We hear the word toxic used to describe relationships and various personalities that are harmful; such as, toxic parents, toxic coworkers, toxic groups or toxic families. The toxic mother means not enough nurturing, not enough selfless love and not enough emotional and physical safety. A toxic mother is harmful.
Spectrum of maturity
It is more useful to perceive our mothers and the mothers before them on a spectrum. Every mother has varying degrees of emotional maturity, from the narcissistic personality disorder mother who controls her children through guilt, shame, fear and/or abuse (the toxic mother), to the other end of the spectrum which is the “good enough mother”. The “good enough mother” is able to put her needs down “enough” to attend to her child as an individual. There are no perfect mothers, that is a fantasy we can go into in another post.
We are not looking to blame the mother or make her a savior but look at who she is as a person. We are trying to perceive where she falls on a spectrum of emotional maturity in raising us and then as a mother in our adult years. As we become more objective about our own mother-child relationship, we get a clearer view of what our emotional and relational work is in this life.
Some parents mature emotionally as they get older, some get worse. Parents can be highly educated and successful in their work yet have the emotional development of an adolescent. For example, they may be at work too much and leave little time for family and children or they may try to run the family in the same way they run their business. These same people do not do well in family life because parenting and marriage require emotional intimacy and a degree of selflessness. We give time to what we love.
For example, if my mother was very critical and demeaning, I will probably be that way with myself and with those I share emotional intimacy. I will need a psychotherapist or mentor who can help me untangle those beliefs about myself that have become normal and yet very unconscious.
Toxic mothering, bad mothering, or the immature qualities of our mothers is the result of a long history of emotional ignorance and harmful relationships going back generations and extending into cultural beliefs from all over the world.
Gradually, we can sort out the good stuff we got from our mothers and the not so good stuff. This may require some help and guidance because the mother daughter or mother son relationship can be complex. It can be difficult to feel and understand what is hers and what is mine. This can be uncovered in therapy, meditation or some form of introspection.
Overly controlling mother
The mother daughter relationship can be difficult to untangle because daughters generally identify with their mothers as a model for becoming a women. Where she was confused with “should” and “shouldn’t” the daughter will become the same or rebel against it. Daughters may feel like they have broken away but will act it out unconsciously with others. This is usually experienced as social anxiety, misplaced guilt, and a shame that does not allow much room to let in goodness.
For example, In the movie “Black Swan” the toxic mother controlled her daughter with possessive love, guilt and rejection. The daughter fought against her mother’s fantasy of success and how a girl “should” behave in order to fulfill the mother’s desire, not the daughters well being.
The movie “Foxcatcher” shows a toxic mother-son relationship where the mother sucked the life out of her son through controlling his life to fit into her idea of sophistication. This controlling mother is in it for herself and shows how she manipulates the child to be made in her image.
The theory of the “good enough mother” was developed by the pediatrician Donald Winnicott. If there was such a thing as a perfect mother, the child could never find his or her own way and learn to tolerate frustration and disappointment in life. But we do need “enough” to find our ground, otherwise we need to find it through “good enough” mentors later in life.
