A Mother's Story
My daughter Marta’s sad childhood began even before her birth. Our son was only a few months old when I accidentally became pregnant with Marta. I was very attached to my son and resented the intrusion.
When Marta was born, nursing her was wrenching to me emotionally because it made her older brother cry, and I was so attached to him.
Even in the hospital, I let the nurses give Marta a bottle, something I never allowed with any of my other children, born before or after Marta. I did not want to become attached to her.
Of course, I did not realize all this at the time. All I knew then was that Marta did not seem to like me. And I felt indifferent in return.
Marta was the only child for whom I did not have enough milk (we are an observant Catholic family and I have six children). In retrospect, I know this was because I did not let her suck long enough because I was in a rush to get back to my much-preferred oldest. I worried that he would feel neglected and unloved if I spent too much time with Marta.
When Marta turned about two years old, I realized something was very wrong with our relationship, and I knew I was responsible. I had made the mess, and now I wanted to clean it up. So one day I picked her up and sat down on the rocking chair with her and said, “Marta, let’s let bygones be bygones. I love you. Would you please forgive me? Come; let’s be friends from now on.” I held her and rocked her and cried tears of bitter regret at how I had treated her. How terrible to be unwanted before even being born. She, however, sat there upright and sucked her thumb. She didn’t cry. Generally, she hardly cried. What for? I had not exactly been responsive to her tears. Can you blame her for not liking me, for not trusting me?
The years passed; and while I was always extremely close with our other children, the relationship between Marta and me was almost non-existent. She bonded with her father somewhat, but he traveled a lot, was sometimes unwell, and for those two reasons was often not available. The interaction between Marta and me was so barely there that when Marta went out of town for whatever reason, I didn’t notice much difference in the household. We hardly spoke, though I did try much more from the time of the rocking-chair reconciliation, for whatever that was worth. Marta did not seem interested in having my attention as the other kids did.
More years passed. Marta grew up and became a miserable, sad, depressed, anxious, and difficult adult teen and then adult. She drank too much starting at age 14. She began smoking marijuana. She put on weight. She cared very little about her appearance, the only one of our six children to look sloppy all the time. She was diagnosed with all sorts of emotional problems, including acute anxiety and OCD, but the one that fit her best was Aaron Lederer’s: deficient maternal attachment. I learned from one of Aaron Lederer’s workshops, the reading he gave me, and our subsequent telephone appointments that the nature of the attachment that a baby has with his/her mother is crucial; it is the most important attachment of his/her life; it affects all future relationships, including the one a person has with his/her spouse, boss, colleagues, children, and self.
Though intellectually brilliant, Marta could not let herself succeed at anything, perhaps because she unconsciously believed that if her own mother could not love her, she was not lovable and deserved to fail.
Marta was overheard to say, when asked how she felt about her mother, “I don’t understand her. It’s as if we speak two different languages, and neither of us can really hear what the other is saying.” Marta found me, her mother, mystifying, annoying, and I found her distant and just as difficult to understand.
In her early 20s, Marta’s disturbance grew to the extent that she was once arrested for running up and down the stairs in the subway station (she was tormented by recurrent worrisome thoughts and desperately seeking relief), and soon she began taking prescription drugs to combat the OCD. The drugs did not work too well, but they sort of anesthetized her so she thought they were working. Soon Marta had no life; she basically slept the days and nights away.
Our other children grew up, left home, formed successful careers, got married, and started families; or if they were still living at home, they were working and furthering their educations, taking care of themselves, and helping with the household chores. But not Marta. She was failing at whatever she undertook. When Marta was 23, but less mature and less responsible than a five-year-old, Aaron Lederer offered to teach me new ways to communicate with Marta that, he said, may help cure her and our relationship. He said it would be painless and uncomplicated, and might take a few months, but eventually Marta would stop “shooting herself in the foot,” which is how I described how she lived her life. Meaning: she would get a job, then do something inappropriate and get fired. She would make a friend, then act gross and lose the friend. She would make the other people in our household (her best friends, really) angry at her by leaving messes all over the house. It got to a point where her siblings would not lend her money because they knew she would not pay it back. Absolutely no one ever wanted to share a room with her because of her sloppiness. My husband and I stopped giving Marta money because her money all went to impulse buys like donuts and coffee, never to the legitimate needs (for which they were given) like a sweater or transportation. If we bought her a new coat, for example, she was likely to lose it, “forget” it on the subway. She stole money from wherever she could find it, and when confronted, casually admitted it. Caring for her was frustrating, to say the least.
My daughter Marta’s sad childhood began even before her birth. Our son was only a few months old when I accidentally became pregnant with Marta. I was very attached to my son and resented the intrusion.
When Marta was born, nursing her was wrenching to me emotionally because it made her older brother cry, and I was so attached to him.
Even in the hospital, I let the nurses give Marta a bottle, something I never allowed with any of my other children, born before or after Marta. I did not want to become attached to her.
Of course, I did not realize all this at the time. All I knew then was that Marta did not seem to like me. And I felt indifferent in return.
Marta was the only child for whom I did not have enough milk (we are an observant Catholic family and I have six children). In retrospect, I know this was because I did not let her suck long enough because I was in a rush to get back to my much-preferred oldest. I worried that he would feel neglected and unloved if I spent too much time with Marta.
When Marta turned about two years old, I realized something was very wrong with our relationship, and I knew I was responsible. I had made the mess, and now I wanted to clean it up. So one day I picked her up and sat down on the rocking chair with her and said, “Marta, let’s let bygones be bygones. I love you. Would you please forgive me? Come; let’s be friends from now on.” I held her and rocked her and cried tears of bitter regret at how I had treated her. How terrible to be unwanted before even being born. She, however, sat there upright and sucked her thumb. She didn’t cry. Generally, she hardly cried. What for? I had not exactly been responsive to her tears. Can you blame her for not liking me, for not trusting me?
The years passed; and while I was always extremely close with our other children, the relationship between Marta and me was almost non-existent. She bonded with her father somewhat, but he traveled a lot, was sometimes unwell, and for those two reasons was often not available. The interaction between Marta and me was so barely there that when Marta went out of town for whatever reason, I didn’t notice much difference in the household. We hardly spoke, though I did try much more from the time of the rocking-chair reconciliation, for whatever that was worth. Marta did not seem interested in having my attention as the other kids did.
More years passed. Marta grew up and became a miserable, sad, depressed, anxious, and difficult adult teen and then adult. She drank too much starting at age 14. She began smoking marijuana. She put on weight. She cared very little about her appearance, the only one of our six children to look sloppy all the time. She was diagnosed with all sorts of emotional problems, including acute anxiety and OCD, but the one that fit her best was Aaron Lederer’s: deficient maternal attachment. I learned from one of Aaron Lederer’s workshops, the reading he gave me, and our subsequent telephone appointments that the nature of the attachment that a baby has with his/her mother is crucial; it is the most important attachment of his/her life; it affects all future relationships, including the one a person has with his/her spouse, boss, colleagues, children, and self.
Though intellectually brilliant, Marta could not let herself succeed at anything, perhaps because she unconsciously believed that if her own mother could not love her, she was not lovable and deserved to fail.
Marta was overheard to say, when asked how she felt about her mother, “I don’t understand her. It’s as if we speak two different languages, and neither of us can really hear what the other is saying.” Marta found me, her mother, mystifying, annoying, and I found her distant and just as difficult to understand.
In her early 20s, Marta’s disturbance grew to the extent that she was once arrested for running up and down the stairs in the subway station (she was tormented by recurrent worrisome thoughts and desperately seeking relief), and soon she began taking prescription drugs to combat the OCD. The drugs did not work too well, but they sort of anesthetized her so she thought they were working. Soon Marta had no life; she basically slept the days and nights away.
Our other children grew up, left home, formed successful careers, got married, and started families; or if they were still living at home, they were working and furthering their educations, taking care of themselves, and helping with the household chores. But not Marta. She was failing at whatever she undertook. When Marta was 23, but less mature and less responsible than a five-year-old, Aaron Lederer offered to teach me new ways to communicate with Marta that, he said, may help cure her and our relationship. He said it would be painless and uncomplicated, and might take a few months, but eventually Marta would stop “shooting herself in the foot,” which is how I described how she lived her life. Meaning: she would get a job, then do something inappropriate and get fired. She would make a friend, then act gross and lose the friend. She would make the other people in our household (her best friends, really) angry at her by leaving messes all over the house. It got to a point where her siblings would not lend her money because they knew she would not pay it back. Absolutely no one ever wanted to share a room with her because of her sloppiness. My husband and I stopped giving Marta money because her money all went to impulse buys like donuts and coffee, never to the legitimate needs (for which they were given) like a sweater or transportation. If we bought her a new coat, for example, she was likely to lose it, “forget” it on the subway. She stole money from wherever she could find it, and when confronted, casually admitted it. Caring for her was frustrating, to say the least.