Part 3 of 4: Devi Titus and Lois Evans on Being Vulnerable with Adult Daughters

Did you have this with your mom at all? Do you have expectations of Grandma?

That's why I'm sitting here. No, I didn't.

Yeah, I don't have any.

And I didn't either.

Because I watched my mom work so hard with 8 children, sacrifice so much, that I was happy when she was released from us. I told her, "Get out of here." go do something for yourself. So, so delighted when mom was able to travel the world and not keep my kids. So, I mean, I hear what you're saying, but I'm just saying my experience was I was elated that my mom's life changed because she was a missionary to 8 kids. We all now, 5 or 6 of us are in full-time ministry. So what she wanted to be— I'm backing up and getting very confused because I'm so excited. I got to see my mom do so much in her life before the Lord took her home at 97. She wanted to be a missionary. Aww. And then the Lord gave her this husband and a kid every year. No birth control. And she said, "Well, I guess this is my mission field." And she literally invested in us. I'm a recipient of scriptures that I remember today because my mother every day before we went to school Make up your beds, breakfast is ready, devotions, every day because Daddy worked out of town to support us. So I have a different picture, maybe that's why I don't babysit a whole lot, because I just had my momma's release.

I think that's a generational thing. I think a lot of— I think I hear a lot of— I think it's a two-sided thing.

But I— my husband's mother lived near us. She never babysat. My mother never babysat. We didn't live near one another. There wasn't an expectation, but there was never—

there's not an expectation. But what I— there's, there's two sides to this. What I hear is that there are a lot of moms, there's a lot of mothers who are frustrated because they're not getting help from their mothers. There's an expectation of help.

Yeah.

Or They're frustrated because they still need mothering. They need mothering. So it's not that I need my mother to be available to my kids. I want my mother to be available to me. So, and I don't, I don't know, I don't, I haven't studied it. I haven't thought about it. I haven't, but I just think it's interesting that there is a dynamic of no expectation and lots of expectation.

And is it, could it be too, Chrystal Hurst, It was an age thing. Our mothers got married later. What am I trying to say? There's an age difference. Our grandmothers were old. Grandmothers today are 35. Am I making any sense?

I was 36.

Yeah.

As a grandmother.

Grandmothers are younger.

Yes.

So they're busy with their vision and their lives, and they're still building a home. When their children are wanting them to help them. When we were growing up, our mothers were 29 and our grandmas were 80. So sure, grandmas want you to bring those kids and put them on their laps. So I think it's what you just said, it's generational. Because my grandma was just sitting home, dying for us to come over. Well, how do you feel like— But now it's the grandmas that are 36, you know.

So how do you feel, because that's one area of conflict potentially is just expectations.

Expectations.

Totally.

And it could be anything.

Anything.

Come help me clean my house.

Oh yeah.

Anything.

But you did. When I had Charis, you came and you stayed with me for 3 weeks. And you know what? I always tell— Chrystal and I have talked about this. I always tell mommy that when you got on the bus, she came and stayed with me for 3 weeks and Jonathan was 10. So 3 weeks was a lot.

Oh yeah.

Okay.

And she was working over and you know, there's, there's not the laptop and the internet and all that. She's literally papers in a, you know, attaché case doing work. And, um, when you got on the bus, I don't know if you remember, but we both cried.

It was terrible to leave.

We both cried. And I was telling my sister, I said, you know, in that moment, that is the mark, the moment that marked for me, my mom is a person.

Yeah.

My mom is a person because number one, she left, a life to come and give me 3 weeks, and she cried to leave.

Yeah, yeah, it's terrible. That's a cry for a 10-year-old.

But yeah, she cries leaving. So I think for me, you had a 10-year-old at the time? Yeah, my brother was 10. So for me, I think from that moment forward, I don't know why, I don't know why that flipped the switch on.

Well, the vulnerability, the vulnerability connected you.

Yeah, vulnerability.

Yeah, yeah.

And I think sometimes too, that's a That's probably where relational building with your mom is hard if she's not a naturally vulnerable person.

Right.

So you don't get to see that.

She could be a naturally vulnerable person, but she doesn't have time to be vulnerable.

Yeah.

Building a family.

Yeah.

Because I'm naturally vulnerable, but we were building a church, we were building a family, building a marriage. Daddy was finishing seminary. I was just on go.

Yeah, totally.

So when I came to help you, it was probably when, like you said, you saw that I could cry and things like that.

I was like, she's crying!

But our whole lives was building, building, building, building. So your dad probably saw me crying and saw me saying I can't go anymore. You know, he saw the vulnerability. But in front of my kids, I'm just trying to make sure you guys have food to eat and clean clothes. Jonathan has a He's 35 and he has a favorite moment of remembering us being such a flurry to get you guys to school. Because you remember I had the lunch kits lined up, trying to fill the lunch kits. And Jonathan remembers that I was actually drying clothes that he had put on.

That was the best though. The clothes out of the dryer was the best.

And the underwear was still a little wet.

He said at 35, that's my memory of you getting me warm clothes on to go to school. And to me it was disaster as a mother.

But the way he remembers it. But the way he remembers it.

So I'm saying, I think a lot of Parents and people are in a building mode, and that's where kids don't see that their parents are real, or that— well, we didn't share with you guys the struggles we were having trying to make ends meet. You guys didn't know all of that stuff, you know, but your situation pulled everything out of me because it was hard. It was hard to lose that.

You know, Chrystal, with my relationship with my mom, we were long distance, and I really remember making a choice. In my early days, especially when I became a public speaker, speaking in the pulpit. I felt that— I don't know if it was God, but I felt like I can choose examples and illustrations of what my mother didn't do. I can make a long list, or I can choose to talk about what she did do. And I chose to talk about what she did do. And I personally don't think that's not being vulnerable. And I never, I personally never approached my mom with, really with all the things you didn't do, Mom, because the wonderful things that my mother did shaped and created my character as your mother did. So it wasn't something for me personally. I didn't carry resentment though. Trina had to confess to me. She had to because that's how we free ourselves. Right. But I didn't have—

For years I didn't know that it was, and then the Holy Spirit just showed me. And I'm like, oh my gosh, like, how did you do that?

And I don't know why I didn't have resentment. I don't know why I didn't. Some of it can be a difference in personality.

Right.

She has a much higher level of relational sensitivity, and I don't. I have a work ethic.

Yeah.

And I'm black and white, and that's the way it is. And, you know, let's talk about this. And okay, is it over? It's done. Okay, good grace.

Let's move on. So, so good.

And you're like, but I'm emoting here.

Exactly.

No, but I think that's so important though. Um, but it's cool. And with my adult daughters, same thing. Now I'm like, oh, well, now I've got 10 grandkids and I'm like, oh, how am I supposed to do what God's called me to do?

So you have cousin camp to work with my mom. Grandchildren come over for that one week, 4 days.

Well, yeah, but I, I try to spend quality time with all my grandchildren, um, weekly. But to fit that in with all the other responsibilities and things that God's called me with, now I have a new perspective.

She has a new— But until now, she's been married to a businessman.

Sure.

Not a pastor.

She didn't— Totally different.

Totally different.

Our personalities are different. I have 2 children, 6 years apart. I never had that frenzy. I never had that overwhelming feeling of being a mother. My house could always be orderly. So a whole, you know, and I think daughters, give your mothers grace. Look at the differences in a sense and give your moms grace. And because many things that we do wrong in the time at the age and stage we're in, we don't know that's wrong. Did you know it was wrong for you to fall asleep while she's But she—

Look, I'm like, it's quiet because I'm sitting here. I could have been in the bed. You know what I mean? I could have been in the bed with a blanket and said, no, I'm not doing it.

She's looking at it as rejection.

So how am I staying up with you? Let's wait 15 years and see what she says about it. That's my point. Oh, yeah.

Oh, gosh.

Because her perspective, you don't know what it is.

Right.

You have no idea what she's internalizing.

But my struggle is— my struggle is the days when I want to be helpful in helping her, And the days when I'm like, you've got to be kidding me. You know what I mean? You've got to be kidding me. And I mean, I think that's why I ask if it hurts because I know it's got to be difficult even to be graceful in those conversations when you're thinking, I'm understanding that you're saying you were hurt, but are you kidding me?

But did you see what Zach was actually doing? Right. That's the one thing I wasn't doing. But again, I think that's just the way the enemy works. You know, like you say, to divide. Yes, to divide.

Instead of thinking—

to keep us distracted.

Because mother-daughter relationships, I think, are So critical.

There's so much self-esteem. Well, you know, I told my daughter when I had— we were having a real rough time. She was great until like 17, and then all of a sudden it was just like, what happened? I thought we were clear. And I said, you know, I think the mother-daughter relationship is like Velcro. If you take Velcro and you stick it together and you leave it, when you finally go to pull it apart, it is really hard to unstick. Now, once you unstick it, then you bring it back together. It's a lot easier for it to come together and release, come together and release. And I think mother-daughter relationships are different in the sense that we are mother, we have a mother and daughter relationship that is different than a mother and son relationship, than a father and son. We are supposed to kind of reconnect in a different way, but that ripping apart and that separate identity, it is loud, it is noisy, and it's hard.

It's hard.

But then you need your mom. You need your mom.

You do.

In different ways, you know, you need your mom.

You only have one mom. Many years ago, I wish I could cite the author. This is not original to me, but I've quoted it for years. It's a book, it's very old, it's not published. And she said, "The mother-daughter relationship is the most beautiful, frustrating, intimate, and tangled relationship shared among women." And I think that really defines it. So when you get to the frustrating moment, just, just remember, it's beautiful and intimate. When it feels so tangled, because seasons, it changes, and when it feels tangled in the moment, just remember, it's beautiful and it's intimate.