Does My Child Hate Me?

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

It's no longer news for you that feelings that flow between mom and baby - the subject of my closest attention and liveliest interest. Today I want to talk about what we all prefer to keep silent about, about love and hate in the “mom-child” space.

When a child turns one year old, sometimes we are surprised to find that he is not just trying to fight with his mother, but sometimes does it with anger and passion, the strength of which is unpleasantly surprising. We, of course, try to attribute these actions and the child's excitement to the flaws of upbringing, the influence of society, the intrigues of relatives, or at worst we blame ourselves for missing the child. Especially if a neighbor on the playground has a good-looking daughter who never fights and obeys her mother and kisses her on command (I really want to joke inappropriately and add "… face"). If we are very well-read in the literature on parenting, then we attribute this behavior to the crisis of the year or simply collective features of child development.

And somehow explaining to myself this unsightly phenomenon, we hide the feelings experienced in response away … until the child begins to speak so well as to adequately express their thoughts and feelings. And then, in the heat of a quarrel, we suddenly hear "I hate you!" It hurts. It hurts very much. So much so that we do not have time to understand how painful it is and how frightening it is, how anger covers us from above with a heavy stove and we, in a rather categorical and harsh form, sometimes even with the use of physical force, “punish” the child for such a statement, teaching him no more do. Can you teach "not to feel this way anymore"? The question is controversial and I would like to answer that no, but I am afraid that the tragic truth is that it is possible and many even succeed in this … however, at this moment my mother does not think that teaching not to hate her anymore, she teaches the child not to feel at all anymore. Taking the side of a child who then does not know how to love, trust, feel tenderness and warmth, I would prefer that my mother's goal was not achieved.

Let's go back to mom. Well, she got angry, “punished” (in various forms - spanked, yelled, put in a corner, or simply punished with coldness and rejection), repeated this scenario several times and seemed to achieve the desired results - the child stopped making such terrible statements. And where then should she attach her feelings about this? It is like falling into the abyss … "my child … hates me …". Is that true? Each of us in different ways, but one way or another persuades himself that “no, this is not true” - he meant something else, he was persuaded … but you never know what we or our loved ones tell us to drive away this terrible thought - not- on-see-dit … my … child … me … And we remember our childhood, realizing that at least in adolescence, if not such statements were made to our mother, then we thought so, felt … And we understand how much she was hurt by this. And again we feel guilty. Or, on the contrary, we say to ourselves that she is something, she deserved it then, and I, after all, I did everything differently, everything is correct, where, where did my child have such an attitude towards me? It hurts, it hurts. And it's a shame that "I am such a mother." And you feel guilty about this. And scary - what will happen now. And I want to pretend that I didn’t hear anything. It’s just to train the child well so that he doesn’t allow himself any more, and then, in turn, we will pretend that if this is not visible, then there is nothing.

And what if you step into this abyss and accept the fact that "yes, he hates" is true. That this is not just his crisis, not just manipulation to offend, not anger, not someone else's intent … And, yes, he was telling the truth, everything is so. And that maybe it's not even my mother's fault. And that, perhaps, this is not connected with any flaws in upbringing, love and attention to him. And that's okay. That hatred and love are not two feelings opposed to each other, but two parts of one extended feeling "love-hate" … That sometimes we feel one pole of this feeling for close people, and sometimes the other, and it happens that we dangle in the middle. That the very fact of manifestation of some form of this feeling simply tells us that we are infinitely close to this little man. And that, having removed one component from this feeling - “hatred”, we…. yes … obviously, we are removing the second one - about love. Our psyche does not know how to divide feelings into bad and good, but it knows how to turn them off - all together, indiscriminately.

Maybe we grown women can find a way to deal with the shadow side of a child's love for us? Maybe then he won't have to cope with the flip side of his affection for his mother alone? If she hurts us, mom, so much, can you imagine how she scares him, child? Now add to that the shame he feels for his feelings. (Who among us did not let him understand “it's a shame to say such words to my mother!”). Put yourself in his place: “I love my mother, I completely depend on her, literally I can’t live without her. But sometimes I feel that I hate her, this feeling when I would like to destroy her so that she is not. And it terrifies me, because it's like destroying yourself. I am nothing without her. When there is no strength to endure it inside, I told her about it. And I realized that it was also a shame, it was not normal. I am not normal, such as I am, she will not be able to love. I, of course, will no longer show her how terrible I am, so as not to hurt her anymore. I will be good, she will love … not me, but that "good" child … and no one else will love me, because I am a freak since I have such feelings. " Scary picture, isn't it? Would you in your right mind wish her to your child?

Let us add to this that absolutely all children have hatred of their mothers, from one year to the next. From a year to three, the child hates, as it were, another woman - there is a good mother whom I love, there is a bad mother whom I hate. This is a normal developmental stage. After three years, he connects these two women and discovers that his mother is one and whole - both good and bad, and beloved, and hated, that she is just a person. And this is what gives him the opportunity to accept himself - both good and bad - as a whole. And this is what gives him the opportunity to separate from his mother, and not merge with her. So this is what gives him the opportunity to grow up.

Perhaps, if we find the strength to just be with our child by his side in his hatred of us, not rejecting the reality of his feelings, accepting him and so too, through our fear, guilt and pain … maybe then … we will allow ourselves to admit that there are moments when we also hate our child - and this is true, and this is normal, and we can accept this feeling in ourselves and allow it, too, to be one of the parts of our closeness to the child. Perhaps then our love for him will sparkle with some new, fuller and more free colors, since we will not have to guard and restrain the part that is about hatred …