When Mother Doesn’t Know Best.
My mother has absolutely no idea what I am really like. Nor does it seem to bother her. Although I am now middle aged, she still berates me if I don’t sit still when I’m eating and reminds me I was just the same when I was three and she was trying to brush my very curly hair. ‘You’ll never change’ she says almost triumphantly. ‘You just don’t do what you are told. Let’s face it you are just spoilt and wilful.’ She even warned my husband, when we got engaged that I was a trouble maker. He comes from an easy- going, stable family and was absolutely flabbergasted by her comment. Worst of all was telling him I was a slut because I had a lot of boyfriends before I met him. He told me he wouldn’t be able to contain his anger if he saw her and kept away her for several weeks until he felt able to face her again..
When I got pregnant with my first child she told me I would make a ‘terrible mother’ because I was selfish, always put my needs first and couldn’t even keep my bedroom tidy when I lived at home.
We now laugh at her ridiculous comments and both think she’s probably trying to get back at me for something that happened way back in her own life. As far as I’m concerned she makes very little impact on either of us now but my husband still finds her disloyalty to me very unpleasant. Are we right about her being damaged by her past?