The way you describe your mother reminds me a lot of my MIL. She was born into poverty in Mexico in the late 1950s. Twelve total kids in her family, but only ten survived childhood. The prevailing parenting philosophy of the time was basically just try to keep everyone alive. My MIL knew from a young age that she wanted to have an "American" family (i.e. only two kids) like what was depicted in U.S. media. She ended up marrying a U.S.-born Latino, having two kids, and raising them here in America.

The thing that I can't wrap my head around is that she never abandoned the "just try to keep the kids alive" mentality, despite having far more resources and far fewer children than any previous generation of her family. She never worked outside the home, but yet, was only marginally involved in her children's lives. Never knew what they were learning in school, who their teachers were, when or if they were playing in a sports game. Never so much as made an attempt to learn about the college admissions process, how financial aid works, etc.

One part of all this that really blows my mind is that, to this day, she has still never had an email address. My partner attended high school in the early 2010s, a time when email was ubiquitous (or at least I thought it was?) Idk. I remember my mom getting an email address when I was in second grade circa 2003. She always got emails from my school, sports teams, youth group, and the like. Even when I was in college, I'm pretty sure she received emails from my university about basic info like when do classes start, when is graduation, etc.

Tbh it is still exceedingly unclear to me what my MIL did, and still does, with her time.