What did she do all day? *** Triggers mild profanity *****

[learning]

Sorry to start a couple new threads at once, but I have had these two competing revelations that I just need to get off my mind.

I am a stay at home mom. My day is filled with the regular kind of stuff ... laundry, cooking, cleaning, managing five people's schedules, paying bills, managing bank accounts, remembering birthdays and special occasions, volunteering at different organizations, returning library books, grocery shopping, menu planning, etc.. And even some extraordinary stuff ... watching my son hit the baseball for the first time, getting to witness kids learn to read, seeing them light up when they achieve an important goal, and being there to witness them learning important life lessons, even if they're painful sometimes.

When I think back to my childhood, my mother was also a stay at home mom, but, for the life of me, I cannot imagine what she did all day long. Her day was not filled with the regular kind of stuff or the extraordinary stuff.

********Triggers mild profanity********

My chores as a child were exhaustive. When I was 10 or 11, she had a hysterectomy. During that time, I took over the bulk of the housework that I wasn't already doing. And then after she recovered, I was still responsible for that work. So by 12, I was doing all of the cleaning, laundry, "cooking" (not much), grocery shopping (she would drop me off at the front door with money, and I would show back up at the car in the parking lot with the purchased food), ironing, snow shoveling, leaf raking, garage cleaning, gift wrapping, and many other things. She would even wait until after school to run errands, and then I would have to run into the stores and dry cleaners to get the stuff. WTF?

What I'm wondering is ... what the hell was she doing all friggin' day long?

She didn't work. She didn't volunteer (it makes me gaffaw just to think of her volunteering). She didn't do anything for our school or sports. She didn't have any hobbies. She did watch soap operas like it was a career and knew every single character going back years and years. I think they ran from about 12:30 to 4:00. What did she do the rest of the time? Talk on the phone? Eat the food that I got at the grocery but was denied to us kids?

I honestly can't fathom what on earth that witch was doing all day long .... maybe polishing her broomstick?

When I look at how much different of a mom I am than her, I am proud of myself. My kids come first, always. Their needs are taken care of. They have age-appropriate and reasonable chores, and I don't offload my work onto them. They have enough nutritious food to eat and parents who listen when they talk and support them in all that they do. We're involved in their activities, and do all that we can to make sure they are growing up loved and cared for. They share their triumphs and their challenges with me, and I am always mindful to give them my full attention.

My mother was a nightmare in every way possible. She may be able to fool people who think she is some kind of generous, caring person, but in the end, she is the true fool. You can't fool enough people to escape yourself. She has to live with her miserable self day in and day out, and, I honestly believe, everyone pays for their cruelty and vile choices.

[SparklingDawn]

Dearest learning,

Your mother turned you into a little mother, someone expected to carry burdens beyond your tender years. That's extremely difficult for children.

Like you, I stayed involved and engaged with my children......going on field trips. making costumes for school plays, providing food for classroom events, helping teachers decorate and doing art projects.......going to all soccer games......planning birthday parties.......making sure they had friends for sleepovers and play dates.......

I don't recall one moment of closeness with my mother. At all. None. Zilch. Nada. Nothing. Not one moment of shared laughter and warmth.......of hugging her.......of her hugging me......of me talking to her and sharing my deepest dreams and heartfelt yearnings.......It's as if she were a ghost or something. I do grasp where you're coming from.

I'm so happy you're an involved mother, learning. Your children will have many wonderful memories to carry with them throughout their lives.

[ladysslipper]

How is it that these people manage to fool everyone around them into thinking they are so wonderful. What your mom had you doing at such a young age is criminal. Guess she never heard of child labor laws.
The mother of childhood freind sounds just your mom. I can remember one time when the american cancer society called my mo to do the door to door fund raising and she said no. She suggested that they call D and their response was oh she cant do it she is so busy. My mom was raising 6 kids and she was raising 2. She had a housekeeper and all she did all day was sit on her butt smoking cigs and drinking coffee. I know becuase I spent most of my time there. She did nothing all day but was to busy according to others to do a little fundraisng.

Learning I am so sorry you were given such a burden at such a young age. You should be proud of the wonderful mother you are. When you are feeling down think about what you have given your own children and celebrate the fact that you have broken the cycle.

[sparrow130]

My mother was similar...she lived in her soap opera world. We knew not to bother her during those times. They seemed so much more important to her than me. When my children were very young, I determined not to let the t.v. control me. The t.v. was for them and their children's shows. I guess my mother taught me something huh
sparrow

[learning]

Thanks for your responses.

Sparkling Dawn~ You wrote:

I don't recall one moment of closeness with my mother. At all. None. Zilch. Nada. Nothing. Not one moment of shared laughter and warmth.......of hugging her.......of her hugging me......of me talking to her and sharing my deepest dreams and heartfelt yearnings.......

Wow... I could have written that, too. I put forth a lot of effort when my memories started returning to come up with a fond memory of my mother. All I wanted was one. Just one. One time that I felt loved or safe or even just neutral. I worked on this for well over a year, and, honestly, I never did come up with one and finally gave up. I always figured there HAD to be one, but now I'm not so sure. If there was, it's long forgotten. How pathetic is that? A mother whose child has absolutely no positive memories of her mothering? OMG, I would die of grief if that were true of my children.

But my narcissistic and sick mother still blames everything on me.

I'm sorry that you, too, understand the ghost of a mother. But a ghost with abilities to harm when she wanted to.

Ladysslipper~ You're right. These women are masters of manipulating their image to the outside world. My mother still does it, though I think she has slipped up enough among those who have known her a long time that they are onto her game, but any new people are sure to be fooled.

Sparrow~ Soap operas? Yep, they were sacred to my mother, too. Years later, when I knew our relationship was dysfunctional but still hadn't regained the childhood memories, she would create all of this drama all the time. It felt like being IN a soap opera. She would also accuse people of doing all of these sinister things, but they were ridiculous things that only happen in soap operas. It got me wondering if unstable people spend several hours every day taking that soap opera mentality into themselves if they start thinking that way all the time. Garbage in, garbage out, they say, and my mother was living proof.

I wish there weren't so many of us who understand this so well.

[SparklingDawn]

Dearest learning,

I racked my brain, too, for a very long, long time, trying to come up with one......just one.....memory with my mother......one good memory. And I couldn't come up with even one. Not one.

I remember that when that happened, I got very scared.......and I worked with my T to deal with the grief which arose because I had never felt close to my mother.......not even once. She was "there," but she wasn't really.......if you know what I mean. Physical presence.......but no emotional presence whatsoever.

I'm sorry you know the emptiness and loneliness that I feel.

And I know what you mean about how you'd feel if you thought your own child felt toward you as you feel toward your mother.

In fact, I used to worry obsessively that I had not done a good job as a mother......and I spent quite some time texting my children and calling them, always asking them if they felt loved, if I had wounded them, or if they had any good memories.

It took a while for it to sink in that my children don't feel the same as I do inside.

They do have good memories....and they do feel loved.

(((((((((((Learning)))))))))))))))

[Sheep]

learning,

***triggers***

I wondered the same thing about my mother. My only memory is of her visiting her weird friend that abused diet pills. They would sit at the table drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. I also remember after we moved away from the crazy family where most of my abuse happened before the age of 6, my mom having a friend over but she didn't smoke. When we visited her house, it was almost always filthy. Once I remember spending the night and went to make breakfast for the family and found a dead mouse in the skillet pan. My mom must have checked out often...

Sheep

[abusewarrior]

learning:
I know what my mother did. She slept and watched tv. We did all the work, cooking, yard work, farm work, socializing for my father's theological career.
It is bitter to know that more mothers than mine treated their children like this. It is the neglect I have such trouble forgetting.
AbuseWarrior

[Writer203]

Learning, I think your mother and my mother would get along great. Before I came to live with her, exhaustive chores were part of my neverending punishment, so I knew that was crazy. When I moved in with her, most of my day not in school was spent cleaning and cooking to cover her alcoholism and her boyfriend's drug use from child services and my grandparents. Even when she's sober, she prefers to sit on her butt all day watching TV than parenting. This especially annoyed me when my brother and sister were born. She didn't care whether they had clean clothes or a clean home to live in. She would let the dog lick the high chair tray and put it back on the chair without wiping it down. She actively foistered them off on other people unless she wanted to "play" with them...like they were dolls. When she went to work and handed the parenting duties off to me (at 16), I got even more annoyed because it really wasn't that hard to do housework and watch the baby at the same time (she had said she was too tired to clean after watching the baby all day). My brother loved to sit in his high chair and "help" with the dishes by waving around a wooden spoon. My sister would follow me around in her walker while I did chores. Of course, then my mother would come home and get angry with me for cleaning her house. Which is funny, because most people I know would LOVE to come home to a clean house for free! She'd even pick on me about my "neurotic" cleanliness. Of course, my "neuroticism" was apparently making sure the kids hands and face were clean after a meal and that they took regular baths... Excuse me for not wanting them to get sick in the toxic waste zone that is your house. -.-

[Butterfly]

I can also relate. My mother was actually wonderful to me until I was 11, at which point she left us with my SA father, became a prostitute, and spent most of her time talking on the phone about the men she was having sex with. She also started hanging out with a woman who liked to stare at me and tell me how pretty I was (when I was 12 or 13). This woman had a very young daughter too and I hope she was safe (although I very much doubt it).

So I had the ghost-mother too. Trying to decide if I had it better or worse than some of you because she didn't become a ghost until I was older. Don't know, because I ache every day for the good mom who left me, and kind of wish I didn't know what I was missing, but I do have many good memories.

(((writer))) (((aw))) (((sheep))) (((SD))) (((learning)))