2: every woman has an imperfect mother

There are no perfect moms, just imperfect ones partnering with a perfect God.

JILL SAVAGE

THERE IS NO PERFECT MOTHER. Most mothers love their children and do the best they can with the tools they have been given. However, as mothers, we are all human, and as much as we would like to stay in our loving, wise, adult selves as we parent our children, we all have times when something triggers us and we become reactive.

Daniel Siegel and Mary Hartzell, in their book Parenting from the Inside Out, have suggested that parents relate to their children from either the “high road” or the “low road” and typically move back and forth between the two.[1] On the high road, parents are mindful and attuned to their children, responding in ways that are loving and healthy. On the low road, they “lose it,” get carried away by their own unresolved issues, and react emotionally in ways that are not in their children’s best interest.

Angela was your typical “trying to do her best” mom, spinning many plates in the air while trying to be present for her children. Her own mother had lacked in the “togetherness and being there for her kids” department, so Angela vowed never to do that to her own children. But when Angela was diagnosed with a life-threatening illness, she was down for the count. The medications made her tired, her emotions were dark and moody, and as a mother she began to check out. Adults understood she was going through a rough spot, but her children couldn’t figure out why Mommy was always snapping at them and didn’t want to spend time with them.

One day while wrestling with discouragement, Angela realized that since being diagnosed, she had isolated herself from little hearts that needed to grasp what Mommy was going through. Angela became acutely aware of how much her behavior mimicked her own mother’s interactions with Angela and her siblings, albeit for different reasons.

Angela had a choice to make. Either she could continue to check out or she could help her children understand why Mommy was acting differently. She ultimately chose the high road and invited the children into her bed, where she read to them, allowed them to rub her feet or head when she was feeling terrible, and assured them how special they were to her. Angela’s children became part of the journey with her—making cards, helping Dad with meals, and giving Mom lots of extra snuggles and hugs. The door that was initially shut to the kids was now open, and they all ended up stronger because of it.

If you are a mother, please forgive yourself for the times you have been on the low road. All mothers go there at times, and all mothers wound their children—sometimes in big ways, sometimes in minor ways. Rather than sitting in self-condemnation or regret, make it your goal to heal your own wounds and spend more time on the high road. It is never too late. The very best thing you can do to help your children heal is to heal yourself. From the high road, you can repair any damage you may have done, even if your children are now adults.

THE TRUTH IS . . . IT’S MOMPLICATED

Our relationships with our mothers are rich, complex, and momplicated. And yet it can be difficult to fully understand why they are that way. Why can’t we readily recognize the effects and identify what needs to be fixed? What might be preventing us from seeing clearly? Here are eight reasons why the effects of this important relationship might be obscured.

  1. Things are good between our mothers and us at the moment.

    One of the top reasons you may not see your past clearly is if your current relationship with your mother is good. Remember that your relationship with your mother has been lifelong. It is likely that your mother has changed since you were a child. The following story of Amber illustrates how a good adult-to-adult relationship does not necessarily mean that wounds from childhood are healed.

    Amber is thirty years old and has a child of her own. She had been in therapy for more than a year to heal her relationship with her mother, strategizing how to confront her, learning to set healthy boundaries, and finding ways to reconnect with her. Her mother had also been in therapy and made significant changes. Now that her mother has become part of her life again and is an involved grandmother, Amber believes her mother issues are resolved.

    However, when Amber and her husband recently got into a heated argument and he said he needed to take a walk to calm down, she exploded in rage. As he opened the door to leave, Amber followed him and tried to block his way, screaming at him to not leave. She lost all self-control, angrily calling him names while desperately wanting him to come back and soothe her.

    Amber was chronologically an adult, but she reacted like a five-year-old. She experienced the panic and loneliness she had felt as a child when her mother would leave her and her younger brother at home alone. Her husband’s action reminded Amber of that abandonment, causing her wounded daughter self to surface. While her adult self gets along well with her mother, a younger part of her still holds feelings of anxiety and terror.

  2. We are grateful for all the ways our mothers have gifted us.

    The damage or hurt caused by our mothers is often obscured because of the many ways they have blessed and gifted us. Your mother may have hurt you, yet she gave you life. At times she may be your biggest critic; at others she may be your biggest fan. At times she may be cold and angry; at others she may be warm and nurturing. Mothers are complex human beings with histories, trauma, fears, and hopes. And mothers relate to their daughters out of all that complexity.

    Chelsea’s parents divorced when she was young. Her mother remained loving and attentive to her daughter’s needs, but because of her own hurt, Chelsea’s mother was not discreet in the things she shared about Chelsea’s father. She cast her ex-husband in a negative light and discouraged her daughter from having a healthy relationship with him. Dad was a good guy, but the divorce was ugly, and Mom transferred all that ugliness into her daughter’s mind.

    The contempt and lies Chelsea’s mother expressed seemed normal to Chelsea in childhood. But it caused distance between her and her dad and increased her anxiety about not being loved enough by him.

    This anxiety affects her adult relationships, especially with men. She has unrealistic expectations and is easily hurt and disappointed when those expectations are not met. Chelsea doesn’t see this as an issue that connects with her mother because her mother has always been so loving and attentive toward her. But even though Chelsea’s mother was kind to her, she hurt Chelsea by the way she spoke to her about her father.

  3. We never stop longing for our mothers’ love.

    Young children depend on their mothers for their very survival. They need their mothers to meet their core needs, to feed them, and to keep them safe. The thought of being without Mother is intolerable. A child cannot bear to question the goodness or stability of someone she needs so profoundly. Rather than facing the terrifying and chaotic possibility that her mother might be flawed, a daughter blames herself and assumes she is flawed or has done something wrong.

    The God-given impulse to go to our mothers for love and comfort compels adult women to keep at it. They continue to revisit that maternal well even when it is dry, hoping that this time things will be different.

    Peg Streep described this dilemma of adult women who are trying to face the reality of their mother wounds:

    Grieving the mother you needed is impeded by . . . what I call the core conflict. This conflict is between the daughter’s growing awareness of how her mother wounded her in childhood, and still does, and her continuing need for maternal love and support, even in adulthood. This pits the [daughter’s] need to save and protect herself against the continuing hope that, somehow, she can figure out what she can do to get her mother to love her.[2]

  4. We have compassion for the difficulties our mothers endured.

    When we realize our mothers faced difficulties, we may think it insensitive to acknowledge our wounds. I (Joan) struggled with this. How could I blame my mother for anything after she lost her husband and son? It is always helpful to learn your mother’s story—her upbringing, her hurts, her struggles. When you see her more clearly, you can free yourself from self-blame. It wasn’t because I was bad that she ignored me. It was because she was depressed. Understanding Mom’s story can also be a step toward compassion and forgiveness. However, the fact that your mother faced personal trials does not remove the reality that your needs were not met. The goal is to be able to hold compassion for Mom, while still telling the truth about times you were hurt or affected negatively. We must honestly face reality and hold both truths at the same time—our mothers need compassion, and our hurts need acknowledgment so they can be healed.

  5. Some wounds do not seem like wounds.

    Some patterns that result from our relationships with our mothers impair us, but they don’t seem like wounds. A wound is defined as “damage, hurt, or injury.” If a daughter has been brought up with the belief that she is better than everyone else or entitled to special treatment, she may not feel hurt or injured, but she has still been damaged. A mind-set of pride, superiority, or entitlement will get in the way of good relationships with other people and God. It will, at some point, bring her pain. It can be hard to see that this, too, is a kind of wound.

    Linda’s mother was a high-profile leader in her church, respected by all. She expected Linda to live up to her high standards and to represent their family well. Linda rose to the challenge and did almost everything perfectly. She got good grades, was elected to student council, and had an impressive résumé of community service. She never suspected she carried mother wounds.

    However, Linda’s mother would often speak of other families with disdain, pointing out how they were not doing things as well as her own family did. Linda developed a subtle attitude of prideful superiority that made other people pull away from her. She wondered why she didn’t have more friends. Almost everyone respected her, but not everyone enjoyed her company. When she was challenged to examine how her mother’s pride had affected her, she saw the generational tendency, repented, and began to humbly and openly admit her own areas of brokenness. As she became softer and more authentic, her relationships became more intimate and fulfilling. Some wounds don’t feel like wounds, but they are.

  6. Some wounds come from too much “love” or too much involvement.

    It is counterintuitive to think of wounding that is caused by too much attention from one’s mother, yet overinvolvement and doing too much for a daughter can harm her just as neglect can.

    Everyone described Hazel’s mother as “sweet” and agreed that “she wouldn’t hurt a fly.” She made sure Hazel’s every need was met. She doted on her, cooking for her, cleaning her room, doing her laundry, and treating her like a princess. While that kind of care was good for Hazel when she was young, it impaired her as she got older. She expected others to put their needs aside and attend to hers, just as her mother always did. She waited for others to take care of things, rather than being responsible herself. Hazel would not have described herself as wounded by her mother; she insisted that she was loved. But the truth is that her mother’s “love” caused her to become lazy. This handicapped her growth and prevented her from becoming independent as she grew up. Some of the patterns she developed in relationship with her mother now get in the way of her being the loving, capable person God designed her to be.

  7. We can’t remember our early years.

    Most of us have spotty memories of our childhoods. Childhood amnesia—the loss of most early memories by the time we are seven—is a real phenomenon. Scientists are not sure why it occurs, but they theorize it has to do with how the brain is growing and changing. Even after age seven, memories tend to fade unless they are connected to deep emotions or have been revisited through photographs or family storytelling.

    Try to be aware of what is happening in your body and emotions as you read the stories in this book. Your reactions may be clues to your past. Also, consider doing some research, interviewing those who were present when you were young, looking through family photo albums, and praying that God would reveal what needs to be revealed.

    As I (Joan) started this project with Debbie, I held the belief that my mother had been disconnected and had left me alone to fend for myself. It was a story I told myself based on the memories that were most vivid in my mind. However, as I went through old photos, I found one of my mother smiling and standing behind me with her arms around me. A strong memory came back to me, so strong I could remember her warmth against my back and the happiness I had felt. Looking at that picture, I couldn’t hold on to my old, negative story anymore. Yes, there were times I felt abandoned, but there were also many times I felt loved and connected. I felt deep remorse for my disrespect and negativity toward my mother. The photos helped me remember, and the memories helped me melt an unforgiving, frozen place in my heart.

  8. We have a natural denial system.

    We don’t want to think about painful things. Denial is the protective mechanism that allows us to tolerate the intolerable. When experiences or feelings are so difficult that we feel as if we won’t survive them, we seal them up and shut them off from our consciousness. In cases of extreme abuse, it is a blessing for children to be able to bury their memories. Sometimes God brings the recollections back when the child is old enough to handle them. Sometimes they never emerge, which may be best overall. It’s similar to a doctor deciding to leave a bullet in someone’s body rather than attempting risky surgery. However, God wants truth to illuminate our inward parts. In most cases, it is worth the pain of facing the things we have hidden from ourselves so we can bring them to God for healing and be free of their effects.

    When I (Debbie) started counseling, we began to delve into the subject of my mother’s lack of affection for me, and I started to experience new understanding and inner healing. During this time, my whole family came down with the stomach flu. For my entire adult life, it had been well known to my family that I did not throw up. In fact, I hadn’t thrown up in fifty years. But to my surprise, this time I got sick like everyone else—retching sick.

    As I lay in bed in disbelief that I had actually thrown up, a long-forgotten memory popped onto the screen of my mind. I was about eleven years old and had the stomach flu. My mom didn’t want to clean up a mess, so she told me to go out on the front porch and lie there until I was done throwing up. Since we lived on a busy street, I was humiliated, fearing someone would see me. The whole experience was so traumatic for me that deeply buried pain and shame had blocked me from being able to get sick all these years. Now, decades later, God was bringing healing. It seems funny to think of throwing up as healing, but doing so is a normal bodily process that provides relief. I have since gotten sick one other time and was reminded that God indeed had healed this part of me. The pain of my past was no longer blocking me.

    Traumatic experiences can be stored in our subconscious minds, but God is powerful and can bring them to light and heal them in his time.

    If you have a history of serious abuse or neglect, pray that God would guide your healing. Pray that he would reveal only the memories you are ready for. Trust him on this. He is the best counselor, and his timing is perfect.

As you read through these eight reasons your momplications might be obscured, did any of them resonate with you? It can be difficult to see how we have been hurt. But when we are willing to acknowledge what’s happened and how it has affected us, God promises to help us achieve emotional healing.

ASSESSMENT: IDENTIFYING THE MOMPLICATIONS

To explore the effect of mother-daughter dynamics even more, we have put together a self-assessment. The following questions are designed to help you continue to identify areas where you possibly received less-than-perfect mothering. Be aware that it could be challenging. Some descriptions could bring back painful memories you’ve forgotten. Others may serve as reminders that healing has taken place or is already in process. But in our experience and research, we’ve found that if you don’t acknowledge the wounds, they are likely to pop up at unexpected times, possibly when you are in an intimate relationship or when you become a parent.

This is for your eyes only, and we encourage you to answer honestly. Use the assessment as a tool rather than a scientific evaluation. As you explore each area, we pray God brings you awareness of where your mother fell short—not for the purpose of mother-bashing, but in order for you to heal. Identifying a problem is the first step toward growth and change. This will take time and effort but will be well worth it.

Our hope is that you will begin to free yourself from destructive patterns and pain that have been barriers for you. Once these barriers have been broken, God’s joy and peace can fill your heart. As Ann Voskamp wrote, “Wounds are what break open the soul to plant the seeds of a deeper growth.”[3]

We have arranged the questions into groups of related issues and listed the chapters that specifically address those topics. Of course, we want you to read the entire book, but feel free to experience it at your own pace and in light of your personal experiences.

You may find yourself answering yes to many of the questions. It can be overwhelming to be confronted with all the momplicated places at once, but we ask you to keep going. You will be rating your responses differently for each question. Take the first question: “Were there times when you longed for your mother’s physical presence, but she was not there for you?” We can all say there has been a time we have longed for our mother’s physical presence. For that reason, we encourage you to give a number between 0 and 10 that represents the intensity of your response to each question. If your mother died when you were five years old, the answer to this first question may feel like a 10. If she forgot to pick you up after school one time, you may still answer yes, but it may only feel like a 1 on the momplicated scale. If you feel as if God has already healed that area of your heart, the rating may be lower than if it’s still a pressing issue. The intensity of your experiences and the frequency with which things happened are factors in how you will pick your number.

Don’t overthink this evaluation. Read the question, let the memories come, and write down the number you feel at a gut level.

The overarching question to ask yourself before you score is this:

On a scale from 0 to 10, how painful/concerning/disturbing is this question to me?

Remember, nothing can be healed that is not first acknowledged. This is your first step on a journey that will lead you to greater joy and freedom.

Momplication #1:

Was Your Mother Present?

______ 1. Were there times when you longed for your mother’s physical presence, but she was not there for you?

______ 2. Has your mother ever left you alone when you were hurting, sad, or afraid?

______ 3. Were there times you went to your mother for comfort, but she did not provide it?

______ 4. Have you wished your mother were warmer or more nurturing, or that she touched or hugged you more?

______ 5. Have you wished your mother were more able to hear you, understand you, see you?

______ 6. Have you experienced longing when you have seen how other mothers treat their daughters?

We discuss why a present and attuned mother is crucial for a daughter in chapter 5. Suggestions for healing can be found in chapters 5, 9, and 10.

Momplication #2:

Did Your Mother Keep You Safe?

______ 1. Were there times when you did not feel physically or emotionally safe with your mother?

______ 2. Was your mother unpredictable or did she have a pattern of losing control of her emotions?

______ 3. Has your mother lied to you or made promises she didn’t keep?

______ 4. Did your mother allow you to be exposed to sexual things that were inappropriate for your age?

______ 5. Were there times when you felt your mother should have protected you from others, but she did not?

We address the importance of a safe, protective, emotionally regulated mother in chapter 6. Suggestions for healing can be found in chapters 6, 9, and 10.

Momplication #3:

Did Your Mother Teach and Guide You?

______ 1. Rather than setting healthy limits on you, did your mother let you have inappropriate control?

______ 2. When you were young, did you ever feel as if you were your mother’s parent, needing to comfort or counsel her?

______ 3. Has your mother modeled or allowed unethical behavior?

______ 4. Has your mother tried to dress like you or be a part of your group of friends or flirted with your boyfriends?

______ 5. Were there areas in which your mother neglected to give you important instruction or guidance?

______ 6. Has your mother seemed like a defeated victim of life rather than a victor?

We look at the importance of having a mother who takes the parental role, providing instruction and leadership and establishing limits, in chapter 7. Suggestions for healing can be found in chapters 7, 9, and 10.

Momplication #4:

Did Your Mother Celebrate You as a Unique Individual?

______ 1. Has your mother been critical?

______ 2. Has your mother been controlling, overbearing, or overprotective?

______ 3. Has your mother discouraged you from pursuing your own interests, wanting to choose your life path for you?

______ 4. Has your mother discouraged you from expressing your emotions or opinions, expecting them to be like hers?

______ 5. Has it seemed that you existed to serve your mother or care for her?

We discuss why it’s important for a mother to celebrate the ways in which her daughter is valuable and different from her in chapter 8. Suggestions for healing can be found in chapters 8, 9, and 10.

Momplication #5:

Did Your Mother Negatively Shape Your Self-Image?

______ 1. Has your mother called you “stupid, “lazy,” “fat,” or other demeaning names?

______ 2. Has your mother conveyed to you that you are not lovable or that you don’t have value?

______ 3. Have your interactions with your mother left you believing you are “not enough”?

______ 4. Has your mother openly criticized women’s appearances or bodies (including her own, yours, or other women’s)?

______ 5. Has your mother given you unhealthy messages about how to relate to men?

______ 6. Has your mother blamed you for things you didn’t deserve the blame for?

Throughout the book, we examine the lies we come to believe through our relationships with our mothers and the truths that refute and heal them. However, chapters 9 and 10 are particularly focused on the steps to healing imprinted negative beliefs.

Momplication #6:

Do You Struggle in Your Current Relationship with Your Mother?

If you struggle in your current relationship with your mother, chances are there are patterns that began early in your relationship. However, the struggles we have today are often what drive us toward healing.

______ 1. Has it seemed that no matter what you do, you cannot give your mother enough time to satisfy her?

______ 2. If you are a mother, has your mother tried to tell you how to raise your own children or competed with you for your children’s love and attention?

______ 3. Has your mother gotten jealous when you have tried to pursue close friendships with other women?

______ 4. As your mother has gotten older, has she been ungrateful or critical toward you?

______ 5. As an adult, do you wish your mother were more supportive or present for you?

Chapter 11 contains suggestions for how to deal with our adult relationships with our mothers.

In Psalm 139:23, David asked God to survey and reveal what he found on the landscape of David’s heart. “Search me, O God, and know my heart.” Consider making this a continual prayer for yourself going forward. God knows your story better than anyone and is there when the details seem too hard and complicated to face. He is the one who heals, restores, and redeems—making things beautiful in his time.

Explore Your Story

  1. Ask yourself, “Have I been avoiding acknowledging how my mother’s actions or words have affected me? Have I been guilty of hiding behind a reason not to explore that pain?”
  2. If you haven’t already taken the assessment “Identifying the Momplications,” please take time to do so.
  3. Pick one question that had a higher score and that stands out to you.

Connect with God

Heavenly Father, I thank you for the beautiful gift of being filled with your Holy Spirit. I thank you that you rescued me from sin and spiritual death. My spirit has been made new, but I have remnants of pain still residing in me. You promise to restore my soul, and I look to you for that. Give me courage to admit I have some hurtful wounds and that I struggle with ugly patterns as a result. May I be brave enough to run to you, blaming no one, grateful for all the blessings I have received, trusting in the grace and beauty of your bigger story in my life. Bring beauty to life in me, by the power of Jesus’ name. Amen.