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The Lilly Pond |
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January
28, 2002 |
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Greetings and thanks for subscribing to TheLillyPond.com ezine! I'm Lillian Hinds and this ezine is dedicated to all mothers, daughters and the other important women in their families. Because we respect your privacy and value your subscription, we don't share your email address with anyone. If you'd like to be removed from our mailing list, please see instructions at the end of this ezine. ================================= Volume 2 Issue 4: In the Pond This Week ================================= 1. Note to My Readers: Pond Talk 2. Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child Part 2: I Just Don't Want to Think About It 3. A Note From A Ponder 4. The Commercial 5. Share The Lilly Pond 6. Contact Me ================================= 1. Note to My Readers: Pond Talk ================================= Dear Ponder: From my previous work with daughters who have had bad mothers, I know that our first article on this subject last week probably made you uncomfortable to say the least. This topic tends to do that, whether you have a good mother or a bad mother. My article this week will explore why that is so, why we have such a strong emotional reaction to even the discussion of the existence of bad mothers. This is so important because we can never deal with a problem until we can bring it out in the open and discuss it honestly. Please know that my intent is not to make you uncomfortable. I just know from experience that so many women, more than we realize, have this problem to deal with and so often the problem is simply buried and left to smolder. So if you have a good mother and you can't easily relate to those who have a bad mother, I ask you to be patient, pray for understanding and pray for our readers for whom this is such a big problem. And pray for me as I attempt to address this in the right way. Let me take a moment and thank so many of you who have responded to my articles over the past few months and especially those of you who have written me regarding your own difficult experiences with your mother. A little housekeeping matter. I appreciate each message you send and I read each one personally. Except for emails that have attachments. With the current problems of computer viruses, I can't even open the email itself, much less the attachment. I cannot risk the integrity of our computers and I have to delete emails with attachments immediately. Please put your message in the body of the email and eliminate any pictures or formats that go out with your emails as attached files. More and more people simply will not open your emails because of the virus problem. I truly want to hear from each of you, so please try again! I want to welcome so many new subscribers. If you feel like you came in the middle of the movie and missed an earlier article, you can find all the back issues of the ezine on our website www.thelillypond.com With all my heart, Lillian ================================= 2. Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child Part 2: I Just Don't Want to Think About It ================================= Last week we introduced our series of articles on "Bad Mothers." Just saying the phrase "bad mother" makes most of us shudder. Why does the topic of bad mothers make us so uncomfortable? Why is it still a taboo in our culture to discuss a mother who does not take care of her children? And why is it so important that we deal with this subject. In my book "Always Wear Clean Underwear" in the last story entitled "At the Airport" I relate the feelings I had as I prepared for my parent's return from a missionary trip around the world. They had been gone most of a summer and I didn't think much about their absence until the time of their return. While waiting for their plane to arrive, I had a severe sense of panic and desperately needed to see and touch and hug my mother. I was in my late teens at the time. But studies show that this deep need to be able to get to our mothers stays with us for all of our lives. Why is this so and why is this pull so strong? The Biological Connection The most basic mother-child connection is the physical one. This bond begins forming long before the child is born. As babies, we can't consciously remember our experiences during conception and after birth. But we can get a sense of how strong our bond to our mother is by looking at the experience through the eyes of the mother. I will never forget the first time my obstetrician put the stethoscope up to my ears so I could hear my baby's heartbeat. I started crying and could not understand why. I had known for some time that I was pregnant, but I was completely unprepared for the emotions evoked by hearing that tiny heartbeat. Many women are moved to tears the first time that baby moves inside their body. Another huge surprise was waiting for me on my daughter's first evening. I was safely ensconced in my hospital bed with my newborn down the hall in the nursery. (Lots of things have changed there, haven't they?) I had been hearing babies cry off and on for a couple of hours. Then I heard a baby cry, and I recognized it. It wasn't just any baby, it was MY baby. It was Karen. My heart squeezed in my chest and I had this overwhelming urge to get to her and make sure she was okay. It was all I could do to stay in that bed. I fretted until they finally brought her to me. The biological bond between a mother and a child is, to me, one of God's miracles. And we now know, in just the same way, that babies recognize their mothers: her voice, her smell, her taste. When a baby is near its mother during those first formative moments of life, almost all of the sensory impressions registering in the baby's brain are coming directly from its mother. In some of my reading in this area, the mother-child bond has been described as "primal." Some of the definitions for that word include "original, primitive or fundamental." Having a mother is a fundamental need for all of us and it does border on the primitive. Our very survival in the world depends on us having a mother or mother-substitute to care for us. While some species can get by on their own, almost from birth, God made people to need other people for several years. And the bond that begins well before birth continues throughout the child's entire life. The Perfect Mother We celebrate our mothers and we are right to do so. But in the process, we put motherhood on a pedestal of sainthood. Our culture glorifies motherhood with a "Norman Rockwell" illusion that no human can sustain. In a rash of sentimentality, we say that "God couldn't be everywhere so He made mothers." That's a sweet thought but it's not true. God is everywhere. And mothers cannot do God's work. Consider the pressure on mothers to live up to such an image. And consider the anguish brought on daughters with bad mothers or with absent mothers when they see a picture of this perfection that's assumed to be the way everybody else's mother really is. This daughter thinks "not only is my mother bad or gone, everybody else has a perfect mother." Everybody else. And the pain of the broken connection is even more intense than it would otherwise be. Almost Everybody Loses Their Mother And that's why this problem is stronger and more pervasive than we like to admit. One of our deepest fears is abandonment and being left alone. Do you remember being lost in the store as a child? Adults still tremble at those long-ago memories. There is little difference in that feeling and the fear of being left alone at any time in our lives. Mother could help us and we would not be left alone. But she isn't here anymore. It doesn't matter if someone's mother is absent, drunk, unstable or dead. We don't like to hear about it. We don't like to talk about it. We don't want to even acknowledge it. Because if it could happen to them, it could happen to us. And we can't bear to think about that. And that's why anything but a "Norman Rockwell" picture of mother is unacceptable for us to think about. When Contact Is Broken It's easy to see that there is a tremendous biological bond between a mother and a child. And loosing that biological connection, for any reason, and at any time in the child's life is going to be painful. I have a dear friend who lost her mother when she was only an infant. For two weeks they searched for a wet nurse for her and had difficulty feeding her. She is a grandmother now, a successful and beautiful woman. But she can still struggle with the idea that her mother died when she was so young and needed her so desperately. It just hurts. As we noted last week, many of the emotional responses encountered by abused and abandoned daughters are the same as those experienced by women whose mothers died when the daughters were very young. To the young daughter, the only relevant fact is that "mother is gone" and it really doesn't matter why. And this speaks to the matter of degree. It means that neglect and abandonment are in the heart of the daughter like beauty is in the eye of the beholder. A mother's favoritism to a sibling can be as damaging as protracted neglect to one daughter. On the other extreme, the 11-year old child we mentioned last week was convinced that she had a good mother because "she checks on me once a week." Of course each of us has some problem to deal with and much of the quality of our lives is dependent on how well we deal with that problem. But the intensity of this mother-child bond makes problems with mother that much harder to handle. And next week, we will begin to look at ways to help us deal with the loss of our mothers or with her neglect. But first, we had to be honest with ourselves and admit that our mother was less than perfect; that we have been disappointed or hurt. As mentioned earlier, we can't begin to deal with a problem until we've identified it. So now we can move on and begin the process of healing. I hope this article will help you to understand why your feelings in this area are so intense and sometimes so fierce. Or why these feelings can be overwhelming or devastating. As we continue this series of articles, I pray that we will touch on a thought that helps you understand something that you struggle with. Or perhaps will enhance an awareness or insight that you already possess. With all my heart, Lillian ================================= 4. A Note From A Ponder ================================= Dear Lillian: Thank you Lillian for writing this series of articles. No one has ever addressed this where I had access to it before. My mother, technically, was not a BAD mother...she saw to it that my needs were provided for. She had me at a time when she really didn't want children...I interrupted her good life. She was just too young and life was too exciting when I came along and slowed her down. When I was born, she handed me to HER mother and asked her to raise me. Mother provided a place for us but it was not always with her and my father. Years later when she was ready to have children, we all lived together in the same house, but I still went to my grandmother for everything. Mother is gone now and that was the best thing she ever did for me...die. This is all in the past since Mama has passed on and I have forgiven her for the things she did and have learned to deal with my sorrow over it all. My children did not consider her a grandmother because she didn't want anything to do with them as she had nothing to do with me. I most regret that my children missed out on having a grandmother on that side of the family. Thank you for letting me get this out. Please keep up the good work you are doing. Sincerely, A Lilly Pond Reader Comments from Lillian: I appreciate you being honest enough to share some of the heartache you experienced as a little girl. You've done several important things here and I would like to acknowledge those. First, you admit what your mother did that was good. She made sure you were provided for as a child and that you had a safe place to live. Very seldom are situations completely negative that you can't find something to be thankful for. And often the smallest positive thing can be a starting point for our healing. Second, you acknowledge your hurt at being rejected by your mother. Whether your mother intended this or not, we can't know. But it is important that you've dealt with your own feelings. If you hadn't, you wouldn't be able to say that you've forgiven her. And I believe that you truly have forgiven her because your concern and focus has shifted from yourself and your own needs to the needs of somebody else: your children. Still, that life-long need for a mother shines through. We want mother at all the events of our life and that includes her role as grandmother. You still grieve for that loss and that is perfectly normal and understandable. Thank you for your letter and for letting us share this on The Lilly Pond. With all my heart, Lillian ================================= 4. The Commercial ================================= Many of you have already bought my book "Always Wear Clean Underwear." So like the sign in the restaurant says, "If you liked it, tell somebody else." And I'd appreciate hearing from you. Just drop me an email at lil@thelillypond.com and, if you'd be so kind, mention whether I can print what you say. I'll only use your first name and state for security purposes. And if you haven't bought it yet, it's available on the website www.thelillypond.com With all my heart, Lillian ================================= 5. Share The Lilly Pond ================================= If you know someone who would enjoy having The Lilly Pond ezine, please feel free to forward this issue to them. If you received this ezine from a friend and you'd like to subscribe, you can go to www.TheLillyPond.com and subscribe for free or just click here to send an email to us with "SUBSCRIBE" in the Subject line. Thanks. ================================= 6. Contact Me ================================= Your comments are welcome. Click here to email me. Thanks for reading! With all my heart, Lillian ================================= |
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