Moms and the Mother Gene

Moms and the Mother Gene

When I was growing up in the South Bronx in the 1940s, we were taught that all women were born with the decorator gene and the nurturing gene. I’m here to tell you, it just ain’t so.

Too many women cannot put an outfit together. Too many women have no idea what looks good on them. Oleg Cassini once said to me, Wear what’s flattering, not what’s in fashion. So, the myth of the woman with taste is shot.

As a family therapist, some of my women clients taught me that their mothers did not have the ‘mother gene.’ That is, they were unable to be nurturing, probably because they were narcissists. The damage of having a mother incapable of love and caring can indeed be lifelong. Unless the father is unusual in the sense he was born with the mother and father nurturing gene, the daughter may spend her emotional life looking for the mother substitute. Or, she may spend her adult life attempting to please her mother in the hope something will change. It doesn’t.

The problem? You can’t fry onions and hope it will turn into mashed potatoes. You need the right ingredients. If a woman is born without the mother gene, you have to cancel expectations in order to survive emotionally. You would not ask a kid in a wheelchair to be a star basketball player. You would not ask a person with no singing voice to apply to the Metropolitan Opera as a singer.

Move on. Learn to nurture yourself. It’s like a death. Do not hold on to the message that you are unlovable. You are lovable. Hug yourself. Love yourself. Have children. Show them what mother love is like. There’s a great line in the play/movie Torch Song. Arnold, the character Harvey Fierstein plays, tells his mother he’s adopted a teenager. She (Anne Bancroft) says, indignantly, “What do you know about parenting?” He replies, “I think of what you would do…” Mom sits up straight knowing she’s about to be complemented. Arnold continues “…and do the opposite!”

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Photo credit: classic_film on VisualHunt.com / CC BY-NC