on being a mom

[badger]

thank you everyone for your input! This is going to be a long post...

I have just come back from a 4 day trip to Las Vegas with my mother.

Just this morning at the airport we were having a conversation about the "you'll regret not having kids later when you're alone and nobody's there to care for you". I also reminded her that I wasn't going to pop a kid just so I can have someone to care for me when I'm old.

She said that's not what she meant; now that she's lost both her parents and then last month her older brother, she now only has her younger brother and she said that's a lonely feeling. Lonelier made still if she didn't have me or my brother (and his kids).

Just because you have a child doesn't guarantee that child will be in your life later on. S/he could move away to another country, you may not end up being close, etc.

I also suspect that my mother should not have had children. She was exceptionally hard on us, and had very high expectations that were extremely difficult to live up to. She often made me feel bad when I didn't get the grades she wanted me to, and she often compared me to my brother or my peers "why can't you be more like your brother/friend"?

I also know that if I do have children, then I know what NOT to do to them. I certainly won't play the "why can't you be more like..." game, and I will hug them every single day. I can't remember the last time I touched my mother, let alone hugged her (it goes both ways, we're just not a touchy-feely family).

[Tuckervill]

It's not too late to hug your mother!

We weren't demonstrative when I was a kid, either. But my parents got divorced at about the same time I became a mom, and I just decided I would hug and kiss my mother and father more and tell them I loved them, and I wanted my child to have that kind of life. It started a cascade of affection that is still tumbling to this day.

Karen

[shootingstar]

Just because you have a child doesn't guarantee that child will be in your life later on. S/he could move away to another country, you may not end up being close, etc.

I also suspect that my mother should not have had children. She was exceptionally hard on us, and had very high expectations that were extremely difficult to live up to. She often made me feel bad when I didn't get the grades she wanted me to, and she often compared me to my brother or my peers "why can't you be more like your brother/friend"?

I also know that if I do have children, then I know what NOT to do to them. I certainly won't play the "why can't you be more like..." game, and I will hug them every single day. I can't remember the last time I touched my mother, let alone hugged her (it goes both ways, we're just not a touchy-feely family).

Doubtful that my mother ever dreamt that she and her children ...can barely speak the same language anymore now. If there is something complex she expresses in Chinese from her heart...we can't understand her. And vice versa. Linguistic barriers is a common problem across cross-cultural generations..and it's no joke when things get tough between parent and child. It can be a serious barrier to harmonious family communication.

Somehow becoming a parent...is probably best..not to know in advance, the risk, of the worst that lies ahead to climb over that mtn. to get to greater rewards.

I have to credit my sisters who have children, that they each consciously adopted a different style of child discipline and showing non-verbally love for their children compared to our parents.

Badger did you ever read book/see movie, "The Joy Luck Club"? Parts abit sappy, but so true for some mother-daughter relationships.

[badger]

god, the Joy Luck Club was one of the most difficult films I ever watched (or read). It was so painfully familiar to me.

The cultural differences definitely played a huge part in the difficulties we had and still have. My mother's Japanese; I was born there and moved to Canada when I was 10 (my dad, incidentally is from Europe so Canada was foreign to all of us). So when I adopted the Canadian lifestyle and mentality, the years through my teens were exceptionally difficult. Good girls in Japan don't do half the things I did, so it was really hard trying to grow up in my household.

I left home at 20, which wasn't soon enough. My parents left for Japan again at that point, and we essentially became strangers. They moved back to Canada 3 years ago, and we have a tentative relationship that can easily get unbalanced if I spend too much time with my mother. I went to Las Vegas with her just this week and it was at times very trying.

We're not close at all, and that's tough but we manage the best we can. So yeah, the Joy Luck Club hits way too close to home.