You have grown up a long time ago and live separately, but every time after talking with your mother you feel devastated, furious, guilty, desperate … Is it possible to reduce the severity of the reaction? Analyze at what point in a conversation with your mother you became a child again, journalist Nina Zvereva suggests in the new book “You and Your Mother”. On November 29, Mother’s Day, she gives some useful life hacks for more relaxed communication.
You are an adult, you have your own value system, your own ideas about good and evil — and, of course, when to wear a hat.
But then you come to visit your mother, and she, not meaning anything bad, says: “Why don’t you wear a hat? It’s minus three outside, you’ll freeze!” And you flare up, begin to make excuses, are indignant that you are no longer a child in order to control you … that is, you behave exactly like a child.
Your quarrels move in a circle — from year to year. What to do? Rely on your own adulthood, just laugh: «Mom, there are only two people who always see me as a minor: you and the cashier at the supermarket when I buy a bottle of wine.» Or put on a hat and immediately take it off on the street!
Do not respond to the reproach, but change the subject, and do it warmly, without malice. Or do what you are asked! With smile! We cannot change another person, but we can always change ourselves or our attitude to a situation.
There is one very simple method. Take paper and pen (this is important — paper and pen!) and write the essence of your claim. For example: «My mother makes me feel guilty easily.»
The next step is to write down how you feel about it. Just add a second sentence to the first phrase. For example: “My mother makes me feel guilty easily. I’m angry because I can never prove myself right.»
And the third step is to remove mom from this formula! Delete it like it’s not there. It will turn out: «I easily fall into a sense of guilt and can never prove my case.» Fine! You can already work with this formulation!
We remember that we cannot change our mother, but we can change ourselves! You can figure out why you are overcome by guilt, why you do not know how to argue and clearly express your thoughts. From the “mother-child” plane, your relationship should move to the “adult-adult” plane, and when the mother becomes an elderly woman, to the “adult-child” area (only you will change places).
Perhaps mom will resist, but your task is to calmly bend your line. Change communication gradually. You can’t be an obedient daughter today, and tomorrow you can show your mom a monster who doesn’t answer calls, doesn’t want to come to visit and forgets about the parent’s birthday.
On the way to an independent adult life, an unpleasant discovery may await you: quite often, people, having begun separation, suddenly discover that they have not become adults, that they still depend on parental money. Or send their own children to their grandmother at every opportunity. Or they rush to their mother to cry in a vest if the world has caused the slightest offense.
I know a beautiful, elegant married woman who every week brings dirty clothes (hers and her husband’s) to her mother for washing! Such people are stuck in their own adolescence, they demand that their parents consider them adults, but they themselves have not become adults.
Such infantilism was characteristic of many people who grew up in the USSR. The environment itself opposed the growing up of the young: the newlyweds could not get their own apartment to live separately, their salaries were barely enough to make ends meet, they could not hire nannies for their children … Close relationships with parents — I would say, painful — symbiotic relationship — encouraged by society.
If mom didn’t manage to grow up, it’s her misfortune. If you couldn’t grow up, it’s your fault
I am closer to another position, common today in Europe. Parents and adult children build friendship with each other only if this friendship is convenient for both of them. If not, well, no big deal. Communication becomes rather brief and formal.
… There are happy families where adult children and adult parents really need close communication, they cannot live without it. This means that the right changes have taken place on both sides. That is, the mother accepts her children as independent adults with whom she is interested in communicating. And she tries to keep up with the times so that her children and grandchildren are always interested in her.
And the children, in turn, leave their mother the right to become the best adult friend who knows how to listen, but does not climb with advice, lectures or sighs — her reaction is always honest.
If mom didn’t manage to grow up, it’s her misfortune. If you couldn’t grow up, that’s your fault. Remember that a mother, depending on her state of health, age, activity, is either an adult mother or a child mother.
In the first case, communicate on an equal footing. How close depends on how close you are (pardon the pun). But if the mother is already aging (this can happen after fifty or even earlier!), You must adhere to the scheme: I am an adult, and my mother is a child.
How do we deal with a child when we do not want to quarrel with him?
1. We switch attention. This technique works very well with older people. After listening to my mother’s sobs and claims, you can calmly ask her: “How does Aunt Shura feel?” And the mother-child will easily enter into a new conversation, forgetting what she just said.
2. We offer a new activity. A common problem: even after retirement, parents feel empowered, but do not know where to apply them. They began to live longer, medicine does not stand still. But what to do? So they run to their children-grandchildren to waste energy — but where else? It is very useful to show the older generation the possibilities of the Internet, to teach them how to use social networks. On the same Internet, you can find sections for the elderly and projects where adult volunteers are needed.
3. We give a toy. For parents, this can be a country house, albeit a modest one, but with a garden. They want to see the fruits of their labor, and they love the fresh air! You can send them every year to a sanatorium — parents, as a rule, love and appreciate it.
4. We say nice words. This should never be forgotten! In response to any attempt to quarrel, you can say: “I love you very much, mom!” And then calmly add: “But remember yourself at my age. You were independent, so I want the same!”
5. We ask for forgiveness. Why not? It is quite possible that the mother’s resentment is not unfounded and we are really to blame. They promised to call, they didn’t. Forgot to do something important. Hit with a sharp remark. The ability to consciously ask for forgiveness and do it sincerely is a very important part of adult behavior.
Nina Zvereva’s book «You and your mother. A book on how to get things right” was published by Clever in 2020.