God has designed several ingredients into the growing up
process that a “good-enough mother” provides. Our aim here is to
help you understand that you may not have received everything
you needed from your mother, and only when someone gives you
those ingredients can your life work correctly. This is what Susan
did for Jordan; she gave her what her mother failed to give her.
This is what friends do for each other every day. This is what it
means to be restored to the mothering process.
So, not only do we need to resolve things with one real person
in our past as we mentioned above, but we must get from others
what we did not get completely from our mother.
In the rest of the book, we will outline the major aspects of the
mothering process so that you can understand why some areas of
your relationships and your performance are not working, and so
you can know what you need for it to change. Just as Jordan dis-
covered that she lacked empathy and was restored to that aspect of
mothering through Susan, you will find what it is that you have
missed.
RESPONDING TO MOTHERING
Remember the two issues we identified above that determine who
we are as people: (1) the kind of mothering we had—both from
our own mothers and from our significant relationships since
then—and (2) our response to the mothering process.
When we have gotten negative mothering, we can begin a pat-
tern of mistrusting for the rest of our lives. We hide our needs and
vulnerability. We become combative and aggressive. To show that
we can’t be controlled, we control others. And the list goes on. We
respond to mothering in defensive and reactive ways, as did Jim,
which, in turn, like Jim above, prevents us from getting what we
need, thus perpetuating our own problems.
Jordan had not received the acceptance that she needed from
her mother. As a result, she had also developed a pattern of avoid-
ing the acceptance that was available to her later in life. Others,
What About Mom, Anyhow? • 353