Exactly. I think you've described exactly what I'm talking about.

Thanks for sharing that about your family - very interesting. In my family cases, I think that there were explicable reasons for the discord but there were underlying personality differences that only exacerbated the situation.

I can't remember where I read this, and I wish I could because it's fascinating to me, but the author was saying that the quality of a person's parenting is inextricably attached to the personality and responses of the child. In other words, it's not so simple as to say that someone was a great mother or someone was a bad mother, but rather, the mother-child pair have a dynamic going on that largely determines the mother's "mothering." I try extremely hard, with God as my witness, to give love and attention equally but there is no getting around the very real fact that when someone is responsive to your loving acts and expressions, then more of those acts and expressions spring forward spontaneously, and conversely, when someone is unresponsive or rejecting, your efforts become a well intentioned exercise but don't spring up as freely.

I often feel that no one has any use for me except when it comes to meals and clean clothes! Oh well. Maybe that's what mothering is.