Reply to Fostering a relationship between mom and my kids

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[quote=Anonymous]I've always struggled with the relationship with my mom.  She's a vortex of anxiety and depression, spurred on by a traumatic childhood, and life experiences.  Beyond our relationship, I have always wanted a relationship between my children and her, and she desperately wants one too.

But it is so, so hard.  Where do I start.  She knows nothing about them.  She doesn't talk to them - citing a language barrier, and yet she has english speaking friends that she speaks just fine with.  She always uses me as her translator, so she avoids speaking directly to them.  She also says she avoids it because sometimes they don't answer, and that makes her feel like they don't like her. 
 She also blames their personalities and how I raised them.  She said I should teach them to be warm and loving to her and to give her hugs and be nice to her and look her in the eye.  But they are naturally shy and reserved around most people, but especially her because they don't really have a relationship.  She tells me to punish them for not being warm to her or making conversation with her.

She is crying that I didn't teach them right, and they are the way they are because of how I raised them, and that there is something wrong with them, because most kids are loving and follow adults around and are chatty.  And that it seems like they dislike her or think she's ugly or gross and that's why they don't come over and hug her.

I told her I'm sorry my kids didn't turn out right, and that I screwed them up into something that doesn't make her depression go away, and makes it worse. But that she's an adult and she has some responsibility for the relationship too, and that it's not their job to fix her depression.  She says, as their mother, I have influence over how they act around her.  She also says it upsets her to see me always tend to my kids and ask them what they want, and I do not do the same for her.  That no one asks her what she wants.  The truth is I am always tending to her.   I am the one who is always talking to her when we are in a group and she feels excluded and she is sulking.

And she wonders why they aren't the same way with my in-laws who constantly play with them, take them for the weekend, take them to the zoo or other fun places.  She thinks my kids like them more than her.

She is not naturally selfish or self-centered.  She shows love through food.  She spends literally hours shopping for and preparing meals.  She is limited in how she is able to express love though in other ways.

I just want a way forward.  I feel sad for her.  She says interacting with my kids makes her depressed because she feels rejected by them.  How do I fix this??[/quote]

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