Essay

Are You Ready to Be a Mother

“A Woman Mourned by Daughters”, by Adrienne Rich is a poem that deals with different types of relationships between a mother and her children; and how it can affect the outcome of the child’s life in the future. Our cause is to understand the reason behind the strained relationships between a mother and child so that we may find a way to help prevent future parents from making the same mistakes. In addition we also found some mothers who had great relationships with their children which we see as the ideal parents. Though not all parents can achieve what some of these mothers have accomplished, we instead can use some of their ideas to help parents with imperfect relationships with their child.

At the Convalescent we found a mother of three children, she was financially stable and had a great relationship with her children. Terri was around the age of 40-50 with 1 daughter and 2 sons who tell her everything. For Terri the right age to have a child is when the woman is financially secure, mature enough, and when the woman herself is ready to have a child. She believes that the best punishments are standards, chores, and time-out; she doesn’t believe in hitting or beating her children. Terri doesn’t have any high expectations for her children and allows them to create their own goals doing things that are comfortable for them. However, like every other relationship, there are flaws in Terri’s relationship with her children; Terri has a tendency to “bark” at her children when the ignore her but other than that she says that she has a relatively good connection with her three children.

In addition to Terri we also me another mother at the Convalescent home, this time a new mother. Chanel is around 25-30 years old and is also financially stable; she also believes that she has a good relationship with her child. Her only expectation for her child is to be smart in school; for Chanel she grew up with great parents and her advice for future parents is not to neglect the child and quote “don’t think that it’s easy.”

The next woman had a hard relationship with her mother and had asked to be kept anonymous.  Ms. X’s mother was 28 when she had her and although her mother was a teacher and financially secure she was emotionally insecure and felt that Ms. X wasn’t giving her the love and respect she deserved. The major flaw in their relationship was the misunderstandings. The misunderstandings made her mother to question everything Ms. X said and later caused Ms. X to stop communicating with her mother. But aside from misunderstanding her daughter, Ms. X’s mother also had a problem with depression and anxiety and since her mother hadn’t reflected on how it affected her daughter, their relationship was constantly strained. However, their strained relationship also stemmed from the fact that Ms. X’s grandmother had verbally abused her mother. Even after all this Ms. X still thinks she had a great mother who had given her daughter what she could; she admits that she should have been a more loving daughter. And in a way she appreciated the way her mother had raised her, it had after all allowed her to have a better understanding of people.  Regarding Ms. X she now has two boys (10 and 13) whom she had at the age of 27 and 31, and in her opinion a mother should be firm with her child, have expectations, and rules; but most importantly a mother should always listen to her child and keep her promises. She strongly believes that a mother should be a parent not a friend and instead let a relationship form instead of demanding one and warned other mothers against relying on their child. Her methods of discipline include time-out, removal of privileges and to the point lectures that don’t provoke guilt.

Ms. Y also had a bad relationship with her mother who sometimes left her alone a period of time therefore leaving Ms. Y to live by herself. The flaw in their relationship is due to the fact that her mother was a compulsive liar who didn’t want to face the truth.  Her mother constantly ran away from her problems and used harsh was to discipline her daughter. Ms. Y was verbally, mentally, and physically punished for simple things, but like Ms. X she said it helped her understand people better. At 24 years old Ms. Y was born into an environment any child shouldn’t ever live in. At the age of 2 Ms. Y had lost the simple innocence of a child, learning things only adults should know. But although Ms. Y hadn’t had the best mother she always knew that her mother loved her and eventually she realized that she also loved her mother. In Ms. Y’s point of view everything that a parent had done wrong the next parent should learn from the mistakes and do the opposite. She believes that disciplining a child should be mentally not physically, in other words a parent should explain why something shouldn’t be done until the child understands rather than physically hurting them. Moreover, she thinks that a parent shouldn’t force their child to help but instead they could share the problem with their child and let the child choose whether or not he/she wants to help. She doesn’t judge a good parent by what age the parent is but instead on how mentally prepared the person is.

Ms. Z had a close relationship with her mother even though her mother was constantly working 2 different jobs. Ms. Z was the middle child born when her mother was 31; and aside from rebelling against her extremely strict mother their relationship was relatively flawless. After being abandoned by her father she acknowledges that she wasn’t allowed to be a child and had matured earlier than usual. As for her mother’s way of discipline she used a range from slaps to spanking, and her expectations where fairly high, Ms. Y had to graduate from high school, and after choose between work or college. Still her mother was always there for her children even though she wasn’t always physically there for her children. In Ms. Y’s view, a good parent should be financially secure, ready to support a child, and want the child. Her idea of a damaging parent is an adult who isn’t emotionally mature nor entirely out of the habit of being selfish. Ms. Y doesn’t plan on having any children of her own but she insists that it isn’t because of her relationship with her mother.

Line 20 of the poem particularly motivated us to pursue this cause because there are so many children out there who try so hard to please their parents but no matter what they do, nothing seems enough. Since we have seen and heard so many stories about apprehensive relationships between mother and daughters we decided to start interviewing women who had good relationships and those who had not so good relationships with their mothers. Sometimes even a little thing can help, even just talking to women who had troubled lives with their mothers.