HPD Women and Children...

I have often asked myself "why did she want children"?

Our children are grown now and their relationships with their mother is strained to say the least. She makes no time for them now that she's spending so much time with her lover.

But even since the kids were small she treated them only marginally better than pets. The clashes we had over parenting are legendary. She had such a hands off approach. She would just let them do whatever they wanted. No structure at all. When they came to her with a problem or for help with something that was important to them she would make them feel like they were intruding on her. Her favorite deflection, in an exasperated tone was... "I don't know what to tell you. You figure it out". And then a tirade about how hard she works, how hard her day was, how tired she was, how no one would help her around the house yada yada yada...

Everytime I heard her say that it was game-on! A child thinks their parent knows everything and has everything figured out. The worst thing you can do to a small child is knock that out from under them. The look on my sons face when she would say that was just short of horror. I told her I never wanted to hear her say that to our kids again under any circumstance! I mean for crying out loud! If he could figure it out on is own he wouldn't be asking for help! So, help him! Even if all you can offer is a "It's gonna be okay".

My style was much more involved and hands on with them. She would accuse me of being like her dad. Over bearing and stern. I can tell you that I am nothing like her dad! I made a point of that every time it came up. He may have been a complete a$$hole but he might have had a little bit of a clue about raising kids. He wasn't good at it. As a matter of fact he was a complete failure in my opinion. But children do need structure.

My son, 23, has just in the past few weeks realized that he is emotionally more mature than his mother. That was a difficult thing for him. It confuses him when he tries to communicate with her and even he says it's like talking to a little kid. He knows he can't get his point across to her. She's just not concerned with his feelings. That's a hard concept for him to understand. He's beginning to see the past for what it was. When we talk I can see the light come on when we talk about how his mother raised him.

She treated my daughter more like a friend than a daughter. That was really hard to deal with in her teen years. That treatment empowered her and made her very difficult. Thankfully I was able to overcome that with lots of love and understanding. I think she's going to be okay. As we've talked I've seen the light come on behind her eyes when I helped her to understand why her mother did the things she did.

She had them only because I think she thought she was supposed to. After that she was happy to dump them off on anyone that would take them. Me, our parents, child care, baby sitters. She provided the basics for life. But she was ill equipped to nurture our children.

She has no maternal instincts at all. Never had them, never will.

Has anyone else had this sort of issue with a HPD mother?

I didn't see the post at the bottom of the page by Kevin Pasternak. I should have posted under his topic. It seems these stories ring all to familiar.

These people started out disadvantaged for a period of time but the costs to those that love them last a lifetimes worth.