A very powerful and domineering mother-figure affects life on the deepest levels. Feelings are deeply buried. Feelings of isolation, being unwanted and abandoned, life-and-death urgency, not belonging. A great need for a most private space, an inner sanctum; fears invasion. Guilt over jealousy, desire for revenge, pain caused. Skeleton in the closet or an unwanted traumatic memory haunts.
Fear of letting go.
I don't want to seem overly optimistic.
Guilt. Right off the bat.
Obviously there is something going on here. Like the Ghost from Christmas Past.
Now...I was about 45, I guess, when I forgave my mother of all the supposed sins she committed against me. I despised her.
All those sins existed only in my head. Mom was just being Mom: Who else could she be? Am I somehow better than she?
The problem with Mom was me. It had nothing to do with her. How can you be Guilty of being who you are? Do the best you can with what you've got and then have some ice cream. Everything's ok, just as it should be.
I am well aware of what Moon-Pluto contacts do. I did not mean to imply that "nothing happened" between you and your mother. Actual physical cruelty is not uncommon with these aspects.
But that is all in the past--except within you, where it lives on. And touches your children.
Pluto is implacable. And what he does is permanent. Besides, people don't change. The effects your mother had on you are for life. You can't change that. A black man can't change the color of his skin, and that color carries a price. You and the black man are in the same boat.
Your kids will have to deal with their own stuff when it is time. They are beyond your reach. Your job is you. You must learn to let go, not easy for you.
"Helping" them just might be another word for Control. Be careful. Good luck.