Conversation | 04/27/2009 12:00 am

The wOw Conversation: The Ins, Outs and In Betweens of a Mother's Love

Lesley Stahl, Sheila Nevins, Jane Wagner and Mary Wells speak candidly about their love for their children, their parents love for them and what they’ve learned from it all.

With Jane Wagner, Lesley Stahl, Mary Wells and Sheila Nevins

LESLEY: I read a book the other day. I can’t tell you who it’s by because I’m going to do a story on it. But the book is about mothers and daughters, written from the daughter’s perspective; and a daughter who is older, not a young woman. The point really is that whether you had a good relationship or a bad relationship; whether you ended up friends or not, the mother relationship is still the most vital, deep, formative, painful – whatever – relationship that any woman has. And that if you’ve had a difficult relationship, and your mother’s still alive, it’s very important that you find a way to resolve it, because it can leave a hole inside you.

MARY: But if you think about it, you’re talking about two women. And two women understand each other better than women and men, because men are a different species altogether. You can get really close to your daughter. You can get into each other’s heads and hearts and stuff because you’re two women who are willing to open up your minds and open up your hearts.

SHEILA: But Lesley, you know, I think there are two relationships with a mother. One is when your mother is living, and you’re maybe not measuring up, and you’re maybe damaging each other in some way, certainly in my case. And there’s a relationship when your mother dies, and you have a child of your own, and you begin to see things about being a mother that you didn’t have the insight to see when you were just a daughter. So I always feel like I’ve had two mothers – one that I lived with, that I fought with and tried to survive with; and then one that I understood after I, myself, was a mother, because my mother had died so very young.

And then you let go and then they come back, and then you hold too tight. So it’s kind of like a seesaw. It’s never the right hold ...

LESLEY: But then when you became a mother it was easier, don’t you think – infinitely easier – to forgive your own mother?

SHEILA: Yes, totally. And to feel sorry that I hadn’t understood how much this connection meant to her. Because I wanted to be free and I wanted to be approved of. And, you know, it’s almost impossible to let go when you are a mother because you love so very, very much. And what I possibly interpreted as possessive and controlling was really just her loving me.

JANE: Trying to protect you, right?

SHEILA: Yes, protecting. And not seeing you grow up. It’s very hard for a mother to see her child grow up, because you become less useful.

JANE: Sheila, Lesley and Mary, some of you have written about your relationships with your children. Mary, I recall, I’ve met your daughter. And I loved seeing how warm and playful you are with each other. Candice, too seems so close to Chloe. My feeling is that you all have good relationships with your children.

MARY: Absolutely true. And I had a terrific relationship with my mother. It’s my father who gave me problems.

LESLEY: Well, what I liked about this book is this daughter, finally, coming to understand how much she, as a child, had provoked her mother into yelling at her, even hitting her. How much the child wanted to get to her mother. And boy, I read the book and was in tears, because I could see myself. Things I didn’t understand until I read the book.

JANE: Isn’t that sometimes just classically developmental? Don’t teenagers have to rebel, just to find their own identity?

LESLEY: But not to the point where you make your mother hit you. I never did that. Did anybody here do that, go that far? This was a girl who was doing it every day. But I just find the subject so compelling for every women. We’re always daughters.

Read more about: Children, Family, Love, Mother's Day 09, Psychology, Relationships

41 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment

For the life of me, I can’t imagine ever hitting my mother but the post did remind me of the one and only time in my life I ever stopped talking to Mum for we were very close and we had never suffered the usual mother-child angst. I was a grown woman, close to forty, and we’d had a difference of opinion. Nothing, (in retrospect!) worth falling out over but she walked out of my house and my response had been "WELL! That’s that, then!" Four weeks went by without our usual daily phone conversations or any contact but…I was as stubborn as she. She lived thirty-five miles away in the city where my then seventeen year old daughter was attending college. One evening, over dinner, I had mused about Mum…daughter had asked why didn’t I just call her, go visit, get this over with and I had ranted somewhat but, at the same time, expressed some concern as to not knowing how mother was being that she was approaching seventy. Daughter paused for a few minutes then said "Grandma is okay but she misses you…and I know you miss her…" I asked how she was so sure of Mum’s feeling. Another pause…then I learned that my daughter called her grandmother every day at lunch time to check on her, see how she was and to let her know we were all well, in her youth trying to create a bridge. "And a little child shall lead us…" came to mind. Next day I called mother. I don’t have either mother or daughter now but every day I am so grateful for the bond and love we three women shared.

By Nancy Cleveland on 04/27/2009 9:09 am

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Wow. Always hard to relate to people who have healthy bonds with their mothers and their daughters. We have "legacy issues" in my family. I’m sure there’s some love tucked in there somewhere, but that’s not exactly what the women in my life have been about sharing with each other.

"Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself…" Kahlil Gibrahn.

I’ve always taken some comfort in that idea, but when I listen to other women tell their stories, I don’t know for sure if it’s true. Maybe I missed out on something that I’ll never be able to give.

By Ms. Dee on 04/27/2009 11:06 am

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Ms. Dee … you have been quiet lately and I’ve been wondering why and "the latest" … and I read what you have written here, realizing that each relationship is different and each of us has to work out and do what we have to — and no one else can truly understand what lies within our hearts. But I have watched and listened to others who are so stirred up within and in some cases, eaten up, that it is as if they are carrying a weight like a large stone that weighs them down.

Someone has to be the one to take that first baby step — test the waters in the smallest way. It sounds like everyone has been marked, hurt, and perhaps irreparably wounded. But in life each of us needs love whether we admit it or not. . and perhaps it might take you - who I know as a strong woman - to make an initial step. So often everyone needs a good cry and then a reaching out, perhaps more than once or in a different way. Is it worth a try? Only you can decide that — but I find that if you feel you have made a first step, some of that weight is released as you have done the right thing. That alone is a positive thing, don’t you think?

Maybe not … but perhaps something to think of. In the meantime, sending you love!!! Joan

By joan larsen on 04/27/2009 11:21 pm

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Dear Joan, I’ve been giving this post of yours a lot of thought. My first thought was, "Yikes! I’ve given the wrong impression here. I don’t think of my Mother as a stone that weighs me down. It’s not that at all. It’s just, I can’t honestly say she’s been like the wind beneath my wings, either. And she knows that. We’re very close. We’re just very different.

She came to see me last week. Can you believe it? Just four months after her by-pass surgery…that practically scared the life out of me…she’s driving and running around to her exercise class, and lunch with friends, or off to watch the tap dancers. But at my house, after we looked at all the video I shot of her great-grand children, we got a bite to eat, and went to the grocery. And while we were at the store, we had a disagreement about Boaz. So before she left, I pulled out my Bible and I read the whole book of Ruth out loud…just to prove to her that, as it turned out, SHE was right!

And as she was getting into her car to leave, she smiled and said, "I had fun." And I said, "Oh, good!" But honestly, I couldn’t figure out when the "fun part" had happened. I don’t know. If either of us has a problem that needs to be baby-stepped away from, it’s probably me. She just never seems to be having fun when she’s with me. If other people are around, she lightens up quite a bit, but when it’s just the two of us, it’s all worrisome and significant. She’s not my friend, she’s my mother. And I’m not just anybody, I’m her daughter. Gravitas! That’s what it is with us. Problem-solving, chewing the serious fat. It IS meaningful and it IS significant, and altogether precious to me; but it’s not that carefree, gigglesome get-together so many other people describe when they spend time with their mothers…or with their children.

That’s the real troublesome part. Why is it so hard for me to have any fun with my own adult children? I can have fun with my grand-daughters, and I remember having a lot of fun with their parents when they were little, but somewhere along the line, this weird distance just creeps up, like some genetic wall. I can’t really let my hair down, or forget what’s expected of me. And any sort of intimacy seems totally taboo…even though, I always come away thinking of things I wish I’d said, or opportunities missed. It’s odd. ’Course, there’s been a lot of pain in my family…suffered and inflicted…but that’s all been sobbled out, talked to death and laid to rest. And I’m not sure it’s any worse than other families suffer and inflict on each other.

Maybe I’m just stuck on an ideal that doesn’t really exist. Maybe I just don’t know how to have fun. Or maybe every family has a melody, or a compositional style about it, that’s beautiful in its own right. It’s like I’m Rachmaninoff wondering what it would be like to be John Phillip Sousa. (Now whouldn’t that would be silly.) But you’re very sweet to send your love. And to the extent that I’m capable, I’m sending you mine.

By Ms. Dee on 05/06/2009 10:57 pm

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Good to "voice" (how appropriate) the things wondered about and so often held in, getting the thoughts of others, and finding that others feel just like you. Just saw this — it is godawful late — but this is food for thought. And then — well, you know so well that once I get inside this, you will be hearing. In the meantime, hugs.

By joan larsen on 05/07/2009 3:11 am

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This is for Dee: Once, as an young adult, I watched a female friend of mine interact with her Mother. They were sitting together on a couch, I was sitting across from them. All during our conversation the mother was stroking her daughter’s hair, or touching her arms, being very loving in a physical way. I remember feeling a deep sense of envy and sadness. My Mother would never have displayed her love and affection that way. ( My father always did). When I had my own children I was very physically demonstrative, although having sons, that lasted only until it wasn’t really appropriate. It took me years to understand that it just wasn’t in my Mother’s nature to display those kinds of feelings. There is no ideal, Dee, it is what it is. I think what you said about each family having their own compositional style is perfect.

By phyllis Doyle Pepe on 05/09/2009 12:19 pm

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I had a similar experience, except that in my scenario, the mother in the conversation became emotional while telling me a story. She started to tear up, and her daughter, in her late teens, jumped out of her chair and was at her mother’s side in a heartbeat. And as I sat there watching this daughter comfort her mother, I thought about all the times my own daughter had seen me cry…or caught me crying…and if she didn’t leave the room immediately, I did. I honestly can’t tell you the last time I saw my own mother shed a tear. But I have very vivid memories of my own daughter, telling me a story, and starting to cry, and how I sat on the other side of the room and listened to her story until she regained her composure. I don’t feel good about that at this point. Why didn’t I….move! Hold her hand. Anything! Did I think there was something for her to gain by my letting her find her way through it by herself?

I don’t know what creates these family differences, but I do remember how impressed I was that afternoon by how different things could be.

By Ms. Dee on 05/09/2009 2:04 pm

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How to we learn how to mother? How do we learn how to trust? It begins at the knee of the care taker, the care giver. You, given your relations with your mother, learned and digested the ways of mothering, the ways of parenting. Somehow we have been led to believe, as you said before, in the ideal family situation, the ideal mother who would, as the Wow moms said, would take a bullet for their child––BUT there are many variations on that theme and the music isn’t so grand. So, yes, why didn’t you move, hold her hand, anything? Maybe, and I’m just throwing this out, your hand wasn’t being held by YOUR mother when you so needed a hand to hold. We tend to replicate, replicate, replicate! The fact that you wish it had been otherwise might spur you to take your daughter into your arms and tell her so. Break the patterns, if you can. And believe me, I know how difficult it can be, but the part of you that can laugh, giggle, have fun with your grandchildren tells you a lot, doesn’t it?

By phyllis Doyle Pepe on 05/09/2009 5:42 pm

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I think it’s with my grandchildren because I don’t feel like I’ve made any big mistakes with any of them yet. I’m not around enough. So I can just bring and give and feel fairly confident that they’re going to enjoy my company. But I must confess, I was very glad to be home. I could feel myself needing the distance toward the end of the visit. And these are delightful children, every one of them. I was just spent. I could feel it. It was all I could do to not fall asleep in a room full of grown-up…not that these particular grown-ups would have noticed. They were busy on the video games you see. But if a kid had come in the room they would’ve noticed, I’m sure. But I swear, if they’d said, "Gramama’s asleep!" the grown-ups (my sons) wouldn’t have heard it…until the third or fourth time…. and I’d have sat there with my eyes closed and pretend I hadn’t heard it either. Ha! That never happened, but I know myself. I was so tired. I can see myself doing it.

I do remember my mother hugging me when she cried. We were alone in the house after my dad left the second time. One time, we were holding onto each so tight when she sobbed, I felt her pain reverberating through my skull forever after that night. It colored everything. I mean, he’d left me just like he’d left her, so there was nothing I could do. But, that’s just little stroll through my shrink-dom.

Last December, after her by-pass, when they brought her up out of ICU, she looked me dead in the eye and said, "I shouldn’t have done this." And I did take her hand at that point, even though she was glaring at me like a wet hornet, and shrugged and smiled and said, "Well, we’ll never do it again. How’s that?" And she smirked and rolled her eyes. MAJOR relief. Sometimes when I say things in an effort to be helpful, she’s very quick to tell me how wrong I am. But this time, a little humor went a long way. Now she laughs when she tells people how I promised to let her die next time.

But I do wish my daughter were closer. If she’d let me, I’d do just what you’re saying and wrap her up so tight some of her pain would have to spill into me. She’s having a tough time right now, fighting her own demons. Who knows what got into her skull with a mom like me. I’m sure there’s some great stuff in there, but we’ve agreed for now, if I were there, I’d "just be in the way." Maybe I should go prover her wrong.

Isn’t Joan’s video the best? I sent it to my daughter. "Roar with me, not at me!"

By Ms. Dee on 05/09/2009 7:42 pm

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Many typos. Please forgive.

By Ms. Dee on 05/09/2009 7:45 pm

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My mother and I loved each other dearly, Phyll, but I don’t ever recall hugging her once in my life. Yet, she was the person I loved and admired most.

By James the Game on 05/10/2009 9:19 am

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Joan: That wonderful video that you sent me would be a perfect metaphor for a child (in this case a young cub) finding his own voice with the help of his mother always there for him, but standing in the background to help, defend, and comfort when need be. We need to raise our children to be independent and stress the importance of incorporating the policeman inside instead of out. Mothers and daughters, sons and mothers, the stuff of life and each story is different in its unique way. Below is a poem by Phyllis Janowitz that caught my attention years ago:

CATCH

Scuba diving in the green murk

of Fiddler’s Creek, our siblings

enjoy the bliss of fishes, cavorting.

Are they not the same species:

Gregory, Polly, Holly, and the holy

mackerel? Water babies all, and each

one dives to trawl a bigger finny

traveller with tinnier scales.

How Mother will adore whichever

offspring has the biggest haul!

She can fry it for supper.

This frolicsome lurching and

mauling, does it begin at birth?

At first, no one is hurt.

Later on, the sport is extended

to shark, barracuda, stingray;

leaky yachts sail the waters off

Key West, Florida, and the sun

breaks down tender tissue.

It is only after years of exhortation,

"Take an umbrella, stay below, swab

the decks," with the last sentence

nearly through, Mother whispers

"Who’s hooked now?" wiping pink

foam from her lips.

By phyllis Doyle Pepe on 05/09/2009 11:58 am

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Hi Phyllis … the video does fit with this subject and it is wonderful. How about putting the website for this video on for all WOW people - in a prominent spot if you can so everyone should see it? And - as always, Phyllis, your selection of poems or your own are so perfect and add a dimension to WOW that we wouldn’t have without you. A million thanks!

By joan larsen on 05/09/2009 1:25 pm