How to ease tensions a with our mother?

A Challenging Role to Uphold

The relationship with a mother and her role in daily life is as timeless as the theme of love itself. While the act of childbirth for many women is a deeply ingrained act of transmission and species perpetuation, the transformation from 'woman' to 'mother' opens a new world. This journey can oscillate between a delightful adventure filled with extraordinary discoveries and an inextricable burden leading to manifest disengagement.

This ultimate devotion, a legacy of childbirth, is more than just a bet or a task. The implications are profound, and the projective stakes so immense, that it's sometimes hard for a mother to know in which direction to steer her gaze upon her child. Striking the perfect balance between being the 'good cop' and the 'bad cop' to achieve complete satisfaction is nearly an impossible mission. The love a mother has for her child shares many similarities with the dynamics of a romantic relationship, blending responsibilities towards the other and the desire to see them grow with you. The child, who didn’t choose this relationship, inadvertently endures the trials of a love relationship. The mother's quasi-schizophrenic roles are to be there for her child at every moment while maintaining enough detachment for the child’s intra- and interpersonal blossoming, until letting them go.

New Responsibilities

As we have seen, this role is already difficult to maintain in its tightrope balance of unpredictable but necessary upheavals. However, the evolving nature of humanity hasn’t been too kind to mothers caught in the whirlwind of childrearing, further shaken by new responsibilities. The modern life injunctions and the endless quest for gender balance have compelled women to take on new roles to feel existent. Whether rightly or wrongly, modern marketing has intended to teach, if not coerce, women into acceptance.

The emergence of the 'working-girl' intrinsically and logically inherited from feminine physiology marked a change. The social, empathetic, nurturing, and comforting woman now had to don a new avatar: career-driven, independent, combative, and self-centered. She is no longer seen as a human being, but as a financially solvent entity. With these new societal impositions, the role of the mother has also undergone significant changes, heralding new difficulties in how she views motherhood and her parenting. How to meet society’s new standards while being a productive and fulfilled cog in an unreachable reality when a child disrupts the well-oiled mechanism of promised bliss? Indeed, it's overwhelming. It’s vital to reflect sincerely and honestly on a path of fulfillment that you have genuinely chosen, not one imposed by society. Not all women are meant to be mothers, nor are all destined to be careerists or hold a job that validates their societal worth and existence financially. As a woman, listen to yourself and be in tune with what resonates within you. The center of emotions is in your gut, and the center of thought is in your brain. Learn to listen to your gut feelings and always be wary of how your brain chooses to interpret them.

The Obligation to Be a mother.

 The question naturally arises: why should a woman feel obliged to become a mother and, more importantly, why should she have to justify her choice? This query is more than legitimate, especially considering the great difficulty many mothers face in fulfilling this inherently complex role. Having a child is one thing, but caring for it deeply, sincerely, and with commitment requires alignment with one’s system of thoughts, the desire to transmit, and the role a woman wishes to play in her life journey. The innate desire to be a mother, or to not be one, is not a given.

 Despite the apparent obviousness of the matter, the issue is more significant as it involves not just the lives of a woman and a man, but also that of a being who will have to navigate life with its creators. No matter how beautiful and profound the act of love and the moment of birth are, a child will require a significant amount of attention for healthy development, with its questions, fears, doubts, successes, and failures. Hence, the desire for a child must be considered in the totality of emotional management capacity. Despite all the will in the world and all the hopes one might have, your child will be unique, incomparable, and, whether you like it or not, different from you.

Post-War Mothers

An important event that profoundly changed a generation of mothers' views on their role, place, and the symbolism of their offspring was World War II. The great difficulties of the war brought about new ways of living, under a rain of constraints that upset the family structure. It’s essential to remember that during these times, millions of women found themselves alone in their homes. They had to move forward at all costs, put soup on the table, and mourn the absence of a husband or partner for weeks, months, years, and for some, forever.

In this extraordinary setup, some mothers had experienced not one but two world wars. Children were perhaps seen as a blessing, but they also represented a real challenge, a duty to succeed, both educationally and developmentally. Amid everyday difficulties, finding money to survive, working, and managing daily household chores, millions of women devoted themselves heart and soul to meet the endless demands of their empty homes. Therefore, modern mothers are the daughters of those who gave so much for their families and homes. It’s crucial to understand that in the reality of the household, many mothers during and after the war continued to maintain their homes almost militarily, a vestige of a long period of heightened constraints and responsibilities. Children were not only seen as a blessing but were also perceived as a real investment. Amid the often-absurd wartime situation, children were expected to function. They were seen as investments that were supposed to yield returns in the form of help, presence, work, discipline, rigor, listening, and tenacity. This is the context in which emotional aspects of these war- and post-war-raised children were often overlooked. The baby boom created a new generation of men and women, but for many of them, it also created a new generation of investments.

Exploring the Past

To better understand the present, it is often necessary to delve into the past to comprehend what may have caused certain family difficulties. Many mothers who experienced World War II devoted themselves to forgetting their own needs to invest everything in the continuity of their homes. Like a post-traumatic shock, the harsh era of the war continued to flow in the veins of these overlooked mothers. Continuing with the educational model steeped in daily life, a matriarchal logic was imposed on the generation of mothers raised in this post-apocalyptic context. Being strong, everywhere, all the time, and having no goal other than to be able to congratulate oneself for responding to a warlike logic, collective advancement, and self-abandonment. Under the principles of respected family loyalty, reproduced schemas, and new responsibilities inherited from a modernized society, the status of the mother gradually transformed into a mixture difficult to identify, at the crossroads of her personal fulfillment and the automation of her maternal role.

In this context, laden with multifactorial injunctions, the daughters of women who had experienced these turbulent global periods were, albeit unwillingly, swept up in the complex identification of their life paths. The consequences of this race for perfection, integrity, and rigor in all forms also led to transmitting an identity to their children that further distanced the emotional aspect. Nowadays, many phenomena catalyzing identity blurring, or destruction have further reinforced this loss of bearings, increasingly crushing the role of guidance and transmission of family values. We understand then why generations immersed in the digital era are now nourished more by rivers of disturbing and guilt-inducing trends than by rivers of love and filial consideration.

Ceasing the Fight, Being Honest with Oneself

Whether due to the situation or diverse convergences, relationships with mothers should, in theory, flow naturally or at least be capable of evoking emotion rather than consternation. The ensuing question is what to do and how to act or react in the face of a lack of empathy, refusal to communicate, or grandiose egocentrism? Is it reasonable to fight against windmills, or to let life take its course and accept the reality of a system corrupted by parameters beyond one's control? Whether from mother to child or child to mother, when complex or conflictual relationships demonstrate a manifest difference in language, interpretation, and viewpoints, how can one reverse the situation and restore healthy communication? The answer may seem singular, but it lies in a single word: honesty. Being the epitome of emotional truth, it is essential to remain honest with oneself and to ensure total honesty with the experiences of all involved. You may be unable to obtain deeper love and more fluid communication between you and your mother, or you and your child. But in any case, whether you are in the role of the child or the mother, no law or rule obliges anyone to love another. The key is to preserve what suits each member of the family structure, to contribute and receive what each can offer, and once again, to be in harmony and perfectly honest with the realities that traverse you.