Emotionally Absent Mother

Children are not experienced enough to understand the behaviors of their parents. However, children actually "do" have a sense of what is wrong. Children also don't know how to tell their parents they need help, also, often children are afraid to tell their parents things too, I had noticed that a lot while raising my daughter in how her friends were afraid of their parents.

I do know that children tend to "feel" that when a parent goes away and doesn't stay involved that it must mean the parent doesn't love the child enough.

The "norm" that I had noticed with a lot of parents when I was raising my own child is the increase in how parents were getting more and more self involved and missing a very important part of raising their children to actually "form" an identity. The big problem I faced is that I did make it a point to be "there" for my daughter and help her form an identity was that her piers often failed to respect that because they were not raised that way.

What I have also noticed is that it is not even that a mother has to be a provider and doesn't have the time to nurture the way a child needs her to. Often there are mothers who are actually wealthy and are so self involved and fail to be "there" for their child as well. The same is true for the father who may be so self involved being successful that the father is not there for the child.

I saw an example of this one time when I took my daughter to a horse show. I noticed a little girl standing by the ring holding a beautiful white pony that I later found out her father spent $100,000 on. When I asked her why she was crying she said that "daddy promised he would be here today and he is not coming". Her father was teaching her to replace "love and nurturing" with things and thats a bad way to raise a child too. That is the one time that I had realized that even "the best" pony can't replace something important.

We are missing something very important in our society, it's been getting worse too. There is a hum on this site of so many struggling and a lot of these challenges began in early childhood.

It's a sad situation. My parents did the same thing with buying things to replace love. We never said I love you to each other until I was in my late 20's.

hi trace
i was 16 and half years old and i was the one who found her dead after that my anxiety got worse.

my dad brainwashed us into thinking it was all her fault. their marriage was an arranged one, they only saw a pic of each other, and from day one she was never happy. it wasn't until after she died, and he tried to exert that same control and put us down, that i realized that maybe there was not some truth to what he had told us.

i was wracked with so much guilt for years. but in all honestly i think God took her as soon as he did because her life on earth was pure hell. i just wish she had a chance to see her 9 grandchildren between us 3 siblings and how we turned out, considering the environment we grew up.

((hugs)) to you, i am sure its not easy, but we all can heal from the past, i think sometimes the hard times we go in our childhood, makes some of us stronger once become adults. we all can learn from our pasts, and if we are blessed like i have been, we don't make the same mistakes with our own kids.

take care

oh i must add to Trace, my previous therapist suggested the same thing to write a letter to my father, but not show him because at his age, he won't change. but to write it to myself and help get out of those negative feelings i have towards him, helps in healing.

I totally understand, my issues exploded after finding dad after his suicide. It does do a job on the mind. It's wonderful that you can stand back and find some positive aspects of this sad situation. I hope your mom is resting in peace and smiling down on you guys I bet she is.

I wrote on to my Dad after his suicide but I haven't written one to mom yet. But I plan to, couldn't do anymore harm, I don't think. Maybe a little triggering though, but that's okay. It's the weekend and I don't have to leave the house for anything. So I will be fine.