Author’s name has been withheld at her request.
I was molested when I was almost six. He was a teenager from church babysitting me for the first and only time. I told my mom, who confronted his parents. But as a few days went by and I refused to talk about the situation again, my mom worried she had asked leading questions that caused me to embellish the story.
So one night, I found myself in this young man’s living room with my parents, facing my abuser, and was told to apologize. I sobbed. I was embarrassed and didn’t want to. Eventually someone—I remember it being his father—told me to hurry up because they had to go somewhere. I wasn’t yet six years old.
Thus began more than thirty years of struggles. I could write any number of articles stemming from this incident, but today I want to focus on my relationship with my mother.
My Relationship with My Mom
As an adult, I’ve kept my mom at arm’s length, while she’s tried desperately to pull me closer. It’s as if there is something physically preventing me being close to her. For a long time, I thought I was too proud to be vulnerable with my mom. Recently I’ve been seeing a counselor again, regarding the sexual abuse. My therapist pointed out that at age six I went to my mom expecting her to fix the situation. Instead I was led into another trauma. In short, my mom betrayed my trust, thus eroding the “safe harbor” boundary in our relationship.
My therapist explained that our bodies “remember” traumatic experiences and can have various physical responses. So perhaps betrayal of trust is the root reason why I’m unable to let my mom in. Reflecting on my life, I see a pattern: when I allow my mom to get close, she takes things to an inappropriate level and crosses our parent-child boundaries.
For example, as a high school senior, I had a crush on the football player. One day, I was feeling particularly rash and asked him to the homecoming dance. That led to an overblown high school drama that really embarrassed me. Then my mom, in an effort to help me “get the guy,” sought out and befriended the football player’s mother, despite my loud protests. I was deeply humiliated. My mother showed me she didn’t respect my feelings, further trampling our relationship boundaries. Today, exactly twenty years later, I make a conscious effort to keep that memory out of my mind because those feelings are still hard to handle.
My Mom’s Relationship with Her Mom
My mom was raised by an abusive mother. She has a cigarette burn on her arm and a scar on her face from a cup thrown at her. “If you break this soap, I’ll break you,” my grandmother told my toddler mother, referring to a remnant of bar soap during bath time.
In high school, my mom was told not to come home if she didn’t make the cheerleading squad. She was the pudgy daughter of a former beauty queen. She grew up knowing she was a disappointment, an annoyance, and an embarrassment to her mother.
Now, it’s important to note my grandmother was raised by a single mother with special needs and an overbearing grandmother. Who can say how my grandmother’s upbringing affected her mothering?
When the Best Intentions Aren’t Enough
It’s no surprise my mom wants to be close to her children. Her actions come from wanting the loving relationship with her children that she didn’t have with her own mother. I applaud those desires. But those desires led to smothering and living vicariously through her children. Sometimes best intentions can go astray, especially when someone is suffering—alone—the effects of abuse.
My Relationship with My Daughter
Every person and every relationship has age-appropriate boundaries and feelings that should be respected. My daughter is only two years old, but I want to respect her boundaries as we develop our relationship. Here are a few things I’m working on and suggestions I offer to you:
- Seek help for yourself: My childhood trauma resulted in some unhealthy thought processes that I’m not equipped to alter alone. So I’m seeking counseling, in part, to change those thought processes in order to have a strong relationship with my daughter.
- Know when to protect and when to prepare: While I should protect my daughter from some things (apologizing to an abuser, for example), I’m realizing that I can’t protect her from everything (such as sexualized images of women). I can, however, do my best to prepare her for life’s realities. So I’m learning and studying ways to do that.
- Learn when to hold and when to release: I once heard relationships compared to a wet bar of soap: If you squeeze the bar, it will slip out of your hands. If you place it in your upturned palm, it will rest there. I’m trying to learn when to hold my daughter tightly and when to let her go.
- Determine when to help and when to stay out: Some problems, such as sexual abuse, are too big for a child to handle. Other problems, like a high school crush, are best left for the child to handle. The Power of Moms Radio episode “Kids Can Work Things Out” has a great discussion on this topic.
Now, I’m not naïve enough to think respecting boundaries is the only answer to fostering a healthy mother-daughter relationship. But I do hope that as I’m deliberate in this and other areas of mothering, my daughter and I can develop a strong, loving relationship.
As for me and my mom, the perspective and experience of life can be clarifying. My mom was 29 when I was molested, and she has lived for 30 years with guilt for how she handled the situation. She says that if she could go back, she would seek help from authorities and counseling. She also openly admits that she inappropriately crossed boundaries during my teenage years.
These two acknowledgements are bringing peace to our trampled relationship. I am no longer angry with my mom. I have completely forgiven her. And for the first time in my adult life, I have hope that our relationship can become whole.
QUESTION: How do you respect boundaries in the relationships in your life?
CHALLENGE: Ponder ways that you can set, strengthen, and respect the boundaries in your parent-child relationships.
Edited by Megan Roxas and Sarah Monson.
Image from Shutterstock; graphics by Julie Finlayson.
Very powerful writing. Thank you for your honesty and transparency. As the parent of a 4 y/o I too can see how I already need to respect and honor his boundaries and help him determine where to establish some of those limits.
Thank you for this post!
Thank you for your courage in sharing this with us. My grandmother was raised in a convent, my mother by a very strict, unloving woman, and I by a critical mother who never showed love until I was an adult. She and I have gotten very close in the past 25 years, but now I am losing her to Alzheimer’s. I constantly fear that I’m not raising my daughter “right,” especially as she is now a teen.
Thank you for sharing this!! I appreciate the courage and strength to write this and this helps me remember how valuable these growing relationships are with our children. So glad you are feeling peace and thankful you would share.
Thank you for sharing the wisdom youve gathered from trauma. This has made me refocus and evaluate how i am doing as a mother -being more deliberate is always a good thing. I admire your courage in trying to heal your relationship with your mother and in trying to be better for your daughter. The world needs more women like you.