From my guest blogger - Mother and daughters, the drama, oh my!

When I asked Deb from Postcards from the Edge if she would guest post for me I think she passed out. Or maybe it was from the vodka shots she was doing. Not quite sure.

I "met" Deb a couple months ago, when she started stalking my blog. She will so try and tell you it was me stalking her, but we know the truth. When my blog moved she had some anxiety filled nights hours minutes seconds until I emailed her with my new address. Whew, it was tough there for a while.

Deb is the one that taught me how to do strike throughs, and for that I promise to over use it frequently will be forever grateful.

In all seriousness though, Deb's post about the mother-daughter relationship is pretty appropriate considering I'm with my own mother this week. She asks some good questions, ones I've wondered about myself at times. I'm quite certain I'll come back next week with some doozy posts for ya'all. So show Deb some love my friends, she'd like to get more than three readers a day she tells me. Heh.

When Katt asked me to be a guest blogger for her, my initial response was, “Wow! She must have some slim pickins if she’s asking me. I’m not nearly as interesting as, well, anyone else I read.” Then she told me that she thinks I’m interesting and likes my writing. At this point, I realized she had had one too many glasses of wine and I should not argue with her. So I accepted and here we are. Just don’t hold her accountable for my lack of intelligence or interesting things to say.

I want to talk today about the Mother/Daughter bond. I have never had a daughter, only 2 sons, so I can only speak about the relationship from one perspective. A daughter’s perspective. More importantly, my perspective as my mother’s daughter.

Growing up, I didn’t feel I had a great bond with my mom. Around the time I became a teenager, the bond I had with my mother was tenuous at best. We fought constantly, and I truly believed she begrudged me the carefree life I had that she never did. She began making me take my (9 year) younger brother with me everywhere I went, including on dates. I felt like that was her way of not allowing me to be a kid, therefore, putting a stop to any fun I might be having.

From as far back as I can remember, my mom has always turned whatever crisis or illness you have back onto herself. For instance, about 15 years ago, my brother was diagnosed with MS and she immediately began crying and carrying on, “What did I do to that made this happen?” That may sound trite, but she has pushed away the rest of the family with her behavior and now only has me left.

There are things that happened in my childhood (I refer to it in my own blog here at #18) that I have never told her. I’m sure we all have things we have never told our moms, but I doubt for the same reason.

Mom was an alcoholic (I guess was is not the correct word here) when I was growing up, so on the one hand I do blame her for what happened to me. But it did happen to me. So I think maybe I don’t share it with her because in some strange way I don’t want her to “take it away from me”. It sucked, don’t get me wrong, and I wish it never happened at all. But its part of what made me who I am today. The bond continued to crack.

Now, with all the issues surrounding my (soon to be ex) DIL taking my grand daughter so far away, mom has been in rare form. I did all my crying, scheming and screaming months ago and I’m done with that. I am now trying to work with the DIL to come up with a way to get to Okla. and see the baby. But every time I see mom, she brings up the baby and she turns it into a crying jag about how she is not able to see her and how much she misses her. She calls her, her grand daughter. (“I miss my grand daughter – Why did she take my grand daughter away from me?) I’m sure she misses her and (believe me) I know how much it hurts, but again I feel like she is taking this away from me. This is my grand daughter. She has grand children and other great-grandchildren that she shows absolutely NO.INTEREST.IN.AT.ALL. Why does it not seem to bother her to have no part of their lives? This seems to, once again, be her trying to take something away from me. My pain, my loss, my illness, or my grand daughter. Where does it end?

The once tenuous bond is becoming increasingly fragile. I fear it may altogether break and then she will have no one left.

I started this off talking about not having had a daughter of my own, but I know mine is not the “norm” when it comes to the mother/daughter bond. I have girl friends that have decent relationships with their mothers. This is what I imagine the mother/daughter bond should be. Sure arguments from time to time, but nurturing and loving too. These are not things I can say exist in the relationship I have with my mother. I love her, but I can’t say that I like her very much.

Is there a way to strengthen this bond? I don’t know, but I fear it might be too late.

Tell me about your mother/daughter bond from whichever perspective(s) you may have. I’d love to hear your thoughts.