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This pain is familiar to many since childhood: why do parents love their brother or sister more? Often we continue to suffer even as adults. How to be?
“For a long time I did not understand why my mother does not love me like a brother. I felt it from the moment he was born, he is nine years younger than me, and all this time I hated him and blamed him for all my troubles, ”recalls 24-year-old Arseniy. – And recently I asked my mother, what was wrong?
It turned out that I always reminded her of my father, with whom they parted very painfully, and now I look like him at the same age. My stepfather treated me well, but this did not replace the attention of my mother. I can’t forgive her for not loving me and not even hiding it.”
As children, we worry about not being loved as we would like, and we believe that our own shortcomings are to blame, because we consider our parents to be perfect. Only as adults and having learned to analyze our own and other people’s actions and feelings, we (sometimes) understand that the reasons for this or that attitude may lie outside our personality.
Children of different times
“There is a generally accepted opinion that every mother should love her children, and equally strongly, but in practice it often happens differently,” says Anna Mochalina, a psychotherapist working in the modality of transactional analysis.
– For example, a child is born to a couple of students: both or one have to sacrifice their dreams of graduate school, a career. This affects the attitude towards the child: on a conscious level, parents love him, but unconsciously consider him the cause of frustration. And later another child is born, whom they wanted, planned. By that time, marriage had already passed normative crises, settled down, and this pregnancy and parenthood are perceived in a completely different way. Father and mother have become more experienced, they are ready to correct past mistakes.
And sometimes a mother really cannot love: she simply does not have the necessary hormones. “Oxytocin contracts the muscles of the uterus during childbirth, and when the baby suckles, it is also responsible for attachment and helps to establish a psychological connection between mother and baby,” explains Anna Mochalina.
– If there are any problems in genetics and there are not enough “oxytocin genes” in the mother’s body, the child does not receive maternal care and tenderness. And the lack of norepinephrine in a woman leads to a refusal to take care of offspring. But by the second and subsequent pregnancies, the hormonal background can change, and the woman will experience something that was not with the first child.
Babysitters reluctantly
In some families, when a new baby is born, parents require help from older children in caring for him. Some are even told, “You’re an adult now.” So it was with 42-year-old Natalya, who at her six-year-old mother appointed “big” and forced her to get up at night with her little sister, change diapers, bottle feed or give a pacifier, because her mother has to work tomorrow.
“Now I understand that it was difficult for her alone with us,” says Natalia, “but it seemed to me that my life was over. I didn’t get enough sleep, I also had to go to school. And my mother reassured: after school you will sleep off. I got up at night for the rest of my life and now I don’t want my children.”
For an older child, this means: childhood is over, they no longer love him. “In such families, especially those with many children, all family members are treated functionally,” explains Gestalt therapist Alexei Yezhkov. – One washes the dishes, the other cleans up, the third walks, the fourth helps his father fishing or in the garden, the girls sew and cook. There is little interest in what everyone feels, how they grow, what they dream about, what scares or inspires them.
“I got my daughter late”
Inessa, 64 years old
“I was 22 years old when my first son was born, and a year later my daughter. With two it is difficult, and my mother volunteered to take the girl to her for a week or two. Returning, the daughter was capricious, asking to go back. I was jealous of my own mother, but I could not refuse her help. Then another son was born, and I immersed myself in taking care of him while my grandmother nursed her granddaughter Maechka.
Our daughter didn’t like everything in our house, she didn’t help me, she quarreled with her brothers, she treated her father respectfully, but without warmth, I suspect, due to the fact that my mother did not approve of our marriage. Maya criticized how I cook, how I raise my sons, how I dress. I was furious and reproached myself that I could not be more affectionate with my daughter. At the age of 16, she announced that she was moving to her grandmother, and I, frankly, was glad.
Years passed, my mother died, my sons got married and left, Maya graduated from medical school, got married and gave birth. We spoke infrequently. Three years ago, my husband became seriously ill. I didn’t ask Maya for support, only professional advice. But she suddenly turned on, took care of the hospital for her father and called on me in the evenings.
Turns out she’s kind! Has it changed or am I missing something in it? My husband was operated on and is now healthy. And Maya has been with us ever since. We do not touch the past, we talk about children, about life. I am happy that, although late, I found a common language with my daughter and finally feel love for her.
Read the full story of Inessa here.
Everyone has their own truth
The order in which children are born affects their relationship with each other and with their parents. But this does not mean that the younger ones are always loved more. “My mother wanted to leave the family, but she became pregnant with me and stayed, although she was in love with another,” says 29-year-old Dina. – I found out about this a year ago and finally understood why I felt guilty in front of her, but did not know why, and was angry. It was different with my older sister.”
Children feel the difference in attitude, although adults sometimes understand that it’s not about the amount of love (less), but about the quality (differently). “Sometimes a client realizes that he was loved after all, and this discovery changes his life,” notes Alexei Yezhkov.
But in any case, there is such a thing as the truth of a child, Anna Mochalina is convinced: “I am on the side of the client and his feelings. If his inner child believes that he was not loved, then for him this is so. And many other feelings are connected with this: anger at parents, fear of being rejected, sadness that childhood will no longer be different. And then the client and I learn not to wait for loving parents to finally come to me, but to grow our own caring parent inside ourselves, which he did not have in reality.
Become different
Should we, adults, clarify relations with our parents if they are still alive? “If a mother or father is able to accept the fact that their child may have a different attitude towards childhood and that some of their actions brought a different result than they wanted, then relations with grown children change for the better. But this happens infrequently in my practice, ”explains Alexei Yezhkov.
And Anna Mochalina categorically objects to dumping on 70-80-year-old mom and dad dissatisfaction with what they were many years ago: “There are no those parents, they are just introjects inside the client. If he tries to talk to them without first working through his feelings, he risks being hurt again.”
But therapy changes something in us. We no longer react so painfully to the words of elderly mom and dad, we sit at the family table with brothers and sisters and do not snort like we are still 14 years old. We find the opportunity and resources to be different – warm, loving towards ourselves and our children, even if love and warmth were not enough in childhood.
“trying to understand my father”
Galina, 43 years old
“My father was 70 years old. He recognizes only home cooking, and I bought food for a week and cooked for three days. He lives alone, but next to me, and, having finished, I went to my room to change. She returned – the guests at the table eat and drink, and the father says: “Alik arrived with his family, the children were hungry, we decided not to wait for you.”
Alik is my brother, 11 years older than me. He was always the star of the family: a candidate of science, a skier, a bard … And my dad commented on my successes: “So you will soon catch up with Alik.” And I was pleased!
But that day, I suddenly clearly saw that I was climbing out of my skin to please my dad, whom I adore all my life, but only he adores his son, who comes to him once a year for his birthday. And I’m always in second place in everything, my dad spoils even my children less than my nephews. Such an insult took me, I almost slammed the door, but do not spoil the anniversary …
Now I go to the psychologist. I visited the psychodrama in the role of a father, I felt how he wanted a son, how scared he was when he was sick. She comforted her offended inner girl. I figured out what it would be like if I were a beloved daughter, and took it into my life. Dad will not change, and I do not expect. I began to understand him better. But it’s hard to forgive.”