NO CELEBRATING MOM
Tracy S, from Oil City, PA, says one of her first memories of her mother was of the woman making fun of the girl for not knowing anything about her father. “She’s just say the most hateful, hurtful things,” says Tracy. Another memory she shares is from when she was 12 years old and her mother locked herself in her room for days on end and attempted suicide; it was just the two of them at home and Tracy was left not only to fend for herself but to rescue her mom.”I don’t celebrate Mother’s Day at all,” says Tracy. “I just don’t.”
Thanks for publishing this article. It is true that society sanctifies mothers automatically; it is a “de-facto” practice that everybody follows blindly and that is almost imposed. Motherhood does not automatically make you the Virgin Mary. Many mothers have made horrible mistakes and, although I believe in forgiveness, I don’t believe forgiveness means sending flowers to mommy dearest and spending Mother’s day with her as if though nothing had happened. As Oprah says: forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could’ve been any different. But it doesn’t mean inviting the past into your present or future.
Thanks for writing this, Alisa. Sometimes I get frustrated about the tons of articles about mothers, where all they do is praise their mamis and say something like, “My Mami is my best friend.” etc… I got cheated in the Mom department, and I guess it’s important to recognize that not all of us were lucky enough to have a good mom who can be our best friend. I wish mine were my best everything. Unfortunately, that wasn’t meant to be.
I have a mother I can barely tolerate, I don’t like her as a person and am convinced she is delusional as she always seems to think she is being victimized and fails to realize what a hypocrite she is. When I became pregnant with my oldest daughter, my ex admitted he was nervous about what kind of mom I would be because of the kind of mother I have.To hear him say that broke my heart but I understood his concern. Now with two children, Mother’s day is about me. Even though things didn’t work out between my daughters’ father and I, he celebrates me before his own mother, because he says he couldn’t have asked for a better mother for his kids. The best thing my mom ever did was show me what not to do.
Hi Jennifer,
My mother was, still is abusive trying to control me with with guilt and unfortunately for her and luckily for me I don’t give a shit to guilt. Tried to explain her my life was not hers but she would not ear, so I broke the relation & expelled her from my life long ago. Without that I would never had the happy live I have now. Of course for my family I am the “bad son”. The society we life in is built from the roots on guilt (I hate religions for that…) and does not tolerate children to have resentment against their parents what ever the parents did.
A man hating his mother is believed to be a woman hater but it’s often the opposite. In my case I had to push my mother away in order to be able to love women. Strangely a momma’s boy is judged better than a man not liking is mother, but it’s momma’s boys that make many women live’s an inferno.
I did forgive my cruel mother. She has been physically, mentally and emotionally cruel.
However, if this forgiveness thing has to work, the other party should know that they are bad. Understanding your abusive is easy and forgiving as well, at least on my part. But I found out that my mother is not worth being forgiven. She is impossible.
Too effing religious to back down, too ignorantly rotten to understand things that matter other than what she sees on tv and hears on the radio, too proud and unfeeling to sympathize with members of the family who are going through a rough time, even if the people she is nasty with are the people who did things that she enjoyed. My mother just takes and takes. She is disgustingly not capable of giving out anything. She had a hard life growing up and experienced humiliation-but that’s according to her. Did I forget to mention that she lies to make people look bad so she’ll emerge as the saintly one? She disgusts me and I am not going to forgive her this time. I plan to move away as fas away as possible with my kids and never look back. Meaning, I totally will forget that I belonged once to dysfunctional family.