I try so much not to be like her in any way. Even so, occasionally I say things or speak in a tone of voice that reminds me of her. Why? I adore my children but find motherhood difficult beyond measure. My eldest daughter and I are either best friends or at loggerheads. My other two are usually darlings. I longed to be a mother but find it the hardest thing in my life, actually no, the hardest thing for me is being a wife. I feel a failure at relationships and wonder how much of it is my upbringing and how much of it is me?

My gran, now that is a different story. My gran is my mother’s mother and by far the most amazing woman I ever met. She truly was an angel who had unconditional love in her no matter what. Her I try to emulate. Gran was my one good thing in life, until I found the gospel. I may have had a difficult mother but I had the best gran in the world.
Mom in the Mountains
May 6th, 2009 @ 1:16 pm

As a teenager I really wanted a close relationship with my mom. At the time, she was struggling with a drug induced psychosis, a daughter who was suicidal (not me), and a husband who was battling depression and other emotional issues, on top of financial struggles, and some still quite young children who needed her not-so-available attention. Needless to say, that relationship never developed. The one time I went and tried to talk with my mom, just needing her to listen, I got a lecture instead. So I clammed up and that relationship never developed. Not that we had a bad relationship, it just wasn’t what I wanted. And I realized she wasn’t able to give me what I needed, nor did she realize how much I really needed her. I was the oldest, and always very independant. So I guess my need was never apparent. As I grew older, I noticed certain characteristics of my mother (and grandmother, and other women in my family) that were overbearing, controlling, and just not what I wanted to be.

When I was on my mission, I had a companion that I idolized. I wanted to be just like her. When I told this to my misison mom, she said (wisely) that if I admired her so much, then I should try more to be like her. Both during and after my mission, I found women who I deeply admired, and sought out those qualities and have tried to become more like those women. I often feel that Heavenly Father placed these women in my life for a reason, and many of them have become like mothers to me. Some of those qualities I did take from my mother, but other characteristics of hers I try really hard not to develop… I guess it’s just part of growing up and deciding who I want to be. Of course, it probably is the case that some of the qualities about her that drive me up the wall the most are ones that I am struggling with myself; ones that I wish I didn’t have; ones that I am trying really hard to change…

I love my mother, and I have learned that in order for me to have a great relationship with her– still not the mother-daughter bond that I dreamed of in HS, but close enough– I need to live far away from her. In the five or six years (8 if you include my mission) I have lived away, my relationship has really blossomed with her. And while I wish my boys could spend more time with their grandmother (much, much more time!) I am grateful that distance has sweetened our relationship. It is easier for me to see the qualities that I love about her over the phone and e-mail and facebook. The short spurts of “mom” are sweet, and it has greatly improved my feelings towards her, and our relationship. In fact, I am looking forward to getting to spend some quality time with her in an upcoming vacation. But. I am also really glad that we’ll only be spending a week there Thanks for helping me realize that I’m not the only who feels like this!
Jennie
May 6th, 2009 @ 1:26 pm

My mom is a kook, but also kind of cool. Still, it’s slightly terrifying when I say and do things like her.

P.S. She already has her Star Trek uniform ironed and ready for the big movie opening on Friday. Seriously. Nothing like a chubby 60-something-year-old woman who will stand up in the middle of the movie and shout “make it so!”.

I would never do that.
Tiffany W.
May 6th, 2009 @ 2:21 pm

Having never known any of your mothers its a bit hard to read this. I know that mothers aren’t perfect. They make lots of mistakes. And its easy to blame them for what they did or didn’t do. But I kind of wish we’d do a little less blaming or agonizing over relationships and try to see the good in our mothers (even when its hard) and honor them for the good things they did do.

My own mother is pretty amazing. I have a good relationship, but I know that the relationship she has with my older sisters is complex. When my dad’s first wife died, leaving him with three young daughters, ages 6,4, and 6 months, and struggling, I’m not sure what he hoped for in his or their future. A year later, he met my mother and courted her. She was young, barely 19 when they met. Often, I wonder how she had the courage to take a leap of faith, marry a convert widow with three girls who had lost their mother and then were raised by a doting grandmother. And so my mom leapt into motherhood, hardly grown herself. To top it off, my dad, who owned his own construction company, was gone for weeks at a time, building roads around the state. Not only was she a newlywed, but a new mother, and most of the time, a single mother. She worked hard, made lots of mistakes, and I’m sure felt more overwhelmed than most people can imagine. Then as the girls grew up, my younger sisters and I were born. Can you imagine giving so much to your family, and then having your teenage daughters throw your mistakes in your face or defy your authority, because you weren’t their real mother? One of my sisters, in particular, hates my mother, blames her for all her problems and is very cruel to her. It makes me angry because I know how much my mother tried and still tries.

As I bungle along in my own motherhood, trying to cope with a pregnancy, a chronic illness and stress, I know I yell far too often at my children, I ignore them and generally make mistakes that will probably scar them for life. The only hope that I have is that they won’t hate me forever and see the effort I did make, even when it didn’t appear to be much.
Brooke
May 6th, 2009 @ 3:49 pm

kshaw,
“She shaped who I am, and made me stronger then what she was raised to be.”

I love this. Maybe that is sometimes all we can ask for– definitely along the lines of a “superior cow!”
angie f
May 6th, 2009 @ 4:06 pm

I have a ten year old daughter and I’m beginning to see the beginnings of the hateful puberty talk in her that I dished out to my mother. I remember what I said then and I know it’s coming. I find myself flinching already in anticipation. I know so much more now. I don’t want the teen relationship I had with my mother to be what I have with my daughter. But, I see the possibility there.

My mom and I do so much better now than we used to. Some of that is because of the 3,000 miles that separates me from her unflinching scrutiny. Some of that is because of the five children in 8 years I’ve now had (and she did too), so I understand things now that I didn’t understand then. But a lot of our improved relationship comes more from seeing and understanding more about her and her mother that I never understood as a teen. Mom has the misfortune of being the non-favorite child of a mother who has always played obvious favorites. That has wreaked havoc on my mother’s feelings of self worth. While that made her pretty difficult to live with in some respects, I am blessed because in all of my mother’s emotional mess, she chose to cling to the gospel and as a result raised me and my sisters to love the Lord; to develop a testimony of His gospel independently strong of anything she or my dad said or did. Even though for most of her life she didn’t believe she was worthy of heavenly love, she somehow raised me to have utter and complete confidence in my Savior’s love. Those gifts are the most amazing and wonderful things that I could ever have been given. The further I get into this parenting thing, the more important it is for me to be able to replicate that amazing gift of testimony and security in the love of the Lord, because that is the only real safety I can offer for my children in this scary world.
wendy
May 6th, 2009 @ 8:26 pm

Jennie–I love your Star Trek story! My mom wouldn’t go that far, but she DID put off going to the hospital when she was in labor with me until the Star Trek episode she was watching ended.

Brooke, this is fantastically written. I think it took me a long time to understand that most mother/daughter relationships have at LEAST a little ambivalence about them.

My Mom is a good woman, and when I read some of the above stories I am saddened and grateful. She isn’t perfect, and I went through the whole angry/psycho-analyizing stage, too. From that, among other things, I came to realize she didn’t know how to create the close relationship we both yearned for. I knew she loved me, but didn’t know how to reach out on a deep level.

I don’t want to go into too many specifics today for some reason. I do want to say that I learned a lot when I decided to start asking her questions . . . a lot of why’s about things in our family, choices she made, etc. When I was thirty and still single, she came to visit and we took a trip down south to see the National Parks. I hadn’t intended the trip to be a question/answer session, but it ended up being that way, and I was so glad. It helped me incredibly to understand where she was coming from.

After that, I also started sharing things with her. Not advice-seeking kinds of things, or even all of my heart’s desires per se. But personal things that I was sure she wondered about and didn’t know how to ask.

It’s strange to realize that I have come to such a peaceful place in my relationship with my Mom. It’s not the relationship I yearned for when I was younger, but it’s good, and I am grateful. Very very grateful.
Katie
May 6th, 2009 @ 9:40 pm

Tiffany W –

There is a huge difference between a mom who makes mistakes but is trying hard and a mom who doesn’t care to try. My mother in law makes lots of mistakes with her kids, but you know at her heart she is just trying very hard to be the best mom she can. As a result her kids love her and put up with her eccentricities.

My own mother, on the other hand, was far too wrapped up in her own problems to think about her children. Many times (just about every day) she made it clear in her choices and her comments that what was most important to her was herself. To this day my mother continues to take and take and give nothing in return.

Motherhood can be a powerful force for good, but it can equally used for bad. Many children struggle with guilt for not loving their parents more even when they are abused. It is hard to reconcile the idea that everyone should love their parents while at the same time carrying horrible scars that those loved parents inflicted.
FoxyJ
May 6th, 2009 @ 11:25 pm

I like all of these comments, but I especially like Wendy’s thoughts about asking your mom questions. I guess now that I’m 30 I’m finally coming out of my self-centered stage and really wanting to get to know my mom as a person, not just as a my mother. As I’ve talked to her and asked her questions I’ve come to realize more about her and her relationship with her mom. I’ve come to realize how different generations can be–she’s only 25 years older than me, and yet grew up in a completely different environment. Our relationship growing up was sometimes difficult due to many different factors, but now that I have my own children I realize how hard it can be to be a parent when I barely feel like I’ve figured out how to be a decent human being!

And Katie, I agree with you that it is so difficult to figure out what things to accept and honor in our relationships with our parents. Some parents really do not do a good job with their children at all, and some children do a terrible job being children. Relationships are so tricky.
Paula
May 7th, 2009 @ 10:01 am

Recently I’ve wondered “Did my mom teach us Gospel truths because the Church is true and it brings happiness, or did she do it to show people she’s a good mom?” What is my motive?
Sue
May 8th, 2009 @ 12:53 pm

My mom was not a perfect mother. Who is, right? But my mom’s love for me is as close to perfect as she can make it…and recognizing that makes it easy for me to love her for the wonderful things and overlook the slightly less desirable ones.

Fortunately, my children seem to be doing exactly the same for me, and I appreciate their willingness to see past the outer shell of my faults to the soft, creamy center that is my love for them.
Kristin
May 9th, 2009 @ 2:20 pm

Many times I have wished I could fast-forward twenty years. My four daughters, who would then range in age from 20-28, would be out to lunch together, and the subject of mom (read:me) would come up.

I hope there would be some, “I loved it when she…”

But inevitably, there would also be a fair share of, “I wish she would have…” or “I hated it when she….”

I wish I could know now what those things were, so I could fix them now.

I would love to hear the same conversation in 30, and then 40, and then 50 years, to see how their perspectives might change with their experience.

And yes, I am avoiding my own feelings about my own mother. They are complicated and difficult for me. But I know she tried.