“No, it’s fine I can manage” …self-sacrifice in motherhood, what are we displaying to our daughters?

When I speak to mothers on my resilience workshops, the general consensus is that a good woman and a good mother is offering everything to everyone at the cost of her own emotional space. What I aim to do on these workshops is not undo this thinking totally and immediately, but bring about a shift in awareness that questions behaviour and alters the way the woman thinks about herself and her needs.

How many of us have watched our mum’s struggle on the emergency chair at Christmas or sat down to eat her meal lukewarm after seeing to everyone else’s needs. How many have looked after elderly parents selflessly. Mum’s are the caretakers and the definition of self-sacrifice. This way of thinking is difficult to undo if the person in question has been a victim of unfair criticism and cruel treatment in their childhood. This, you would think, is the wrong way around surely…would they not want to meet their needs in adulthood if childhood was terrible with unmet needs? It’s more complicated than that.

If a child disagrees with her parent’s time and time again and her actions are at odds to the parent’s self-expression or parents are abusive, then the child withdraws. This allows the parent’s anxiety to reduce and the child gets a subtle signal that its ‘easier to be compliant and shut down their own self-expression’. What sometimes also happens is the child develops a victim identity, after all they are victims of unhealthy parenting.

Because this narrative is true to them and they are a victim with little power to control the responses and behaviour of others, they then become care takers to aid some predictability and ensure loving responses and closeness. The person’s need is squashed, their only need is for the people around them to be pleased and satisfied.

So, then it is a learnt cycle of behaviour that is deep rooted and difficult to shift. The person is certain that unless they do the care giving behaviour, with little boundaries, then they can’t bring people close. This is a deep-rooted feeling and I am acknowledging that it is a difficult one for woman to change.

We may be able to work hard at this behaviour if we viewed it in terms of passing unhealthy ‘ways of being’ down to our daughters. What if we explored what our daughters thought of the behaviour? I bet if you asked your teenage daughter about the sacrifice of your needs, she would admit it makes her feel sad. More than that, she would also say it makes her feel guilty and that she is selfish although she knows that not all your sacrifice is for her.

How do I know this? Because I hear it from teenage girls in the counselling room all the time. They feel it really heavy and more so when their mood is low through other things.

So now will you change the denial of your own needs for your daughter’s sake? It’s ironic that it is for someone else and not for you, but if it gets you to focus on it, then let’s use it.

If this is you, aside from observing your relationship with your own now aging parents, you need to start the long and conflicted road towards making yourself a priority and recognizing your needs. You could do this in counselling or a local support group, or through a good friend who doesn’t interrupt or interpret.

The following are some if the ways you can start considering this to alter behaviour.

·       The biggest one is TAKE TIME TO RESPOND to a request, to an attack, to an expectation.

·       Write down in what ways are you strong now compared to ways you were vulnerable or weak as a child.

·       Write a list of all the care giving behaviour you have done through out life and detail where it has got you until now. Keep this somewhere visual all the time.

·       Family therapist Virginia Satir suggests visualizing three families. Your parent’s family (when your parents were little) Your family (when you were little) and your family (your children) what’s different among the three families. What have you managed to NOT pass on?

YOU ARE STRONGER THAN YOU BELIEVE.

·       Your goal is to find emotional space and to nurture you and your well-being. You need to remind yourself that doing things for others because you SHOULD is a wonky RULE that has been installed without your permission when you were young. You must do things that feel RIGHT FOR YOU. Forgiveness and obligation need close attention within this.

·       When you know your choices and needs are being overridden, imagine it is happening to a younger friend or innocent child, what would you intervene with and say. That is the thing you need to say when your needs are disregarded next time.

·       If you feel yourself becoming small and unsure of yourself in the company of others then taking 5 or 10 mins to reset yourself is totally acceptable. E.g. You’re going to the shop, you forgot something at home or in the car, you need to take a call outside.

·       What does your version of a best day look like, who is there, what is the activity and where is it spent? Look towards building those into your life if only once in a while.

·       Compile a list of things you want to learn, achieve and focus on.

If the above seems hard, start little

o   Which tea cup can you insist is yours?

o   Buy the orange juice you like

o   Fill up at the petrol station that is less busy and more convenient to you – not the cheapest.

o   Get your hair done at the hairdressers, not a friend, not yourself.

o   Buy yourself a fish and chips from the chippy on a Friday if that would be a treat.

The list could be endless, but start small and build on it every day. It takes mental investment, like going to the gym takes physical investment. You will be starting to change a lifetime of habits for you and your children and building your best life.

If you would like to know more about the workshops available. Please take a look at my facebook page Talking to Teenagers.