Mum.

It occurs to me that I have many pictures of Dad up but non of Mum yet.

This was taken at Lockington, near Rochester in Victoria, she'd be about twelve, so that would make it 60 years ago; circa 1946.

Mum and I have a fairly typical Mother/Daughter relationship; dysfunctional yet over all good.

I think I can safely say that I am closer to her then any of the others. We've learnt to be forthright in most things. She's still scared of being 100% honest with me due to being conditioned by others that honesty leads to that truth being thrown back at you and manipulated.

The hurts we have are generally from her replaying her own Mother issues out with me or link directly into her not being fully honest.

Having said that though; I learnt how to play her to get what I need without upsetting her too much, a skill the others need to learn. It's not manipulation so much as refusing to allow her internal thought script to be a negative one. She seems to not have had very many positive reports from her own mother and was distant from her emotionally; this recurs in a deep sense of rejection whenever someone knocks back something she has done for her.

I love my mother deeply and hate to see her hurt in this way. My current approach is to get her to see faults as character, and not as a reason to pull out an entire jumper and restart knitting. My father is trying a similar tack. Together we get about a quarter step forward before something we think is trivial results in a major step back.

If only she'd start treating us as individuals it would make things better; she insists on everyone being treated "the same" which doesn't work for anyone, especially at Christmas and Birthdays.