Are most lifelong problems due to our relationship with our mother?

My first thought which I hadn’t bothered sharing was that if it really is the mother’s fault it’s only because too many dads regard child rearing as women’s work and are too emotionally unavailable anyway.

But after reading through a few pages I’ll say my mother was a damaged individual but also the best person in my life and the one sought out most by the rest of her siblings and their kids.

Like the moms of several others here mine was manic depressive. Her parents were physically abusive and her father was a pedophile and she kept us away from them.

Growing up I mostly remember her being depressed but that mostly came out as missing my father who was in the navy and often away at sea. But she was clearly dissatisfied with him as he lacked any social understanding or human warmth.

Still he had an even harder life and though he was punitive and ineffectively tried to be the boss, he was always true to her and made sure she got all his limited earnings with which to raise me and my six siblings.

I can’t blame either of them for how they managed given their own challenges. But it was impossible to form an attachment to him while she empathetic, approachable and a good listener and person to talk with. I loved my mother and credit her for all the qualities I appreciate most about myself. We were always careful about money and my siblings and I looked to work as soon as we found an opportunity to earn some cash. Not an idyllic childhood but I mostly feel lucky.
 
Rose65 said:
That's awful. Yes, hardest for younger kids left in a relentlessly miserable household. It can mean siblings turn on each other because all that pain is stored.

Maybe it's possible you might talk to your brother one day and explain how it was for you. However, it's absolutely your decision and it may by now be impossible. I can not only imagine but I know how you must feel. Similar things happened in our family. Bad marriages spread ripple effects that gain power over years until everyone is left damaged.
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My mother disowned this brother when I was in high school. She never spoke with him again. Borderlines need supply. Bad. But she could let him go, she had other supply left. I won't get into the circumstances, but do I ever remember that day.

I tried to connect with him in my 20's, but I really don't like him or the way he treated me. He tried to tell me I should have a relationship with the bio-dad. He did. But I had no interest in him. He never tried to see us when my mother cut him out. I was 7 or 8. I know this for a fact, because if he had, my mother would have been screaming about it.

She later bragged she never went after money from him. Child support or his military pension. Nothing to brag about. She married an enabler with a good job. She didn't need his money.
 

My mom had to have a female operation of some type. I was 15 at the time, in school and gad a part time job. My mom left a list of chores for my sister to do. Dust, run the vacuum every 2 days, keep up with the wash and make dinner. (That was a joke. My sister didn’t know how to cook.)

I did the work. When mom came home from the hospital about 10 days later, she was happy with the way the house looked and the wash basket was empty. My mom asked me who did the work. I changed the subject, but she said she knew I did it. I still had to help her for a few weeks while she healed. She wanted to give me some money, but I refused it. I was saving for a car, so she was surprised I turned it down. Dad never knew who did what. He worked most all day, except he would stop in at the hospital, even 9 o’clock at night.

I enjoyed helping my mom. She worked hard around the house to give us a clean home and good food. I think she did at least 1 load of wash every day I even hung it up if she asked. Mostly only the towels and bed linens were hung to dry.
 
Geeze...don't mothers get blamed for enough stuff?! Of course if the mother is a terrible mother, it will have an adverse effect on the child(ren). But what about fathers? Their presence or absence can have an adverse effect as well. Over the years, I have seen so many examples of people who should never have procreated.
 
Why just blame the moms? What about dad? Or siblings? Or Uncle Chester?

My point is I think children raised in a dysfunctional environment can easily carry problems forward into adulthood. I don't think mothers are the primary cause of all lifelong problems, but will concede one destructive person can scar us for life, but that person can be anyone.

I always preached that once an adult you make your own decisions and should no longer blame problems from childhood issues. Now that I'm older and wiser I no longer think that way. I've come to believe our childhood wires us a certain way, emotionally and intellectually, and it takes a lot of self awareness to recognize those negative issues and re-wire ourselves to be different.
 
Naturally said:
Regardless of how things were at home growing up, good or bad, I think as we mature we have to take ownership of ourselves.
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I agree with this - to only to an extent.

For example, if you were told during your formative years that the answer to conflict of any kind of violence, then it becomes not a decision, but a habit. What happens to us in the formative years are ingrained in us differently, and more deeply, than later mature decisions. In other words, if it's ingrained in you early, you're are forever trying to swim upstream. It can be changed, but the default is the default.
 
Both my kids have had issues with their mother. They were old enough to know why she left me and it wasn’t because I was a bum. She found someone else who was also married. She got a ”two-fer” as in she ruined two marriages at the same time. I guess in some circles that’s extra points. It has taken years for one child to warm up to her again. The other tolerates her mother because, well, she is her mother. In my mind both children have been somewhat hobbled by their mother’s decision. But, I do admit I am not completely unprejudiced in having that view.

Thankfully, both children have a great relationship with me and love it when we can visit. I see them as often as I can without being a pest.
 


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