My Complicated Relationship with Mothers

I have had challenges with relating with mothers.  I will admit that, even though there is a cultural taboo to not question or doubt mothers (which is something I don’t fully understand that just because you have birthed a being that it somehow makes you immune from becoming a decent human being).

I’m sure part of this has to do with my own mother issues (which I’ll get into later), but most of all it has to do with the very different attitudes, perspectives and priorities that mothers hold that are so different than how I approach my life as a child-free woman.

For example, my priorities are my work, free time to read, learn and grow, my health and wellness and satisfying relationships. I value pleasure, freedom, joy, my sleep and don’t have much patience for relationships that are full of drama, conflict or are highly demanding.  I have a lot on my plate that inspires me to make a positive contribution. Self-care and low stress is huge for me. I have a low pain threshold and have no desire to endure suffering unnecessarily.

For many mothers, stress is the order of the day. Self-sacrificing and thinking about others 24-7 is what’s expected. As well as picking up after kids, cooking, cleaning – though all part of women’s oppressed roles, still land on her shoulders.  They have to keep everything under control and make sure all relationships are functioning.  It’s very difficult to be a “free spirit” as a mother, and if they are they are seen as neglectful to their children.  Life can become about child-speak and there isn’t a lot of room, until the kids leave home, to do self-discovery.  Family activities, caring about schooling and keeping things in order are the most important parts of being a parent and consume a lot of a mother’s time. A mother’s natural motivation is to see her kids do well and thrive (that’s not to say all mothers are like this as some are cruel and abusive). It’s noble and service-oriented and a good mom can make a difference in the world. But most of the job is thankless.

So merely due to lifestyle choices and differences, many child-free women and mothers clash in perspective, desires and motivations at a fundamental level.  So when a mother wants to talk endlessly about her children, a child-free woman is rolling her eyes thinking of a whole host of other things to talk about like art, politics, meeting new people.  When a mother goes on vacation she finds a resort that is family-oriented and brings her kids along, whereas a child-free woman is looking for a place that is as far away from children screaming as possible. When a mother is trying everything to get her rest, a child-free woman is out taking classes ranging from tantric sex to communicating with horses to how to make a successful career.

The common traits are that we’re women who have similar struggles to be respected and supported in society. We also share similar body parts.  And there is most likely a yearning for things to just go well, along with an innate capacity to create. 

Now, fast forward to being an adult with mothers. I’ve had the weirdest responses with mothers. I will admit that mothers initially scare me, it’s like a PTSD response inside of me.  It takes a long time for me to feel at ease with someone who is a mother.  Because I know there is a side of them that can turn into an overly protective, irrational person who is so deeply attached to their child that they can’t see a different perspective or what is needed for their higher happiness and freedom or that of their child’s.  The enmeshment is so huge. They have identity issues with being a good parent or the perfect parent that they can sometimes not see the forest for the trees. And they can make a lot of choices that aren’t really connected to their heart and soul but rather out of survival.

My trauma from mothers and those who defend them are great. I have actually been accused by my own father (who left when I was 3) that I am trying to steal my sister’s kids because I don’t have children, which is completely absurd as anyone who’s known me all my life would attest. I also had a mother pull her child away from me upon learning that I don’t have kids of my own – worried that I would probably kidnap her child just because I was interacting with her.  When I tried to defend an innocent child from the verbal attacks of their father, I was shunned and attacked by the mother, who is also abused by this man. I’ve also had mothers get super-defensive when their child hears a different perspective on life that may put all they’ve been taught into question and in opposition of the parent’s personal beliefs. I’ve seen mothers power-trip over others, believing they know best, instead of admitting they have controlling personalities.  I’ve had mothers try to mock me and convince me to have kids and try to drag me into their world, believing that “I just don’t understand what it’s like to be a mother,” to which I respond – “I may not, but I’ve heard the stories, seen the suffering, and not really down with it…I like my happy world without the guilt, madness and stress, thank you very much. I didn’t have ‘em and they are your responsibility to live with that decision.” It may seem detached and arrogant, but really – I don’t need to walk in those shoes.  I’m all about empathy and compassion while setting clear boundaries of what’s mine and what isn’t.  That’s maturity and leads to true balance and personal well-being.

Now here is the thing. I actually have deep empathy for mothers. It’s why I don’t want to be one.  I believe mothers have been duped in our world – women are told this is who they need to be and what they need to become with very little support or role models to choose differently. Many marriages breakdown when kids jump into the picture because all of the attention is on the kids with no room for couple’s spontaneous intimacy.  On top of that, women get baby brains and they can lose brain power because of the stress of child-birth.  They also may have to deal with some husbands who will leave or abandon them because they’ve gained weight or they are stressed or have post-partum (which isn’t the mother’s fault of course but it’s a reality out there).  Single mothers have lower incomes than men or child-free women.  This illusion that it’s the path to happiness, is a farce, as I’ve seen many mothers burdened by the bills, the challenges of having to parent the child or children single-handedly and have decreased health because of the day-to-day self-sacrificing challenges.  They have to prove their worth and competence in their friend network, with a vigilance and scrutiny that even fathers don’t experience.  It’s hell being a mother, especially in the modern age.

My relationship with my mother is mixed – I admire her for the woman I know her to be, then she will step into the mother role and everything will get wonky. But she’s been my main inspiration to be a child-free woman.  I’ll explain further.

I recently did a healing meditation with my colleague and business coach, Irina Benedict, and I came to realize that I serve Child-free Women because before I incarnated all I wanted was to see happy women in the world. I was born into a family of conflict – my mother was left at home alone while my father was out gambling and womanizing. My birth was considered to be yet another stress in the family, when all what I wanted to do was bring blessings into the world.  I know that my sister was wanting me in the world, and my mother liked my companionship. But I felt the hole in her heart of being emotionally neglected in a loveless marriage.  As I adjusted in the womb, I felt how sad everybody was and that my birth was not really something to be celebrated.  I held the deep engrained belief that “it’s better off that I didn’t exist” and “who would want me?” which was a complex I still struggle with and carry deep inside of me.  How many people out there have been born into painful, high drama and unloving homes?

My mom, later into my teens, admitted that she shouldn’t have had children.  Now partly this comes from her own inadequacies, but it also is from her truth.  Many would be aghast to hear this from their mothers, thinking it’s insensitive. But it’s honest. And I respect it because I totally get it. Many women get the short end of the stick in the parenting paradigm and some just aren’t meant to be in that position.  My mother should have been an artist, traveler, and freethinker. As her child, I felt this and did as much as possible not to be a burden on her.  It caused a whole lot of self-esteem issues inside of me along with self-destructive behaviour, but it wasn’t really about me – it was that my mom was forced by society and her parents to birth children and this wasn’t leading to her personal liberation. 

This is why, in my family as the only child-free woman, I stand in a commitment to making myself as happy and liberated as much as possible and to feel grateful that I came from an open-minded mother who blesses me in the work I do (she’ll still give some socialized quips but nothing compared to the pressures I’ve heard other child-free women have met).  I have met so many women from around the world and I see the oppression and suffering they experience, much less in the role of being a mother. I see it as a divine responsibility to be a role model and example to be a loving, clear, happy and healthy woman in this conflicted world and to show what a woman can do when she has the freedom, time and space to make a major difference.  This is why I feel called to serving child-free women to expand their spirits and fulfill their lives through my small business, The Child-free Heart.

I would love to hear from you about your relationship with mothers, too.