Why Is It So Bad To Be A Good Mom?

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Arguments against being a good mom:

The child suffers from this. Why does it suffer, you ask. He's got a good mom and stuff.

So this is precisely why he suffers: his mother has no time to do it, she is keen on recreating the image of her own goodness, ideality, correctness (emphasize her own).

The child wants ice cream - he cannot (a good mother knows the rules).

If he wants a chocolate bar instead of a carrot, he cannot (a good mother knows what is useful).

If she wants to touch the snow with her hands, she cannot (a good mother knows what is harmful).

If she wants to go play, I can't (a good mother knows to finish the soup first).

If he wants to be friends with Petya, it’s also impossible (a good mother forbids playing with bad boys).

And so on. It would seem that there is nothing wrong with this (of course, only good:)) - after all, this is elementary care for your child.

But I'm talking about those cases, and those mothers for whom the most important thing in the world is to be a good mother. They are easy to recognize. They live for their children. They know how it should be, but how it shouldn't. They are heroines and victims working for the good of … what? Of course, his good motherhood. And a real child at this time just wants to touch the snow with his hands.

No one will appreciate this. So she lives for her children. "My life is my children." "A woman should live only for the sake of children." "My meaning of life is in my children." “I live to make my child happy,” and so on. Have you ever heard such phrases? If yes, then you are familiar with others who say from the same lips: "I am everything for you, and you are an ungrateful brute!", "I put my life on you!" I studied at the university!”, and many other options. In short, I have bad news. Children don't appreciate it if you make them the meaning of your life. You will never receive gratitude. Rather, the opposite is true. Children don't like this much. Well, you must admit, it is very unpleasant all my life to feel guilty, grateful and due. Yalom has an amazing sketch in his book Mommy and the Meaning of Life. Yalom writes books and brings them to his mother. His mom can't read. He invited her to read aloud, but she refused. She just cares about having books. She just keeps these books with her and proudly shows them to everyone she knows. Yalom realizes that in the end, everything he does, he does so that his mother can be proud of him. Writing books for mom is the meaning of his life. The meaning of a mother's life is the same books: as a result of her many years of work as a good mother (raised a good son). The only thing that is endless absurd is that she will never read them. She will never hear him, and he will never tell her. She will never meet her son in reality. He will not meet in reality with his mother. They just dance around the result for years. This is what mothers do, assigning their children to the meaning of life. They restrict themselves, restrict children, and turn common life into work on a common result. It seems absurd and sad, no? In general, children do not want to be the meaning of your life. It is, how to say, a burden to them. They would breathe more freely if you had your own meaning, and they have their own. Children don't need a donating, good mother. They will not appreciate your sacrifices. Moreover, if you have a boy, he will generally marry someone else:) And this bitch won't even feed him properly, yeah.

There is difficulty in expressing feelings. Moreover, both you and the child.

About the child a little later, first - about the mother. And best of all with an example. I had a pregnant client who really wanted a boy. She wanted so badly that she already lived like this - as if she had a boy there. And on the ultrasound, as if it were evil, it was not visible all the time: the child will either turn away or lie down in the wrong way. In short, already at a fairly decent time, she found out that there was a girl inside her. That day she came to me, as they say, sadder than ever. With a mournful face, she went into the room and sat down on the sofa. She said that she had a lot of feelings about this: she was upset and all that, but there was something else, something very important, about which she was silent.

How do you feel about the child now? I asked.

She did not dare to answer this question for a long time, walked around the bush, came across ashamed (ashamed to talk about this), persuaded herself that this was all nonsense and that we should forget about it. In the process of self-persuasion, she uttered the phrase: "after all, a girl is the same child as a boy," and looked at me expectantly. And, if purely rational, then, of course, she was right. But this is only if it is purely rational. And I answered her: “no, it’s not true. a boy is more desirable to you than a girl. and in this they are no longer the same."

Then the client (almost in a whisper) said that she really felt a great grudge against the child for being a girl. This was the very thing that at first she was ashamed to say

Good moms don't say that.

Good moms love both boys and girls alike.

The most interesting thing is that when we began to find out what she was so afraid of that it was so difficult to say out loud the words about resentment and anger, it turned out that she was afraid not for the child, but for herself. She became afraid that the child would hear what she was saying and would love her less. Is this not direct proof that in trying to be a good mom, we care about ourselves, not about our children?

Well, and, of course, the main thing. When this client was able to acknowledge her negative feelings towards her child, allowed them to be, to talk about them, they disappeared (see Beisser's theory of paradoxical changes). Speaking to her unborn child (girl), she began with shame (ashamed to talk about it), moved on to resentment and anger (I am angry with you for being a girl), and the matter ended in sadness (sad that everything worked out not the way she wanted) and, of course, love (I love you, my child). As she left, she said that if she had not allowed herself to be angry with her child, she would not have been able to feel love for him. This is the answer to the question for those wondering why admit negative feelings at all. Well, we are so arranged that if we freeze something there, then everything freezes. All at once.

So, if you are a good mother, you have no right to be angry, offended, hate your child. But then you have a hard time feeling love for him. Not to mention the fact that unexpressed anger and resentment lead to various psychosomatic diseases and not weakly spoil further relationships.

Now about the injured children. In this sense, the victims, I consider those who cannot admit the badness of their mother (my mother cannot be bad) or admit their negative feelings towards her. It is fair, I think, to say that this is the misfortune of most of us - at least I see it quite often.

In more detail, in my practice I managed to meet with several ways of how people deal with this.

I'll tell you about them.

Method one. “Mom, you’re not bad, but me.” Well, I see. If I feel for you, dear mother, something bad (resentment, anger, irritation, and so on), then I, mother, are a complete asshole, and you are something like a sacred animal, you cannot be bad (you mom). And if I tell you something bad, then you will generally collapse / get sick / die, oh what a brute I am, you are my mother, and further in the text. Unfortunately, mothers themselves are often not averse to using such a scheme. They grab hold of the heart, come down with headaches. The phrase "how do you talk to your mother" - from the same place. The child grows up with a sense of guilt and an oppressive sense of his own muddiness. Now we remember that opposites always exist together, and where there is one polarity, there is definitely another. Those. this person, tormented by a sense of guilt and a sense of his own hopeless badness, at once can suddenly begin to shrink from it. As in a joke, you know: I am alone, completely alone. It’s the same here: I’m bad, how bad I am, I’m bad, oo, I’m bad, mmm, how bad I am, etc. Then again the feeling of guilt, well, in a circle. The main thing: he is always bad, she is always good.

Method two. “Mom, it's not you that are bad, but everyone else.” This is also an example from practice. The client says that every time she enters into a new relationship, she feels resentment in advance. As if she had already done something offensive. What exactly? I ask. Well, she expects that she will be unnecessary and that she will be laughed at and devalued. The way my mom did it, she says. And he tells this story. When she was little, she felt unnecessary to her mother. Once she came up and asked with resentment: Mom, why did you give birth to me, because you don't need me! Good children don't say that, my mother replied (I forgot to clarify: good mothers, of course, only have good children). And she, my client, never spoke again. Of course, she hasn't stopped feeling unnecessary. And even on the contrary - I felt even more like that. But from this conversation, she learned that she should not tell her mother about her resentment. This is not good and wrong. Oh, yes, my mother also laughed at her. How do you feel about your mom when you tell this? I asked her. I love her, she answered, I have her very good. What would you like to tell her? I asked. Mom, - she said, - I really want to be needed by you. And she began to cry. She does not feel resentment towards her mother. But whenever she enters into a new relationship, she feels resentment in advance. As if she would be unnecessary, and as if they would laugh at her.

Method three. “Mom, you're not bad at all. I believe so much that you are good, that I will become like you.”This is a very interesting example, I came across it quite recently (last week), and I really liked it (its intricacy, I love intricate things). In general, the client complained of being overweight. In work, we come across the fact that she does not accept herself as such (complete). At first, I do not attach much importance to this (well, she does not like herself, this is often the case). But then she gives out the phrase "I have a feeling that this fat is not mine at all." Whose? I ask. Mommy, she says. It seems to her that he got it from her mother, and this disgusts her. She hates mom's fat. Moreover, she is very ashamed to say such things about her mother (she has a good mother, and one should not be disgusted with her). At some point, the client dawns. What a horror, she says, I'm fattening on purpose to be like my mother. I hate its fullness, but I cannot admit it. I am deliberately getting fat in order to prove to myself and my mother that there is no disgust, that I want to be like her, what a horror!

These are the stories. This is all that I have so far managed to collect about good mothers and their affected children. The cases from my practice, which I described, in my opinion, most vividly describe the listed methods.

I think there are other ways to deal with the inability to accept bad feelings for a good mom, but I haven't met them yet.

Write your stories and other examples.

I love this topic and will gladly expand my knowledge in it.