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Typology and Mothers.

Arclight

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I have noticed a definite trend in regard to mothers, their apparent type and peoples perception of that said type.
Mostly it's very negative.

So, I guess I am curious if I am just imagining things or this is a real trend.

Do you know your Mothers type?
Has it had a positive, negative or no affect on you in regard to that type?
 

Thalassa

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I think my biological mother is ESFP. My grandmother, who was with me in the mothering role for 99% of my formative years (birth through age 6) was most likely ISFJ. The woman my grandfather married following her death I think now was actually ESTJ.

I like ISFJs the best and ESTJs the least of the three. Think of that what you will.

Perhaps I should describe them more. My grandmother, as she is remembered by not only me but my mother, was "the perfect lady" who kept a very clean, orderly house that was filled with plants. She liked children and dogs, and taught Sunday School. When she was employed she was a secretary. She was a very kind, nurturing, shy woman. However, my mother says she had that "icy frigidaire" quality I've heard some people complain about in ISFJs. I have no idea if she was a prude or a bit icy because she died before I was old enough to pick up on such qualities. She was a wonderful, wonderful human being. She also is the one who managed to get my grandfather to quit drinking (this is before I was born.)

My ESFP mother is fun, funny, spontaneous, and when she was younger she was sexy and "cool." She used to be quite adventurous and irresponsible. She's always been warm and caring, but she wasn't a very dependable or stable person as a young woman. Sometimes I think she's a little stupid, honestly, but as she's aged she's become quite a good mother: cooking, cleaning, watching over her adult children. She merrily keeps house and tends over her dogs and grandchildren. She's a very easy going person, unless she gets pissed off, then she acts totally irrational and is kind of scary. She's also a great cook and she's pretty good at art. When she was younger she was quite athletic. My mom is a fun person, though, I can't stress that enough and she won't yell at you for not wiping your feet or anything nit-picky like that. She'll get totally pissed, too, and then let it go and forgive, which is nice.

My grandfather's ESTJ wife I first thought might have been ESFJ, but now I don't think so. I think she appeared ESFJ in some regards because of being a woman of her generation, but she ran a tight ship, was extremely overbearing, outspoken, and perfectionistic, and seemed more concerned with duty than people. She was pretty sharp, too, I must say - intelligent certainly, in her way - and really awesome at providing structure and what she "should do" as a parental figure. Otherwise she was bossy, loud, yelled a lot, scared my friends, offended my neighbors occasionally, and had delusions of grandeur in the sense that she wanted to be like a rich, powerful person. A thoroughly unpleasant human being in many ways, I still am eternally grateful to her for the strength that she taught me to have. For her generation she was quite a "liberated" woman I suppose. Pretty damn strong and independent and forceful.
 

miss fortune

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my mother actually introduced me to the MBTI... she is quite proud to be an ISFJ and for what it's worth, she's an awesome mom :)
 

Ingenue

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My mother is an ESFP. I can appreciate my mother's warmth and depth of caring, which I find in other ESFPs. However, there is a kind of histrionic and flustered quality that annoys me to no end about her, and that I am sensitive to in other ESFPs.

I don't think that my mother's type has had a large effect in how I perceive that MBTI type per se, but it has had an effect in how I perceive interpersonal relationships between types. My father is an INTP. He couldn't communicate well with my mother and was somewhat oblivious to the small, caring things she would do for him. My mother had certain "common sense" expectations of my father that he didn't care to follow, and while she was aware of his intelligence and creativity I don't think she could fully appreciate it. They also had very different expectations in how children were raised, in that my mother believed that the parent is the unconditional guardian/provider, while my father believed that children are still individuals who should make and deal with their own decisions. Most likely my mother felt frustrated and my father felt isolated in their marriage (they are divorced now). But they also shared a sense of adventure and enjoyment of life together, that I'm sure was what initially attracted them to each other.

Growing up, I was very close with my father and shared a lot of the same interests as him, like math, technology, science fiction, puzzles/games (I'm an ISTP). I actually have a soft spot for and a bit of insight into INTPs because of my relationship with him, and this has had a greater effect in how I perceive others of his type than my mother's type. Now, I am much closer to my mother, but this is probably a female thing and not necessarily type-related. My sister (INTJ) was always much closer to our mother--though they constantly argue--and in their cores they're very similar. She and our father don't even speak the same language, let alone have much of a relationship.

My mother remarried to an INTJ. My father remarried to an ESTJ. They are both very happy now.
 

OrangeAppled

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Do you know your Mothers type?
I've typed her as ISFJ. She has taken (bad) MBTI tests on facebook and gets a variety of answers....the only consistency is F. I considered INFJ for her initially also (as she has some NF-like interests at times), but Si-dom REALLY makes sense for her.

I'll include my grandma since she is something like a 2nd mom to me....she's ESFJ, and the description fits her to a T. She's never taken the test & probably never will.

Has it had a positive, negative or no affect on you in regard to that type?
No effect. I know a lot of ISFJs. Some are cool, some not. I have two friends I'd consider semi-close who are ISFJ. They're both genuinely sweet & very perceptive people.

My mom is an ISFJ I like also, and not just because she is my mom. My mom is very smart, very caring, and a good mom all around (but not without her flaws either of course, and we do clash at times).

My ESFJ grandma is a good grandma & we are close, but there have been more gaps to bridge in our personalities. I do have a harder time in general with ESFJ women than ISFJ women. I don't necessarily dislike them, but I feel greatly misunderstood & unfairly judged a lot. I don't have a lot of experience with SFJ men that I know of; sometimes I think I scare them a little.
 

highlander

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Never been able to figure this out. She is an NF but that's all I know for sure. I avoided dating NF types when I was younger so her type definitely did affect me.
 

cafe

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I think my mom is an ESFP. She is nice and fun and pretty easy going about a lot of stuff. Age has caught up with her to a degree, but she was always a beautiful, vivacious woman. At 62 she seems to have a lot more energy than me. She has made a lot of really bad decisions, especially where men are concerned. She always has something she's obsessed with and expects everyone else to hop on the band wagon.

Really, she did a lot of things right raising my brothers and I, but there wasn't a lot of stability.
 

Ingenue

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Really, she did a lot of things right raising my brothers and I, but there wasn't a lot of stability.

Interesting. My INTJ sister says the exact same thing coming from a family of P-types.
 

cafe

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Interesting. My INTJ sister says the exact same thing coming from a family of P-types.
We moved eleven times that I can remember by the time I graduated from high school -- generally for no specific reason. I didn't meet my dad or know who he was until I was until I was 27 years old. Between the serious boyfriends, fiances, and step-dads I had ten pseudo-fathers -- usually there were multiple break-ups/divorces with each one. Sometimes we had utilities shut off or didn't have working appliances.

It isn't like she didn't love me or wasn't a good mom, she just couldn't get the hang of being a grown-up or something, I guess.
 

Arclight

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We moved eleven times that I can remember by the time I graduated from high school -- generally for no specific reason. I didn't meet my dad or know who he was until I was until I was 27 years old. Between the serious boyfriends, fiances, and step-dads I had ten pseudo-fathers -- usually there were multiple break-ups/divorces with each one. Sometimes we had utilities shut off or didn't have working appliances.

It isn't like she didn't love me or wasn't a good mom, she just couldn't get the hang of being a grown-up or something, I guess.

Wow!! My mother is an ESFP.. and your childhood sounds quite familiar to mine.. We were always moving and being introduced to the new patriarch,
By the time I was 16 I had had lived in 5 different cities and I estimate about 12-15 different dwellings. I was "raised" by 5 different men.
We were so impoverished at times I slept on the floor. And things like the power would be shut off and all.
My mom meant well.. But she just couldn't help putting herself first and she had awful taste in men..
Lots of abuse.
The thing is, I am not sure how much of it affected me. I have never really had a problem with my mother consciously nor my upbringing.
I just figured I have always had a choice and have made lots of bad ones.
Also.. some of the stories I heard from friends about what went on in their houses, made mine seem pretty normal in a fucked up way.

My mom has always been a kind of hero to me.
Go Figure.

And she evetually grew up and got a BA is Psychology and an MA in Sociology .. and she is a teacher now.
stayed with the same man for 25 years and adopted 3 children and my is also in legal custody of my sister's kid.

My Hypnotherapist said my adult relationships did way more damage to me than my childhood.

My mom is all right as far as I am concerned.
 

Rebe

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My mother is a Fe dom and a very negative, unhealthy, controlling ENFJ.
Fe freaks me out to no end. (Sorry guys.)

She means well. She does a lot, works endlessly. But she is extremely emotionally manipulative, has no idea how to be nurturing, sometimes switches to become a child, lots of temper tantrums, guilt....guilt.....guilt......guilt. Completely irrational and worries about everything.
 

Ingenue

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Yeah, wow x 2 !!

My upbringing is not nearly as dramatic as both above, but there are things that surely bothered my INTJ sister... like how we were latchkey kids, were home alone a lot (as young as me@7 and her@4), moved a lot because of my dad's career (we were academic brats, parallels military brats in many ways). My sister says she had to create her own stable lifestyle for herself because all of us were off-the-wall, from her perspective.

As far as scarring from mothers go, I think there is a lot to be said of my INFP boyfriend. His mother is an INFJ who suffered from schizophrenia. Now he is deathly afraid of INFJ women.
 

skylights

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ESFJ, and very positive.

if there's one word for her, it's nurturing. i had a really bizarre childhood thanks to a medical condition but i always felt like the whole world was open to me, thanks to her. i also think i'm way more socially competent and practical, and less flighty, than i would be otherwise, thanks to her.

i've noticed that sometimes people on these boards will talk shit about ESFJs (and Si) and it pisses me off, since i know firsthand how awesome ESFJs can be.

though, the guilt thing is hard to deal with. when she and my ISFJ grandma get together, they can be very intimidating with the guilt tripping. once i got caught in between them both thinking i wasn't doing enough to help the other and i felt trapped in a corner and eventually just broke down. they didn't see what they were doing at all, but essentially they were both guilt tripping me then refusing to let me help them because they each wanted me to help the other one. it was like the perfect SFJ storm.
 
R

ReflecTcelfeR

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I'm beginning to think my mother might be an INFJ, but when she took a test from a book she got ISFJ. She seems to have 'feelings' about almost everything. She is very consistent though, and repetitive. I'm sure these are all stereotypes. She doesn't believe she raised me and my brother well. This I don't believe. She was and is amazing.
 

Amethyst

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My mom's an ENFP...

Superficially, when people see us together, they assume we're a lot alike (which with Ne it would appear so)...but get past that we're complete opposites (as she would be my enigma as an ESTP).

I've always looked up to my mom as a role model though. I always admired her headstrong personality and have always wished to develop my meek and lame self as a child into someone as confident as her. I believe I have succeeded, for the most part.

She's had an...'extreme' effect on me, if you will. I don't really see other ENFPs quite like her, since I know a ton of ENFPs and they're all pretty much totally different from each other, although they function the same way. I'll have very negative feelings against her, and also very positive. I stated somewhere else that I can't stand her sounding like she is trying to control my life, and how she also contradicts herself in every way possible. She can be bipolar, histrionic, and paranoid when she's stressed, and for whatever reason she vents to me about it.

She's a dietician, and her work's been rough on her lately. I remember a time where I could talk about everything and anything with her, and nowadays whenever I see her she's sleeping or just plain exhausted. :(
I might say I admire her work ethic, though.
 

OrangeAppled

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I'm beginning to think my mother might be an INFJ, but when she took a test from a book she got ISFJ. She seems to have 'feelings' about almost everything. She is very consistent though, and repetitive. I'm sure these are all stereotypes. She doesn't believe she raised me and my brother well. This I don't believe. She was and is amazing.

That sounds a lot like my ISFJ mom - she says similar things. My mom has "feelings" also, but they seem to me to be rooted in Feeling judgments by reading people emotionally and picking up on sensory clues, not so much intuitions. I think it's some Si memory recall, where there's a mental catalog of info to pull up the most likely explanation for something.
 

Southern Kross

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My Mum is and ISFJ and a positive influence.

She is much more giving and considerate to others than I could ever be. I am so grateful that she accepted and supported me on my own terms, despite our vast differences, which I realize now is not something to be undervalued. She encouraged me to active engage in the world around me, to colour outside the lines and to think more deeply and broadly, as well as strongly influencing a lot of my cultural and artistic knowledge/interests. She's a fantastic mother.

I do, however, feel the flaws of the type keenly; her emotional outbursts, nagging and negativity really get to me. Her flaws have affected me so much I am extremely determined to prevent them from become mine. One of the reasons I am so (outwardly) emotionally restrained is due to years of observing just how unappealing her histrionics are.
 

Snuggletron

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My mom is an ESFJ. She really busts her ass to do stuff for me (and family/friends in general). She is pretty open-minded when it comes to other people. She likes when we hang around on days I'm home and debate and talk about all sorts of things. She says I make things interesting to talk about on a more thought-out level. This is something she doesn't get from my ISTx stepdad. I think she will miss me a lot when I move out. =[

The only negative thing about her is that she tends to display a martyr complex. This isn't uncommon for SFJs I heard. It can be redundant and self-fulfilling but for all the things she does it's not a big deal. Also, when she gets angry she has to let everyone in the world know by acting on it loudly.
 

Thalassa

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Wow!! My mother is an ESFP.. and your childhood sounds quite familiar to mine.. We were always moving and being introduced to the new patriarch,
By the time I was 16 I had had lived in 5 different cities and I estimate about 12-15 different dwellings. I was "raised" by 5 different men.
We were so impoverished at times I slept on the floor. And things like the power would be shut off and all.
My mom meant well.. But she just couldn't help putting herself first and she had awful taste in men..
Lots of abuse.


Wow. Sounds like what my sisters went through. That's why I can't help but be thankful for my SJ grandparents. I really love SJs, though I do have a much better relationship with my mom NOW THAT I'M 30.
 

Patches

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My mother is an ENTJ. A borderline emotionally abusive ENTJ. She was very strict, especially when it came to academics. However, she is what I would call 'a realist'. Many of the parents in my area were conservative Christians who refused to acknowledge that their children would dare drink or have premarital sex. My mother made it very clear that I was allowed to tell her about these things and they she would be happy to help me get birth control, condoms, whatever. She allowed me to go to parties when I was underage as long as she always knew whose house I was at, and if I needed to leave I wouldn't try to drive myself. (That is - I was allowed to do all of this as long as my grades remained perfect. If I had dare received a B in a class.... I don't even want to know what kind of hellfire would have rained upon me.)

We had a very rocky relationship when I lived in the house. Probably typical teenage daughter fighting shit. Now that I have moved out, I would go so far as to say that she is my best friend. I confide in her about most everything that goes on in my life, and 90% of the time she offers reasonable advice. I'm grateful to her for both the 'leg-up' she gave me in pushing me academically, as well as the financial support I got from her while I was getting my bachelors degree.

As far as how that compares to my romantic relationships... I consider ENTJ my best match. I've been in a relationship with an ENTJ for almost 6 years (6 year anniversary is in 14 days). There have been MANY occasions where he has done something/made a comment that has made me turn at him and say, "Oh dear god, I'm dating my mother."
 
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