Maybe she didn't. I did say "broad strokes". Was your mother abusive, mentally ill, or emotionally unavailable because she was either checked out, struggling through her own trauma, or working to put a roof over you head and feed you? Where was your father? What was he contributing?
I've wondered, based off that comment you made about rooting out the evil within you. You're not evil for being male Tony.
I'm also not saying women good / men bad, despite my current profile literally saying just that. That's me poking at Benny a bit because he pretty much dared me to. And I know it will annoy him.
Talking about the problems men cause women does not negate the problems women cause other women (get me going on Phyllis Schlayfly or Tipper Gore or Kim Kardashian sometime), the problems that women cause men (truly hot right now - never ever ever ask me about PearlyThings if you have anything else you want to do in the next 6 hours, and there potentislky a new one here on Medium whose name I will withhold for now because it's too soon to tell) the problems that women cause children, or just general problems that women don't cause per se, but they don't help when they could or just don't notice much.
We're no different than you men in those respects. No better and no worse.
That said, if you feel your mom didn't try to teach you emotional intelligence or communication skills then your upbringing was an oddity in that regard, not the norm. Because mothers on the whole DO try to teach their children how to get along with others and emotionally regulate (believe it or not, constantly screaming toddlers are not as much fun as you might otherwise think).
What happens is that once others get involved in the kid's life, Mom and what Mom taught you takes a back seat in a lot of different ways. Pittinf down mothers is so normalized and ubiquitous, Moms get disrespected and diminishee in their children's eyes left, right, and sideways. Usually around school age, the kid is developed enough to start noticing what everyone else thinks of Mom and they'll mirrir it. Moms don't always know how or are unable to respond effectively.
Our culture really mistreats mothers.
Here's an example. It's the first thing that was a 180° turn. On the whole it's not that big a deal, but it shows how impressionable children are at this age and how much of an impact casual and callous language can make an impact on a kid that young.
I really stressed and pushed good eating habits with Urchling as an infant and toddler. We ate mostly fruits and vegetables and hime cooked meals. Not your typical hamburger and pizza diet of most Americans. Urchling had an area of the fridge on the bottom shelf that was hers to eat from whenever she for hungry, as soon as she was strong enough to open the door. She used to go through a pint of grape tomatoes twice a week or so, from the time she had teeth to chew them till kindergarten.
I send her off to kindergarten.
Her teacher doesn't like tomatoes and somehow or other it gets brought up in class. Most of the other kids turn their noses up at tomatoes too. Urchling says, "My Mommers gets me tomatoes. We love tomatoes".
The teacher says, "I always thought people whonlike tomatoes are auspicious."
Casual, unthinking, meant it as a joke. But the other kids joined in, as kids will do and this is Urchling's first experience being on the receiving end of peer pressure. She's an only child and was normally the protector/negotiator on the playground.
Urchling has not eaten a tomato since then.
I was complaining about it to the other moms one day at the pick up line after being at my wits end about it. SEVERAL of the other moms said their kids did the ssme thing. The moms who had older kids, siblings to this class, basically all said, Get used to it. This is how it is now. Everything is a battle. You won't get that long with long with your younger children.
They were right, for the most part. I got lucky in that Urchling caught her 1st and 2nd grade teachers in a lie her 2nd grade teacher was just plain mean, and she over heard that teacher say to another that children were stupid. That influence was mitigated. She came back to me.
In the eyes of society, becoming a mother makes you stupid, incompetent, lazy, and hysterical. To be ignored. All the hoopla about the sacredness of motherhood and all that shit is a lie.
Children start to mirror that and drift toward whoever or whatever becomes their primary influence. Look around. What are those influences promoting?
I think maybe it's not as bad as it used to be because younger fathers are more emotionally literate themselves and are more engaged in their kids' lives. Or they're sperm donors and absentee. Seems to be split.
How old are your friends' children? Have the reaches an age where they're starting to gain influence from others outside the home?
