It's unfortunate, but there are a lot of people out there that simply do not understand how to be a good parent. They expect their children to love them and obey them without realizing a child becomes a mirror and tends to learn so many how to's from the parent.

Sometimes a parent self protects unknowingly because they were hurt themselves and are deeply afraid to attach and love for fear of being hurt. Some parents have no idea about child development, that they need to consider a child as a kind of computer that depends on the parent to put in the information and life experiences that the child can build on, in a way it's like a library, creating a library, but a complex library with words, actions, sense of safety, love and complex emotions that a child is helped to understand.

What your mother gave/gives to you is "what she knows". If you spend a lot of time with remembering things that she failed to do for you, it's important that you also think about how she failed because she did not "learn". Be "angry" at the right things, be angry not just that you were not protected well enough, but that your mother did not know how to protect you well enough, because a lot of parents do fail that way.

When a mother never learns how to protect her own boundaries but somehow is herself raised in a home where she sees boundaries disrespected, this becomes "what she knows". When a mother grows up in a home where no one spent time with her, loved her, showed they cared and genuinely wanted her to be happy and feel safe, then she will not know what that means, not in her subconscious library.

It is very important that you understand that "you" always deserved to be "loved" and protected and have parents that helped you understand "boundaries". That the things you did not get are not because you were hated, or undeserving in anyway or that the goal was to abuse you. Instead, whatever is missing is something your parents did not know how to give you and that happens a lot. That even happens in homes where the parents are professionals, some of the worst offenders that make terrible parents are teachers and psychologists too. Often these individuals look AT YOU and not INTO YOU and REALLY LISTEN and think about how they can help you develope YOUR OWN self esteem as a human being. Instead it's about grading and judging and labeling and expecting.

I think it's even worse now because of how so many parents have a child then simply have strangers raise their child and their children are handed over to day care. When I went to parent teacher meetings the teachers would say to me that I did not have to be there because my child was doing well and not a problem. I was surprised at that because I was not there for that, and I told them I wanted to know who they were so when my daughter talks about them in any way I know who this person is that is spending time with her. I also want to make sure a teacher meets my approval and KNOWS I am paying attention to how they behave towards my child. Truth is, some teachers are jerks, something I experienced myself when I went to school. I saw teachers that BULLIED students.

You do not have to "love" your mother, love is something EARNED. However, it is important that you also understand "what your mother did not know". Often mothers fail because they themselves have "low self esteem".

I can always tell when a person did not have good parenting or a good relationship with their mother. They always have a hard time talking about the things that hurt them or the things in their life that challenged them that they did not know what to do about.