Question: Relationship with mom...

[ShelbyDawn]

Hey ladies,

Was talking with my counselor this afternoon. She has helped me a great deal in coming to terms with my dressing - in a good way; realizing that crossdressing is just another stop on the spectrum of normal; accepting it as just part of who I am, not good or bad, just part of who I am. Unfortunately for me, I tend to be overly concerned with the why question in just about everything I do. In my job it is a good thing. In other areas, not so much. :)

Anyway,
As we talked, my relationship with my mom came up. I have always had issues of not being good enough for her and think some of my encouragement to dress might come from a bit of jealousy over my feeling that my three sisters were treated better than me. Notice I said encouragement to dress. I believe that this is just how I am wired and different things in my life have encouraged my to choose to go down this path.

And all of this gets me to a question I would appreciate your responses to: "What was your relationship with your mom like when you were growing up?"

Thanks for your responses and I look forward to the ensuing discussion...

Shelby

[Annette Todd]

My relationship with my mom was generally good. I lived with her through a divorce and for several years when she remarried and divorced again. She is very strong willed but I was always her "rock". I had a brother and no sisters although I always wished I had a sister. ah well story of my life, always a bridesmaid...

[Melissa73]

my mother was the one I could turn to when I was scared, or just when I need someone! my parents were divorced since I was like 4 yrs old, and I recall trying to go to my dad when I said iwas scared of attending high school. his response: basically suck it up, and grow up, theres nothing to be scared of. Yet when I went to my mother, she reassured me, and that I was scared when I went to middle school but reminded me that the fear subsided.

as for my dressing, mom let a dadt policy sit in the house, while dad shook his finger and said "don't do it" course, we all know where that leads too..... yes, I continued to dress a) because I couldn't help it b) inspite of dad

[MysticLady]

Hi Shelby
My relationship w/ mother.....she is also strong willed and loving at the same time. I love my mother very much and even though she doesn't know of my dressing(I think, I'm sure she noticed some stretched out items:heehee:) I would feel comfortable in telling her about Victoria and she would respect my decision but Im sure she'll lecture me:heehee:. I Respect and Honor my mother immensely and will always cherish her.:)

[bridget thronton]

I was very close to my mom and she to me

[Rebecca Watson]

I haven't spoken to my mother in over 15 years. She is not a nice person. The courts, despite forcing me to give my opinion of which parent to live with (I chose my father), decided it would be in my best interest to live with my mother (who consequently knew I'd prefer to live with my father).

During the time living with my mother, I generally tried to avoid communicating with her as much as possible. I developed quiet interests that allowed me to go about my day unnoticed as much as possible, spending almost all of my childhood watching TV or playing computer games. Going out with friends or having extracurricular interests would draw too much attention, so they were out.

When I turned 16, I was legally allowed to decide for myself which parent to move in with, so I moved in with my father. My mother didn't really care; that's when my father no longer needed to pay child support. I haven't spoken to her since. She's never met my wife, nor her two grandchildren (and probably never will).

- Becky

[ArleneRaquel]

I was close, to my mother the last years of her life I was her main care giver, other than the professionals. It was a 24/7 job. A great deal of it I was dressed enfemme, though I did male allowances when professional did check up on her.

[immike]

I loved&respected Mother,always.She never knew the secret life I have enjoyed for years,secretly wearing her clothes.

[Jenniferathome]

My relationship with my mother was great. She loved me. She told me so every day and she treated me like the boy I was. I do not buy into any correlation between mother-son or father-son or even sibling-parent relationships being a casual factor in crossdressing. It's genetic. Freudian readings are just not relevant to cross dressing. By teh way, my relationship with my father was equally good. I lived the "Brady Bunch" life.

[paulaprimo]

my relationship with my mother was great! not so good with my alcoholic father. there were 3 kids and she treated us equally. my mom was the glue that kept our family together. very "old school" and the "donna reed" type mom. you could talk to her or tell her anything and she always seemed to have all of the answers. she was the most active and hard working woman i ever met in my life, she is in her 80's now, and still a "bull dog" and hasn't slowed down a step. i remeber trying on my moms bra's and stockings when i was about 8 years old. maybe my cd'ing is on account of me wanting to be just like my mom. i never thought that before, but i suppose its possible.

[sandra-leigh]

I have always had fondness and respect for my mother (well, except maybe when she tried to make me go to bed at a reasonable time :o ) I get along well with her to this day. But I don't talk to her much at all about my being TG, as she would either not understand or would over-protect me (or both simultaneously.)

[Rachelakld]

I was both son and daughter to my mum in that I was the one who learned to cook, keep house, sew, knit while my sister was off with her friends.
She was a very open minded, spritual person.
My last gift to her was removing her life support.

[mikiSJ]

I "divorced" my mother when I was 16, and she is no longer around and that is a good thing. She was a mentally abusive woman and I am doing everything I can possibly do to not be like her! Nuf said!

[cdrachael]

MY relationship with my mother was o.k but always compared to my older sister. I remember when I was a kid I wanted to quit playing trumpet and I got your sister played her instrument throughout high school you should too. This was one of many things. Later in life my first marriage went bad and my ex was no less then a stalker, and out to destroy me, (for the record my ex left me for another man). Anyway long story short my mother didn't accept my new girlfriend and later second wife. I stopped speaking to her for 3 years. I am now in contact with her to see my kids from first marriage but it is still strange. Have mothers day in Australia on Sunday and was hard to find a card that wasn't 'your the best mum in the world'.
Anyway I don't think I could ever tell her about my cd as she is very judgemental and opinionated so would be hard, so not going there.

[noeleena]

Hi,

Only had a mother, for 24 years, there was a man who was ment to be a father, about 5 years & Mom & i had to leave or be killed, he did try, much background there & i know very little was a very abusive time, plus i had no memory of what went on .

Mom was really a neat person & mum who worked very hard to keep us together, later we had her Mum & Dad live with us for some 7 years, she was bedridden & was looked after all the time by grandad till she passed away 1958 .

I was given a full rein was not forced to be other than who i was, & we got on very well . & stayed together till she pased away 40 years ago. 1971 aprox.

...noeleena...

[Rogina B]

I am one of the very fortunate to have had a very accepting and open minded Mom. She encouraged and helped me explore gender and sexuality. As a result,I have been quite comfortable with myself.

[Beverley Sims]

I had a closer alliance with my mother than my father.
I feel my female relatives had a greater effect on me than anyone on the male side.

[Angela Campbell]

I have always been close to my Mother. She is strong willed, very religious, and very smart. I have a fear of her finding out about me that it would break her heart and she would be disapointed in me. She would never disown me but she would likely never accept me as a woman. She would likely tell me to just stop acting so foolishly and not to ruin my life over something so stupid. You know, straighten up and fly right.

I guess someday I will have to tell her though, and I do not look forward to it.

I had a less than complete relationship with my Father when he was alive. In fact I never had much of a relationship with any men that I can think of. I usually avoid them.

[Sabrina133]

I am whats known as an Army Brat - my dad was career military gone from home on deployments, field training or working 16 hours a day from the time i remember to when i left for college. We really didnt see him a lot except on weekends when he wasn't overseas or in the field. As a consequence, my Mom raised us. Like most Army wives, she is strong, independent, fiercely protective of her brood (me and my two sisters), paid the bills, shopped, cooked, cleaned -- basically, she fullfilled both parental roles while he was gone. She was even pretty awesome with a box wrench, screwdriver and hammer. At the same time she was amazingly feminine and frankly, quite beautiful. She's still a head turner. Even though i followed my Dad's path into the military (what i call the family business), she was the major influence in my life. When i came out she told me she'd figured it out when i was a teenager. She was then and still is my "Rock".

[Jocelyn Quivers]

From an absolute hands down "Momma's Boy", I could not ask for a better mother. She is the textbook definition of a loving caring mother, same goes for my father, both know of my girl side and it changed nothing as far as our relationship.

[sometimes_miss]

My mother is a self centered person; everything must revolve around her. She had children because that was what you did back then, mostly to have someone to take care of you when you got old. As soon as we were old enough, we always had lots of chores to do, learned to do our own laundry and cook at 7 years old. Mom went back to work when I was six, and then my older sister and I had to take on all the household work becaus she was too tired to do any of that when she came home from her job. When I was little, every problem was dealt with about how our (my self and my sister) behavior reflected on mom. If we had trouble at school, she would be annoyed because she felt the teachers would judge her parenting skills, not because we needed to learn something to be better people. Mom would make up stories to support whatever point of view she wanted us to believe; one day it was one thing, next week another. When we would bring up what she said previously, she would deny ever saying such a thing, and if we had told anyone else, we would be punished for lying. I never knew she was doing this when I was young, I thought I was the one who was crazy. As such, I was afraid to tell my mom anything, because I would be punished for making her look bad. When I was molested, it was the fear of being punished for letting it happen that kept me from telling anyone, so it went on for years and years. Decades later, when I finally came out to her about the crossdressing and being molested, sure enough, she made it my fault.
My mother isn't a nice person. My sister didn't like me either. For those who want to know, I bonded to my sister's best friend. She was the first female that was nice to me. And I'm attracted to women who resemble her to this day; slim, long hair, and of course, is nice to me.

[MysticLady]

When I turned 16, I was legally allowed to decide for myself which parent to move in with, so I moved in with my father. My mother didn't really care; that's when my father no longer needed to pay child support. I haven't spoken to her since. She's never met my wife, nor her two grandchildren (and probably never will).
- Becky

Becky, I can't speak from experience regarding disliking my mother, I hope that someday that may change for you for the better. I'm saddened and feel for children that have issues with their parents.


I was close, to my mother the last years of her life I was her main care giver, other than the professionals. It was a 24/7 job. A great deal of it I was dressed enfemme, though I did male allowances when professional did check up on her.

Arlene, Your an angel and I'm sure your mother appreciated you very much.



She was a very open minded, spritual person.
My last gift to her was removing her life support.
Rachel, I'm sorry that you had to experience that in life, decided to alleviate your mothers' ill's and pains. I wish you strength and peace of mind sister.


I am now in contact with her to see my kids from first marriage but it is still strange. Have mothers day in Australia on Sunday and was hard to find a card that wasn't 'your the best mum in the world'.


Rachel, how about making your own card on the computer. I hope that this meeting is the beginning of a new and beautiful relationship w/ your mom.


I had a closer alliance with my mother than my father.
I feel my female relatives had a greater effect on me than anyone on the male side.

When I was young I was a mommies boy since I was first born. Now, my relationship with my father is stronger than my relationship w/ my mother. When I was growing up my mother was the loving, nurturing, caring person I looked up too and felt comfortable with. My father was the respected, loving(but never said it to me),head of home leader. With my father we all felt safe and sound as a family but was never close to him as I was with Mom. Now it's the opposite, I'm close to Dad and my closeness to Mom has diminished yet I still honor and respect her.

[Gillian Gigs]

My mother was a strong, dynamic character who was the glue who held the family together. To use a phrase from a movie, the man may be the head of the family, but the woman is the neck, and she can turn the head any way she wants. With a Dad who was either not around, or ineffective, Mum was the major influence in my life. She died when I was 18, the wars with dad escalated and our relationship was strained for many years. Looking back, I believe she knew about my forays into her dressing drawers, but never said anything. There was a drawer in one of her dressers that seemed to collect all of my favorite items, nothing else, it had been cleared of what used to be there. Funny, I never made that connection until I read another post from a CD'er who's mother knew.

[Allison Chaynes]

Mine was OK I guess. Neither bad nor good, but I realized that she kept us pretty sheltered.

I think it's interesting that the therapist asked you this. When I came out to my therapist last fall, that was one of her first questions too. I wonder if there's a standard checklist they use :)

[Danielle_cder]

My relationship with my mother was kinda up and down she was strict in regards to school work and being upstanding. We defiantly had our moments, arguments and rough patches but made us stronger for sure. My mom is and was very open to 'danielle' never held her back or said anything malicious. I remember being about 15 or so and getting fully dressed and calling her (she was downstairs in the kitchen) and asking her if she wanted to see how i looked as a girl...She was a little hesitant but said sure so down i went and ever since then she has never batted an eye at my lifestyle choice:D Halloween is our time now mom dawns a different costume every year and I go as myself. I guess i would venture to say we have a pretty good relationship ;)

[mikiSJ]

Seems like most of you above got lucky with your choice of mothers. Good for you and hang on to what you have.

[stephNE]

Hmmmm.
My mom and dad were professional people and they didn't want to have kids. When I came along, my mom had to quit her job and stay home to raise me (in the 50's wasn't acceptable for a mom to work). She told me many times how I ruined her life, she had a good life and a good job until I came along, she hated me, etc. When I was about 7, they had a change of heart, and decided they wanted kids, and so they had my brother. They treated him with love and respect and gave him everything.
Once my mom held me down, held the toe of a shoe in her hand beating me in the head with the heal. I won't go into this stuff anymore.
My mom is 82, and she is an evil, domineering, mean woman who has no friends. Even my brother and his family don't go to see her. He has a daughter who is now ten, they live 15 minutes from my mom, and my niece has never been in her house.
She still hates me and I hate her; I can't even stand the sound of her voice.

[anonymousinmaryland]

Oh. She knew. Moms know EVERYTHING.

[2B Natasha]

My mother like her mother to her where and are two of the greatest people I've ever known. I would not be who I am without them. My mother raised 3 boys by herself after my sperm donor left. While I think she likes the oldest one the best that never bothered me. Even with that feeling. To say me and my mother at close could be an understatement.

BUT that said. She has had nothing to do with crossdressing. No I've not told her and probably never will. Not because she would not accept it. I am positive she would. I more afraid that she'll ask me why not earlier since she wanted daughters for her whole life. LOL. But seriously. Ill not tell her because there is no benifit in her knowing. It would not change our relationship one way or the other.

[ShelbyDawn]

Thank you all for your answers.
I am not suprised that our relationships with our mothers are as diverse as all other parts of our personalities.
For me it is more evidence that I am , in fact, wired this way and while things like my relationship with my mom may influence my behavior, they do not cause it.

Thanks again for sharing.

Shelby

[flatlander_48]

Interesting question...

Generally speaking, my mother and I had a pretty decent relationship. She and my father divorced when I was about a year old and when I was a kid, I think she felt guilty about that. When I was a young, I always thought it was really odd that they remained fairly friendly towards each other. My dad moved to a different city, but would be back with some frequency to visit relatives. He would usually stop and visit with my mother for an hour or two. I asked my mother about this and she said that the reason they separated was mostly due to getting married too young. It wasn't that they disliked each other. It was just that they realized that the situation wasn't working for either of them.

My mother was never a hard person. That isn't to say that she wasn't opinionated; it just means that she thought Live and Let Live was a good philosophy.And I have to say that I learned a lot from her and eventually I discovered that we were surprisingly alike. We both thoroughly liked mental stimulation; interesting things to think about or problems to solve. When I was a kid, she worked for the government. She did very well on a test and they trained her as a Cobol programmer in the mid-50's. She also had the habit of doing crosswords in ink. You could probably go for half a puzzle book before you saw a crossed out word.

We shared an interest in architecture. In the mid-80's my employer had me working in Illinois for a while. One Saturday I drove up to Chicago to go see Frank Lloyd Wright's house in Oak Park. Froze my a++ off, but I toured his house and the Unitarian Church he designed as well as walked through the neighborhood. When I returned home a week later, I went to visit my mother. I told her about all that I saw and learned. Off the top of her head, she had at least as much to tell me about Wright as I had told her. I was often very hard to surprise her.

I gained a lot of fashion sense from my mother. She always looked well pulled together, but you never had the thought that it took a lot of effort. And that's the essence of it. If you were working too hard to look good, chances are you were doing something wrong. Words to live by, I think. And actually, if you think about, this thought process has application far beyond just fashion.

My mother died in June, 1988. We were all devasted as she was the one who tended to keep the family together. While I was never one to outright cry over something, sometimes I still just stop what I'm doing for a moment and be motionless. And what I find these days is that I often think of my mother and quote my grandmother. I guess that reflects the effect they had on me.

[kimdl93]

No. I can't blame my mother. Nor my father . Nor my siblings. Even before my earliest recollections of anyone else, I recall a desire to be a girl. It dates back to those fuzzy early recollections, before I'd acquired language. In other words, it's intrinsic to my being.

And lest you doubt, I have a profoundly good memory. I remember events that occurred when I was less than two years old...in fact when I described the recollections, my mother said, with some concern,"my god, you remember that?"

Final note...mom passed away last fall after a long, full life. She knew of my CDing and took it in stride. I'm trying to do the same.

[Jaylyn]

I had a good mom, but she really wanted a girl and I showed up, so she dressed me as one many times. She even painted my nails and toes once, Dad came in and put a stop to that. She still did it any way when he wasn't around but told me that it was our secret... Now I guess that she is 88 it is just my secret. I gotta say though she believed in me being behaved and also taught me right from wrong. Thank heavens she had girl for the second kid or I would have been wearing a dress and nail polish to kindergarten... Just not right for a kid until they get old enough to make up their own minds

[heatherdress]

I had a kind loving mom who favored my sisters (realized that in later years). Also a good, hard working dad who favored (felt more comfortable with) boys. Good parents but neither communicated well, talked about growing up issues, encouraged self awareness, or taught us interpersonal relationship development. I learned to keep everything in, especially my feelings. I didn't experiment - just took things as I thought they visibly were. I always looked outside of myself - always focused on others - accomplished a lot, tried to make the most out of every minute of every day, but never focused on my own happiness - just tried to make others happy. I never thought about CDing. I began to develop self awareness following some traumatic events. I fortunately discovered much later than others on this site how much joy CDing brought into my life and am very happy and content.

[k lynn]

My motheris a wonderfull and great lady she knew of my dressing at age 7 she always encougeage my sister and me to do our best

[CynthiaD]

My mother was extremely abusive when I was young. When I got to the point where I was bigger than her, the beatings stopped, but the verbal abuse got much worse. I forgave her many years ago, but I'm not close to her, and neither are any of my siblings. It's necessary to forgive others to save yourself. But even with forgiveness, bad behavior has consequences that can never be undone.

[Stephanie47]

I was the second child born. I have an older brother by fourteen months. I heard many times as a single digit kid that I was suppose to be a girl to round out the perfect family. I hated hearing that and I told her so. She stopped saying that. My brother was the favorite. I hated her encouragement to follow in his footsteps. My brother and I were and are still close, if not in distance, then in spirit. My mother was very domineering and restrictive over both boys. I was more rebellious and was willing to take the physical punishment she handed out which was basically getting hit with a folded belt across the back of the thighs and rump. She would not give me an allowance and I had to tell her what I wanted money for. So, I got a job as soon as I was legally old enough. I rebelled against the choice of high school she wanted me to attend. Again, following in my brother's footsteps. It was the same for college and course of study. I volunteered for the draft after college. It was either my brother or me. He was already secure in a good paying job. Our father had passed away four years prior. I knew I did not want to continue to hear of her woes and bullshit anymore. Of course, going to Nam brought physical and psychological wounds, but, it made me a stronger person. After discharge I got married. Mother did not treat my wife well at all. We ended up relocating three thousand miles away.

When I reflect upon my rebellious attitude. And, my love for sports. And, having done everything, freely and gladly, a man is suppose to do, I have no idea why I like wearing a dress. I have absolutely no desire to figure it out anymore. At my age it really does not matter. I have the opportunity to reflect upon six decades, and, I find very little that I would have changed.

I can only assume there I am "wired" that way.