A rare mother admits that one of the children is deprived of love. To one it is cold, and all attention goes to another. However, only awareness of what is happening can help build relationships in the family in a new way.
“A woman can raise two children, while she loves the boy, but she doesn’t seem to notice the girl,” says psychotherapist Veronika Stepanova. — The son abandons his studies, starts smoking and drinking early, becomes indifferent to social achievements and to the mother herself. The daughter, competing for maternal love, on the contrary, is obedient, graduates from school and university with honors, and builds a brilliant career. And yet the mother continues to treat with tenderness exclusively her son, whom she disfigured with blind love. Why? There may be several reasons.
Opposite sex
Sometimes it is with the boys that the mother develops a deeper connection, due to what Carl Jung described as the Oedipus complex. The unconscious attraction of the child to the parent of the opposite sex, in turn, can form a special emotional attachment to him from the mother or father.
early motherhood
A mother may unconsciously place blame on early children: you stole my youth, beauty, freedom. I was forced to get married and now I can not escape from this relationship. Often a woman literally flees from a child, moves to another city and gives her grandmother upbringing. And a poorly formed maternal instinct is exacerbated by a break with the baby.
Mirror yourself
In a child, you can see those qualities that we do not like, first of all, in ourselves. Often these are traits that our mother or father did not accept in us.
Genetics
A woman is faced with an independent personality, and not just a copy of herself. Sometimes she feels that this little person is not close to her at all. He may remind her of a family member with whom she has a bad relationship: mother, father, mother-in-law. And only the fact that this is her child forces her to treat the child with patience.
Hyphenation
You can feel anger towards your husband, but at the same time forbid yourself to express it. Then the focus shifts to one of the children. The woman takes out her irritation on the child, although in fact she protests against the relationship with his father.
Specialist commentary
Natalia Artsybasheva, gestalt therapist
The unconscious deprivation of love of one of the children leads to grave consequences in several generations. For example, an adult woman, when exchanging a family apartment, gives a share to her brother, simply because «he needs it» and «I’m used to doing it that way.» And only then does she realize that she has this way of behavior from her mother, who at one time gave part of the housing to her sister. Because she was an unloved child and she was taught to give everything to her sibling.
In their practice, psychologists often encounter similar stories. If you are ready to stop and think, then you have a chance to interrupt this negative process. The first thing to do is to deal with anger in any possible way, get out of the emotional flow and look at the situation from the outside. It is important to remember that the child is defenseless, vulnerable, dependent on you and has little life experience. He cannot specifically “bring you up”, “do it out of spite”. The responsibility for the situation lies with you.
We are all imperfect and sometimes we fail.
However, it is not uncommon for a parental position to be distorted when a mother absolutely sincerely blames her daughter: “I spent my entire pregnancy from the first days hugging the toilet. That’s how you immediately disliked me! Feelings did not appear by chance: a small suffering child speaks in you too, and you, most likely, also need help. But you can get this help, being in the role of a client of a psychologist. And in the role of a parent, you are an adult and are responsible both for your own child and for your inner suffering child.
It is important to admit that you are not coping, but at the same time not to fall into a state of parental shame and a sense of powerlessness. We are all imperfect and sometimes we fail. If you agree with this, then you can ask for help and support, look for a way out. If you fall into a state of shame, then you become isolated in difficult experiences, you are left alone with a sense of inadequacy and become incapable of contact with the child. To prevent this from happening, you need to be able to support yourself, look not for the guilty, but for a way out of the situation. If you use the right of the strong, then in the future your child will become stronger than you, and you will reap what you have sown. It is important to make a conscious choice right now.