Emotionally Absent Mother

Emotionally Unavailable Mother by Kati Morton


This was an interesting topic. My mom was unavailable because she was a single mom, working 3p-11p shift, plus very immature. It wasn't something intentional, or mean, just not there and I think that caused some the issues I'm dealing with now.

I hear you...my mother had to work too and she also got very sick when I was about 11. She had to spend a lot of time in bed. She has her own emotional baggage and problems and was not someone I could always rely on.

It's taken me years as an adult to forge a better relationship with her. It helps that I'm no longer dependent on my parents. I love her but at the same time have had to accept her failures and limitations and how those impacted my life both as a vulnerable child and today.

It's difficult to deal with. I wish you good luck and future happiness.

Thanks and you summed it up so well. I don't think their actions were anything intentional, but they were damaging to a young child. Mom was a single parent , so this left me alone a lot of times, it was a scary time.

That's my story exactly

No matter what our Mothers were like...it makes us stronger as a person and who we are today.

My mother was in bed all the time and I waited on her hand and foot. To make all matters worse, she was mentally abusive and I didn't have any privileges as a child or teen would normally have. I had to grow up fast...

But here I am. She's the model I don't want my kids to have so I chose not to become her. I push harder to not be like her... and I lived through it...

I agree, but you were robbed of some of your childhood by having to grow up so fast. My mom's immaturity made me grow up fast, may be the reason I never wanted kids. I felt I had raised a mom already and I was done. Don't get me wrong I love my mom with every fiber of my being and I think she did the best she knew how to do. I just wish some things would have been a little different.

Trace,

Our society has slowly been changing to where there are more single mothers that have to work and a lot more children are not getting the nurturing they need growing up. There has also been an increase in parents both working and dropping their children off at day care at very young ages. Also, there has been an increase in parents having nanny's so the parents can have "their" life. I remember when I was at an event where the families could afford this lifestyle and one mother who had her little son in tow looked at me and said, "Ugh, my nanny is not here, tell me, what do you do with IT?". Can you imagine that? This woman was clearly very disconnect with her own child.

As bad as that is, the problem I ran into as a mother who made it a point to be a good mother and nurture my child is that my child was "different" from other children and often got confused by the lack of direction and ability to "care" and "connect" like she could do. She did not understand the "detachment" she came across, also she often found herself nurturing others because of how her friends did not have that with their parents. So, a child without good nurturing can get hurt and struggle, but a child with good nurturing can get hurt and struggle with piers that lack ability to "care" too.

I think it's even worse now, seriously, when have we ever come across these incidents where parents "forget" their children and they end up dying in hot cars like it is happening recently? What is the point of having these Mc Mansion homes if there isn't enough time to be home and enjoy it as a family? One town I worked that had a lot of these type homes and was known to be more upper middle class actually had a high divorce rate where a high percentage of these families lasted about 3 years until divorce.
And look at the horrible problem we are having with heroine where the number of deaths from overdoses has become a very big problem with today's young teens and young adults? Look at the problems that teachers have been having with students that refuse to listen or respect the teachers. Today, in a lot of areas it's worse because children are being handed out to be raised more and more.

I have done my own little study to see if parents really know where their children are developmentally. I have found that a lot of parents are clueless about child development. Even with all that has been discovered and the information available.

You are right, it definitely makes a difference when the mother is not "there" for the child, and the link you posted explains what happens as a result too. I had noticed this so many years ago. I went without so I could be "there" for my daughter, some mothers however can't even do that because they are the only provider.

It's a very complex problem for sure. Plus the Millennials have this sense of entitlement and lack of responsibility, even to kids. Not all but a lot of them do. It's all about themselves and for someone else to raise the kids. Trying to give kids things we didn't have growing up has to have limits. You can't provide so much that kids think that is your job to work and provide them everything they want. As long as they have everything they NEED shelter, food, clothes and the rest should be earned.

My mom did that to me, except fortunately I didn't die (obviously). I was about four or five and acting up in church and didn't want to go to the nursery, so mom put me in the car on a hot day and left me there for about an hour. I got sick with heat stroke but didn't have any lasting effects.

My mom was just really thoughtless and didn't know how to take care of a child. She almost killed me a couple times but it was accidental (dropped me as a baby, let me wander out of the house, etc.) She never caught the fact that I have birth defects in my hips that I will probably have to have surgery to correct now as an adult. She loves me but she does things without considering the consequences and just kind of didn't pay attention for a lot of my childhood even before she got sick. It's not because she didn't care, I think she just has problems of her own, maybe ADHD or similar. She's scatterbrained.

I know what you mean by having to grow up too fast, I was a very responsible kid because I had to be. Fortunately my grandmother lived with us and helped raise me. She was my rock and I miss her.

It's very hard to look at your childhood and deal with the anger and guilt and sense of loss when you love your family but also didn't get what you needed from them.

<<It's very hard to look at your childhood and deal with the anger and guilt and sense of loss when you love your family but also didn't get what you needed from them >> I think, for me, this is the hardest thing of all. I love her so much and would never confront her about what all we went through because I know in my heart it was not intentional neglect and abuse and that she loves me more than life itself. We are very close now but as parents age it starts all over again with me being the parent and looking after her emotionally and physically. Though now I am much better prepared for that responsibility. Thanks for participating in this thread, I know it's a hard subject to talk about.

Good luck again and best wishes to you in finding your way forward. We made it here, we can keep going to a better place in life!

Anyone read this book? The Emotionally Absent Mother: A Guide to Self-Healing and Getting the Love You Missed by Cori, Jasmin Lee

Haven't heard of it but it sounds good.

My mother tried to be emotionally present, but with the alcohol it turned into a slimy mess. She didn't understood what I needed, and that I couldn't meet her needs. I'm sure it probably hurt her, but it didn't hurt her enough to get help and stop drinking. Of course the ongoing feud with my father didn't help things, either.

The alcohol addiction is plenty to deal with. Sounds like it was pretty rough there, sorry. I also ordered another book Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents Gibson PsyD, Lindsay C.
Maybe between the two I will get some answers.

Yes, I agree. I feel the same except I ended up having 4 kids...

When I'm mentally unstable I tend to get pregnant...I'm getting fixed soon because I can't take it anymore mentally. That's the "choices" I made

I can see that about getting pregnant when mentally unstable, on many levels. Thinking maybe bringing something new in would bring happiness around you. I had to snicker when you mentioned getting fixed I have pets and they are all "fixed", so I had this image of you walking into the vets office.
Yes, I would think that 4 kids would be plenty to have to deal with. The way the world is right now that would drive me crazy trying to keep four kids safe and happy. You really need some type of award for that

Haha that's funny...well, it seems like walking into a vet..it's weird..they try to talk me out of it every time..I'm afraid to go through surgery unless I absolutely have to...but I HAVE to...

I get help with my oldest two...I have my youngest two all of the time.

So I've been reading the books I ordered and I became overcome with guilt about thinking this way about my mother. From reading this she did so much right, why am I focusing on the few things she did not so well, but tried? Makes me feel like a real piece of crap for even bringing it up.

((Trace)),

First of all, what you have been doing is "grieving" whatever YOU feel you lost in your history. When someone is reviewing their childhood the way you have, it's not about not appreciating what was there, instead it is recognizing whatever was not there for you and how that impacted you as a person.

Your mother had to work and support you without having a husband to contribute to that so she could be "there" for you. That created an abscence that left you feeling "scared" because most likely you were left to do for self when you were not ready to. Now, what you are experiencing in your effort to review how this affected you emotionally and psychologically is how a child develops "without". This is the more human side of what it means to a child that is "normal" to human development. This is not about disrespecting your mother and feeling guilty at all, instead it is reviewing your own personal puzzle and how your past contributed to how you struggle in the now.

When a child grows and develops it takes that child a long time to discover "self" and a lot of how a child develops also depends on what that child received in "nurturing". We are also designed to remember whatever we may not have gotten that affected us, we remember this because that is how nature designed us so that when we become parents we can provide our offspring better nurturing thus increasing that offspring's chance of survival. Even though you grew up without the safety of your mother being there for you, you did see how she survived and provided, if you think about what you were able to survive, you did survive because you imprinted what you saw your mother do.

Parents tend to say, "wait until she has to do what I did, then she will appreciate". Well, that is true because human beings don't really see or understand until they themselves go through an experience. When we are growing up we think of our parents as "supposed to know because they are adults", we don't realize what they manage to do without "knowing" and that they simply do not have all the answers just because they are grownups.

It just seems like I am criticizing her and I shouldn't. I lived through it. I had shelter, food, clothes, love as she knew how to show it. Isn't that really all she was suppose to do? She had to live her life too, and work me into her trying to be happy. My childhood wasn't a total wash out, it could have been much worse, I think I will stop looking into this topic, it's very triggering.

(((Trace))),

Try to see this as not critcizing "her" though. I am sure you love her and appreciate the things she "did" manage to provide.

Why is this triggering you? Discovering that is important and I know that can be difficult as I have struggled like that myself. It made me uncomfortable too but I began to recognize some things that were "missing" that played an important part in the kind of person I became. It's not always something bad either.

hi there
i agree with you i had an unavailable mother emotionally and mentally but i don't blame her, she was very depressed and isolated herself, so me and my siblings kinda of had to fend for ourselves, what did not help was having a father/hubby who was not totally supportive of her and us kids. sadly she died of massive heart attack at the tender age of 47, i say she died of a broken heart

Alot of my anxiety and emotional issues were because of my childhood, and i am just starting to heal from that, many many years later....

take care

I'm not really up to talking about that here and now. But I will give it some thought. Thanks for all your input on this topic. I had no idea how overwhelming it would be for me until I got into it.

O my gosh that is so young to die. How old were all of you when she passed away? It's amazing what you remember from childhood and what you see as a problem now. Back then it was just normal. Best wishes with your healing.

1. The Emotionally Absent Mother Jasmin Lee Cori, MS, LPC
2. Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents Lindsay C. Gibson, PsyD

Okay...of these two books looks like book #2 is more on target, in fact it pretty much is describing me to a tee. Also it just doesn't sound as bad as the other one. I may go back to the first book at some point, but right now this other one about having Emotionally Immature Parents is giving me what I need. In Katie's video she suggested writing a letter to the parent from the child and voicing what I felt were emotionally challenging for me. The thing is that kids don't know what's not emotionally acceptable, their parents are doing it so it must be okay, they are the adults...right? Anyway, I may write that letter this weekend. Maybe it will help just putting it into words. I feel like I need to get this done soon and out of the way because I start that new tele-counseling in a few weeks and I'm pretty sure they will only want to discuss one issue, regarding the PTSD. A new counselor and new psychiatrist is putting more pressure on me, it's like starting over *sigh*