Hmm mine is tough to describe.
She is very talented, strong willed and stubborn.
Her main concerns raising me were that she never wanted me to be spoiled. To her that meant no holding or affection as well as material things.
Now that I am an adult I realise why she is the way that she is. She had a shit childhood and did the best she could raising me with the little bit of tools and knowledge that she had back then.
She was the only stability I ever had and is now the only parent I have. My father and I no longer have a relationship, no big surprise, off and on again my entire life.
So, I am thankful for my mother, with all of her flaws, I know that she loves me.
Being 5000 miles away from her and communicating with her through emails get frustrating.
I miss the days I could just pick up the phone and call her or just drive over to her house to say hello.
Though the distance has made me less reliant on her support, some times I guess that is a good thing.
I hope when I am a mom that I have some of her good qualities and learn not to carry on her bad ones.

shanti0608 said:

I love you, and despite the fact that she maybe did things differently to how we will, she brought an amazing woman in to the world and made her a wonderful human being. I am grateful to her everyday.

MoniGram said:

I am so sorry.

MoniGram said:

Moni, that's heartbreaking...

You're amazing!

Can't really think of much else to say...

RenHoek said:

Moni is a total inspiration

She is such a loving and wonderful Mother and Memaw.

My mom has major pro's and con's.

She is like a mother in the way she doesn't want me doing anything BAD.
She is like a friend in the way I tell her almost everything.

But she has some major issues.. I practically raised me and my brother and sister because she NEVER used to be home. At a bar every night with my dad.. her friends are more important.
She's gotten better but she still has a lot to work on.. but in the end I love her because I feel like though most of the time it isn't good.. she's doing the best SHE can do..

MoniGram said:

Every mother has their pros and cons.
My mom is strong, she lost both her parents and all three siblings.
She was a single mom and kept everything together ALMOST ALL the time.
I was a horrible teen and for the most part she keep me in my place.

But I picked up her habits of dating the "wrong type" of guys, moodiness,
and depression.
I have alot of my mother's qualities.When she loves, she loves with everything, and so do I.
It is what it is, you live and learn...and I am happy she is always with me

shanti0608 said:

You are so sweet Val! Thank you

SaraWright10 said:

You are a good daughter hun!

I just want to say...that I appreciate everyone's kind words and hugs.

MoniGram said:

Thank you sooo much!

MoniGram said:

You of all people don't deserve someone like that..
but if anything it has truly turned you into a wonderful woman.

My mom is extremely thoughtful and really outgoing. I think her only downfall is she doesn't have a lot of self control, especially with money and food. I don't either but I'm improving and I'm hoping she'll be inspired to follow my lead.

She does like her celebrity gossip. And she still believes that Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt still call each other regularly. Afterall, Star magazine has a picture of each of them on their cell phone. They must be talking to each other, right?

SaraWright10 said:

Awwww

MoniGram said:

It was really hard reading this thread. When I got to your post, Moni, I started to cry. This is how I grew up too. No matter what I did that was good or "right," it was never good enough for her. The physical and mental abuse took me years to overcome. She is a mean, spiteful, controlling woman whom I have vowed to never be.

moni...I am sorry you had to endure this. I know exactly how you feel. For the rest of you who have such sweet, loving, caring moms...PLEASE do not take her granted. Appreciate her...show her that you do, and realize how lucky you are.

noimageatall said:

If you are so lucky to have a wonderful Mom. Give her an unexpected call, an unexpected kiss, and an unexpected hug. Don't wait until Mother's day to send her flowers.

PaisleyPark5083 said:

CarrieMpls said:

agreed, love u mommy.

I'm closer to my dad, so its killing me that i can barely speak to him.


momma actually passed away 28 years ago. I see the spirit of my mom almost daily tho. I try to love folks with whatever they need, sister, mother, friend. etc. I enjoy helping people out.

mother was a great singer, i always felt inadequate cause i wasn't.

noimageatall said:

I too, am sorry you had a Mother like this. And you are right, the one's who have Mother's who care, should really how lucky they are, because there are many others who don't.

MoniGram said:

My mother's urge to conform to normality is stifling to the point of being suffocating.

I wish she'd let her hair down more. She's happy to just be content instead of challenging herself with new experiences.

She was obviously conditioned by her parents, just as her conditioning of me makes me feel guilty everytime I fail (when I really should just feel deflated, learn from the fall and dust myself off).

I'm 37 this year and my mother is 62 - we still squabble. Neither of us really know each other at all. We only converse on a "need to know" basis, otherwise our telephone conversations consist of the weather; what we're going to make for dinner; what we watched last night on the telly...

I can't remember her ever saying "I love you". Can't remember the last time she hugged me - we're not a huggy family.

On the plus-side, neither of my parents are religious, which I should be thankful for, I suppose.

I don't know if I should post such personal things on here, but at the moment I don't seem to feel uncomfortable doing it, so:

I never had the kind of mum some people on here are talking about. After reading the first few pages I decided to skip the rest, because somehow something inside of me started aching terribly. I am still very young, but I have to say that my past 6 years were affected negatively by our relationship.

When I was a small kid, up until the age of ten, me and my mother got along quite well, but the first disappointment came at the age of 6, when she told me that she and my father got divorced two months later, while we were in Slovakia, visiting my grandparents. The way she said it.. as if it was something marginal, as if she didn't care. Moving away from my father hurt me a lot and I used to craft "mobile phones" out of paper and pretend I was talking to him through them at night when my mother was sleeping. I cried a lot at night back then.

After some years I turned out to be quite like my father: I loved music, was kind of outgoing, loved my friends, .. I became "wilder" than she was and our relationship started to change completely. We both grew in different directions and all I remember from her from the past few years is mulitple physical fights with blood on the floor of my room, loads of mental torture by having to deal with utterances like "I hate you, you are not my son anymore. I wish you were never born" etc. Ten minutes later she would usually come and apologise for saying such things, telling me she was overreacting and she loved me more than everything else. Of course, after some time I didn't believe any of that anymore.
Apart from that we hardly ever talked. It was approximately once a year when my mother, my stepfather and my little brother actually set on a table together to eat, which was on Christmas. Normally, she would just knock on my door to pass me the plate, because I didn't feel comfortable eating in the same place as her. I was not afraid of her or something like that, I just didn't want to. I started to feel disgusted by her.

The main problem was I felt like noone related to me at times. I used to call my father, crying on the phone and telling him about what had happened and he'd try to help me, but it didn't change anything, unfortunately. Besides, my mother always got the "backing" from her relatives from Slovakia. She used to call her mother and her sister and tell them about me being such a scandalously rude fucker and they would always support her and her opinion, of course, and when I tried to explain and talk to them, they wouldn't even listen. "You are like your father, you useless arsehole."

Well, exactly one year ago my mother and my stepfather broke up too and she decided to go back to Slovakia, taking my little 6-year-old brother (whom I love more than anything else in the world) with her. When she asked me whether I wanted to go with her or move to my father I said "I'm sorry, mum. I have my friends here, I want to finish school here, I like this country and you know that the typical Slovak mentality does not correspond with mine." She said she hated me and that she was disappointed to have such an ungrateful son.

We talk on the phone about once a month and I saw her about 3 times since she left. Last week she told me she may have cancer and now I don't know what to do. I feel very guilty and I'm worried about my little brother. I hate feeling this helpless...




To all of you who feel like having a "real" mother, not just a person who gave birth to you, but someone who makes you feel safe and home and someone you can trust and talk to: Be glad. I may be too young to judge relationships around me and I always thought that maybe someday I will get along with her, in ten years or something... Now I don't even know whether she'll still be here by then.

One thing I have learned: Sometimes you just have to swallow and face that someday there may not be a chance to change certain things anymore. I hate the words "too late", but they exist. Sometimes I wish I'd been a different person back then to get along with my mother, so I won't feel guilty right now.




Sorry for writing so much, I just felt like I had to get rid of this right now.
[Edited 3/19/09 15:51pm]

Dave1992 said:

Damn dude, that's heavy... I hope things work out for you and your lil' brother...

RenHoek said:

Thank you, I appreciate that.

RenHoek said:

Quick hide the retard! .....mama

myfavorite said:

*insert gratuitous verbal smack down here*

I love her, but we never have been close. I always tried to make her love me more until some years ago I gave up and learned to accept her the way she is and made my peace with her. She loves me, but she will never be the mom for me I would want to have. The woman who for me was my mother more than my mom was my aunt who I was very close to.