Within the family there are all kinds of people who, in certain cases, can turn education during our first years of life into a very negative experience .

There is no natural law that the relationship with mothers and fathers should be easy. Many times, the context in which we live, or hard experiences lived in the past, make the way we interact with some relatives twist. In this case we will talk about a phenomenon that can be known as “toxic mothers” .

What are toxic mothers like?

Mothers, because of their traditional role as caregivers that is still preserved in many countries and partly also because of the special bond of attachment they establish with their children during breastfeeding, are a key element in this regard, and their influence on parenting is often more decisive than that of the parents.

Those toxic mothers who are so voluntarily or involuntarily and who, moved by love or self-interest, transform the education of some people into an ordeal, can leave a mark on the people they raise .

These are people who establish a negative bond with their sons or daughters, to the point that actions that in principle can be based on love and affection are transformed into a leash that limits the freedom and well-being of others.

Despite what it may seem, the responsibility for the relationship not being good does not have to be entirely the mother’s . Relationships are two-way roads, and as bad as a bond may seem, many times both people involved may be doing something to improve it.

However, what characterizes toxic mothers is that, although sometimes they are not responsible for the bad relationship 100%, for the sons or daughters the sacrifice of having to carry this relationship can be such a heavy burden that, despite being able to look for ways to improve the situation, this option becomes unbearable, because it would require suffering much longer. Therefore, many times the situation leads to the loss of contact .

Voluntarily or involuntarily toxic mothers: their characteristics

Knowing how to identify cases where someone is behaving like a toxic mother is very important in order to put a stop to the situation and make this adult re-learn how to educate properly.

These are some of the signs that can be useful in identifying them . They don’t all have to occur at the same time, but they provide a guideline for your behaviour.

1. Gender role fixing

Some mothers are toxic because they feel they must pass on to their daughters the cultural legacy of what it is supposed to be like to be a woman. That is why, without realizing it, they will pressure their daughters to adopt a submissive attitude towards men and to conceive household chores as their responsibility (regardless of their actual preferences).

Usually extremely conservative toxic father figures do not care so much about educating their daughters in this regard, but leave this task to the mothers.

2. The “Prince Charming” illusion

A problem derived from the previous one is that toxic mothers with a very conservative profile educate their daughters in the idea that they will not be happy without a man by their side .

In this way, they are brought up to feel sadness and regret if for whatever reason they are single for a time that they feel is excessive, and they become involved in relationships simply to escape from being single.

3. Controlling personality

This is a characteristic of toxic mothers that is embodied in their way of bringing up sons and daughters. In these cases, mothers tend to assume that as maternal figures they should have the utmost responsibility for the education of their children, to the point that the latter have no say in what they do.

Of course, is a very harmful idea that feeds a dynamic of relationships in which any choice must go through the mother , leaving the little ones without the possibility of learning to be autonomous and learn from their successes and mistakes.

4. The projection on the sons and daughters

This is a characteristic shared by both toxic mothers and their male counterparts: the tendency to believe that their offspring will become the “ideal self” that they never became . That is why, sometimes, many parents point out to their children such a quantity of extracurricular activities that the latter end up exhausted and without time or desire to dedicate to what they really like.

Moreover, because toxic mothers and fathers perceive their offspring as belonging to one generation, they see this as a race against time: they want to make their children perfect in the shortest possible time. This is why they sometimes start “training” certain skills of their children when they are very young, before they are 7 or 8 years old, and force them to keep practicing over the years.

5. Distrusting Friends

Some toxic parents may assume such a protective role that they forbid their sons and daughters from making friends with people they consider suspicious, even if only because of their appearance. This, of course, produces intense frustration in the children , who may learn that friendships are made in secret, thus creating a fence between the circle of friends and the family which in adult life can lead to the isolation of the latter.

Furthermore, in some cases, the criteria by which a friend is established as acceptable becomes a sign of racism, thus instilling in their offspring this discriminatory mental scheme from their early years.

6. Passive-aggressive attitude

Toxic mothers do not adapt to the fact that the way they try to educate is totally rejected, and they will continue to try to behave as they did in the beginning, without learning from the experience.

What does usually change is his mood, which usually becomes that of a frustrated person who refuses to change strategies to see if better results are obtained. Normally, in these cases, the help of another person is needed so that these mothers see with perspective that their discomfort can be mitigated by trying new things.

7. Indifference

There are mothers who, instead of being controlling, are exactly the opposite . On many occasions they disguise as permissiveness what in reality is indifference or little desire to manage clashes of interest between them and the children.

The result of this is usually small people who have Emperor’s Syndrome and, as adults, people who are defenseless in adult life, who easily fall into frustration and have a low tolerance for anxiety generating situations.

8. Overprotection

Overprotection has a lot to do with the controlling personality, but it comes through the fear that the sons or daughters will face the challenges of adult life. This way of relating to the children gives incentives not to take the initiative and to stay within the comfort zone.

9. Competitive mentality

This is another of the characteristic features of toxic mothers that have to do with projection; in this case, they try to show before everyone’s eyes that the sons or daughters of one are better than the rest, either by buying them more things, putting more pressure on them to study, etc. This may have to do with the fear that the children are unprotected in their adult and independent lives, but it wears a lot of psychology down.

The important thing is that we do not work to satisfy the real needs of the children, but to achieve social status through them .

10. Common use of violence to punish

The regular use of methods of punishment based on violence, whether physical or verbal through insults, is one of the most harmful phenomena that can occur within the family. Not only does it cause suffering at specific moments when it is in order, but it also feeds mistrust, resentment and fear.

11. Parental alienation

Attempting to turn children against a family member, usually the other parent after a separation or divorce, is one of the most serious forms of manipulation with consequences . Of course, it can occur in both parents.

12. The intrusion

Even within families, intimacy is important. Not knowing how to respect that creates a lot of discomfort in the long run.

Bibliographic references:

  • Bowlby, J. (1977). The making and breaking of affectional bonds. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 130(3): pp. 201 – 210.
  • Fassin, Eric. (2002). La nature de la maternite: pour une anthropologie de la reproduction. Journal de anthropologues.
  • Fehr, B., Russell, J. (1991). The Concept of Love Viewed From a Prototype Perspective. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
  • Peusner, Pablo (2009). Critique of the notion of family in The Suffering of Children. Letra Viva, Buenos Aires.