What is this feeing I experience from a memory of my mother?
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
|
Your mother sounded self absorbed and that was hurtful to you. You also sound like you wish she was more loving.
My mother was this way too, and now I wish I didn’t focus so much on the negative. Mothers usually do so much that is unrecognized, but then when they either can’t or don’t want to do something, they are severely criticized. |
Anonymous
| I love how we judge past things with today’s standards. Perhaps the mother made the negative comment because it was special and she did want to be there but she needed to buffer her own hurt at the situation, she saved her feelings at your expense. Maybe you should ask her about it, not us. As for all you, we do things so much better now, parents your turn is coming. You won’t be spared from the critical gaze of your kids in the future as standards continually evolve and you’ve shown them you shouldn’t be. |
Anonymous
|
I come from a large family and my parents never came to any events of the older children.
For the youngest child, that was not the case. My mother DID have an odd reverse situation to the one OP describes. The one time she did show up to a recital for a younger sibling, it was because the sibling had forgotten her instrument. So mom rushed it to the school. My sibling took the instrument but didn't invite her in. Maybe she felt guilty about imposing on my mom as going to school events was not something any of us identified with mom. My mom read the event as my sibling being embarassed of her and not wanting her there. It bothers my mother to this day. I don't have the heart to point out to her that she NEVER attended any school events besides the youngest child's. |
Anonymous
Stop being a baby op. This is generational and also work was different back then. I’m sure there are plot things your kids will come up with when they complain about you. |
Anonymous
| Just a guess here but maybe it’s a feeling of “too little too late”? Like you wanted her to be there for so long and then gave up hope of being loved like that, and when she finally came you realized it was awkward and not what you wanted after all? ( as she hadn’t done it all those years?) |
Anonymous
| For me the feeling is called “hate.” |
Anonymous
|
My mom was a SAHM and I was the last child so no younger children after me.
She never attended my sports games or plays or concerts. She did not drive me to college, I drove myself. She never visited me in college. I did not walk when I graduated because it would be weird to have nobody there. My dad did come to my sports but nothing else. Some parents are weird and it was wrong and I won’t be like that. I work but I’m at everything. I literally have driven 8hours every weekend in the Spring to see my son play his college sport |
Anonymous
|
This is so messed up. You are focusing on your mom's not showing up when your dad showed up twice! So you were never sick again for the whole time in school? Your mom never picked you up at all?
Maybe our memories are not correct, are you applying horrific patriarchal judging on your mom? This is a societal issue that needs to stop, women judging women, but dad and men are congratulated when they show up once! Women, and moms in particular are called lazy if they are SAHM, if they work, they are bad moms, is house is not clean dad is not to blame it is always the woman. Can you pause and reflect on yourself op? are you truly the perfect mom? This will come to bite you back, your kids are just like you, judging your every moment. Hearing you talk about your mom being unloving, stressing them out with whatever demands. Hindsight is a biat*, and oh wait? Another common term I just used to humiliate and make women into monsters! Ingrained in our society. |
Anonymous
OP here. No. I went to school sick. My mother sent me with chicken pox. That was another time I had to be picked up, though I was in K and I don’t remember who picked me up. They were forced to pick me up then, and the time I was throwing up. I mentioned my dad only because of the stark contrast in their behavior when they DID show up. For my mother, it was a chore and an inconvenience. For my dad, he seemed genuinely happy to attend. Why was I always such an inconvenience? Even the time she willingly chose to give up her lunches and breaks (she worked at a distribution facility, think UPS or Amazon but in the 90s) but then tell me what a burden it was to do that? I’m just trying to figure out why she was the way she was. I mean, yes, I know she had to work for the money. But she did not HAVE to tell me how difficult my presence was in the logistics of her life. |
Anonymous
|
Honestly, it probably WAS a burden. Not because it was yum but because workplaces held women to a different standard than men (and some continue to do so). In many paces, women had to decide if they were career women or mothers - there wasn’t a place to be both.
Your dad didn’t have a lot of flexibility, but at least would have gotten the pat on the back for being “such a good dad”. And do you honestly think it would have been easy for what it sounds like was your hourly paid mom to take time off work? Sending a sick kid to school is on BOTH parents. |
Anonymous
+1 My dad never came to events either. I hold no resentment towards him. Why would I? I knew we had to eat. |
Anonymous
Agree! My office job from 2007-2015 frowned upon missing work for anything. It was hard leaving for the dentist. You had to use PTO for most things. |
Anonymous
| ^ this! |
Anonymous
| Parents of my parent's generation didn't attend events, typically. One or two things a year, maybe. They were good parents. Especially more recently, sometimes schools set the expectation that is more than parents can give. That's not the parent's fault. Op and others, if you go looking for fault, you're going to find it. |
Anonymous
| How is everyone so inept that they are missing the point that the parents made her feel guilty for existing in their space? |