Family
May 14, 2024

Difficult mothers: How they shape our lives

Before you start to read, close your eyes and imagine that you are looking for a comrade. To organize a trip around the world or to write a book. Who would you ask: your best friend, your colleague? Or, now please take a breath: your mother? Could you travel and work well with her? or would you be afraid that the ghosts of your childhood crawl out of the holes?

Experts in mother-daughter relationships: Maren Geiser-Heinrichs and Waltraud Barnowski-Geiser.

Maren Geiser-Heinrichs and Waltraud Barnowski-Geiser, 59, are a mother-daughter team that works together and does not have to "work off each other," as both say. They have just published a guidebook on difficult mother-daughter relationships: "My Difficult Mother" (175 p., 17 Euro, Klett Cotta.)

Daughter Maren says: "The interest in the topic connects us, we experience our different points of view as enriching." As psychotherapists of different disciplines, the two see the opposite every day: the concentrated misery of other mother-daughter relationships.

Peace, joy and pancakes? Are you kidding me? Are you serious when you say that!

The ratio of adult daughters to their mothers has never been better, according to recent surveys, such as TU Chemnitz's "Pairfam" study: 80 percent of young adults have contact with their mother at least once a week, and two thirds describe their relationship as Close, every second woman regularly discusses personal matters with her.

But it is not unusual for deep-seated peace-spirits to bring about deeper struggles that mothers and daughters often do not consciously perceive themselves. For example, in the form of well-intentioned border crossings - for example, when the mother mops out the fridge during her vacation, or even on the passively aggressive tour: "Oh, you do not have to visit me, I'm used to being alone his."

However: "The question of what makes a difficult mother, is in each generation anew," says Barnowski-Geiser.

Hard and cool - the mothers of the war generation

Women in their own age group worked mainly on the mothers of the war generation and strive for demarcation: "Many of our mothers have suffered as a child trauma and lost contact with their feelings." Common consequence: hardness and cool aspiration. Even the usual women's role of the elderly challenged the rebellion: "Dependent, without own money, without a job - that's how we never wanted to be!"

Demarcation is healthy

By contrast, today's 30-year-olds feel more like running against a foam wall: "If your own mothers wear the same clothes as you and go to the same bar, how can you still delineate?" Asks Maren Geiser-Heinrichs , However, a healthy demarcation is needed if you want to lead an adult life. Because who does not abnabelt, permanently related to the mother - regardless of whether he copies her life or is extremely anxious to do everything differently.

We pass on our experiences as a child ourselves

What shows once more: Our childhood experiences shape our lives and are passed on from generation to generation. Even though we are adults, we unconsciously act on the expectations we were exposed to as children. "These can be very hard inner voices like: Only if you bring power, you're adorable, or, the main thing that does not bother me," said Barnowski-Geiser.

Other childhood patterns sound less negative, but subtly can be similarly destructive. For example, when the message is: make me happy.

Children are themselves pushed into the role of mother

Barnowski-Geiser: "When women become mothers carrying many unmet child-related needs, a child is easily marginalized." Worried, she struggles early, always reassuring Mum that she's the best. Especially susceptible to this pattern are mother-daughter duos without siblings, or if the mother is a single parent.

The trap can also snap in a larger family. Barnowski-Geiser: "Often, then, I am confronted with adult women in therapy who say: My mother believes that we are very close, and I have not been able to breathe for years."

Is Mommy really to blame for everything?

Clear Jein. In fact, we inherit a lot from our mothers. Not just dry humor or legendary prescriptions, but also certain brain structures that affect our emotional lives and make us vulnerable to depression, for example, according to a recent study from the University of California.But first, our mothers do not do this on purpose, and secondly, research no longer claims that the mother is the prime suspect in all circumstances. "Today we know that a child can be securely bound to several people, and that, for example, a father can compensate if the mother lacks sensitivity - even if he spends considerably less time with his child," explains Maren Geiser. Heinrichs.

This is even true for the generation of fathers of office, who retire today. It would be unfair to blame one's own problems on one's own mother. After all, she is only human.

A child of one's own as an opportunity for reconciliation?

An insight that often hits women with full force when they have a baby themselves. And notice how difficult it is to live up to your own ideal. A chance to get closer again - because in retrospect you can understand a lot better?

Can succeed, but does not have to, says Waltraud Barnowski-Geiser. "Either the understanding grows, and maybe it's a good experience for both of them when their own mother is needed more in everyday life, or on the contrary, old injuries become visible again, which again strain the relationship So lovingly treating my mother with my child, she never used to be with me? "" Maybe because she wants to make up for something?

Why we can not repress the topic

But even that is one of the sad truths: A painful childhood history characterizes us too much, that they could simply overwrite. We may be able to improve the relationship and take it to a new level - but making up for what we lacked then remains an unfulfillable desire. But we can try to understand. And to process.