Didn't learn the basics

[Danie]

I know other people have written threads about not learning the basics of life from their parents. I pretty much fall into that category. Learning about relationships and having a family was one area that I was really cheated. I don't even know if I'm phrasing that correctly. Since I grew up in a chaotic mess I didn't know what to do in order to "have a family" if that was what I chose. I can't really recount what I thought and what I was doing so that it never happened. I remember when I was 23 realizing, "people WANT babies!" I really thought we were all just accidents.

I am going to jump to a related issue now because I have a point here and a request for feedback. My mom is 80 now. She has been a widow for 3 years. It's been hard for her. Despite how she treated me, I do feel bad for her. She has been slowly going through her household, with no immediate plans to move though. She said to me, "I have a pink baby blanket that grandma made for you for when you had a baby girl". I was blown away by the thought that anyone ever even thought my sisters and I would even have normalcy! I have so many mixed feelings.....shock, surprise, confusion, sadness. I said I wanted it and would use it for my cat Daisy.

Question: is a mother supposed to talk to you about having kids and at least suggest that for your life? My mom kicked us all out at 13 and said we were drug addicts and sluts (not true). I was on my own. At 23 I did have a pregnancy (failed birth control) and called her. She simply said, "I'll take it". No emotion, love, support, help, nothing. I was too poor and messed up with grief and PTSD to  have a child even though I wanted to.

So now with the baby blanket comment there was again no emotion or additional comment, like for example:  "did you want children" or "how about that pregnancy when you were 23?"  It's like she has no empathy for her daughter. And I wonder why she had the blanket? I think my grandma did such a sweet thing by making that! I wonder when and why my mom got it and why it was never a conversation starter.
I think my mom wanted the worst for us out of jealousy and narcissism. She never interjected any idea of us being women; women who deserved good lives. She never did anything to facilitate us 3 girls to have or be anything successful

[JustKat]

My Nmother never talked to me about having kids, at least not in a positive or normal mother-daughter manner. She actually did the opposite. She was so obsessed with keeping me a child and away from boys that she scared me out of ever getting pregnant. She warned me if I had sex as a teen that I would get pregnant and die in childbirth because I have a very tiny frame and wouldn't be able to handle a pregnancy. She told me stories of "people she knew" in high school who got pregnant as teens and all died or were severely disabled. She put so much fear in me that I went on the pill as soon as I could and never considered having a child.

Years later, when I was married, she made a few snide comments about expecting grandchildren and not having any yet.

So for me, no, the correct talk never happened. 

[Andeza]

Supposed to? Yes. Do they? Eh, not so much for the majority. Although my M has actually been obsessive about wanting grandchildren, which seems to defy the norm, she too made comments worrying about my tiny frame. I did just fine. Midwife called be a super-birther actually.

I had to get myself on birth control because she was clueless. And DH and I had all the hard conversations about whether we wanted children or not. I never involved my M because she expected us to, as though our opinion didn't matter. We chose to wait for years (we married young) in order to make sure we were ready. Meanwhile she poked, prodded, and griped the entire time.

In the end, our decision was ours alone. But I worry about her obsessiveness and the issues it may cause.

My Gma also made nice things for me when I was small. My mother always scoffed at them, but that was because she hated that Gma.

Empathy is not their strongest point, but they do tend to hang onto random stuff...

[Danie]

Hi Kathy, it sounds like you were dealt the same bad information that I was. When did you realize it was wrong and that it really affected your life and your own choices?

I'm guessing more that in more functional families kids just learn by experiencing it.

My mother made a similar comment too about wanting grandchildren. She got this idea from other women at the senior center or from her cousin who has grandchildren. I ruminated on that one for days. To say it to me was a slap in the face. She doesn't even know if I wanted children. The really sad thing is that she DOES have 2 grandsons that are 26 and 22. She's never even seen the 22 year old. My sister is NC with mom.

I would've been a great mom and I wish I could've had kids. I guess it's necessary to HAVE a mom in order to BE a mom.

[D.Dan]

I never got the talk about children either. Instead my uPD mom forced me (at the age of 12) to promise to die a virgin. She said if I died a virgin, God would see she was a good mom and let her go to heaven  (yeah... I don't think it works that way...)

Now that I have 3 kids, all I hear about is how everyone won't let her be a grandma! (guess she forgot the whole sacrificial virgin thing  )

[Call Me Cordelia]

Danie, my heart broke reading your post. I'm so so sorry you didn't get to experience the joy of motherhood. It sounds like a huge source of grief for you.

[Danie]

Thank you Cordelia. Your compassion is meaningful to me. My mother doesn't say a word about it. It's still "all about her".   

In thinking about this, I've decided I'm going to say, "I want MY blanket" and "Why did she give it to you?" to see if I get anything.

[BunnyLover]

Danie, you sound like you would have been a really great and caring mother. Just a thought: maybe you might want to consider looking into fostering a child. I bet you could make a HUGE positive difference to a foster child's life! So many foster children are in the foster system because they have PD parents...

[JustKat]

Hi Kathy, it sounds like you were dealt the same bad information that I was. When did you realize it was wrong and that it really affected your life and your own choices?

In reading this thread, it sounds like a lot of us were given bad, even frightening information about pregnancy and childbirth. I was probably well into my 20s before I realized that it wasn't true. Back then there was no Internet to do research, but as my friends started having children I realized that being petite had no bearing on a woman's ability to have a healthy pregnancy. Still, the brainwashing was so strong that I never felt 100% certain about it. There was always this small amount of fear in the back of my mind that I couldn't shake. It's very hard to completely erase what we were taught when we were young and so impressionable.

[artfox]

There was never any discussion about children at all when I was a kid, except for hearing my mom tell everyone who didn't have kids to never have them. She didn't make a secret of the fact that she didn't enjoy being a mother. Between that, and my being put in the role of caretaker when I was a kid, I decided that I didn't want kids. If things had been different, who knows.