How to NOT Dislike Your Mother

As Mother's Day approaches, some children and mothers may feel dread of this day -- as their experience of it has been awkward and stressful. 

Mother's Day is traditionally a day to celebrate the love of mothers, but it could very well be a day for some sons and daughters to convey to their mother that though they would still provide her with a gift, a dinner and some flowers, they could not provide the honest love that is expected -- truth be told, they do not actually feel they could honestly like their mother.

To keep up with tradition and the spirit of the special day, most daughters and sons celebrate Mother's Day.  But is this simply a duty to perform?  

What if your mother is not all that loving or caring, in your viewpoint. Would you still send her a card which tells her how wonderful she is -- because it is Mother’s Day?

Many of us have had moments when we deeply dislike our parents.  Maybe our parents were too negative. Maybe they were downright mean about our accomplishments or maybe they never cared.

Parents are not always right and they may not always love the child.  Parents may feel obliged to provide for the child and the child will return the obligation when he or she gets older. But this action still does not mean there is love involved from both sides.

Trying to force the relationship will turn the relationship into misery for both sides.

Emilie C was a divorced mother whose only daughter had ended up in the custody of her ex-husband. Feeling that she had lost everything, she desperately wanted her daughter to feel close to her --  to the point that her daughter started hating her.  Through counseling, Emilie discovered some hard truths.

"I actually did not love my daughter," Emilie confessed. "She was the last fight I had wanted to win over my ex-husband."

Emilie learned how to love her child by ceasing to fight and simply letting her daughter be herself.

From the viewpoint of a child, how does one communicate to an unchanging parent whose behavior is constantly creating rifts in the relationship?

Honesty plays a big part. Another part is to act yourself and be yourself. If you insist that your parent understand you, you will end up upset and disappointed. That is not necessarily their interest – to understand you.

Many experts have advised ‘open communication’ as the best way to heal a relationship, including that between a parent and a child. However, what about the heated arguments and make-wrongs that could ensue?

If people have bottled up their feelings too long, those outbursts are natural and they are temporary.  Those arguments are better than a lifetime of detachment, right?  The relationship will have a chance to heal because of not keeping silent.

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Author, marriage expert and matchmaker Hellen Chen is a frequent guest on national and international radio and television. Her book on marriage and relationships is The Matchmaker of the Century.