What makes a good mother to a 26 year old?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’d like to hear some thoughts from the board, there is a lot of advice about child-rearing and dealing with teens, but I haven’t read too much about dealing with young adult children.

In America at least, parents are I believe completely off the hook for all responsibilities to their children at 18. I am 26 and going through a lot of drama with my mother right now (I’m choosing not to speak to her because she won’t apologize for something she said), but it got me thinking. What do parents owe their 26 year olds? Is it possible to be a “good mother” to a 26 year old and have very little interaction with them at all?

My thinking is that typically, good parents don’t stop helping their children just because they turn 18. They do things like, call their kids to make sure they are okay, answer their children’s phone calls or at least return their voicemails, and even be their backup in case of an emergency. It’s also not out of the norm to give your children in their 20’s some financial assistance, or occasional help paying a bill (I don’t think…not that I would consider asking really).

My mom is my only adult family within 2000 miles. She says I need to come up with backup plans that don’t involve her. My thinking is that in a healthy family, your family IS your backup, that’s uhhhh, kind of the point. If family is not there to help you when you are having trouble, they are just people who share genetic similarity to you and no more, right? I’m not asking for much, but I voiced to her my concern that I could get into a horrific accident, and sometimes I cannot get in touch with her for weeks at a time, even calling every day and leaving voicemails. She told me, “Call AAA. Their first pick up is free when you sign up.” Is this normal?

I have tried to repair my relationship with my mom after a very bad childhood. She has admitted to me that she “never bonded with me”, so it’s not like I am some pampered brat asking for more-more-more. I was kicked out at 14, 18, and 19, and my mom who is a lawyer has contributed a stellar $70 to my higher education so far (part of a textbook).

I had severe pneumonia last november and I almost got too weak to call for help before I luckily picked up the phone and my mom picked up (very unusual for her). To be honest I sometimes worry about dying alone in my house and rotting for weeks before my roommates investigate the smell. :frowning:

I would like some honest input, whether you have gone through similar lack of concern, or if you think I am being a whining entitled brat, anything is fine.

2

Let her go, dear. She is putting up red flags all over the place, it’s your job to see. I know we all have wonderful dreams of our mothers. For some of us it’s just not meant to be.

What I always ask is - would you put up with this kind of behavior in a relationship you chose? If not, then why continue it?

You will have to work on not feeling the hurt when she puts it on. Just be grateful you are 26 and can start forming some healthy relationships.

3

No, but you do seem to have some unreasonable expectations in that you seem to think there’s some chance she’ll suddenly, after 26 years, have a road-to-Damascus conversion to an involved, loving parent. This is who she is, the relationship she is capable of having with you, and there is nothing at all you can do to change it.

4

Since she’s told you straight up what she’s willing to do, and it doesn’t include being your backup, you’re pissing into the wind expecting something different.

It doesn’t matter what’s “normal” for families. No one ever changed another person who didn’t want to change themselves.

BTW, not hearing from my parents for weeks at a time is kind of a dream of mine. So your desires, while far from unreasonable, are also not universally held. Again, it doesn’t matter what’s “normal.”

5

Definitely not. Unfortunately my little sister who I love dearly is only 11, or I would’ve long since not looked back. :frowning:

I remember the day I was having chills so bad I was shaking and I told my mom and she shrugged and went to do something else. My little sister was barely more than a baby and I heard her grunting climbing the stairs, and then she appeared at my bedroom door with a big blanket she dragged up to me, she was maybe 2. I promised I’d always be there for her that day. :slight_smile:

I realize she will never be who I want her to be, but I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility that she could call me, ever, to ask me how I’m doing. I wouldn’t call that road-to-Damascus.

The ironic thing is she told me a story of how she wanted to cry because a lawyer friend of her’s mother would come in every friday to clean up her office because of how proud of her she was, and how she longed for that type of relationship with her mother. I’m asking for very, very little in my opinion.

6

Mwahahaahhahaha… teehee… eh, eh, eh… teehee… now, where did we put that recent thread about “why is it always me who has to call my mother?”…

I don’t think parents owe a 26yo child anything that they don’t owe anybody else, and I do agree with your mother that you do need backup plans which don’t depend on someone who lives 2000 miles away. Even if she was the most loving mother ever, the logicstics of having as your backup someone who’s that far are horrible. And sorry, but not only are perfect family relationships uncommon, you two will never have one. How long will it take you to accept that, I have no idea, but the sooner you can learn to do it, the better the actual relationship will be.

7

Your mother sounds like a bad mother. The other questions you’re asking are difficult to answer, because there’s a whole range of acceptable behaviours. My thoughts mirror yours: a parent owes their adult child nothing, but typically they give them love and occasional minor material support, and are there as an emergency backup. Only if the adult child abuses that relationship is the minor material support withdrawn, and only a real fuckup loses the emergency backup (looking at you, Cousin B.).

Your mother is within her legal rights to behave as she is behaving. Probably morally as well. She owes you nothing, but on the other hand returning a phone call isn’t the same as giving her last kidney.

That said, the other advice upthread is spot-on. You can never have the mother you deserve. That’s a tragedy. You don’t have to accept this woman as a poor substitute, though. You can cut her out of your life completely, or you can limit contact to your terms. What you can’t do is change her, and wanting her to change, while reasonable, is like wanting to be seven feet tall: kind of a waste of time. Some people are, but you can’t be, and your time is better spent working on what you can change.

A final thought: she is manipulating you with this. As long as you want her to change, she has power over you. You’ll keep trying to fall in line with her expectations in order to please her so that she’ll be a good mother, and on her end all she has to do is be the same. You can’t win this game. Don’t play.

ETA: Regarding your sister: Make sure she knows how to contact you, because she’ll need you growing up with that kind of mother.

8

I’m very sorry to hear you are going through this with your mother. It seems to me that she has no interest in being your parent, or your friend, or your caregiver. In fact, it seems to me she wants no relationship with you at all. It sounds very harsh but it is true. I am 54 years old and all my life have wanted a relationship with 2 of my siblings. Years and thousands of dollars of therapy later, I have realized that not only do they not want a relationship with me, they are incapable of a relationship with me. Please don’t spend years like I did looking for something that isn’t there. I suggest finding a good therapist and working with her to understand and accept who your mother is and what your mother is like. It will help you enormously.

9

Regardless of your relationship with someone, please consider calling 911 first if you’re in a serious medical situation. If you time it wrong you may not contact anyone and then pass out before you can make another call, or you may summon help from someone who shows up and is unequipped to deal with the situation properly. (We had that happen with my father-in-law, who had both gout in his feet and pneumonia, but called my husband rather than an ambulance when he got to the “almost too weak to move” state. It was hell trying to get him into our car, and we nearly gave up and called an ambulance anyway.)

That being said, I agree with those who’ve said your mother is sending you a clear, unambiguous message, and you should actually - in a rather sad fashion - be glad for that. She is not being passive-aggressive, promising things she doesn’t follow through on. She doesn’t appear to be blaming you. She didn’t want to be a mother; she probably shouldn’t have been one, but she was, and sadly you are the one hurting from that aftermath.

In this case, it really isn’t you, it’s her. You can’t do something to fix the situation and make things all better.

If you haven’t already, try to find ways you can communicate directly with your sister. Texting, E-mail, Facebook (when she’s old enough for an account), etc. Your sister loves you, and you need to have a way to communicate with her that isn’t controlled/interfered with by your mom. But don’t bad-mouth your mom to her. I’d treat it more like a divorce situation - express love for sis, be neutral about your mom, look out for sis’s welfare.

10

I’ve had some therapy as a teenager and it did help a lot. They mainly focused on making me aware of the dangers of continuing the cycle, and not allowing my issues with my mom affect how I treat women in general.

Ever since I was a teenager I was pretty much determined in life that I refuse to be like my disfunctional family and I want to be an awesome dad and husband, pretty much using my family as a model for what NOT to do. :stuck_out_tongue:

I’m sorry to hear about your relationship with your siblings, but it’s more important to spend your efforts with people who actually care about you than wasting effort and going through the pains of trying to force your family to feel the same way you do for sure.

I still love my mom very much, what I don’t love is how she treats me… I almost snatched a guy out of his car for cursing at my mom for a poor parking job once (we were walking together but my mom and I don’t look related, so I guess he didn’t realize we were together… he’s lucky his honda had JUST ENOUGH oomph to escape my clutches. :stuck_out_tongue: )

To be fair to my mom, she was awful with me pretty much the entire way through, but she does much better with my sister from what I can observe. Affectionate, actually cares what is going on with her etc. The one concern I have is that my sister has told me she does one of my mom’s signature moves: selective memory where she conveniently “forgets” bad things she has done and tries to convince you you made up something she did. She repeated lies and denied things happened to me growing up so often, that I have literally questioned my own sanity.

You misread. She is my ONLY family who IS NOT 2000 miles away.

11

I know now, but I had enough trouble paying my emergency room visit with MY insurance through work at my insured hospital, I’d probably STILL be paying a 911 call if I had an ambulance+took me to a hospital I didn’t have coverage at because I was too out of it to say “grouphealth”. I would never let myself get that fargone again I hope.

That’s exactly how I handle it right now. I plan to write my sister a LONG email or letter when she turns 18 so she understands where I am coming from, but the last thing I would do is badmouth her parents (my mom and stepdad) to her, that will only make her choose between them and me, and I would lose hands down.

One time we were at the grocery store and she said I should get my mom some drinks she likes, and I said “She can get her own drinks”, and my sister said “If you got her some drinks, maybe she would like you”, kids are pretty perceptive. I just said “That probably wouldn’t work” and left it at that.

My hope is that I get a closer relationship with my sister when she can understand how differently I was treated growing up, and when I don’t need to go through my mom to spend time with her.

12

I wouldn’t say your mom is a good mom now or ever. I am kinda surprised that you haven’t figured out by now that people don’t change, though. You cannot depend on her. She has no legal obligation to provide you with anything anymore, so you have to find a way to cope with it.

I’m really sorry your mom didn’t bond with you. She sounds like a total [expletive deleted] who didn’t want anything to do with you, then or now. Get more therapy. She is not going to become a better mom to you, ever. The reason she treats your sister better could be as simple as she just doesn’t like males, at all. But it really doesn’t matter why; you’re wasting your time trying to get her to be a better mom to you.

Do what I did after being raised by shitty parents: don’t associate with them anymore. Replace them with friends or activities or whatever. Do not expect old people to change, it will never happen. You might as well pretend she doesn’t exist.

13

It’s not because she doesn’t like males, in fact she gets along better with men than women. It’s that I was raised mostly until 6 by my grandmother and have a close relationship with her, and since they have an even worse relationship than we do, it is cardinal sin because apparently by bonding with my grandma who raised me while she was in law school, I did something unforgiveable.

This will sound utterly retarded (and oh, it is) but my grandma is oldschool and thought it was “low class” to breastfeed, so she “wouldn’t allow” my mother to breastfeed me (by some mysterious mechanism), so I was a bottle baby…and that is her excuse for why she never bonded with me and can’t treat me affectionately.

14

You’re still having unrealistic expectations of her, and that is leading to disappointment and frustration for you. What you can realistically expect from your mother is more of the same of what you’ve gotten for 26 years.

What makes a good mother to a 26 year old is everything you’ve said; that she calls and is interested in your life, that she is there for you, that she helps you out if you need it (occasionally - 26 is old enough to be handling most things on your own, but things do happen). Your mother doesn’t do these things, she isn’t likely to start, and she doesn’t sound like a very good mother at all.

15

Unforgivable is blaming a child for the actions of an adult. Speculation: she entered law school thinking she could be the perfect mother and a perfect law student, but found it impossible. Law school is hard, and parenthood is hard. When you didn’t adjust your infant / early childhood needs to accomadate her, she turned her guilt into resentment and dislike, exacerbated by her feelings for her mother. Guess what? Not your problem. The only way to stop paying for her crimes is to stop caring. Easier said than done, but 26 years later I don’t think you can repair that kind of damage. I’m sorry.

16

You said that you were not a pampered brat asking for more and more.

But you also say that a good parent won’t stop helping you.

You’re 26, isn’t that time you start repaying your parents for what they did for for you? ( I assume she looked after you as a youth)

Just how long do you expect to be breast fed? You are not a boy anymore, seriously dude unless I have misread this you are having a hard time standing on your own two feet. ( from your mother to your grandmother? Really?)

Give her a break and not only have a back up plan but have a prime motivator plan that works as an initial plan for you.

17

Hey, I’m also 26 and don’t have much of a relationship with my mom. No, it’s not normal for parents not to give a shit about their adult children; most care so very much they are an irritation to their grown kids, always wanting to spend more time together and get more phone calls, etc.

I consider myself lucky in that I stopped caring that my mom and I don’t like each other when I was very young. I do not love her. Yeah, it would be great if if I had had a supportive mom who liked parenting and we were best friends as adults; but do I want to be MY mom’s best friend? Hell no, we have nothing in common and a ton of baggage. And since she moved states away when I was 19, there’s no way to have the kind of limited contact I could handle, say going over for dinner every few months. I’m just happy she has no power over my life any more. We don’t really communicate or visit but are polite when we do have contact, and I’m content with the situation.

So echoing what other posters have said; while it is certainly crappy that you don’t have a loving, supportive mom it will be healthiest for you to accept that and move on with your life rather than being eternally disappointed when she continues to act the same way towards you. If you still love her I guess this is much harder for you than it was for me.

Ignore her and focus on becoming closer with your sister.

I’ve worked hard on building good relationships with other people in my life, and now 8 years after I left my mom’s house I can truthfully say that I have at least 5 people (unrelated by blood) who would ‘have my back’ emotionally, financially, if I ever needed a place to go or someone to take care of my pets, etc. You CAN have the sort of relationship you crave from your mom, just not from her. Sounds like your grandma is more of a mom than your actual mom will ever be; is she still around? Do you have close friends?

18

I’m really confused by your post, pare:

She started looking out for me at 6-7, kicked me out first at 14 to live with grandma 2 years because I didn’t fit in the new life she was starting (she has since admitted this was a mistake) then at 18 and 19. So she took care of me a grand total of 10 years, much less than a typical parent does, and the quality of THOSE ten years was fairly shit. I don’t really feel indebted to her, she is below average, and I’m not asian so I wasn’t raised to expect to “pay back” my parents like a lot of my asian friends feel, much less a shitty parent.

I’m confused, what are you talking about?

What do you mean? I haven’t seen my grandmother since 2005, and I haven’t lived with my mom since 2006. I think you are misreading something but I can’t figure out what you are saying.

A break from what? I haven’t seen the woman in 4 months right now. And before that I saw her on average once every 2 months or so before this latest blow out. I’m reading you like you think I am constantly hitting her up for $20 or something like a deadbeat bum of a son, I work fulltime and pay for everything on my own. It’s a modest lifestyle but I don’t depend on anyone for my day-to-day life whatsoever.

It would be nice to have friends that I was that tight with, the one guy I could count on to help me with a jam moved to TX two years ago, the remaining people are just buddies to be honest. I live self-sufficiently but have no safety net because I have no family here except my mom who has made it clear she doesn’t want me to call her if I have an emergency and need help…and I think it sucks, thus the thread which I have no problem admitting is full of self pity.

19

My mother wasn’t a horrible mother at all when I was a child but she definitely wasn’t the mother I’d have chosen as an adult. As a new mother, when all the other new mothers were calling their Mums for advice/assistance/babysitting, I had no one.

Sucks, but there it is. Self-reliance is what you need and I agree with the posters who say your mother won’t change, regardless of your wishes, so it’s best to give up wishin’ and hopin’ that she will.

20

Here’s the thing, by 26yrs it’s time you stopped looking to your Mom for what you’re seeking. Your past explains your need to seek it, and from her.

(She knows it’s wrong, that she doesn’t have it to give. She’s trying her level best to make you see, what you seem blind to.)

Once you reach adulthood you should begin to recognize, whenever you are seeking someone’s approval, you’re almost always, looking in the wrong place. As an adult the only approval you need ever seek is your own. And whenever you’re applying for it elsewhere, you’re actually really only seeking your own approval, dressed up as something else.

Yes, you see all around you participatory parents who remain connected and active in their children’s lives.

But you also see a ton of people who’s live spin out of control into sick codependent dances, seeking approval or recognition from those who should be offering it up without prompting, but, sadly, don’t have it to give. Your Mom has shown you ‘who she really is’ repeatedly. She’s not going to change into what you want her to be. All you have the power to change is your attitude to that fact. She doesn’t want to get your back, help you out of a pinch with cashflow, or anything else that would, as she well knows, go a long way to making you ‘feel’ a relationship she cannot hope to support.

Your should do exactly as your Mom is telling you and make yourself more independent. The needs you are trying to fill, can be filled with other relationships and support systems. You should seek that out. People who lose their parents in accidents, divorce, estrangement, manage to get by somehow. This is how. It’s not all about the tribe you were given. Sometimes it’s more about the tribe you make.

It’s not an easy journey, I wish you nothing but good luck!