Do you and your Mom get along well? Does being around her have an uncanny ability to change you from a charismatic, clever adult into a bratty teenager or are you best mates? What do you like best about her, what do you hate about her? Does you mom boost or dash your self esteem? What's the longest you can spend happily in each other's company?

With the Easter Holidays and a family visit fast approaching are you anxious about meeting up or looking forward to it with all your heart? : )

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2000

Answers

My Mom and me get along fabulously - we have loads of mutual interests, we can talk for hours about anything - and I do mean anything - and I love her like nothing else in this world. The only thing that bugs me now and then is that she can't stop talking when we're listening to music. We like to do that too, you know - just sitting down and listen to music. And I can assure you that listening to Mozart is more fun than listening to my Mom telling me time and again how much fun it is to listen to Mozart. But other than that.....

Same goes for my dad, by the way, although he's less of a conversationalist. I guess I'm just very lucky that my parents have always been my best friends as well.

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2000

My mom and I get along great. We've never had a fight, at least not since I was about 15 (and they weren't really fights even then -- my mom doesn't fight). My dad and I get along really well these days, too, although I got my temper from him, so you can imagine what my teen years were like.

My mother is one of the five most easy-going people on the planet. She did throw a salad bowl across a room once, though, when my little brother and I were fighting while she was doing the dishes, so perhaps the reason we don't fight is that I'm afraid of what might be going on under that calm exterior. Mom, are you plotting something sinister?

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2000

My mother is a huge control freak, and I'm someone who likes to do things her own way. I spent my entire childhood (and a good part of my adulthood) being criticized by her for what I wore, how I looked, who I hung out with, etc. I responded to her criticisms by deciding I didn't give much of a damn what she thought.

When I moved 4 hours away from her, she became bearable to me, since I'd only see her maybe once a month for a weekend. Now that I've moved 1,500 miles away from her and talk to her once a week and only see her once a year, we get along very, very well, though our relationship is very surface. In other words, I don't confide any deep, dark secrets, and that's the way I prefer it.

She's not my best friend, and that's fine with me.

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2000

You know, I can't even imagine that. I think my mom has been very disappointed in me at times, but she is absolutely not a control freak. I always thought that "you are not leaving this house, young lady, until you march upstairs and change your clothes" thing was just on TV. Did your mothers actually tell you what to wear when you were a teenager? Criticize your hair and makeup? Forbid you from seeing certain friends? Not let you wear short skirts or whatever?

Jeez. I can't even imagine that.

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2000

I always got the "You're wearing thaaaaaaaaaaaat?" from my Mom, along with a disapproving look, which only made me more determined to wear whatever dorky contraption I was wearing. She never forbade me from seeing certain friends, but always made it clear that she considered them losers (which, again, only made me more determined to hang out with them).

I think a big part of the problem is that I'm not in the slightest a "girly" girl - don't like makeup, nailpolish, or frilly clothes - and my mother fully believed, when she found out she'd given birth to a girl after two boys, that I'd be like a doll she could dress up. I was never like that - I intended, when I was 10, to be a pro football player.

I have a younger sister, and my mother once told me "The difference between you and Debbie is that if I say 'Oh, that really isn't a flattering color for you', she'll go change. You, on the other hand will make sure you wear nothing but that color from then on."

Anyway, in my mother's perfect world, I'd always do and wear what she wanted me to do/ wear. Not likely to happen in this lifetime.

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2000

I'm a teenager and I get along with my mom wonderfully. I think that I am her best friend (she doesn't like people). I'm just waiting for all my friends to turn around and realise how wonderful thier moms really are, and to stop compaining. My mom is somewhat of a control freak. My dad did the clothes thing, "I can't believe you are wearing jeans to school!!" He beleived that you had to be uptight to do well in school. I hardly think so.

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2000

I love my Mum to pieces but I get the feeling I'm never ever going to be good enough for her. It's quite sad really - When I was younger I was never practical enough or helpful enough, then I was never brainy enough and now I'm not slim enough. I guess the reason I posted here today was to try and figure out ways of de-barbing those comments that only mum's can give that still cut me to shreds like 'I always thought you'd grow up to be nice and slim' or ' why can't you be more like so & so's daughter or 'We had such big hopes for you' - they make me cry every time and I can never think of a sensible grown- up response in reply! : )

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2000

My mother, Lorraine (aka Uranium 151 because of the toxic nature), and I actively dislike each other and haven't had a good word in many years. I can't even refer to her as a mother since nothing motherly comes from her so I refer to her by her first name. I love her in a deep seated way somewhere inside me (as any human to another human) but, those feeling are covered with scars of emotional and mental abuse.

I'm not doing a "woe is me" thing here, just trying to explain. She HATES the fact that I am gay and, I believe, somewhere inside her she thinks that she has failed as a mother since my brother is also gay. I can't even imagine the pressure she puts upon herself with that. By the way, bro and I are the most successful in the family and, probably, the most well adjusted -- which isn't saying much for the rest of them.

While at my nephew's wedding a couple of years back, my straight, supposedly macho brother started beating in my face on the dance floor at the reception because "fags are bad." It was a sucker punch that wasn't pretty and was not deserved. I did nothing to provoke the situation besides paying for cross country airfare for a weekend and being in "his" presence. Needless to say, I left the party.

The next morning, Lorraine got on the phone with me and told me to leave, never return to her town, that everything was my fault, that I was the biggest disappointment in her life and that, get this, you are not loved here. Well, talk about the straw that broke the camel's back. Since then, she has written me out of her will (big deal) and has refused my advances at any conversation, understanding or resolution. No use beating a dead horse, I guess

Hence, the mounting therapy bills (although it does make good journalling fodder at times).

I know somewhere inside of her, she loves me in some way. There are a lot of circumstances in her life where she is unable to say how she feels inside (let alone really know who she is). I'm not saying that this is ok but, I understand who she is and where she comes from. I almost feel sorry for her.

If you ever watched "The Sopranos," think of Livia, Tony's mother, to the 50th power. Mean-spirited, game-playing, vindictive, self-sympathy inducing and all to quick to pull out the hanky if anything is said that rocks a boat. That is Lorraine times 50.

I hope she finds peace inside her cause it must be really horrible living in that mean skin of hers.

By the way, Beth's mom is THE most easygoing person on earth, makes a mean pie, can roll hers eyes with the best of them and has given me really good advice in the past. I look forward to seeing them soon.

Off to the shrink at The Road Trip

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2000

I cannot imagine a mother actually saying, "you are not loved here"! Did she treat the other gay brother in the same manner?

My mother died without us ever having become friends. I doubt that we ever would have. My mother had many good points -- she loved her children a great deal in her way, she was intelligent, a hard worker, and she had a hard life herself dealing with my father's alcoholism and inability or refusal to earn an adequate living. But she was critical of my hair, my looks, my friends, and my failure to make straight "A's" in school (for which she never forgave me). I believe she never quite saw me as a separate person from herself. In the last few years of her life she became extremely cold toward me, and I'm not sure whether that was directed toward me personally or whether it was the result of her own problems.

Although she died unexpectedly at the age of only 60 (and I'd wish for her that she could have made it to 90), I must admit that I am much more of my own person, and much more at peace with myself, now that she's not around.

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2000

My mum rocks. I love her to bits, and I ring her at least once a week, despite the fact that I'm in London and she's in NZ. She's always one of the first people to hear about anything that happens to me (Tristan first, then her), and the thought of her dying one day is scary in the extreme.

She's so cool. At the age of 51 she started her law degree - she'll be finished at the end of next year. When we decided we wanted to get married in NZ she organised the whole thing for us. She's been to visit me twice in the last three years - her only holidays are coming to see me. She's just got a new computer, and has absolutely no idea how to work it - she rang me at work the other day (it was 3 am in NZ) because the screen had frozen and she didn't know what to do. She cracks me up.

I really miss her and the rest of my family. They're so proud of me - they're all down in NZ like a little support group, cheering whenever anything goes right for me. They all love Tristan to pieces. My Dad's coming to visit me in a few weeks, which will be great, and I'm heading to NZ for a week in June, and I can't wait.

Sorry, that's really all a big 'I love my family' rant. But to summarise, my Mum is way cool.

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2000

Mom who? (just kidding)

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2000

My mom and I have an uneasy relationship. I've been trying for the past year or two to be closer to my family because I think it is the "right" thing to do and I feel bad for my parents who are growing oldwith all of their televisions but little companionship. It isn't easy though, especially when my father thinks that all Communists are evil and should be killed, and I'm in the labor union that spawned the CPUSA. Enduring and trying to correct racist and nationalistic comments from my family is... difficult.

My mom is nice but she can be really overbearing. At 26 she still seems to treat me like I am 12, trying to help just a little too much. I've finally gotten her to stop reading the menu to me when we go out to eat, because yes, I can read for myself.

She is less conservative than my father and has some genuine progressive streaks, but is still very much in this "don't rock the boat" mentality. She's not too happy that I'll be going to DC next weekend, or that I went to Columbus, GA last year. Instead of being proud of me for fighting for a better world, she just tells me not to bother calling them to bail me out if I get arrested.

I'm sure they would have been much prouder if I joined the Marines instead of the IWW.

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2000

My mother handled everything in the house. She was the disciplinarian, the Spanker (back when spanking paddles were marketable--it had holes drilled in it to reduce air resistance!), the Voice of Reason, and the shoulder to cry on when people treated her kids wrong. She also was the one who hunted down and maimed the people who treated her kids wrong. Mind you, she was also the one hunting down her kids when WE did wrong things.

My mom came from a really bad family--alcoholic father, superbitch mother, five brothers and sisters, dirt poor in a one-bedroom house in Arkansas. She could see outside from her kitchen when the water had warped the wooden walls so that they pulled apart (outside and inside wall were the same wall). She had a horrible upbringing--she and her siblings had to work in my grandfather's bar starting when they were eight years old. I know it sounds odd but it's true. She moved from Arkansas to Shreveport (not exactly a metropolis, but bigger) when she was 16 and finished high school and went to X-ray school. She made her own life independent of her family. Once she started in radiology, she would send money or items of interest (a new TV, for instance) to her parents so they could have some things. These things were found still boxed and in closets unopened when my grandparents died.

Not meaning to be a sob story but it works into how much I respect my mother. She protected me, she protected my friends who had parents that didn't care (many friends sought refuge in my house), she didn't judge me and realized that we aren't always going to think the same way. She let me choose my own friends, my own clothes, my own career and my own life with no other words of advice than "I don't care what you do. Do what you need to be independent and happy. Then I will be happy." She respects my opinions and although she still sometimes treats me like a a child, I can't say I don't always welcome the opportunity to sit next to my mom, lean my head on her shoulder and finally, feel at peace. Never quite the same level of serenity when it's someone else.

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2000

It's weird. My mom and I get along really well in lots of ways, but we have a hard time having a good conversation: we snap at each other a lot. I feel like she anticipates my reactions to whatever she's going to say, and often anticipates wrongly, which is really annoying. So she's always censoring herself to fit how she thinks I will judge her. I would prefer she just be honest. My whole family thinks I'm easily offended, but really it's just that I am the different child, the one who doesn't follow the same path as my parents. It was really difficult for me at age 20 (not so long ago) to go through some emotional crises that I couldn't share with her. It was hard to realize that as an adult I wouldn't be able to share everything with her. But my mom is tremendously helpful and thoughtful; she will DO just about anything I ask her to, and she makes me treats and takes me out for dinner sometimes (she lives an hour away). Overall, she's a wonderful mom and we're friends in many ways.

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2000

My mother and I aren't very close at all and it just has to be that way. She's critical and negative about just about everything and I don't want to hear her attitude about things.

I don't see her very often and I talk to her even less. We email and that works out better for me because I don't have to hear it from her. I don't share a lot of things with her because I already know how she's going to react. It's gotten a bit better in the last few years but she's never going to be my best friend.

It's a long complicated story and I do my best to keep the past in the past with her and just have a surface relationship. I love her because she's my mom but that doesn't mean I have to like her all that much. She's let me down far too many times and I'm just not putting myself out there for more disappointment with her.

Colleen

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2000

My mom was totally controlling when I was living at home. She really did criticize me for my hairstyles and make me change my clothes and stuff. She made it clear which of my friends she approved of and which she didn't, and I tended to then drift away from the "bad" ones. I did sneak out of the house wearing what I wanted to, though. Our biggest fights were over grades - I was smart but unmotivated.

We didn't speak for a while after I was in college, after we had a couple of serious disagreements. But over the years she's loosened up. I think she's realized that I'm not the big failure that she thought I was, since I haven't been on drugs or had a baby or come back to live with her. For a long time she didn't seem to have any friends whose children weren't totally successes, with whom she'd compare me.

We have an uneasy truce now. I'm aware that she's trying, she's not going to criticize me as she used to. But I'm also aware that we just arn't big buddies. We have very different interests. I'm not one of her big interests. When I got married last year she was barely interested in the wedding. I know she was trying not to be pushy but she wasn't very excited even on the actual day. That dissapointed me.

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2000

My mom is the most amazing woman I have ever known. She is strong, beautiful, and totally giving. We fought a lot during my teen years, but only over issues that we extremely important to her, and now I can see the direction she was trying to lead me. It was because of that direction that I am the person I am today. She had a way of stepping back and letting me figure things out for myself, without trying to control me or tell me what to do. She is the most honest woman I know, she detests lying and as a result, so do I. I gave her hell for a few years, and I wish I could take them back, because I realize now how lucky I am. My mother-in-law is a control freak. Within one hour of meeting me she told me her son would never become a Catholic(my religion) and never actually make a permanent move to California. She is also possesive and often tries to make my relationship with her son seem inferior to hers. She also will tell a lie like it is nothing, especially when she needs to lie to get her way. Basically she fucking drives me crazy. I don't know how to deal with her because she is so unlike my own mother, and so unlike anything I have ever had to deal with. All of this only makes my mom seem more amazing than ever before. I think getting married and having to deal with "someone else's mother" is the very thing that made me realize the gift I had in my own mother. I am very, very lucky.

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2000

JaneA wrote: I cannot imagine a mother actually saying, "you are not loved here"! Did she treat the other gay brother in the same manner?

Lorraine wrote off my other gay brother when he decided to get married years ago. He married a lesbian and they had 3 kids together. Yes, my family is a Neil Simon play at times. She does not see her grandchildren since Lorraine and my other sister, the Nun (evil human by the way), have labeled the children "The Devil's Spawn."

The court proceedings to label my bro and his 'wife' unfit parents was rejected by a New Jersey court years ago. Since Lorraine and the Nun lost face, they decided to shun them instead. Funny, now no one in the extended family really deals with Lorraine and the Nun and they are not invited to family functions usually.

Sad in a way.

Those are the tip of the iceberg stories, by the way. There were and are many more worse things.

Back from the shrink at The Road Trip

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2000

My mom totally rocks. What else can I say about a woman who gave birth to six kids and managed to not only hold the family together when her oldest child was killed by a drunk driver, but raised the surviving five practically on her own while my dad was frequently being sent overseas while in the Navy? Despite more than a few tough times, all of us have turned out remarkably well and relatively stable.

My mom is the sweetest woman in the world, with a heart big enough to love (almost) everyone, a sense of humor that, while more than a little corny, explains my own smart-assery, and an excellent intuition about people.

Amazing, really, when you consider that her folks were divorced when she was quite young and her mother was alcoholic, two-timing, back-stabbing, whoring bitch (I'm understating the case). Thank heaven for the influence from her father, grand-parents and step-father.

Did I mention that I love my mom (and my dad) to pieces?

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2000

My mother is crazier than a hoot owl. In Jan 1999 I could have filed assualt, extortion, terroristic threats, and telephone harrassment charges against her. I've been in therapy now for 2 years - like 1000 hours of the stuff! Have PTSD because of the stuff that happened to me growing up - being drug down stairs, dishes and furniture ALWAYS flying, and just weird/mean crap she did to me and my 2 sisters. She's a case and I'd have been one (or more of one) if I hadn't gotten some help on a fluke. (I'm 26)

My sister is supposed to have a baby any day - but my mother has divided the family and I'll not see the child in the foreseeable future. (Long story - which, as a teaser, involves nude photos of my mother's co-workers that she mailed to the pregnant sister's mother-in-law's house! And then said I did! I could go on forever...) The thought of that crazy woman being near another child makes my skin crawl.

Yick! Everyone thank your lucky stars for all the good mothers out there. For a long time I didn't want to have kids for fear I'd do the same thing to them as was done to me. But now, I'm pretty confident it won't happen and that I'll be a good mother because I've had to reparent myself. I've found hapiness and love in distant family, but I'd give the world to have grown up with a different mother.

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2000

Reading some of these, I think my mom and I are in the middle.

Good points: The only one who will forever be on my side in life, where no one else is (and that's really sad), pampers me hugely, can be very sweet and affectionate and supportive, we have similar interests, can at times get along really well.

Bad points: Quite the controller, like my dad. They both yell a lot. I am a very cowed, spineless person because trying to fight back against the two of them didn't help me at all, so nowadays I won't fight back against anybody. Don't want to make the situation worse...Raised me to be a spoiled princess and then wonders why I have so many issues. Is insane about phone calls- I HAVE to call her twice a week, and if I don't call her by a day after the appointed day she says she'll call the cops. (WTF?)

To answer Beth's "do moms really do that?" question, my mom did to some degree gripe about my clothes and hair, and at times has actually damaged my hair in the process of styling it HER way. She still does this. And she gripes about how I eat (as in I'm eating ravioli and she thinks it should be cut in six pieces). Always objects to how I do any kind of household task, and gets annoyed when I ask her step by step how to do every little thing so she won't yell at me.

Back to Sparkler's stuff, I can go about three days at home without things deteriorating into fighting. As for Easter, I'm more worried about having to deal with my grandfather who hasn't bathed in years than with her.

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2000

i don't give my mom all the credit she deserves, and i was a bratty child, but we love each other. there is so much i didn't understand about her until i was in college, stuff i never thought to ask. she was separated from her family when she was 13, did not even know if they were dead or alive until a year later. she survived a horrible war, transplantation, and all this time i thought she was a weak person for never standing up to my dad. it's hard to communicate when neither of you speak the same language, but gradually, over the years, i have slowly begun to understand her. my mom, she's always been able to read me like a book. she's always let me live my life, only offering advice. what i've realized over the years, is that my mom knows a lot more than i thought she did. i hate when she's right, and she usually is.

as i got older, my mom and i were in solidarity. we comforted each other when we either of us were having problems with my dad, and she's always on the phone when i need her, or ringing the doorbell when i need her. i've hurt her a lot growing up, but she's never ceased to be there. thats what a mom is, well, my mom, luckily, anyway.

my dad, on the other hand, is a whole different story. but i understand that now much better too, and i don't let that hurt me so much anymore.

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2000

Oh yeah, my mom still makes remarks about my weight and what I eat. Also I'm supposed to be getting my husband to exercise and lose weight. Yeah, right.

We get along because we see each other once a year. We talk a lot on the phone between then, but I don't like to hang around with her for too long. I get nervous about her judging me.

I wish my mom and I were buddies and shopped together and so on, but we just aren't.

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2000

My mom and I get along great. We're not super close in the respect that I confide very private things to her but I rarely confide in any of my friends (my hangup, they're great people). But she knows a lot about me and I enjoy being with her. We go out to dinner together and go shopping for clothes. We don't talk too often on the phone though because I dislike talking on the phone period. She's not perfect but I love her AND I like her.

The one thing that bugs me about her is her ability to rattle on and on about her job - boring. I can only bitch about my job for 5 minutes and then I need to drop it but she can go on and on and zzzzzz...

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2000

My entry for April 5 (I believe) at - - - bastion.diaryland.com - - - - - titled "Dogie" pretty well expresses my feelings toward my Mom.

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2000

I adore my mom. She is my best friend other than my husband. She is one of those moms that everyone wants to have. All my friends have loved to spend time at our house. She is the eternal optimist and the things she has done to keep us all together is amazing. She kept us all fed and clothed and happy when my father was out of work. She has always let me be myself -- just laughing to herself when I changed my hair color a million times.

When I told her the man I was dating was born female -- she did not judge and my folks have been my rock. They worry about us, but not because of the situation, but because they want us to be happy. I know if I need my mom and at time of night she would crawl if she had to, and I would do the same for her.

We also share a lot of interests. We love music, we love doing crafts together. I al slowly making her an expert on the computer. I know and acknowledge everyday how lucky I am.

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2000