My Mother, My Mirror: Going on a Mother-Guilt Trip? Change Course!

You’re Off the Hook

Unwittingly, your female forebears passed the carnival mirror self-image down to you, and, unwittingly, or unintentionally, you have passed it down to your daughter. (Many mothers may be sensitive to their influence on their children and still find themselves unable to change unwanted behavior.)

Blame-free freckles, blame-free mothering

You wouldn’t blame yourself for the fact that your daughter inherited your freckles; similarly, there’s no reason to blame your self for passing on the carnival mirror self-image, passed down from your grandmother to your mother before it got to you. We can’t control genes that cause freckles. And we can’t control those interactions with our daughter that we weren’t or aren’t aware of, influenced by the distorted self-image legacy.

One of the benefits of the five thought links is a way to heighten your insight in order to change your way of relating to your growing or grown daughter.

I didn’t realize how difficult it is for parents to modify their interactions with their children until I became a mother and a therapist. Before I began those careers, I taught primary school for a number of years. At parent-teacher conferences I enjoyed guiding mothers and fathers toward helping their children grow. Looking back, however, I realize that, as I spoke with the parents during that pre-parenthood phase of my life, I often had thoughts that were biased toward the kids. “Mrs. A, how can you be so demanding of Ted when he seems to want to please everyone?” “Mr. B, you’re putting too much pressure on Sally. Doesn’t that sweet voice of hers win you over like it does me?” “Mrs. C, why can’t you go easier on Abbey? She’s such a cute kid.” Without realizing it, I was not putting myself into the parents’ shoes.

I didn’t think about this child-biased viewpoint until I looked back after becoming a mother and a therapist. As a mother, I thought about the parents I’d met during my teaching career and, in retrospect, found myself cutting them breaks—just as I had to try to cut myself breaks (not always successfully) each time one of my mate
al imperfections came to my attention. And, as a therapist who treated so many mothers with self-doubts about their mothering, I realized how the sayings about parenting I’d heard through the years had endured because they hold a universal truth—we can try what we believe to be our best, give what we believe to be the most, and love with what we believe is our all, and we can still make mistakes and feel a loss of control.

Is that really how you saw it then?

Hindsight gives you stellar vision. This last point emerged from my personal and professional growth, and you need to recall this idea when you are thinking about how you have acted with your child in the past. Many mothers have sat before me with a list of their sins, screw-ups, or lost opportunities during their child’s earliest years—mistakes that they fear may have caused eating disorders, allergies, nightmares, irregular bowels, lack of ambition, or poor choice of friends.

I tell them something like what I’ll tell you: The chances are great that you had a different mindset then, with different circumstances, and a different or possibly minimal support system. You were not who you are now. You were younger, lonelier, inexperienced, upset a lot, overburdened, ill, anxious, down, trying too hard, lacking good modeling, or afraid to seek help. So try to get more into your own shoes as you were then and lift the guilt.

Excerpt from: MY MOTHER, MY MIRROR: Recognizing and Making the Most of Inherited Self-Images (New Harbinger Publications)