I Hate My Mother

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

filed under: jill spivack

She didn't beat me or lock me in a closet. I just genuinely do not like her -- and people find this hard to accept.

Guest blogger Gina: I am not close with my mother and this is a concept that people are unable and unwilling to accept. They say things like, "Well, she's your mother so you have to love her." I always think, you know there are jerks who have kids every day. And I'm sorry that's it's uncomfortable, but every now and then you are going to run into the child of one of those jerks. It was always so difficult because it was so unacceptable for me to not like my mom. People (mostly adults) stuck up for her and -- by doing that -- made me seem like I was the crazy one. It was incredibly frustrating and when you think about it, really stupid.

We asked momlogic contributor and psychotherapist Jill Spivack if it's okay to hate your mom. Here's what she said:

As the saying goes, we don't choose our family. We are all born into a set of circumstances where we don't necessarily have much control. We are born with a particular temperament and our parents have both their own temperament as well as their own life experience which, combined, made them who they were to be as people as well as our parents. For some lucky kids, their parents can be nurturing, supportive, non-judgmental, loving limit-setters and consistent and present in their lives. For others, parents can be less than perfect and sometimes really abusive, abrasive and disabling.

While there is no such thing as a "perfect parent," we are all hoping for a good enough one. But unfortunately, for some, this isn't even impossible. Their own lives and experiences have often crippled them beyond a point of return where they cannot be the kind of parent we need. Do we need to empathize with their history? Maybe. There's some degree of "anger reduction" when we understand that maybe our parents' experience was as difficult for them as they were to us.

Should we continue to allow ourselves to be treated hurtfully or abused once we are adults? NO! It's very important for adult children of "not good enough" parents to come to terms with the cards they were dealt. If they feel that an ongoing relationship with that parent will cause them ongoing damage, they need to set boundaries with that parent.

If it is impossible to set enough boundaries or the parent is especially toxic, it is sometimes necessary to disengage completely. Before this, I would ask: Is there any way to remedy/repair the situation? Does their parent have the ability to take in your needs if well explained or maybe with support from a counselor? Has the parent who made the mistakes been in therapy or trying to change or repair what they've done wrong? You really need to know who you're dealing with and the extent to which that parent is "disabled." Just like you wouldn't ask a paraplegic person in a wheelchair to get up and walk over to you, you sometimes may not be able to get a very emotionally damaged parent to change and treat you the way they should have as a child. If your parent has disappointed you beyond repair, abused you emotionally or physically, you're lucky to realize as an adult that they treated you badly and that you're going to learn to be a better parent to your own children.

Go see a therapist if you need guidance and support. Deal with your anger and disappointment and try to make conscious decisions about the way you'll be with your own children. Consciousness will save your children from experiencing a negative relationship with you. And for adult children of "not good enough parents," be sure to recognize when you're taking the pendulum too far in the opposite direction with your own kids. If your mother was, for example, emotionally neglectful, the natural tendency would be for you to overly-coddle and overstimulate your own child for fear of her experiencing the same neglect you felt. However, if you aren't careful, you can over-do that nurturing stuff -- robbing your child of normal independence and competence.

What if one of your children's friends doesn't like his/her parents? Unfortunately, that child is still under their parents' care until he's 18 years old. I would empathize and listen to the child's feelings if they are trying to talk to you about it, but this is not territory you can necessarily get involved in, unless there is extreme emotional or physical abuse. Doctors and teachers are mandated to report abuse, so if you suspect something very serious, talk to the child's doctor or teacher anonymously and let them look into the situation.

203 comments so far | Post a comment now >>

when i needed her she was absent but now that she needs me i’m a monster if i’m not there?

- Anonymous

Posted 05/09/09 12:52 AM

Im a 20 year old muslim girl and i’m a trainee accountant. my mother doesnt appreciate me at all shes always putting me down and making me feel so worthless. i have a boyfriend my mother kind of knows that i am seeing him and she makes my life a living hell. hes my first boyfriend and i have been with him just over a year and bec she stresses me out im always taking my anger out on him. she tries to control me she goes through my personal things and accuses me of things that i havent done, my father doesnt stick up for me shes just a bully and she hates me. Ive tried talking to her but i dont know whats wrong with her i long a mother/daughter relationship with her but she doesnt seem to care. Im her eldest daughter and she looks at me like she could kill me my father recently had a heart problem and my mother blamed me for it and that was the worst thing ever and when it was my fathers birthday recently i had bought him a firetrap top and i gave it to him my mum sat there and said is that it? that top cost you only £50.00 whilst my dad sat there and then she called me a slag! i was absolutely mortified she argues with me everyday and she cant stand it when my father talks to me. i think shes trying to turn him against me and its working and she always says shes going to kick me out and that im worthless and i havent done anything with my life! i have never done drugs, been into any trouble or anything and she says this. i work in the finance team at a law firm full time and i study part time i dont think she can take it i come home after a long day and she sarcastically says so where have you been today and it makes me feel so down and depressed i have exams coming soon but i cant concentrate bec shes always causing some kind of drama i never thort id say this but i hate her.

- sophia

Posted 05/09/09 08:04 AM

i am 11 and my mother hates me she always favours my 4 year old brother i cant cope with this any more how do i stop her hating me ?

- annoynmous

Posted 05/10/09 03:48 AM

I hate my mother. I really do hate her soo much.

- Hannah

Posted 05/10/09 11:36 AM

I hate my mom she made me delete my myspace once again and she has the dumbest hushband ever and i hate his son >:(

- megan

Posted 05/10/09 05:03 PM

my mother made her younger sister lie about sexual relations with my father. Recently she did the same thing with my daughter and she has been slandering my name. she got two of my children taken away temporarily as she is seeking custody. i hate her with a zeal and a passion. it is just amazing that she has done so much wrong to so many people for so long and people just feel like ying to me forgive her; she is your mother. i wish she was dead so that i could spit on her grave. ann second

- ann second

Posted 05/11/09 02:05 PM

sometimes i really hate my mother im 22 and she refuses to let me take controll of my own life, my father died 6 months ago and she was just plain nasty towards me saying i didnt want to know him when he was alive so i have no right to mourn his death. now shes trying to get her hands on the money he left to me and my sisters by emotionally blackmailing the three of us. but most recently because of all the trauma and stress this is causing i have been struggling at work so now i am on the verge of being sacked .instead of being supporting she refuses to acknowledge me unless it is to shout and tell me that i’m a fat lazy waste of space and i deserve to lose my job, she’s also told me that if i see my boyfriend again she will kick me out onto the streets as i cannot afford to move out on my own.

- kayla

Posted 05/12/09 02:51 PM

My mother has always hated and resented me. She has done so much abuse to me. Never told me she loves me. i was raped when I was younger …she told me I deserved it. And like some whipped dog I constantly begged for some kind of love and acceptance from her. No more though.

- Maria

Posted 05/14/09 09:01 AM

I really hate my mother. I wish to be far away from her forever . I never want to see her . and if she die one day I won’t be sorry ..

- Sena

Posted 05/15/09 05:56 AM

No one wants to hate their mothers…. everyone wants to be loved unconditionally, nurtured, respected, cared about and for. Hate is the opposite of love. Indifference is the absence of love. I want to be indifferent. When I was about 5 or 6 I can remember standing in the hallway looking up at my mother and telling her I loved her. I can still remember the look and feeling that emanated from her; reproach. There were no loving arms, or “I do too”. As an adult I believe she felt I was trying to manipulate her. She & my older sister battled constantly, my father traveled frequently, I learned to be compliant, codependent, avoid conflict and coexist …. a doormat… but with a subtle subversive energy. My sister resented me. My mother handled the entire family with shame, guilt, the silent treatment. In her eyes it was for our own good and her benefit to be trained like Pavlov’s dogs. I had a psychologist tell me once that I was living inside an invisible box of rules defined by my mother and my anxiety was created by the fear of existing beyond its boundaries. I never remember wanting to marry or have children. I don’t know if this is because of my upbringing or not but I never aspired to creating a family just the same I did, for a while. My mother suffered from severe postpartum depression after my birth… so severe she was hospitalized. She told me this after I married my ex husband. My history of relationships is dismal; the common thread being alcoholic dysfunction. I never had enough sense of who I was or my own self worth. To my sister, brothers and me she is the iconic matriarch, intolerant and unforgiving emotionally distant. Once we were all grown she became a workaholic having no time for anything other than business, no loving grandmother exists in this woman either. Now she is getting old and has lost much of the intensity she once had. I am not sure if she is aware of how she appears to her children. I think the worst thing is that I share some of her traits. I am emotionally distant and I can sometimes be intolerant. I have boundary issues which I work at constantly. I am trying to find the balance necessary to have meaningful, healthy relationships. To my

- Sally Ann

Posted 05/15/09 10:19 AM

I hate my mother also. She is a cruel toxic mother who never takes any responsibility for her selfish behavior. Any time I try to talk to her about what bothers me about her She denies everything or simplifies it saying it was no big deal. She plays favorites with my older sister and almost let my younger brother die from drugs. When I had my first child she invited herself into the delivery room and ruined the entire experience for me. She yelled at he nurses, told me the hospital was dirty and I would get an infection and looked at my private parts. After the baby was born she was horrible she came over to my house everyday, told me not to breastfeed, wouldn’t let me sleep, would ring my doorbell for a half hour when I would not let her in. I finally stood up to her a age 29. It has been almost 2 years since I last saw her. I have such mixed feelings about her I am angry with her for having so much opportunity and wasting it and being such a terrible parent. Then a small part of me feels sorry for her bc she acts so helpless. Then the stronger part of me knows it is all an act and part of a toxic parent to be helpless. When I was a child she was a stay at home mom in a wealthy area of southern California who had housekeepers stay home with her kids so she could lunch and have personal time. She let her alcoholic evil mother lived in our house from the time I was born until I was 7 years old. My dad could not stand his mother and law and he was always angry when she was around. I have not spoken to anyone in my family for 2 years. Even though my family is annoyed with my mom and think she is crazy they take her side and think I am the crazy one. They also blame my husband for me not seeing them. It is not his fault I do not speak to them. He has done a lot to help them and they blame and criticize him. When I stood up to my mom she said if that is he way I feel I need to see a therapist. I told her I was

- kelly

Posted 05/18/09 03:21 PM

The Expanding Conscious Hatred of Women The expanding hatred of women through out the world is the expression of what all men have held in their unconsciousness from the beginning of their origins in a body. In 1987 students of the Mayan colander celebrated what had become known as the Harmonic Convergence. This was when our solar system entered a plasma field of high energy partials science calls cosmic rays. NASA recently published a paper on the massive amounts of cosmic rays (high energy sub-atomic parcels) now entering the earths atmosphere form an undetermined origin. They have know about this for a long time and are just now putting it out to the public to see if any one has a clue as to what this increase in energy is about. This energy increase is pressuring for the expansion of the emotional and physical bodies of every life form on earth. What has been held unconscious is becoming conscious or being acted out in a state of denial. Men’s unconsciousness is becoming conscious and they are evolving in understanding their collective hatred of women or it is being acted out in a state of denial (unconsciousness) as violence toward women. The root of the problem is in the Mother’s attitude of superiority born of her being the gate keeper of all that is given life. Her power to open space is the first act of manifesting spirits in form. She opens space through her vagina for spirits to gain a body and be in form with her. She has her power in her sexuality and emotional body where a man is centered in the consciousness of mind. She has little chance of understanding her own self generated problem of being hated by that to which she gives birth because mind is not her strong suite. Her primary strength is in her feeling emotional body. Feelings and a reaction to those feelings is where most of the energy of her attention goes naturally. Not being focused into mental self reflection she has unconsciously created a self image of her superiority to men with in her factuality of imagination. She has little interest in exploring this as long as she can foist upon men her image of superiority. She is in the power position (contrary to what she wants men to believe) and has no motive for change and thus must

- John Allyn

Posted 05/18/09 07:53 PM

I can’t say I hate my mother but she sure is annoying! She constantly wants to be the center of my world and I’m constantly pushing her out of the center. I’m okay if she’s quietly there but I hate that she feels she needs to be my best friend. She’s my mother, not my best friend. I hardly respect her anymore and I’m tired of living around her. I’ve wanted to move to my Dad’s for years but she would never let me out of her sight!

- Maddie

Posted 05/19/09 08:01 PM

Let go of anger, resentment, bitterness, blame, hurt feelings —- past or present —-you can choose to change. Do it for you—-you are worth it! Remember you may be in the same place you have put your mom someday. Our negative thoughts are our own worst enemy. -Eckhart Tolle When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. -Max Planck Suddenly I saw things differently and because I saw differently, I thought differently and because I thought differently, I felt differently and behaved differently. My irritation vanished.————-Everything changed in an instant. -Stephen Covey

- mary

Posted 05/24/09 06:28 PM

Read: “Walking on Eggshells” by Dr. Jane Isay Look at every situation with understanding, empathy and compassion, from another’s perspective, whatever your disagreement. Without this willingness to do so, you will be burdened with unforgiving condemning judgments of them. YOU, in the end, are the one who will continue to hurt, not them.

- Free Yourself

Posted 05/25/09 04:48 PM

Wow! I see me in a lot of these post of those who ‘hate their moms’. I thought I did for years and found every reason to do so - even the nice things she did I “hated”. I then had one of those ‘ah ha moments’ and almost as suddenly everything changed because I changed my point of view. I realized it wasn’t my mom I hated - it was the things I had chosen to do in my life [I knew she would never do and was afraid of her disapproval] I hated. Drinking, sneaking out, having sex as a teen up a the major one being an abortion. I hated me for my choices but blamed mom because it was easier than facing me and it worked because friends and society went along with me. I even had a shrink who said it was my moms fault I did the things I did. What a croc! So watch out for being misled or misleading yourself into believing the lies. Take control and reflect on why you think you ‘hate’ and I’ll bet most of you will see what I see. Through all my hate of mom, I see now she never stopped loving me nor judged me or trashed me to others. She loved me as a mom should - unconditionally no matter ‘my’ choices. Change how you think about things and things will change. Try it. It will set you free!

- Me

Posted 05/26/09 07:38 AM

I see a lot of people hate their mothers for various reasons. Some for quite petty reasons. Some for solid reasons such as physical, mental, or sexual abuse, and of course negelect. I think it is important for a lot of people to understand that feelings are not right or wrong…they just are. They belong to the person who believes with all their heart that they were done wrong by someone that they relied on, and trusted. It is painful, very painful when a child grows and realizes they were wronged. I agree with several posts that ask those who hate our mothers that we should try to forgive. And I challenge each one who has condemd us to walk a mile in our shoes. I would love to forgive my mother for neglecting me and allowing physical, mental, and sexual abuse to occur to me. The hatred uses so much energy and then self destruction plays a part in it all, as well. I dont want to hate my mom, I try to empathize with her as she obviously isn’t emotionally mature even though she is nearly 60. She will never be a strong woman, she will never be as intelligent as I would like her to be. She will never stop trying to control everything around her. I try to walk a mile in her shoes. I think the hate has turned to sorrow and self pity that I did not get the chance to have a mother that I could put on a pedal stool, and revere as the best mother in the world. I know I am nowhere close to being the best mother in the world to my children either, however, I can try not to make the same mistakes my mother has made. I hope everyone here can evolve, can work past the pain, resentment, hatred and see the sunshine, feeling it warm your skin and know that there is a higher power out there who does love you unconditionally, and wants you to be happy. A wise woman once said, everything you go thru is for our own perfection. Boy, I must have been pretty imperfect for all the crap I have been going thru. Love and light to all. Peace out.

- jen

Posted 05/26/09 12:34 PM

Your logic is extremely flawed, Jen… You claim feelings are feelings, neither right nor wrong, which sounds pretty fair, but then you judge posters here by deeming that some of the reasons for this hatred for mothers are for “petty” reasons and some are for “solid” reasons. Who are you to judge? My mother never physically abused, nor did she verbally abuse me or allow sexual abuse, but I hate her. I’ll guess in your world, my reasons would be in the “petty” category. BTW, what’s a pedal stool?

- Leigh

Posted 05/26/09 05:31 PM

It’s comforting to know that I’m not the only one who “hates” their mother. My brother and I grew up dealing with her abuse, both physically and mentally. She was always cruel, judgmental, and overly controlling, and she tore my family apart. When I was a teen, she would say how much she wanted to leave us, that we would never survive without her-but she never provided for any of us. I would take care of the housework,cook for the family, and work part time while balancing school. She never wanted to work, she would start arguments with everyone over anything. I never wanted to be anywhere near her in public, since she would become enraged over the slightest inconveniences. In one instance, she threw a plate of food at me in the middle of a restaurant for not ordering what she wanted me to order. I was happy to see the look on her face the day I filed for emancipation.

- Danielle

Posted 05/27/09 07:17 PM

Leigh, I dont think Jen’s logic is flawed. She has it straight on. I dont see her judging anyones feelings, more of a categorization of hatred toward mothers in general. Perhaps your hatred has skewed your ability to reason. I think her general message was that of validation of its okay to hate your mom but perhaps one should realize that at some point one needs to do something with that anger and hate so it doesn’t destroy the person feeling it. At some point we need to pull the weeds from our love garden or the weeds will take over and all you have left is an ugly mess, unless you are the type that see’s weeds as beautiful. It depends on your reality and values. However, in general, society deems a beautiful garden without weeds. Forgiveness is a road to peace. Thanks Jen for your thoughts.

- Anonymous

Posted 06/01/09 03:39 PM