Mother's Day and Your Narcissist Mom

Holidays and narcissists. Ripe opportunities for them to grand stand, hold you hostage due to "custom", and generally make your life completely miserable. For those of us with malignantly narcissist mothers I am convinced Mother's Day is the worst holiday of the year.

Narcissist mothers have a death grip on the day. They cling to the expectations of recognition, praise, gifts and adulation with tenacious zeal. This is the day you have to "honor" her. A whole day set aside by the culture itself which means if you don't please your mother on this Day of all days you risk the disapproval of society itself, in addition to your petulant, selfish and bratty mother's persecutions. She makes full use of the pressure of society to conform you to ritual.

Pleasing her on this day is the trickiest of endeavors. Land mines are set for your feet. One miss step and the whole day blows up in your face...and you will be tortured for your failure for months to come. Mother's Day is coming and you are waking up in a cold sweat as to how to do enough to please your bitch of a mother while all you want to do is run to another continent so you don't have to face the obligations this day represents.

Can we stop right here? Mother's Day was not a day to "celebrate" abusive, selfish and evil mothers. It is a day set aside to honor truly good mothers. If your mother is the kind that inspires dread of Mother's day then can you just stop for a minute and realize she deserves no such honor? When you "honor" such a mother as yours it really cheapens the meaning of the day, wouldn't you say? You're an adult now. You can make decisions without asking for mommy's approval. You can do things she positively hates and there is nothing she can really do about it. If she misbehaves because you give her what she deserves then punish her. Punishment by banishment. That is what she deserves.

The only way to get free of the tyranny of your narcissistic mother is to first free yourself of the expectations of society. You have to be willing to endure a disapproving look or statement here or there from people who don't know anything about your life with an abusive mother. You can ease this process by keeping your relationship with your mother mostly to yourself. Don't confide in people who haven't already shown that they would be able to "get" what your narcissist mother is like. You'll have to put up with a lot less disapproval if you mostly keep your mouth shut.

The next step, after you've freed yourself to go against societal convention, is to now act in accordance with how you feel about her. Give her what she deserves on this day. That means different things to different persons and situations. If you don't break out into a sweat in the card section of Hallmark, then by all means, send her a card. If you can't endure the thought of Mother's Day because of what she turns it into no matter what you do...then what she deserves is nothing.

Something I hate about narcissist mothers and this High Holy Day for Mothers is how they never, ever consider that their daughters are now mothers too. I think Mother's Day should be more about those mothers who are still in the mode of day-to-day mothering than those whose birds have all flitted from the nest. Not that older mothers aren't deserving of recognition. Let me try to explain. For example. When my daughter is out on her own and is a mother herself I will not be sitting around waiting for her to dump all her responsibilities at home in order to take me out to dinner, go shopping, or spend money she may not have on me. Since I will have lots of time because I'm no longer raising children, I will pick up the phone and wish her a happy Mother's Day. I will send her a gift, or flowers, or take her out to dinner if geography allows. I will honor someone who is currently mothering her children and not lay piles of expectations for a young mother to accommodate my ego like I've earned some kind of Queen status, like stroking my ego should supersede her life with her own children and husband.

I don't have an mother ego to stroke. A mother's job is to raise her children so they turn into competent and independent adults. If I succeeded at that, then I was only doing what the job required. I shouldn't expect a monument to be built in my name because I did my job. Which is why, when grown children honor a good mother it is truly a gift to her. Not a requirement like taxes. Their kindnesses on this day are not my due. They are a gift. To receive those kindnesses in any other way is to take away the beauty of your children trying to give you something. It spoils and tarnishes the meaning of the gift and turns it into obligation. I don't know about you, but I don't want obligation to be the motivation for my daughter doing something on my behalf. I want to know she did it of her own free will because she loves me. That is the highest gift. Something a narcissist is incapable of appreciating.

The difference between a good mother's attitude and a narcissist mother's attitude about her children is this: a good mother realizes she bears the responsibility of bringing a life into the world and must do everything she can to support and add to that life, not subtract from it. The N mother sees her children as a perpetual resource to support her life. They are there to serve her. To her dying day. A N mother's children are never allowed to actually own their lives. She always holds the deed to their lives and forces them to pay rent on that deed all their miserable lives. A good mother doesn't subtract from her children's lives; she makes sure her actions add quality and happiness to her children's lives. There is no point when a good mother feels entitled to subtract from their lives. She forever bears the responsibility that she brought them into this world therefore she never feels like she can mooch off of a life that didn't get a choice for being born. A N mother turns motherhood from a responsibility to a God-like position. I brought you into this world, so you owe me. She, as your Creator God, exacts worship and obeisance forever and ever, amen. Completely upside down thinking which springs from their utterly selfish world view.

Save Mother's Day for the good mothers out there. Don't cheapen the day by paying homage to a black caricature of motherhood. Be honest with yourself and live honestly with others.