I am struggling with my relationship with my mother. I am a single mum and, because of a complicated set of circumstances, live with her and my son, who is at primary school. He is intelligent but temperamental. His behaviour at school is exemplary; at home he can be extremely difficult.
Therein lies the problem. My mum refuses to participate in anything I set up to try to deal with my son’s behaviour, and my response to it. She simply says she doesn’t think it will work and therefore won’t participate. However, if I ask her to suggest something we could try, she cannot come up with anything.
At the same time, she drip-feeds me with doubts and anxieties about my parenting. Another problem is that Mum doesn’t accept that, in the absence of a father in my son’s life, she is in effect the other parent in the house. She absolves herself of any responsibility to help out in child-raising, while at the same time merrily regaling me with tales of her own allegedly perfect experience of raising me and my brother.
My anger boils over when we are trying to discuss my son’s behaviour and what we can do to help him (and each other) deal with it. I’m a horrible person then. I go into a rage. In our last big argument, she lashed out at me. She never apologised for hitting me, and I get the feeling that she believes that it was my fault, that I provoked her and she was in no way culpable.
That same day, I decided to go to counselling. Luckily, I got a quick appointment and have been to a couple of sessions. This is going some way to helping. But I feel that while I am actively trying to heal the situation, my mother is breezing along as if it were nothing to do with her whatsoever, refusing to participate with any systems I put in place for my son, and blankly refusing to acknowledge any parental role in the house.
I feel like I’m reaching a breaking point. Sometimes I just want to move out and live my own life independent of Mum, but this would cause a major upheaval for all of us. But should I just bite the bullet and do it, to rescue my relationship with my mum, whom I had a very friendly and easygoing relationship with before living with her?
In a word, yes. You need to move out.
I think there’s nothing like becoming a parent to make you become simultaneously more judgmental and more appreciative of your own parents. There seems to be a fair amount of the former with you. I think it’s going to be very difficult for you to set some boundaries and be yourself with your current living situation. I think you’re incorrect to say your mother is the other parent in the house to your son – she’s not. That’s not her role. But it is completely unacceptable for her to hit you.
Alison Roy, an adolescent and child psychotherapist (childpsychotherapy.org.uk), picked up on something immediately: “I think you are missing the sense of being in a couple. I’m intrigued that you want your mother to also parent [your son].”
I felt you were confused if you wanted your mother to mother you, or father your son. And I was also struck how you are all playing dual roles every day – that must be really hard work. You are trying to be a mother/daughter; your mother a mother/grandmother (and you think she should also have another role, as parent to your son); and your son is being a son/grandson.
As to your son, it’s entirely the right way round that he should behave well at school and let off steam at home. It’s far more worrying when it’s the other way around. But you didn’t go into details about how your son is difficult. The main thrust of the letter was very much about you and your mum and yet again I’m left wondering if your son is acting as a lightning rod in your family home – manifesting what is going on around him. Has his behaviour changed since you all moved in?
Roy wondered about your “easy teens”, which you mentioned in your longer letter. “It’s not meant to be easy being a teen. Where did that rebellion go? Is some of it happening now, a bit late?” It’s great you are having therapy, but Roy also wondered if you are afraid of anger: “My worry is that you have a son who seems very expressive and [there are] two women [you and your mum] who can’t seem to handle conflict.”
It’s really important that your son and you learn to manage emotions, that you can express healthy emotions and for that to be OK.
“We all need,” continues Roy, “to be able to manage the muscle of disagreement in our relationships, and we need to be able to do that without fear of destroying the other person. Perhaps you have reached a healthy point of needing to separate from your mum and manage how to have confrontations and survive.”
I think “separating” is a key word. You can’t change your mother, but you can change your domestic setup. You’ve told me in your longer letter that your living situation is complicated, but things are already difficult at home, every day; this is not healthy for any of you. Better to face the big upheaval once than this drip-drip erosion of family life. Not least, what happens when you meet someone else? If things are complicated now …
Your problems solved
Contact Annalisa Barbieri, The Guardian, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU or email annalisa.barbieri@mac.com. Annalisa regrets she cannot enter into personal correspondence
Follow Annalisa on Twitter @AnnalisaB
