Which of these five types of mother are you?
When a child arrives, each mother does the best she can because, unfortunately, newborns do not come with an instruction book under their arm. But there are many things that all mothers have in common: feelings of guilt, of feeling lost, indecisive and, occasionally, on the verge of a nervous breakdown when the children start to get older.
Each one approaches the job of being a mother in their own way, but many situations are common to all. To demystify all those roles that we acquire, analyze all those often contradictory feelings, to avoid falling into the trap of guilt… two writers, Diana Guelar and Andre Jáuregui, propose in the manual “Perfectly Imperfect Moms” a series of advice full of wisdom and, above all, good humor that every type of mother can take advantage of.
Each one approaches motherhood in their own way and they all do it well. The authors start from a premise: there are mothers of all types: those who spend hours in the kitchen and those who order a pizza, those who work outside and those who do everything at home, those who shelter their children so that do not get cold and those that uncover them so that they develop their own defenses… And all of them, all of them, do it well, perfectly well.
In one of the sections of this book, they propose to find out what type of mother you are, to support you, so that you understand yourself and they give you reflections that will help you enjoy and recover the pleasure of being a mother.
1. Controlling mother (or GPS): She is obsessed with control, and she exhausts herself and others. He tries to solve everything, so the son or daughter feels lost when they begin to have to make their own decisions. His way of expressing his love is through overprotection. This mother has to learn to let go of some control and respect her children’s privacy. Give them space to develop and establish deals based on mutual trust, in which mother and child each give in a little.
«Where have you seen a technical director running side by side with a player while shouting in his ear where he has to send the pass or which opponent he has to mark? “When the players go out on the field, the coach’s job is already done.” The phrase: “To gain control it is necessary to lose it.”
2. Perfectionist mother: Perfection is a trap. We want the best for them, but that eagerness, when excessive, can lead to failure or disappointment. Is it necessary for children to be perfect, to do everything well? It is desirable to stimulate children and help them overcome their difficulties. The bad thing is when we ask too much of them. Perfectionist moms should focus not so much on the results as on the process; make your gaze more flexible to see your children as they are, not as we would like them to be; respect their interests, abilities and limitations, taking each achievement as a cause for celebration and each failure as an opportunity to learn to do things differently.
«The only thing we ask of our children is that they do what is expected of them, right? (…) What awaits, who? Well, everyone. And who is everyone? Well, everyone: parents, grandparents, friends, neighbors, the country, society, everyone. And U.S? Us, too, obviously. And what is it that we and everyone else expect from children and young people? Well, very normal things like having table manners, studying, being polite, playing sports…”
The phrase: “When the focus is on the results and not on the process, we all lose.”
3. Complicit mother: She is the one who wants to be her children’s best friend. But with the best intention of being “symbiotic”, it is possible that it ends up becoming a “parasite”, and begins to “feed” on their lives, their styles, their friends, their customs. This mother has to become aware that adolescents need to compare themselves with a model different from them, more adult, wiser, capable of guiding and protecting them, which is not what they get when we act like their peers.
“Sometimes, being a mother is being there so that our children fight with us, so that they argue with us, so that they have someone to hide their secrets from.”
The phrase: “For the sake of our children, we cannot give them the luxury of always liking us.”
4. Competing Mother: We live in a culture obsessed with youth and beauty. It is not strange, therefore, that the issues of the body and age can become a kind of fight between mothers and daughters. An added problem is that we do not allow ourselves to be “envious” of our daughters, of their toned bodies and perfect skin. Then guilt sets in and we hide and deny these disturbing thoughts.
Accepting that we are indeed competing, even if we don’t want to, with our daughter, “will allow us to take responsibility for changing some specific behaviors that are playing against the emotional well-being of our children and complicating our relationship with them.”
The phrase: “How difficult it is for us to accept that sometimes we have negative feelings about our children!”
5. Mother who appropriates: For this mother, everything that happens to her children is hers. For her, there is no limit between herself and her children, and it is difficult for her to recognize that the child is another person. For children, this can be very disturbing. When we take ownership of what happens to our children, we are robbing them of their right to feel their own emotions and hindering their ability to deploy their own resources.
The mother who “takes ownership” has to strive to be aware that we cannot prevent our children from suffering or from making mistakes.
“Yes, we can be there for them, taking a genuine interest in what is happening to them, listening to them and helping them identify and tolerate their emotions.”
The phrase: «The achievements of children have to be measured by the yardstick of the children, not that of the parents, and satisfy their own dreams, not ours. And it’s good that they can recognize the differences.
R.Puerto
