Maternal complex: what do you think and feel about your mother?

Mother’s Day, as well as other commemorative dates such as Christmas, birthday, father’s day, is an important date for most people. And, insofar as it matters, questions and problems also appear in the psychologist’s office. We all know that Mother’s Day is a commercial date, that is, it is a date created by commerce to sell more. According to data, it is the second most sold date, second only to Christmas.

But as we live in a society in which shopping is a necessity, as well as a habit, Mother’s Day becomes not just a date for giving gifts. It is a date of family gatherings that bring up the following questions:

– How do I feel about my mother?

– What do I think about her? Who is she?

In psychological terms, in dealing with these questions, we are dealing with our mother complex. The ideas – thoughts – that we have about our mother together with what we feel, our affection. Having or not having a mother, having had or not having had, somehow does not change the importance of the mother complex. The absence of the mother, for whatever reason, also constitutes a type of mother complex, as well as the domineering mother, who does not let her son or daughter develop.

I say son or daughter because depending on the family structure, the mother figure will be as strong for one as for the other. Because we could think that the mother influences the daughter’s psychic development more, which is not true. Children can also be “mama’s boys” or, at the other extreme, create a love-hate relationship with their mother, and by derivation, with all women.

Cazuza said that only mothers are happy. It’s a sentence that makes you think…

– Is my mother happy?

– Was she happy before becoming a mother? What is she like as a person, aside from the fact that she’s my mother?

We don’t usually think of our mother as a separate person, with her wants and desires. It is interesting how the children, when meeting the mothers of their friends and friends, do not call the other’s mother by name, but know her as “this is So-and-so’s mother” and “that is Ciclano’s mother”. As if mothers don’t have names, just being someone’s mother…

Lacan said, not without irony, that every woman is Medea, every woman is similar to this Greek mythological figure, who murdered her own children after being abandoned by their father. However, what he meant is that, in many cases, children are substitutes – for the woman – for her man, for her father. If the father abandons her, her children are meaningless and can be mistreated and, as in the myth, even killed by her. What is relevant in this Lacanian saying is that many women treat their children the way they are treated by their husband, or by the father of their children. In this sense, children are substitutes – for love – for the father.

However, I don’t want to dwell on what can be the worst of the female figure, of the experience that an individual can have with their generator. Thousands of mothers around the world are brilliant and know exactly how to make their children grow up healthy and happy. Although they may have flaws, like all human beings, they are special people who should be admired for their merits. After all, carrying another human being for 9 months and caring for them every day in childhood and adolescence is not an easy task.

Only those who are mothers – and perhaps those who are fathers – can understand what it is to have a son, a daughter. It’s a mystery…

And you, what do you feel and think about your mother?

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