“Mean Mothers: Overcoming the Legacy of Hurt” by Peg Streep

****I am currently reading this book, and I’m also living it with my own mother. I highly recommend this book to anyone, particularly any women who struggle every day with the hurt of having their mother constantly reject them, turning her back on them constantly, being overly critical of and looking for things wrong with her daughter, and seeming as if she’s jealous about her daughter having a positive relationship with her father. That part right there, is the most unhealthy aspect of this thinking that some mothers get in to regarding the mistreatment of her daughter(s).
My mother was a fantastic mother when I was a child, but somehow she became extraordinarily jealous, competitive (especially with the love of my Dad, which my Dad still to this very day is unable to see her doing to me) and she is highly critical of every single thing I do. I had to discontinue my relationship with her because I couldn’t handle anymore how she always finds fault in every single thing I do, every single thing I say, no matter what the case is she will find a way to show me that she is disappointed in me for screwing up, and she definitely enjoys belittling me. In many cases, women don’t realize they are acting this way toward their daughter. I wish to God I could get my mother to stop and ask herself why I am saying these things if I don’t believe them to be 100% true. Come on. Don’t be stupid. I have a very extensive education that, I think we both know, qualifies me to be “educated in Parenting” with all of the Child Development classes, Human Development classes, Early Childhood Education classes (which preschool and elementary school teachers focus on). I just want my loving, caring, doting mother back. I must have done something to make her fear she’s going to lose my father’s love. I’m not sure, but there is definitely a reason behind it and I would be willing to be good money that the reason has something to do with my Dad.

Below I have included the description from goodreads.com about “Mean Mothers: Overcoming the Legacy of Hurt” and again, I very highly recommend this, it’s a fantastic read and completely made sense to me.

An exploration of the darker side of maternal behavior drawn from scientific research, psychology, and the real-life experiences of adult daughters, Mean Mothers sheds light on one of the last cultural taboos: what happens when a woman doesn’t or can’t love her daughter. Mean Mothers reveals the multigenerational thread that often runs through these stories—many unloving mothers are the daughters of unloving or hypercritical women—and explores what happens to a daughter’s sense of self and to her relationships when her mother is emotionally absent or even cruel. But Mean Mothers is also a narrative of hope, recounting how daughters can get past the legacy of hurt to become whole within and to become loving mothers to the next generation of daughters. The personal stories of unloved daughters and sons and those of the author herself, are both unflinching and moving, and bring this most difficult of subjects to life.

Mean Mothers isn’t just a book for daughters who’ve had difficult or impossible relationships with their mothers. By exposing the myths of motherhood that prevent us from talking about the women for whom mothering a daughter is fraught with ambivalence, tension, or even jealousy, Mean Mothers also casts a different light on the extraordinary influence mothers have over their female children as well as the psychological complexity and emotional depth of the mother-daughter relationship…”