How does a bad mother effect a person when they reach adulthood ?

egalitarian-flan · 2024-08-27T23:34:16+00:00

I consider both of my parents to be legitimately terrible human beings.

The traits of a bad mom, imo, are that she doesn't protect her children from harm done to them by other family members. She will dismiss the concerns of her child as perpetually unimportant or exaggerated, gives no comfort or stability, puts her own happiness and emotions as the top priority even when it means her children are actively hurting. If she does see/know about the father/other people abusing the child and can no longer deny it, she may claim its "not that bad" or that it's fine to sacrifice the eldest child so the younger siblings are spared. This is, in my experience, particularly true if she is an unemployed tradwife, with no money of her own and total reliance on her husband's finances/household.

Having a bad mom feels like the deepest kind of betrayal, probably because of the way mothers are often portrayed in most media. She's the one who carried you in her very body, and is supposedly cspable of being a bear or tiger in order to fuck up anyone who dares touch her children. When you're not protected by your mother, but rather given up to an abusive father/others to use as they please, you spend so much of your childhood wondering why you aren't good enough. What could you have possibly done to not deserve her love like your younger brothers and sisters receive? Why is your pain an acceptable price to pay for the nice house and cars and food, some of which you're denied anyway?

As you get older, you begin to believe nobody will ever love you unless you pay them to, either monetarily or by giving more pieces of yourself. It takes a long time and a lot of self reflection to learn you don't have to do that just for a man to like you as a person. You'll also eventually come to realize that it's alright to show emotions other than "happiness" or "contentment", and that it's not normal to be an otherwise emotionless doll.

I have plenty to say about bad fathers as well, but this is how I'd define a bad mother.

Planthoe30 · 2024-08-28T01:51:13+00:00

Mommie dearest and Cinderella. Men are the ones who bring up fatherless behavior usually to insult women. Whatever issues are considered “daddy issues” can easily be the result of abuse from either parent, and frankly partaking in casual sex isn’t a good predictor of past trauma.. Then abuse affects everyone differently so the psychological effects can vary widely. Lack of confidence, unhealthy attachment, hypersensitivity, lack of boundaries and trust are common.

I worked in child protective services there’s all kinds of bad moms. Physical, sexual and emotional abuse women are capable of all the cruel things men are. One of the cases that angered me the most was in fact a mother putting tape over her 3 month olds mouth so she didn’t have to hear it cry. I had worse abuse cases than that but her callousness towards her own infant was something I’ll never forget and my job was to educate her not remove the child. I met with her once but I had to pass that case on to someone else I couldn’t do it. What made this case hard was the helplessness of the child and the fact that legally I couldn’t do anything when my intuition told me she shouldn’t have a child. I couldn’t even convince her to hold her own child. She wanted no part of motherhood just the benefits.

AngeCruelle · 2024-08-28T01:18:55+00:00

it seems the effect of a bad mother are less discussed. Can you think of an example of a bad mom in fiction ?

The mom from Hatchet, a common required summer reading book. Fuck that lady.

I dated a guy who grew up with a similar childhood experience of a cheating mom and he was a trainwreck. I don't think he's free from all accountability for the way he treated me, but I think it's undeniable that that experience affected how he sees women in general.

Pola_Lita · 2024-08-28T01:11:50+00:00

I don't think this is a PPD sort of topic.

MistyMaisel · 2024-08-28T02:48:07+00:00

Good God, how don't they. It's probably the most damaging possible thing.

Leaving aside the obvious like Lucille Bluth Archer Mom type who essentially sociopathically ignores and doesn't raise her children except to use them or abuse them, which tends to create people pleasing damaged egos constantly seeking the love they were meant to get from her.

The ones I most typically see either don't protect or sacrifice for their children or the devouring mother who protects them too much and tries to turn them into babies eternal.

Again, assuming we aren't like mentioning infanticides or child rapists.

SaBahRub · 2024-08-28T00:18:43+00:00

Why fiction and not irl?

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Sillysheila · 2024-08-28T04:06:11+00:00

Well I can think of one character in media. Miriam Pataki from Hey Arnold, a kid’s show of all places. She’s an alcoholic and she severely neglects her child, to the point where the kid (Helga) barely has any regular meals, has to transport herself everywhere and has to do everything herself.

I think it does a good job of portraying the way abuse from women or mother figures often looks like. Women are less aggressive so usually they show abuse through things like emotional torment or neglect of children. It’s a more passive form of abuse but just as bad.

My partner had an unideal mother too. She had really bad untreated mental illness. And well, he has severe anxiety.

KarenEiffel · 2024-08-28T18:44:50+00:00

Tony Soprano definitely had a shit mother. And a lot of the show is basically him dealing with his childhood and how she treats/treated him.

AnonPinkLady · 2024-08-29T18:23:44+00:00

My dad passed when I was young so it was hard to lose him but I did still barely know him and it didn’t affect me that much. My mom whoever raised me just about all my life and I truly wish she hadn’t. She was violent and ill tempered and had blatant favorites while I was the child it seemed she had never wanted. It affects everything about me as an adult. She was deeply misogynistic having grown up in a severely repressive woman hating religion and she instilled in me a sense of shame and disgust towards my own body and a desire to constantly lose weight (I’m underweight and very sick). She also taught me the idea that men can’t control themselves and will behave like animals towards temptation of any kind and anything a man does to me is my fault. When I was in my teens and had an abusive boyfriend she always had an excuse for why he was in the right and I should apologize no matter what I do. As an adult I have some of the worst trust issues of anyone I know and I have BPD. I am terrified that everyone is out to use me, that no matter how I change my body to suit the world I am disgustingly unnattractive, that no one will ever love me sincerely. All my relationships end up tumultuous at one point or another because something triggers those thoughts that this person is evil like the men my mother told me about and I struggle not to run every other week with severe episodes and break downs. I deeply believe I am a bad person and deserve all this and there is no use in getting better. A bad mom can make a daughter that barely knows how to stay alive.

Mentathiel · 2024-08-30T12:04:13+00:00

Cersei in Game of Thrones, also how Catelyn treats John (and some other things, but I don't want to get into a GoT debate xD), Lady Featherington in Bridgerton, Petunia Dursley in Harry Potter, Gloria in Desperate Housewives. Idk, there are probably more examples I can't think of off the top of my head, and I left out the entire fairy tale evil witch step-mom genre lol.

SleepingBearWalk · 2024-08-28T06:10:58+00:00

Idk man, my mom told the judge during the custody hearing that if she was alone with me she would hurt me...I was less than a year old.

Title	How does a bad mother effect a person when they reach adulthood ?
Author	IH8YTSGTS
Upvotes	7
Comments	54
Date	August 27, 2024 11:12 PM UTC (1 year ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/1f2v74f/how_does_a_bad_mother_effect_a_person_when_they/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/how-does-a-bad-mother-effect-a-person-when-they.1528596 https://theredarchive.com/post/1528596

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