British Parent Bloggers

An article by guest writer Joanna Cake

In so many families, there seems to be a vicious circle as each girl child swears to herself and to her mother: ‘I will never be like you…’ and despairingly watches and hears herself becoming that person, despite her best efforts to the contrary.

I grew up watching my father, however unknowingly, disrespect my mother, my father-in-law doing the same to my mother-in-law and my husband to me. None of these men found it easy to show affection or appreciate their wives in terms of their appearance or the love they were given without return. In their search for the straight man/the stooge who would make them look like the life and soul of the party, they thoughtlessly demeaned their female counterpart in the eyes of their audience of children, particularly the girls. The boys instinctively retain their protective feelings for their mothers, even when they are pulled away by their future wives. But the girls…

Do I just feel this through my own jaundiced experience of three women? Or are things better for the women who bring up female offspring without the interference/disrespectful example of a male partner?

I do know several couples where the women are the driving force of the pair. Where the male adores his strong woman. Whilst he provides the money to run the home and then enforces her rule where necessary, he enjoys being pampered and cared for and makes those feelings clear. He compliments her and shows his affection openly and she responds in kind. These are the strongest partnerships that I have come across. They complement each other. There is an almost palpable synergy between them. Yes, they have their spats, but then the joy of the rapprochement is eagerly awaited.

My own daughter recently subjected me to a 20 minute tirade, shouting vitriol viciously over the top of my own attempts to calm her. Apparently I am a sad old woman nearing 50 who spends all her time on the computer, who should get a life. Whilst, almost in the same breath, she accuses me of never being at home. It would seem that laundry, housework, cooking and shopping constitute the bare minimum obligatory requirements of motherhood and she completely overlooks the 12 years that I spent at home totally devoted to her and her brother. I am a shrieking banshee who only ever shouts at them.

When I try to point out that the shouting tends to come when I have asked politely and respectfully for the same task to be completed three or four times earlier, this thought is pooh-poohed with the distraction technique of reminding me that respect has to be earned and that if I stopped shouting at her, she would stop shouting at me.

It is so hard to listen to a catalogue of obscenity-ridden invective without chucking some back but, always at the forefront of my mind, is the concern that anything nasty I might say now could come back and bite her on the bum in terms of psychological disorder in the future. So I hold my tongue and when she gets out of the car, I allow the seat to go flat and sob at my inadequacies for the majority of the hour that I am waiting in the cold darkness, whilst she has her music lesson, before driving her home again. She, of course, seems to have conveniently forgotten all the nasty phrases she used only minutes before and behaves as if everything is normal.

The terrible thing is that I do have a choice. And the decision over that choice becomes easier and easier when the reasons for which I stay become less and less obvious.

Several hours later, she did at least have the grace to come and apologise which is something of a first. But these altercations seem to be coming more and more frequently, despite my attempts to acquiesce to all her demands for independence and I am at a loss as to how to do things differently without it looking as if I do not care for her safety at all.

All I ever wanted was to have the kind of relationship where we would enjoy going shopping and stopping for coffee - something I never had with my own mother and watched other friends enviously who did.

I talked to my own mother only a few days ago. I told her that I had forgiven her for leaving us. Knowing what I have to deal with from just one teenage girl, I remember that she had two obnoxious hussies plus a disrespectful husband to contend with. No wonder she left when someone showed her some affection, gave her some sense of value.

She told me that she had decided when we were quite small that she would leave my father as soon as we were old enough and get herself a little flat and an alternative future. When she revealed this fact to my dad during an argument, his reply of ‘Who would have you?’ did a great deal to destroy what little self-respect she had left, but also galvanised her into a more determined desire to follow her threat through. However, she said that didn’t stop her from being very sad to have to leave her children behind when she started a new life in a new town with a new man.

But I am not my mother. I believe I have learned from her mistakes although I am, by no means, the perfect example of motherhood. However, I have tried to be the antithesis of the cold, tired, screeching maternal figure I remember. I have been extremely tactile with my children to the extent that, now she considers herself too grown up to snuggle with her mum, I will stand on my teenage daughter’s foot in order to make her stand still and have a cuddle, however unwillingly. I believe it is important to retain that ability to hug your children, no matter how reluctant the hugee.

My own mother tries to embrace me now when she feels the need for some affection but it is so hard to forget her desertion and the fact that she couldn’t or wouldn’t indulge in this behaviour when we were younger. I am the equivalent of my own teenager in those situations - rigid with embarrassment and uncertain how to respond. We have lost the intimacy for this type of closeness. If only my mother could make a joke or stand on my foot to lighten the uncomfortable moment, but she is a product of her own mother’s inability to show her even the smallest amount of tactile or verbal love. It is so sad.

I was talking to another friend who had suddenly found herself faced with choices similar to those that her mother had had to make 30 years before and for which she has bitterly resented her for years.

Suddenly, I start to wonder if sometimes what goes around, comes around and we are put in positions that are similar to those of our mothers in order that we can learn to at least understand their actions… if not to forgive.