How many are close with their mother and/or not close to their father?

[brassieres]

I was alwayd close with my mom. My father was the typical macho male. My parents divorced whrn young. Just wondering if others had simular experiences?

[Karren H]

I was equally distant from both of them!

[Savannah Daniels]

Closer to my Mother. Not that my Dad doesn't love me, he's just not demonstrative, very quiet.

[Intertwined]

Keep your hands and arms, inside the vehicle at all times, this is a bumpy ride...

1st; No, I wasn't really close to my dad, he was not close or open to anyone that I could recall.

Mom & Dad seperate when I was 2 years old.

Joint custody...!

1 year, I would live with mom in Oceanside, dad would come and pick me up on weekends and I would stay with him in San Clemente

Next year, I would live with dad, and he would take me to my moms for the weekends.

2 elementary schools, Palmquest & Ole Hanson
2 Middle schools, Lincoln Jr. High & Shorecliffs Middle
2 High Schools, El Camino High & San Clemente High

And I wonder why I am so screwed up?

[sandra-leigh]

I think I was perhaps closer to my father when he was alive. My interest in sciences of various kinds, I got from him, and I loved when we would go to museums or field trips or when he would take me to work and let me hang around in his electro/mechanical lab.

But my father died when I was 13, and my sister and I had to really step in and take on a lot, and in time I became close to my mother. During my sister's Rebellious Teen years, I was closer to my mother than my sister was, but once my sister settled down she and my mother became very close.

I moved about 1000 miles away from my mother about 20 years ago, for work reasons; I've been thinking for a few years that I should move back to be around to help her now that she is getting older. (Unfortunately, that area has a glut of people whose skills overlap mine, so getting a job there would not be easy.)

[Danni Renee]

I am close close to my mother and always have been. I am her favorite and my sisters agree! I was never close to my Dad. I have been trying to be closer but I have and always will feel awkward around him.

Danni

[marny]

Feel like I'm in therapy writeing this. Lost my father @ 14 after watching him get progressivly sicker for five years.( cancer) Meantime and post , my mother medicated with vodka. At least Mom kept a nice wrap around bra and a set of falsies in her drawer. That was my start. Once i got the taste........impossible to turn back. Can't put the genie back in the bottle!

[bridget thronton]

Much closer to my mother than my father.

[Schatten Lupus]

Growing up, my dad worked second shift so we weren't that close, and me and my mom weren't close at all as I saw her more of an oppressor with her very strict and often absurd rules and severe over protection. During my teen years my parents divorced, my dad became an alcoholic so I saw very little of him then, and my mom seemed to be taking her frustrations of him out on me (she even threatened to send me to a boys home once if I didn't straighten out, but honestly I really wasn't a bad kid). Today my parents are back together and have re-married, I get along much better with my mom and we have gotten close, and I'm kinda close with my dad but he has so few interest that I have found it difficult to get that close.

[Gillian Gigs]

I was always closer to my mother. My Dad was a remote and aloof individual. He operated on the idea, that if you want to see or talk to me, then you can find me in my workshop doing carpentry. He worked odd hours for the Railroad, so he was coming or going at unusal hours all of the time. By the time that I was a teenager, He started to show me some of the manly acts, but it was to late. It was more like putting two strangers in the same room. It became worse after my Mum died, everything kind of became unglued. He mellowed out in his late 70's and there was a two year period that things were good, to bad it took so long and lasted so short.

[Katie83]

As far back as i can remember my father used to leave for work in the morning before me and my sister were awake and he wouldn't get home til we'd gone to bed, he was usually tired and miserable at the weekends, my parents divorced when i was 12, So my mother raised us pretty much single handed. All this means i am alot closer to my mother and always have been. I often wonder if the lack of a male role model in my younger years is the reason behind my crossdressing or could just be me. Not that i would want to change anything, i love dressing up!
Katie

[*Vanessa*]

... Joint custody...!

And I wonder why I am so screwed up?

I was thinking - 'over achiever' as I read this.. lol
v.

For me; I was closer to my mother then dad. He was a good provider for the family, however family life was more like Swiss cheese and a good mozzarella. I was a nasty piece of work when young and told to leave home at 16years. I would show up every 2 or 3 years to say hi.

Fast forward 3/4 of a life time after dad passed and I have something in common with mom. We both have Glaucoma and I have less then 20/100 vision in one eye.

Fast forward another 6 years and she doesn't know who I am. That makes me sad. That's the way it is. I have had surgery to get rid of an eperitinal membrane and with glasses have 20/40 visions. Live is good !!

[Jocelyn Quivers]

I'm close with both my mother and father, I recently told my father and his response was the same as my mother's in that he said he will always be proud of me, and this side of me does not change anything, in that I will always be his son (regardless of how far I progress down the gender spectrum), and he will always love me.

[joanna marie]

closer to my Mother
she was the only parent in the house
My father left when I was 2
I only saw him off and on until I was 12 and that was my last contact with him

[Miss Maxine]

My mother stopped talking to me, about a year ago, after I told her I'm not a Christian and after she saw that I was "effeminate." She's an extreme and unwavering fundamentalist Christian, with no tolerance for any amount of deviation. I'm hoping that eventually she'll grow exhausted from the relentless stress of that lifestyle and decide to have a relationship with me, again. *crosses fingers*

[StarrOfDelite]

My father was a Naval officer who retired as I was beginning high school. He spent a good bit of time at sea or at foreign duty posts, but when he was at home we had a great relationship. We did a lot of surf- casting for stripers at Newport, Cape Cod and Boston, played golf at the O Club, and after he retired we rebuilt a '49 Merc flathead coupe together. Can't blame my weirdness on him. I also had an excellent relationship with my Mom, who was somewhat overprotective, bundled me up like the little brother in A Christmas Story every time the temps fell below 32, and refused to let me play high school football until 11th grade. In that regard, my Dad's outdoorsy and sportsy activities with me were a perfect counterbalance to her.

[RachR]

My father is the stereotypical Hispanic male (on top of being racisit, homophobic, and all around horrible person). He was always too busy to develope a proper relationship with his children. He's been abusive my entire life, and that includes my adult life. My mom has been mother and father to me from day one. Fast forward 32 years (40 for them) and my parents divorce, and my father completely cuts me off. I've always been close with my mother but even more so now.

-Rachael

[stephanieg]

I am very close to my father,he is 100% supportive and still loves me,does call me by my enfemme name when I am dressed.I was close to my mother,she was murdered when I was 7 years old and it hit me very hard.Her killer is still out there and I want justice including my father.

[LilSissyStevie]

My father was a violent, mentally ill alcoholic. Most of my early childhood, he was locked up in one institution or another. When he was home, I was absolutely terrified of him. I never knew what he would do next, but I knew it would be really bad. I didn't know him at all. He left for good when I was eight. My mother worked to support us since my father couldn't keep a job for very long. She was very detached emotionally. I was raised by a series of babysitters and my father's mother who was more abusive to me than he was. I guess you could say I wasn't close to any of them nor did I want to be. I was close with my sisters. My father turned his life around a few years before he died and I was happy to have gotten to know him. My mother is in her eighties now and I'm trying to get her to sell her place and move in with us but she's very pigheaded and independent. She's still keeping her distance, I guess.

[flatlander_48]

My parents divorced when I was about a year old. As this was shortly after WW2, there was a lot of restlessness in the populace and they fell victim to it. I think my dad also had the expectation that my mother would be a stay-at-home wife and mother and she wasn't down with that. She was always a very bright person and worked for the Army. Towards the end of my time in grade school (late 50's) she was taught to be a COBOL programmer (still working for the Army) even though she never went to college. She also loved to do crossword puzzles and was very good at them; to the point that she always did them in ink!

As I was growing up, I KNEW that I was the reason that my parents had separated. This is a very common belief, however erroneous it is. It is also a heavy burden to carry. Anyway, since I lived with my mother and grandparents, I saw them a lot more of them than my dad. To their credit, they never really bad-mouthed him. But, in my adolescent thought processes I had already decided that he was the bad guy. Also, my personality is VERY different from my dad's. We don't think in the same ways, our viewpoints are often different and our behaviors are very different. He is former Navy from WW2 and my persona is anything but military. For a long time, the relationship was strained and it wasn't until the 80's (I was mid-30's by then) that I started to relax about things. My dad was never really the bad guy that I believed him to be when I was a kid, but unfortunately you can't undo the past. You can only change your current behavior. Currently my father is still doing pretty good, but my mother passed away in 1988.

[Tina B.]

My dad was great, but he worked long hours, and had a real long commute, so he was not home a lot of the time while I was young, for years he worked swing shift, and left for work before we got home from school, and we where in bed when he got home, weekends where spent working on cars, and the yard. I never liked working on cars, so I ducked out on as much of that part as I could, no one noticed because big brother was into that stuff with him. I preferred the kitchen, and helping mom in the house, So yes I was closer to mom, we had more in common, besides her wardrobe, and cooking, we are both heavy readers, and movie buffs. Dad was a hunter, and fisherman, (not my thing, now or then) working on cars, (as soon as I got where I could pay someone else to do it, I stopped working on cars.) and all that macho stuff, I just never found to be fun. I did get my love of camping from him, that and my love of driving.
Tina B.

[Diane Elizabeth]

My mother was a stay-at-home mom in the 50's and 60's and my dad traveled a lot in his work. So I didn't get the advantage of learning much from him. I didn't pick up very many of his genes either. I wouoldn't say he was aloof, just not much at playing with the kids. He did help me learn to ride a bike w/o training wheels and I remember we played catch once. But he did attend my graduation and other ceremonial presentations. He is gone now and I still miss him a lot. My mother is still my heart though. She was my den mother in the Cub Scouts. Taught me to cook, sew, play scrabble (and other games), and enjoy crossword/ jigsaw puzzles. Found it was easier to marry someone to dothe cooking and sewing though so I can go play soldier and be "the man" of the house.

[Piora]

Closest to my Mom, at least what I remember. She died when I was 16. My father was old-school, never really showing affection or emotion. My mother was opposite, slow to anger, compassionate, kind and gentle. My father was easily angered, and was of the "spare-the-rod-spoil-the-child' mentality. Fortunately, I retained mostly my mother's attributes, and personality. With my daughter, it is the opposite....she and I are extremely close, despite being almost identical in our traits and personality. Never a day goes by that we don't hug, and I tell her that I love her. My father never ever did that with me.

[giuseppina]

Closer to my father when he was alive (I miss you, Dad.) I've since realised why my sister left and broke contact (little or nothing to do with me).

[Suzette Muguet de Mai]

Very close to mother, Natural father died when I was 10ths old. Stepfather ex Vietnam vet, officer and a sticker for men. Would absolutely explode if he found out, I would be picking out shrapnel for the rest of my life.