I am having a problem that I hope you can help me with. My mother and I seem to have a disagreement. You see, Pastor, my mother feels that I mistreat her while I feel that she takes advantage of me.

The trouble all started when I was about 17 years old and she and my father divorced. I am now 30. My father was the breadwinner while my mother stayed home to raise me. I greatly appreciated it and recognised what a blessing it was to have had a stable and secure childhood.

However, when my father left, it seemed that my mother felt it was my responsibility to take over providing for her. It's not that I don't want to help my mother. In fact, I love to be able to help her. The problem is that she feels I should do everything for her that she doesn't feel like doing. Pastor, this basically includes everything except "washing" her.

lost everything

When my father moved out, he paid everything up a few months ahead. My mom didn't get a job or anything, so eventually we lost everything. I was working and finishing my senior year at the time, so my money wasn't enough to maintain us. We moved from one person's home to another. We ended up at my grandmother's home.

Let me fast-forward to the present. I moved out-of-state a few years ago and my mother moved into my apartment. The main reason I moved was to put distance between us. I felt like it was the only way I would be free to live my life. Things were still hectic, even with us not living together. Everyday it was something. It didn't matter how tired or sick I may have been, she had something for me to do, that I am sure she could've done herself. If I say no, then I don't love her. So, I thought if I was too far to do everything, she would try to do some things for herself, and she did.

degrades me

If I move, she says that I'm leaving her. If I don't get her what she asks for, she says I'm mean and I don't love her. When she degrades me and I speak up for myself, I am ignorant and disrespectful. Disrespectful includes everything from speaking up for myself when she slanders me to telling her she needs to get help so she can be more independent and able to enjoy life.

There is much more, much, much more. She acts as if I have never done anything for her, and that hurts me. She constantly tells people that I treat her like a dog and won't even buy her a pack of cigarettes. What she doesn't say is that it's a pack a day she asks for, sometimes two, and those things are expensive.

feeling oppressed

Pastor, I love my mother very much and don't want to be selfish (if I am, I know you'll tell me), but I'm feeling oppressed. I also resent the fact that she has basically refused to stand on her feet since my father left. I know I can't really relate to her feelings since I have never been divorced, but she wasn't the only one hurt, disappointed and depressed. I just feel like 14 years is enough to at least start getting over it. She still won't go shopping or anything, fearing that she might see him. I really believe she needs the help she is refusing to get. I want to see her happy and vibrant. I just don't think this tough-love thing is helping at all.

Am I being selfish, Pastor? What can I do? I am her only child, so it's not like she can call on others. She is now 50 years of age and the time will soon come that she will actually need to be cared for and neither of us would have lived our lives.

M.S., New York

Dear M.S.,

Your mother is not an old woman and she can work and support herself. She is a miserable mother and she needs God in her life. Don't carry any guilty feeling. You have done your best to help your mother. She has to learn to help herself. You are not a child and she should not control you.

tormenting you

Perhaps she needs to see a family counsellor because the divorce has evidently affected her. However, she should not use that as an excuse in tormenting you. If it is at all possible, do not live with your mother. She needs to drop her bad habit of smoking. That is taking away lots of money.

You have done your best. You do not have anything to be ashamed of.

Pastor