a mother's love

[Heatherwantspeace]

I took some downtime yesterday and binge watched some Harry Potters. One theme that runs through the stories is how Harry is protected by his mother's love.
I've also been thinking about The Wizard of Oz, which I loved and watched yearly as a child. One thing that always got me was the wizard telling the tin man that a heart is not measured by how much you love, "but by how much you are loved by others". That hurt so much for a kid that felt unloved.

This leads me to ask this question, in all seriousness, what does a mother's love feel like? I would like those of you that felt it (no matter what other toxic things may have been happening in your house) to share and let me in on the experience.
Heather

[manuel_moe_g]

I also want to hear.

My own mother was very transactional, and would cover for her petty verbal abuse by saying it was "tough love". It was in fact, crap. She was losing her own battle with mental illness, so i logically know there was a reason.

[Beany Boo]

I think a mother’s love is wide open. She wants to show it but mother’s struggle to get heard because of the way the role is treated. My mother annoys me deeply. She kept me (relatively) alive and safe but could never give me the thing I wanted; which kept changing. She loves me by continuing to show up. I love her by not pretending everything is working out on its own.

[brownblob]

My mother's love seemed to be some enjoyment of having children surrounding her. She also showed it by showing up even if she didn't know what to do. She also showed it with a certain measure of overprotection and worrying.
It is also comes with a feeling of shame because I am an embarrassment and disappointment to her.

[oak]

a. Thanks for sharing! I'm glad you used your words!

b. To answer your question: I don't know.

c. May I offer some thoughts on the Wizard of Oz?

1. Yes, I fully understand how as child we took serious any garbage film dialogue written on a half a whim sixty years ago that happened to get immortalized on film. There are real consequences to words.

That said, as adults we can interrogate film with more perspective: we've looked at Ordinary People and Forrest Gump here in this forum, with wiser eyes.

2. Some thoughts:

The wizard was a conman, not a wizard.

By stumbling over, then ignoring, the fairly simple (for a supposed wizard) word "philanthropy", we can tell he is imprecise with language. He doesn't care.

Dorothy was failed in both lives by mother figures:

a. Aunty Em was an unfortunate stereotype of stepmother. We have no word about Dorothy's biological mother, so that's no help.

Other than the fairly feckless farmhands, Dorothy had little help or encouragement in bleak ass Kansas. We'll soon see that she had precious little help in the other world, either.

b. The Good Witch was nice, and pretty, and useless. Like any good call to adventure, per Campbell, she gave Dorothy the shoes, and then disappeared when Dorothy needed her the most. Except to conveniently show up after all the heavy lifting had been done to (surprise!) tell Dorothy she could have gone home anytime. I mean, really "Good" Witch?

c. One could argue the Wicked Witch was more useful: by being such a jerk she moved the plot forward, getting Dorothy down that stupid road.

So now, in 2020, we are supposed to act surprised that we are missing pieces, when the culture that was given to us was so deficient.

[TonyM_Guest]

I'm glad you posted this. I am also very interested in what a genuine, loving relationship with a mother (or any family member, really) is actually like. I still struggle to know when affection or attention is genuine or if it's a mask for something nefarious or even grooming for something else down the line.

You can hear me processing (a little bit in real time) some of this kind of thing on my episode with Paul. There's a part where I waffled a bit about whether or not some things my mother did were abuse and Paul called me on it. He said "well, if nothing else she was at least enabling abuse." That was a bit tough for me to hear even after having cut contact with my mother for several years at that point. I think that I wanted so desperately to be loved by someone in my family that my mother was the "least worst" option I had.

As I work on "re-parenting" in my therapy journey, I like to imagine that a mother's love is not selfless but also not selfish. There is a balance in it that conveys to the child that they are loved and important but also not the center of the universe so as to teach boundaries, limits, and self-care.

[Heatherwantspeace]

Thanks everyone for your thoughts.

Beany Boo and Brownblob both mentioned showing up. I interpret that as being present in some way. I hope that means there was some feedback and mirroring there for you to help with your sense of self. Brownblob, I think my older siblings had the experience of my mom's joy of having children. It's something I see in photos that's gone by the time they got to me. There was also a big difference in what they were feeling as she was dying. They seemed to be losing the actual person, where for me and my other sibling, we were losing "a mother", but not a specific person. If that makes sense.

Thanks for the W of Oz thoughts, Oak. You made me think of The Still Face experiments, which my therapist brings up frequently. She has explained to me that even a disapproving mother is better than one that ignores, because at least there is some engagement, even if negative. So yeah, maybe the WW is some kind of ok mother figure!
And another gem, from Glenda the good witch, "only bad witches are ugly". That pretty=good, ugly/fat=bad is some capital B Bullsh*t we're still dealing with! Harry's cousin in the HP series is case in point.

Tony, I work on being my own parent, but the wishing I had been loved still comes up from time to time. Manuel, I also know of some reasons for my mom's distance. It helps to understand, but doesn't circumvent the work.

As abusive and manipulative as my dad was, I did feel love from him. He seemed to genuinely want to form a bond and help me learn to get by in the world. I don't want a relationship with him due to his gas lighting, but there is some understanding of what a father is.
Hugs to all.
Heather

[Beany Boo]

I think our parents love us even while they fail to prepare us to succeed. They probably spend a lot of time feeling ashamed that they had us for so long, only having spent a lot of that time using us to fix their own childhoods.

[Beany Boo]

I can’t seem to get past this question. I don’t think I have a direct answer to it yet.

I think I’m on the side of, ‘what does it feel like’, rather than knowing or remembering something for certain.

I think my always trying to formulate an answer - the habit or reflex of doing that - is a defense against the prospect of not having known that love.

In other words, my mode of being is based in a strategy to proceed, in the absence of that feeling.

Now that you’ve raised the question of what does it feel like, I want to at least leave a space for a real answer.

[Heatherwantspeace]

That means a lot to me, Beany Boo!