I don't feel there are "sides". People, our parents/mothers included are just other people like us. You know how you feel now? Imagine you were your mother and had her life that she had at the age you are now?

My stepmother, for example, was fond of saying how, at 19, she was already a mother (telling me this at 19). Of course, I didn't appreciate it then, but I can now that I'm nearly 60 and can imagine what being a young mother at 19 was like, the difficulties and frustrations. I was lucky because my stepmother mellowed some as she got older and she would answer questions about her own growing up and what she felt and what it was like (a young aunt of hers living with her family use to borrow her clothes to go out partying and ruin favorite sweaters with cigarette burns, etc.).

Everyone has things that hurt or that they feel was abusive or unfair. That's what anger is "for", to let us know when we're hurt/have a problem, so we can fix it. Anger is NOT yelling at people or hitting, etc., that's a poor expression of anger. Anger is a feeling. I had a boss who humiliated me in front of a lot of people in a public area of the company. That made me angry! I decided on a course of action so I knew what I would do right then so I could limit the chances of such a thing happening again, what to say next time if it did and what boundary with consequences I would state/initiate/follow through on if it happened after that.

My stepmother was physically and emotionally abusive to me over time. Because I was a child and could not "leave" I had to figure out other ways of dealing with the abuse. Some of it I directed toward myself (If your mother doesn't like you, who does? You must be really "bad") and some of it I "retaliated" back to my stepmother, learning to be passive aggressive (my parents went out and my stepmother instructed me to take a bath before going to bed; I ran an inch of water in the tub, stepped into it (I'd been caught lying before because she checked the bottom of my feet :-) and got a bit damp and the towel damp, etc. but did not "bathe" by any stretch of the imagination or in any 3rd person agreed-upon manner

Eventually, when I became grown, relating to the rest of the world as if they were my stepmother (92.7% of my experience through age 20?) started to get me in trouble. A boss telling me to do something I don't want to do isn't going to like lying/passive aggressive behavior as a response? Thinking or feeling someone, anyone, telling me to do something is "like" my stepmother because that's the major experience I've had is not going to serve me well.

My stepmother should not have struck me or even threatened to strike me. Her expression of anger was a bad example for me (making me afraid of "anger," as you appear to be, Sitting). Her lack of proportion in both what angered her and her expression of anger (my room being messy, clothes not hung up elicited screaming and all the clothes ripped out of my dresser and closet and thrown in the middle of the floor; my brother had his all thrown out the second story window!) was neither a good experience for me nor good training for my future.

What I learned from my stepmother's anger was to be afraid of anger and yet I was angry and I internalized that anger and it built up. So now we had someone who was afraid of other people's too-bold expression of anger AND afraid of her own anger. I still have some trouble, if there's a problem with a business or repair, speaking to someone to straighten out the problem. I hate having to go into a bank or agency and fix an error of theirs because I'm afraid I'll kill the clerk

That's why you need to "remember" your anger at your mother's behavior toward you. You wanted or needed something and did not get it. You may have asked politely for it or it may have been a "given" like food or shelter or loving kindness and it was nowhere in sight!

My father married my stepmother three weeks after my fifth birthday. They'd met three or four months before and fallen in love; they remained in love throughout their marriage, I don't doubt that. I have three natural brothers and my stepmother suddenly had me and my brothers as "her" children. I was the first to call her "Mom". I remember when she re-instituted my naps. I hadn't been taking naps for about a year but she decided I had to take them again. I vividly remember standing on the stair and arguing that "my father said I didn't have to take them anymore". The first challenge I remember her reply and how it satisfied me; she explained that I didn't need to go to sleep, I just had to sit or lay on my bed quietly. I could look at books or play but it was a "down" time and that she might do the same. I had thought that one had to "sleep" when one napped/was in bed, didn't understand yet the nuances to being in bed and I didn't mind as long as I wasn't "forced" to do something against my will, change my consciousness and sleep. That is an example of my stepmother's "good" training.

From the same period though is an example of where we started to go wrong in our relationship. One of the first things my stepmother did was teach me to make my bed. She showed me how and then I was expected to make it on my own, the rest of my life, without fail :-) My T and I discussed this and T asked what I would have liked instead and I realized the "interaction" between the two of us (think Cinderella doing her chores with all the birds and animals helping and everyone singing together :-) was missing. There wasn't anything "personal" or "loving" in there, it was just a dry lesson and command to a 5 year old. There was no sense of "let me help you" or, "isn't this fun when we do it together?" There was no sense of mothering.

A lot of things seem unfair when growing up; how come when your parents call you you have to come right away, no matter what you're doing/engaged in but when you need them they get mad and say things like, "I'm ON the phone!" and constantly tell you not to interrupt and no they can't come there, you come here and bring whatever it is you want to show them, etc.

I was camping with my husband, stepson, daughter-in-law, 6 year old granddaughter, and 5 year old grandson a week ago and my grandson kept getting into "trouble" and his behavior irritated my husband. One thing he did was; the RV AC drips water off the awning and it makes a neat "pool", it's a large, constant drip. He was fascinated with this drip and I suggested piling up stones under it and making a "waterfall". He and his sister got into doing that but then grandson discovered fine, loose, dirt and started pouring that by handfuls over the piled rocks to "soak up" all the water, to try to be faster than the drip :-) Of course things got messy/muddy in there and his father told him one more handful of dirt and then stop. He did it one time too many. . .

I was trying to get my husband to remember how frustrating it has to be to be a child with one's own interests and projects and have someone else tell one to stop when one was in the "middle". But that's what growing up is about, trying to learn when to start, stop, pay attention to what's going on around us, etc., how to "control" ourselves. But it's gotta make us angry sometimes doesn't it? The terrible twos are about this and they don't really end, we just get better at self control. But sometimes there's a price to "controlling" anger instead of being able to think it through and use it for a better result "next" time. Eventually, hopefully, the child learns by being interrupted to "plan" so next time no one else has to say "that's too much".

So that's why I think it's a good idea to rethink the times you were angry with your mother and controlled them poorly and also think of how your mother had her own hard time going and didn't mean to make you angry, some of her stuff and poor training just spilled over onto you. If you think about it, you see there's a balance there that it would be good to be able to understand and achieve.