(no subject)
When my grandmother was a young teen in rural Romania, her mother became very ill. My grandmother cared for her mother until her death. A few years later, World War II arrived, and my grandmother trekked across multiple countries alone after her father was taken as a POW (he later died in a Russian Gulag).
Flash forward to the future and a different circumstance: my mother and I living a single-parent life starting when I'm a preschooler. My mother is working a demanding job that didn't have the "checks and balances" that it does today (in terms of over-assignment of workload). Often, my mother is stressed or is experiencing "big emotions," and different circumstances set her off - travelling in particular (aka car rides coupled with deadlines when we have to reach certain places in a certain amount of time such as home care/school/after school activities). Prior to this point, my mother did not live in a supportive household with my father; I'm sure she felt very much alone. Furthermore, she returned to work when I was six months old, and unfortunately my day care was not the greatest (based on some of her observations that she recently disclosed to me, likely out of guilt; in fact, she recently had an anxiety dream about my son attending day care. I assumed it related to a need to take control, but I now think it relates to feelings of guilt and self-hate).
I believe I spent a lot of time managing my mother's emotions in addition to providing her with the unconditional love that she was lacking at that stage in her life.
None of this was intentional on my mother's part; she was a flawed (and likely damaged) person because of her own early family life. In fact, she still is.
So thinking back to my grandmother, I can't help but wonder what sort of mother she was and to what degree her own past informed her on how to be a mother and how that may have impacted her own daughters.
In other words, I wonder if my extremely self-sufficient grandmother nevertheless was lacking a kind of unconditional love or closeness from her own parents mainly due to losing them early in life. Moreover, she did not have a caring/compassionate grandparent (she often remarked how her father's mother was cruel to her mother). So likely, she wanted to rescue her mother; she cared for her. And once she, herself, became a mother, I can't help but wonder if - unintentionally - she needed that caring reciprocated. I doubt entirely that any of this would be conscious; it would be entirely unconscious, especially for my grandmother who was not entirely self-insightful (she had some insights, but she was often very focused on articulating her strengths, not giving voice to or challenging her weaknesses). She wore emotional armour. Despite being a caring and empathetic person (with her own granddaughter, me, at least), I wonder if my mother and aunt had to ultimately provide a lot of love and emotional management for their parents...
Erase that previous "I wonder" statement because writing that all down makes it even more obvious to me due to the following: my grandfather was a highly volatile and emotional man. Emotions aren't a bad thing, but he did not have emotional regulation. Instead, he was often angry, combative, and from vague things my mother has said, he and my grandmother combined created emotionally charged situations that were overwhelming at the best of times. My mother once remarked to me, recently, how glad she had been to leave for university so she could escape their highly emotional home. It was like drowning in feelings that were uncontrolled.
My mother describes that, yet cannot see that she created a similar environment. She may be aware of it as she has more self-awareness - or an interest in such - but I think the realization leaves her lost and guilty. She can only carry out self blame.
I'm working so hard to not repeat this cycle. I do not want my child to feel he has to manage my emotions (thank goodness for learning emotional regulation as an adult and having access to therapy), nor provide me with the unconditional love that he deserves from his mama (learning to provide yourself with the love you seek: something I always knew was important, but I never realized to what degree I would need to exercise that). There are so many hidden chasms of past experience - often implicit - that make my own goals as a new mother seem daunting, but I will believe that I can do it, and that I can break the cycle.