Voicelessness and Emotional Survival > Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Mother's Day Messages
Michelle:
Just thought it would be enlightening to share any contact that we have had with our parents today. Also, feel free to share any insight that you have about the messages....from my perspective (a newbie) it would be very helpful and appreciated.
Here's mine:
Haven't spoken to my mom in 3 weeks on Monday. She has sent a couple of emails to my daughter (2.5 years old) which I ignored. She left one message for me on our voicemail, which I also ignored. Today she sent the following email in an e-card:
--- Quote ---Michelle, Happy Mothers Day!!! I know you are still mad at me for bothering you so much but someday you will see that it was all out of love for you . Im sorry that Im always bugging you and that you dont have time for me nowdays , I just hope you will one day see that I JUST MISS YOU AND WANT TO BE CLOSE TO YOU AND THE BABIES. I miss you all and hope that you have a good day, thats all. love mama
--- End quote ---
I responded with an email that simply said, "Thanks for the e-card. Hope you had a nice Mother's Day...Michelle".
Hope you are all having a nice Mother's Day! I am choosing to celebrate all of US rather than them today. Sending you all warm wishes and big hugs...
Michelle
Singer:
--- Quote from: Michelle ---Just thought it would be enlightening to share any contact that we have had with our parents today. Also, feel free to share any insight that you have about the messages....from my perspective (a newbie) it would be very helpful and appreciated.
--- End quote ---
Hi Michelle,
I called my mother, same as I have every weekend except for the no contact period from early February until late April. Wished her a happy Mother's Day and asked if she needed any groceries, also as usual. Turns out my sister was going to visit her today and take her to the mall, so I declined her grudging invitation to join them. Why spoil her opportunity to let my sister know how unfeeling and neglectful of her I am. So I got the day to myself AND made her day. :)
--- Quote from: Michelle ---I responded with an email that simply said, "Thanks for the e-card. Hope you had a nice Mother's Day...Michelle".
--- End quote ---
I too had sent a simple Mothers Day card earlier in the week. Just in case I couldn't bring myself to call. I'm trying to deal with her as if we had a normal relationship, and just withdraw when things start to turn bizarre. She did get in a few jabs, but was in a hurry so I was able to just let them fly. Now I have a week to brace for the next contact. :( Still not sure why I put myself through this.
Next?
Singer
Anonymous:
Hi Michelle --
That line "it was all out of love for you" is so familiar!! My mother has used it to justify all kinds of behaviour. Glad to hear you didn't take the bait.
I've been reading all the posts about Mother's Day, and thought I'd add my slightly different experience. My N mother has been disdainful about Mother's Day as long as I can remember -- she treats it as a trite, commercial manipulation of a gullible public. Once or twice when I was young I brought home some card or present we’d made at school for our mothers, and she always received it with such a superior tone I knew I’d done the wrong thing. For a long time I bought her line and was proud she was above it all. Now I think it was a small way she could reject the role of mother – which I think she hated – while making herself feel superior.
I still have to buy Mother’s Day cards for my H’s mother, but I don’t mind it because I know how much she likes getting them. But I only buy ones with messages that are actually true (my H’s mom also had some major problems) – not the long, icky ones that make the mother sound like a combination of Mother Teresa and Mrs. Miniver.
My H phoned his mother today, but we bowed out of his family's Mother's Day barbecue, which consists of all the men watching sports on TV in the basement, and all the women cooking in the kitchen. Some Mother's Day! Fortunately my H loathes it as much as I do.
Guest
Singer:
One more thing :)
--- Quote from: Michelle ---She has sent a couple of emails to my daughter (2.5 years old) which I ignored.
--- End quote ---
This is what I found most disturbing. When the N behavior starts to spread to the the next generation. I wish you the best in dealing with guilt inducing attempts to contact your children.
--- Quote from: Michelle ---I just hope you will one day see that I JUST MISS YOU AND WANT TO BE CLOSE TO YOU AND THE BABIES.
--- End quote ---
And so it begins; I hope you can stay firm and not let her turn you into the villain. Good luck to you.
Singer
Dawning:
So, Here it is post-mother's day. Hope everyone lived through it all and came out the other end without too many feathers ruffled or missing.
Guest Wrote:
--- Quote ---That line "it was all out of love for you" is so familiar!! My mother has used it to justify all kinds of behaviour. Glad to hear you didn't take the bait.
--- End quote ---
SO familiar to me too. Nodding head here. I'm also glad to hear you didn't take the bait, Michelle.
--- Quote ---Once or twice when I was young I brought home some card or present we’d made at school for our mothers, and she always received it with such a superior tone I knew I’d done the wrong thing. For a long time I bought her line and was proud she was above it all. Now I think it was a small way she could reject the role of mother – which I think she hated – while making herself feel superior.
--- End quote ---
Guest, I bet the cards and presents you made at school were really beautiful. I hope your thoughts have lead or are leading you to a place of acceptance and joy - the joy in being YOU.
If anyone listens to Internet Radio, there is a 32 minute interview - in the start up to mother's day - with the author of a book (and its contributors) called, How I Learned To Cook at
http://www.npr.org/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=5&prgDate=6-May-2004
Scroll down the page and you'll see the title of the book and an audio button next to it and click on that button to hear it.
The author of the collection says, "I definitely became a writer because I was lied to all the time and I was trying to figure out what reality was."
~Dawning
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