Making Friends With My Mother

My mom was cold and unaffectionate towards my siblings and I. She spent hours on the phone talking to other people, but she didn’t have much to say to us. Not unexpectedly, we never had a close relationship.

In one my earliest childhood memories, my cousin climbed onto her mother’s lap, and I practically held my breath waiting for my aunt to start yelling. To my shock, she cuddled her. It was my first time seeing a mother be affectionate with her child.

For a short time my mom worked at a retirement home close to our house. My dad carted my siblings and I to pick her up one day at the end of her shift. Upon entering the facility, us kids saw a long empty corridor so naturally we ran down it.

My mom and her co-worker appeared at the other end, and when she saw us her face brightened. With outstretched arms she gushed out a sickly sweet, hi. The three of us skidded to a stop with our jaws dangling. I was young, but not too young to know when someone was making up appearances.

There used to be a commercial on TV where the camera focused on a happy baby in a high chair. The mother walked in and out of the frame cooing at and chatting with her baby as she went about the kitchen. Eventually a voice-over said, “If you don’t talk to your child when they’re young, they won’t talk to you when they’re older.”

One day we were all in the car during a family outing. My dad was in the driver’s seat, my mom in the passenger, and us kids in the back. We had been asking my mom about something and she was being short and annoyed, as usual, until she told us to basically shut-up. We were used to her indifference towards us, but the silence in the car was unsettling.

“If you don’t talk to us when we’re young, then we won’t talk to you when we’re older,” I quipped.

My dad turned to her, “she’s right.”

Inevitably, we grew up and withdrew into our own worlds. We preferred the company of our peers over our parents. The tables began to turn.

She began reaching out, more out of nosiness than actual interest in her teenage daughter’s life. I’d give her tidbits, but conversations felt like boulders in a creek. It didn’t flow.

Eventually it was I who became short with her. It was so part and parcel to my personality that I didn’t notice until an outsider asked if an argument had occurred between us.

Blissfully unaware of what I was missing, I never craved my mom’s attention. I didn’t care to make things better. Things were the way they were. We were completely different people. Conversations always led to a lecture about religion and how I should live my life, and end with me leaving irritated. She wasn’t exactly the picture of perfection; who was she to tell me how to live?

Unfortunately for my mom, she does not have a good relationship with her adult children. She tries, but it feels unnatural and we end up pulling away.

She sees how we relate to our dad. He’s always been close with us. Not a day goes by when he doesn’t say, I love you. It practically rolls off his tongue now. He’s always in the know about each of our lives. My dad is the antithetical to my mom. Thankfully I grew up with one emotionally intelligent parent, so I didn’t turn into a psychopath.

I feel bad for how things turned out for my mom, even though it is of her own doing. The biggest misconception that children and young adults have is that adults have a clue, but we really are out here just winging it. Albeit some better than others.

My mom didn’t know what she was doing, and I think she sees that now. She didn’t give me what I needed as a child, but in the universe’s weird way she did come through. I learned what kind of mother I want to be when I have children.

Children absorb their surroundings. How people treat them leaves a long-lasting impression. They remember when someone makes them feel good and when someone makes them feel bad. I still remember the nurse who would sit me in her lap and read me bedtime stories when I cried for my parents at five-years-old. I also remember the mean nurse who yelled a lot.

My mother is growing frail. She claims her eyesight is still good, but she squints a lot. She takes her time on the stairs. There’s no sense in being short or rude to her now, just as there is no sense in being short or rude to a child.

I could have ended up with a hardened heart against her, but for whatever reason I didn’t. There’s two lives I could choose between to live. One where I treat my mother the way she treated me, or one where we actually connect. I don't want to become her, and I don't want more of the same thing. A lifetime of living this way, and I’m ready for something different.

Interestingly enough, I am spiritual now and have gotten much closer to God. The very thing we were so at odds with in the past is now our common ground. She still gets lecture-y, at times it’s made me pop off on her, but the closer I get to God, the more patience and compassion I am granted.

I’ve been opening up to my mom little by little, and this has caused her to understand me a bit more. The lectures have toned down. It only took my whole life, but we’re finally beginning to connect. That saying ‘all good things take time’ comes to mind. I guess I’ll see.