Why a Mother's Love is Important to Adult Daughters

The importance of a mother's love may be underrated. We all know that mothers are needed and important in a child's life. Mother's are the nurturers and caretakers of their children and families. It is harder today for mothers to be able to be with their children to the extent that they used to be because usually two parents need to work full-time jobs just to survive.

What I am talking about is not just the importance of mothers in their children's lives but the importance of mothers in the lives of their grown daughters. Mother love is so very important to daughters. They are important to sons also but I am talking about a specific dynamic. What led me to start thinking about this is because of a relationship that a friend of mine has with her mother. My friend is in her 60's and I am going to be 60 at the end of this year.

I believe that God puts people in our lives to help support us. He puts them in our lives to help us work through things that we are dealing with at specific times. I think that this is miraculous. I know when I first got sober I was going through agony because of the divorce from my first husband. I had high hopes that we would get sober together and have a happy healthy family. My dreams were shattered. My first AA sponsor had been through a divorce in the not too distant past. She was very supportive and compassionate. I don't know how I would have survived without her love and guidance.

This situation is similar. My friend, I will call her Annie, is one of the kindest, sweetest, loving woman that I know. She even looks like I picture the mother of Jesus to look. She had black hair in her younger days and big innocent gray eyes. She is a tiny, lady bursting with energy. It is really hard to understand the way her mother treats her and has treated her all of her life. She is her mother's only surviving child. Her mother gave all of her money to her sister and her family. When all of her money was gone she ended up living with my friend. My friend who isn't young took care of her even though she was cruel and verbally abusive to her. She put her down to my friend's kids and tried to poison them against her. Unfortunately it worked. I don't know anyone who has ever been a better mother to her children, yet 2 of them have been cruel and vicious to her.

What has really helped me is to see the dynamics of their relationship. Her mother is an evil, bitter, hateful, and jealous woman. She stole my friend's husband from his wife. They had come from Italy and had a bunch of kids, and she had an affair with Annie's father. He left his family and married her. He was a raving alcoholic and she would leave her children with him and run away from time to time. He would take Annie and her siblings to his ex-wife's house that treated them with love and kindness. She would then come back and he would go back to her with the kids. The reason that this is important to this story is to say that her mother was not a nice woman. She was immoral and cruel. She ridicules my friend's religion. Even though she was raised in Catholic schools that her mother and father sent her to, her mother condemns the church to her and her children.

She is hateful to her daughter. She wishes ill on her and never says anything nice to her. She is now in a nursing home and Annie visits her in spite of how hateful and evil she is to her. She is doing the Christian thing by still having a relationship with her.

Because of what she is going through with her mother, it has helped me to see through my mother and her behavior. My mother is evil, hateful and has turned my oldest son against me. She has told him I am crazy, evil and a liar. She has seduced him with her self-pity and the promise of an inheritance. He needs to believe her because he knows that the way he is living and the way he has treated his children isn't right. He is putty in her hands.

I realize that she is jealous of me. She hates that I am a religious and spiritual person. I try to treat others the way I want to be treated. I tell the truth and I am honest. She hates it. She hates that I am living the way she should be living. She is totally pissed off because I will not grovel and beg her forgiveness. I would if I had a reason to. I will not ask for forgiveness for the truth. I will not allow her to abuse me anymore or deny the evil that she perpetrated on me. She has lost control over me and she is mad as hell at me for it.

It has been hard for me even as an adult to have self-esteem because my mother has always wished me ill. She has been jealous of my accomplishments and is very competitive. I haven't had a relationship with her in 20 years and it is one of the best things I have ever done for myself. My grown daughter and I have talked about it. I told her that I believe that is one of the reasons that she has a good self-esteem and is able to stick up for herself. She knows that I want her to succeed and be happy. She knows that I am always on her side. I am always there for her and love and respect her. She told me that she knows that that is true and it really helps her to know that I would do anything for her. I would lay down my life for any one of my kids or grandchildren.

Annie and I don't have that. We have been able to emotionally adopt surrogate mothers and families, but there is nothing like having your real mother really love you. A mother is supposed to be an example and be nurturing and supportive. If your mother is dead and was supportive and loving it is still better because you know that they loved you in life and will be with you in death.

We don't have that and it has scarred us. In spite of them though we are survivors. I wish that it was different but it isn't. We still do the best we can do and try to be the mothers that our mothers weren't. We are able to help each other to see what the reality is, when our mothers try to continually hurt us. I thank God for Annie and for all the other surrogate family members that I have gained through my adult years.