For many, it’s hard to imagine that a mother can hate her own child. This is because mothers typically invest more in their offspring than fathers. For this reason, a mother’s love is considered ‘divine’ and ‘pure’.
However, there are exceptions to this norm.
Some mothers do hate their children. Some mothers treat their children as if they’re not their own.
This article will look at the signs that show your mother hates you. These signs apply equally to a mother’s toxicity toward her biological, or adopted, child or stepchild.
Why do some mothers hate their children?
Mothers are wired to love and care for their offspring. Being adopted or being a stepchild puts you at a disadvantage. Your mother has little incentive to invest in you because you won’t be propagating her genes.
This is why stepparents and adopters tend to be toxic toward their stepchildren. Of course, not all, but it’s a common trend.
Everyone can be good to everyone when their life’s going great. But when things go south, people tend to favor their genetic relatives.
A mother hating her biological child is a much more interesting phenomenon, though.
Common reasons include:
- Not being mentally prepared to be a mother
- Having physical and mental health issues
- Having economic problems
- Having relationship problems
- Being dissatisfied with her life
These factors subconsciously convince a mother not to invest in her biological child. When you’re having severe problems in life, investing in offspring can be costly.
The time, energy, and resources you’re investing in your child could be invested in bettering your own life. When your life is good, you can have more kids and raise them better.
Signs your mother hates you
1. She violates your boundaries
A mother is supposed to be close to her child but not too close. You still need your own space. If your mother doesn’t respect your space, she doesn’t respect or love you as a person.
She’s enmeshed with you and overly dependent on you. The whole parent-child dynamic has been reversed.
2. She’s a comparison machine
She constantly compares you to your peers to make you feel bad about yourself.
If you’re a daughter, she may even compare you to herself.
She may be intimidated by your beauty and youth. As messed up as it is, she may even think you’re trying to steal her husband.
3. She takes out her frustrations on you
If she’s stressed and dissatisfied with her life, she takes out her frustrations on you. You become her punching bag.
4. She overly criticizes you
She unfairly criticizes you, and the criticism is always harsh. She’s intolerant of your mistakes and doesn’t help you grow in life.
5. She constantly argues with you
She sucks you into her drama. She always has something to bicker about. You feel like she brings out the worst in you.
6. She dismisses your needs, feelings, and opinions
She doesn’t give you any importance and neglects your needs and feelings. She’s not emotionally attuned to you. You find it hard to share your problems with her.
7. She doesn’t show love and affection
Just as being too close and overstepping your boundaries is undesirable, so is being too distant.
If you feel like there’s a distance between you and her, she probably doesn’t like you. She doesn’t show you any form of physical affection like kissing and hugging.
8. She guilts and shames you
She uses emotional manipulation tactics to make you feel worthless and to control you.
9. She’s apathetic
She shows complete apathy for what’s going on in your life. She is unconcerned with your work, relationships, hobbies, goals, and dreams.
10. You can’t seem to win her approval
We’re biologically wired to win the approval of our parents. If your mother physically and emotionally neglects you, you may constantly try to seek her approval.
Yet, nothing you do seems enough. Nothing seems to work.
What should you do if your mother hates you?
Relationships are complex, and things are rarely so black and white.
Your mother probably displays a combination of love and hatred toward you. Still, if your mother has more hatred for you than love, you have a problem at your hands.
Our minds have a negativity bias. Make sure you are not only highlighting negative interactions with your mother. You should give equal weight to positive interactions.
Once you’ve established that your mother is indeed toxic, the best thing to do is to communicate with her.
If she shows a willingness to improve the relationship, great.
If she doesn’t, you have no choice but to distance yourself from her.
Minimize contact and distance yourself emotionally. Do the basic stuff to keep the relationship going.
In extreme cases, you may have no other choice but to cut her off completely.
Hi, I’m Hanan Parvez (MA Psychology). I’ve been writing about Psychology for 9+ years. My work has been featured in Forbes, Business Insider, Reader’s Digest, and Entrepreneur. If you have any queries, use the contact form or reach out to me on my socials.