My mom was adopted- and then abandoned. Her adoptive mother was left with two children and no money and a lot of health issues and social stigmas. She was also cultishly religious.

My mom married at 19 and had me at barely 22. My dad was her world. To offset her traumatic childhood she was fixated on being the "perfect mom" .
That meant having the "?perfect kid" .

That's a hell of a lot of pressure for a kid.
Not a good set up for a great relationship

My mom is just the sort of person I would avoid if not for the fact that she's my mom. She's an enormous gossip and lives to tear people down, with the emotional maturity of a 12 year old and has to make everything about her. She's insecure about herself, so to make herself feel better, she's rips you down. She has this hang up about the fact that she didn't go to college while my dad has a doctorate, always making these little snide remarks. When I show academic aptitude and success, those comments got directed towards me. When I graduated college, her comment was "I wish my mother had been supportive of me going to college." It only got worse as I advanced. This is how she treats just about everything--make it about how either she's done it better or some excuse as to why she couldn't do it. And because she's insecure, she gets very defensive. Don't disagree with her for any reason unless you're ready for her wrath. She has spoke and she is always right.

I've discovered that in addition to being a nasty gossip and Me Monster, she's a liar. I believe these lies are a combination of her trying to make herself feel better about decisions she wish she hadn't made and trying to impress people. But they're still lies, and so many of them. To the point where I've heard so many lies about so many things I'm really unsure that things I've held to be true are actually the real story.

Is that the sort of person you would want to send any time with? Yeah, me neither.

Anonymous wrote:I suspect a lot of it is people perpetuating unhealthy relationships in each generation because that's all they know.

I feel lucky to have the type of mom who never crossed the line into expecting me to be her best friend while growing up, never burdened us with her issues or problems (she's not perfect, she had them, she just dealt with them herself and without impacting us) and always was kind and caring and thoughtful. Now that I'm an adult, I very much consider her a close friend as well as my mom. I'm hoping that, if I follow her example, I can have a similar relationship with my daughter. Like PP, I have a son, too, but right now both kids are so young my relationships with them are very much the same. We'll see!

I think this is spot on. My mom and I get along well (of course we had moments when I was a teenager) and I think it's because we always had good boundaries. She treated us like kids when it was appropriate (ie, not babying us but also letting us be unaware of adult concerns) but also saw us as people and recognized we weren't perfect. So no crazy expectations and she knew where we needed extra support. If I can be 75% of the mom my mom was I will be proud.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is white women and their mothers....
Not trying to cause trouble, but it seems like every single one of my white friends has an issue with their mother.

It's better than having 'issues' with fathers, that I hear so much about from black friends.

Or issues with their male relatives breaking them in sexually

Anonymous wrote:It is white women and their mothers....
Not trying to cause trouble, but it seems like every single one of my white friends has an issue with their mother.

It's better than having 'issues' with fathers, that I hear so much about from black friends.

Anonymous wrote:It is white women and their mothers....
Not trying to cause trouble, but it seems like every single one of my white friends has an issue with their mother.

You're not trying to cause trouble? Wow, I wonder what it looks like when you try to cause trouble.

The best you can do is provide honesty and love with guidance not control. Let your kids make choices from a very early age with an appropriate amount of reasoning so they can make intelligent choices. As they mature you have to stop over advising them and trust their decisions. As long as they know you will back them up they are much more willing to take a few risks and are much more resilient when they face a challenge. They learn to depend on you, not to need you. When they grow up you can depend on them.