When Does A Mother's Protectiveness Cross the Line?

Mothers are such amazing people. They give birth, give their love, give their care, give their best years, give their energy to their children. Although, they may be difficult to understand and drive you nuts their starting point is meant to be well and just somewhere along the line it twisted into something else. 

Mothers are very protective parents and they would do anything to protect their child. Mothers in the animal kingdom would urge their little ones to run while they stayed and fended off the enemy. They would nourish and watch over their little ones with a watchful eye until they became old enough to fend for themselves. It's always heartwarming to watch such great love. Mothers never give up unless you choose to give up on yourself. Say when a baby lynx gets sick or is born too weak to make it through a certain amount of days and the baby lynx chooses to not fight for itself. The mother would choose to abandon them as they serve as a hinder to the family as much as it pains them to do so. 

Think about it like this. Mothers train us in life when we are young. It's like teaching someone to ride a bike. A mother would always be behind the bicycle, both arms protecting us until we are able to balance ourselves and ride on our own. Their hands are always around us to shield us from pain. But there comes a point where they let go to let us ride life on our own or give up when we choose to give up trying to ride the bike. It's a cause and effect cycle. 

Our moms are not that different from them. They will do anything to protect their children and be willing to make any sacrifice though not every sacrifice may be known to us. They are afraid that we aren't able to stand on our own and make sure everything is fine before they finally take their hands off the handles of the bicycle we are on. And then there are some mothers who never take their hands off. Sometimes too much protection from them will never give children space to grow. 

However, there are mothers who are overprotective and must be in every second of their children's lives and force their views, morals, opinions, and decisions on their lives. They try to control what type of person we date, how our salary should be invested, what we eat, how we live, what we study in school, what clothes to buy, when should we get married, etc. Mothers are...they love organizing everything sometimes. They love to plan out our lives for them so we become their joy and pride. It's not a bad thing but sometimes they just go overboard. When they start causing trouble, such as trying to make you break up with someone or stop talking to someone, butting their noses into everything...that's overprotection. It's like they're holding the handles of the your bike in a death like grip and unwilling to let go. They love the control and they probably feel they've invested so much into you and in order for you to good life, they cannot allow a single mistake. 

In my thought, it's sort of like an obsessive compulsive disorder. They fear you cannot do well on your own. They fear you will make mistakes. They fear you will make the wrong decisions, fall in with the wrong crowd. They want to arrange the aspects of your life to their approval. What they don't know is how much pressure and anxiety that gives their children. 

Frightening isn't it? The starting point was simple motherly love...and then it turns into a manipulative and obsessive love. A mother's love is so strong that it frightens even their children sometimes but it also drives a mother and a child apart when that love becomes too much to the point where it becomes an obsession. It also drives a knife between the mother and child when the love becomes intrusive and unreasonable. 

I believe that mothers should learn to let go when the time is right no matter how unwilling they are. Letting go is also a part of loving their children as in the opposite...too much protection will never allow the children to go and cause them to be indecisive and be constantly relying on their mothers for answers and help. Let them fall. Let them get hurt. Let them learn from their mistakes, Let them learn from their pain. Let them chase after what matters to them. I am sure that's how our mothers learned about life and all its beauty and ugliness. 

Being overprotective does more harm than good to both the mother and their children.