In tarot cards the major card that represents the archetype mother figure has two conflicting interpretations.
The positive aspects are seen as nurturing, caring, home building, creative, loving, supportive.
The negative aspects are seen as needy, possessive, jealous, demanding.
These conflicting characteristics can be seen in many matriarchal figures, and, at different times, in ones own mother.
A mother is usually the foundation that a home is built upon.
Her primary role is often seen as providing a home firstly for her husband, in which to build a nest and start a family and secondly to provide the safe and secure environment in which her children can grow and flourish, develop their personalities and talents and then move out into the world where they proceed to blossom into being their own person.
Confidence and self-esteem are the two fundamental characteristics that children should develop from their childhood and their home environment.
Problems occur when a mother has her own issues, maybe from her own experiences as a child.
Some mothers can appear to be jealous of their own children, of the potential ahead of them, the opportunities that they have that perhaps she was denied.
Or maybe a woman has struggled to conceive and when a baby is finally born she becomes an ultra-protective mother.
Sometimes when a second child is born, perhaps a long awaited boy or girl, that new born child becomes the golden child and the first child feels relegated or unwanted from then on.
A child's world is created and affected by everything it comes into contact with.
'Normal' is comprised of its daily influences, its routine, the different experiences, the sounds, the events it witnesses.
Saint Francis of Assisi is reported to have said 'give me a child before the age of seven and he is mine for life'.
Early life experiences are the foundation upon which all future attitudes, outlooks, opinions, habit patterns are built upon.
They form the baseline for boundaries, expectations, tolerance and our fundamental core values.
Relationships form an important element of what a child learns from its mother.
A child witnesses how its mother treats all the different people she comes into contact with, her partner, other children, her parents, friends, tradespeople.
Because the mother is often a child's first teacher the child absorbs the mothers' behaviour, her attitudes, how she deals with different situations.
These lessons set into place a child's core values.
A child also witnesses how other people treat its mother, and how she reacts and responds to that treatment.
Does she tolerate bed manners, is she confident and comfortable with the people she meets in various settings.
All these experiences are absorbed by the child and affect its own way of handling relationships.
Good mothering gives a child a sense of who he or she is.
It will become secure in its own identity, feel confident about itself.
But it will also have learned to be able to communicate its feelings, be respectful of others' points of view, be able to cope with being disagreed with.
It will be a balanced human being with an innate sense of self.
Bad mothering can leave scars and residual damage, confusion, lack of confidence, fear of rejection.
Counselling can be valuable in helping people with bad or unwanted reactions and patterns start to appreciate how they originated and then allow them to be let go.
If a person has lived in an environment where they felt unloved or unlovable, second class, inferior, then those feelings can be etched very deeply.
Learning to trust people, form relationships and feel worthy of being treated well all start to feature as confidence and self esteem improve.