When A Mother's Love is Not Enough

For some, Mother's Day is heartbreaking. Women who want or wanted to be mothers but never had children, mothers whose children died before them, and people everywhere who miss a mother who has passed too soon, Mother's Day becomes a holiday to avoid at best and to flee from at worst. But for those of us who endure painful relationships with our mothers, we keep our mouths shut. There is no Hallmark card for the broken mother/child bond.

My mother was the best mother she could be. Raised in crippling poverty as the daughter of sharecropper parents, my mother knew hunger and shame everyday. Her father beat her, her siblings, and her mother whenever the mood struck him. And what love she received from her own mother was divided between six brothers and sisters. Life for her was so much harder than I will ever know.

Mother and Daughters

Our relationship has always been a perfect storm of alienation. Born too small to leave the hospital, I spent the first six weeks of my life in an incubator. The nurses prohibited my mother from holding me. It would be thirty-five years later before one of my many therapists would use the term "attachment" disorder to describe my issues. Growing up, my mother saw in me everything she didn't like about herself, and by my teenage years, I felt the same. We are naturally loud, opinionated, and big in our movements. My mother often told me the "truth" of what she thought about me both as a child and as an adult.  I felt her words as nausea-inflicting punches to my gut. Later I would understand what she was really saying -- I love you, but I don't like you. Worse it was the 60's and 70's when hitting kids was okay and there were no motherhood support groups. Nails dug into my arms and slaps across my face were acceptable forms of punishment. I won't get into the jealously conundrum. Thankfully, my Dad mediated and loved us both through our years together.

Mother was a rage-a-holic just like her own father and of course, I became one, too. It's neurological as much as its psychological. I can feel nerves fire and I want to cry out, lash out, rage against the universe, beat someone or something to a pulp -- sort of an adult form of colic. More therapy and frankly, meds have helped. God helped even more. My sister's love helped too.

As my mother aged, she mellowed and so did I, but once in my early 40's, she came up from behind and gave me a spontaneous and unexpected hug, I should have reveled in the affection, but my body tensed and cringed before my mind even knew what had hit it. Cell memory runs deep.

Now we have a kind of truce -- a love brokered in silence and anger. She is no longer critical of me and I pretend the past never happened. I watch her love her grandchildren unconditionally and I tell myself it's enough to heal my wounds. So here's my Hallmark card -- you were not the mother I needed or wanted, but I thank you for being the best mother you could be. And please know, I did my best, too.