The question I was an only child with my mum as a breadwinner and my grandmother as my main carer. From the age of three, I was frequently sent to live with my grandmother in France and I might not see my mother for months at a time. There was a three-year period when I only saw her once. Mum had various boyfriends, who were all prioritised over me. She was always distracted by something else – finding love, worrying about money and so on. She lived on a diet of cigarettes, black coffee and wine. She was lonely and I felt ashamed for not being enough to fill that void.
Now, as a mum of two young children, I find myself being eaten up with resentment at her approach to being a grandmother. I have desperately needed support at times, but had very little. After the birth of my second child she promised to stay for two weeks, but she only managed five days. I had to go back to work and offered to pay her to look after the kids one day a week, but she refused. This makes me so angry – my grandmother gave her space to focus on her career and now my mum won’t do anything to support me to do the same. Mum also promised a deposit for a house. I asked for this when I had my family, but she spent it all on a huge house in an expensive area, while I was living in a leaky council flat.
We have moved to another country and I feel less resentful – mostly because she cannot be around to help me, rather than her choosing not to. I look at my children now and couldn’t bear to leave them; I wonder how she could leave a child for months at a time. I’m still angry with her. How do I find peace?
Philippa’s answer Not surprisingly, you seem to have a huge grudge against your mother. It must have been so painful to feel so rejected, but I’m not sure that even if she could miraculously change her personality and had kept her promises and wanted to look after her grandchildren, it would make that pain go away, even if it might have felt a little like compensation.
Distancing yourself from her geographically has brought you some peace, because your expectations have dropped. When we have expectations of any relationship, we are setting ourselves up for disappointment.
It’s natural that because your grandmother brought you up, and looked after you, you might assume your mother would do the same for your children. But, really, would you want someone who seems, perhaps, lacking in empathy and who appears so devoid of the nurturing instinct to look after your kids? Her reluctance to care for her grandchildren (or any children) might make rather a negative space for them anyway. Rather than carry on that format of a grandparent caring for children, you are starting a new tradition of children being nurtured, cared for, loved and prioritised by their own parents and maybe that will be a better pattern to pass down to your descendants.
I do acknowledge that it makes it harder to love and cherish when you yourself haven’t been so valued, but remember, you are doing a great job in investing in the next generation and making it easier for them to care for their children in turn.
It sounds as if your mum may have had her own issues to deal with. Her selfcare hasn’t been all that great, what with the diet of cigarettes, black coffee and wine. I can only speculate what made it hard for her to spend time with you – maybe she had bad postnatal depression or never felt loved herself. Whatever her issues were or are, none of them were ever remotely your fault. I’m sorry you felt as a child you weren’t enough.
If you could further drop all expectations of getting help from her (even a fraction of how she was helped by her own mother), then maybe you could have a relationship with her. Get to know her all over again, not as someone who let you down (even though she really did), but as a person, separate from you. This might not feel possible and I wouldn’t blame you if it wasn’t. The most important thing is that you don’t pass on what was given to you: that feeling of being a chore delegated to someone else for months at a time, rather than a person to love and relate to.
You are angry and it isn’t surprising, but I suspect that beneath your anger lies a great sadness. Your mother was barely there for you while you were growing up. That is a loss to mourn. Maybe, with the help of a therapist, you could go through that mourning and come out the other side feeling more peaceful.
Every week Philippa Perry addresses a personal problem sent in by a reader.
If you would like advice from Philippa, please send your problem to askphilippa@guardian.co.uk. Submissions are subject to our terms and conditions
