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IT COULD BE YOU….
The daughter who keeps going home to mum
This month’s letter concerns a young woman of twenty-five who is a
follower of laterlife. How good to see that our website is attracting
younger people as well as the target audience.
To guard her identity I will call her
Becky.
The oldest of nine children, Becky
writes to share her worries over her need to visit her mum’s house
daily, with her young children. Here she waits for her husband to
finish work as she cannot get home until he picks her up in the car.Becky
explains that she is sometimes frightened to be in her own home
alone and that she did have three years of counselling for depression
centred around her housing situation.
She left home at the age of seventeen,
has subsequently married and now has two small children. Becky says
she feels lost since leaving home, and is really puzzled by this as
she was never at home when she lived there. The few friends she has
lead busy lives and this increases her sense of isolation. She wonders
if it is because she comes from such a large family that she seeks her
company back there, but is aware that it is causing a lot of problems
within the family.
Maggi comments:
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Becky goes to her mum’s house almost
every day, even though she left home eight years ago.
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She seems unable to settle into adult
life as a mother and wife in her own home unless her husband is
there with her.
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At the end of his working day, he
collects Becky and presumably the children and takes her home so
that she can do all the things that any other mum and wife would,
such as prepare tea, feed and bath the children and put them to bed
before she and husband have some time alone together to talk and
relax.
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She says she is sometimes frightened of
being in her own home, and we don’t know if there is an external
reason for this feeling, but she did have three years of counselling
focussed on her housing situation.
We do not know what prompted Becky to
leave home at seventeen, but as the oldest of nine children she
may have had quite a lot of responsibility keeping an eye on her
younger siblings. This is just the kind of circumstance which could
lead to a young woman longing to be free to live her own life. But
would also mean that Becky had never been alone until then. For some
older children in large families, their role can be a childhood of
mothering rather than being mothered, although I don’t get the
impression that this is Becky’s experience.
The strain on Becky’s mother must be a worry. She might,
perhaps have been hoping for more time and space for herself at last,
but now the house is filling with grandchildren as well Becky’s
children will not be able to bond with their own home either if they
spend much of every day at grandma’s house. Becky’s house is little
more than a dormitory.
I wonder how her husband feels. After work he drives to his
mum-in-law’s house to pick up his family and taxi them home before he
can relax at the end of the day. There is no welcome home to his own
warm house, with the lights on, supper cooking and kids to greet him.
They all get home together. Is this how either of them want it to be?
What about Becky’s feelings? She probably left home as a
seventeen-year-old full of hope and excitement. But something has
happened to take away her confidence and pleasure in building a home
of her own with her husband. Did this change when she had the babies?
Might her depression still be affecting her? Perhaps post-natal
depression is an underlying factor. It can take a long time to shift –
even years if it is not properly recognised, and this could affect her
ability to settle. It could also be why she needs to be with her
mother. In the present situation, she can avoid having to face the
weight of marriage and parenthood, which at the moment feel like too
much to cope with. Her self- esteem is not helped by knowing that the
situation is causing upset and strain within the family.
What can Becky do?
Marital support and communication is
vital in sorting out a situation such as this. Becky needs to talk
with her husband alone about her worries and try to work out with him
how they might gradually change the pattern of their everyday life to
suit them as an independent family.
Small changes might help:
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He might call her for a brief chat
during the working day
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Perhaps she could stay at home through a
single day, with chats at regular intervals
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Her mother could visit Becky’s home
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Becky should make a plan to take the
children to a local playgroup where she will meet other mothers
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If at all possible, it might be worth
considering moving somewhere with better public transport
For Becky to talk with her husband, and
feel that things can be changed if they work together on the problem,
will do wonders for her confidence and for their marriage
This is sometimes a tall order if a couple have not been used to
talking, and it is for this reason that couples go to Relate. (Look up
in the local telephone directory.) They can then be helped to set up a
way of working through things that is uniquely theirs. This can give
them a sense of pride in their achievement and strengthen their
relationship. Payments are always negotiable for those who need help.
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laterlife interest
The above article is part of the features section of
laterlife.com called laterlife interest. laterlife interest
contains a variety of articles of
interest for visitors to laterlife.com written by a
number of experienced and new journalists.
It includes both one off articles and
also regular columns of a more specialist nature such
as healthwise, reports
from the REACH files, and a beauty section called
looking good in later life.
Also don't forget to take a look at our
regular IT question and answer section called YoucandoIT by IT
trainer and author Jackie Sherman.
To view the latest articles and indexes to
previous articles click on laterlife interest
here or above. To search for articles about a
certain topic, use the site search feature
below.
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Every month Maggi
Stamp, a qualified and experienced relationship
counsellor for Relate and in private practice, writes
about some of the emotional challenges we meet as we
pass our half-way markers. For reasons of
confidentiality Maggi never writes about a particular
person's problems unless you have sent one in to be
answered, but all her examples are based on problems
raised by clients, family and friends over the years.
