I’m typing this in a blog post because I feel like I can’t write it with pen and paper...things take too long and get too real. I need some distance.
Basically, I finally got in touch with the loss of my childhod. I got to see it first hand, in action.
On Mother’s Day, my mom was out of town. So I sent her a “Happy Mom’s Day” text, and made a fuss of it on Facebook. No reply, but no expectations. I know she’s busy, I’m not concerned. She’s in New York, enthralled with her family of origin, so I go on with my day.
Then my brain started up: Wait, what if she thinks I’m a bad daughter? What do I do when she feels unloved and it’s my fault? What do I do when she tells me a story about what her friends’ daughters did for THEM for Mother’s Day? So I decide to call her on the phone with my real-live voice.
”I can’t talk, I’m with Daddy,” she replies.
Daddy is her 86-year-old father, my grandfather. When my mom is around her parents - which is often - it’s as if she’s frozen in time, and has the same inflexible role she had as a child. She is number one daughter. First born. Loyal to the end. I respect “the trance.” It’s bigger and more powerful than me. In this Unconscious Regressive World, there’s not room for her to be both a daughter to her parents and a mother to me. I accept this a deeper level than I accept my life’s pleasures...not because her inaccessibility is pleasant, but because fighting it isn’t. I came to accept this a long, long time ago...after years of experimentation and passive-aggressive resistance. I told her I loved her and wished her a fun dinner. And we hung up.
My mom can’t see me, really. I think I came to accept this back in my early teens. Maybe age 12? I think that’s when I stopped trying. This was upsetting to her, and we lost most of my teen years to power-struggles. My apathetic rebellion clashed against her controlling demands of obedience. Having an unmanageable daughter isn’t good for image, you know.
There were times, however, when I’d discover my mother’s love in hindsight. For example, I was bullied in school after we moved. I was in 5th grade, and our new house was just a few miles down from our previous home. For two years I begged my mom to let me go to the school my friends attended. She gave no explainations for insisting I stay put, but focused solely on the principle of “sticking it out.” Although I unknowingly harbored the seeds of an eating disorder, the school bullying helped it blossom into an insatiable, depressive monster. But mom never wavered - she believed “letting kids win” teaches them they “have the power.” And so - in a strange way - she was winning while I was dying.
Well, in my mid-twenties, after a good deal of therapy, I casually mentioned that “the move” may have been a little traumatic for me. To my complete astonishment, my mom chimed in, “Oh, absolutely it was traumatic! You were traumatized! It was awful...” Hearing this was sort of incredible. It was validating. Based on my mother’s “scatter-brained-Martha-Steward” personality, I assumed she’d deny any mention of dysfunctional behavior, and claim I was “being dramatic.” She continued, “...but I called your old principal a month after the move. He said you’d adjust, most kids adjust, so I just decided to let you figure it out.” Mom was very into the “she’ll figure it out,” approach.
You might think this new information would make me angry - how could your mom let you suffer for years based on statistical generalizations of an uninvolved man? I’d never met my old principle - he didn’t even know my name or what I looked like. But considering the emotional negligence I was accustomed to, it was a glimmer of care. She cared enough to make the call? I thought. Wow, she saw me. She saw I was suffering, and she asked someone about it. This was enough...it was more than I’d expected.
Ok, back to modern times. I followed up our phone call by texting her a picture of the flowers and card I got her with a caption:
My text: Let me know when you get back in town if you’d like to celebrate.
Her text:
My text (3 hours later): Hey Mom, when do you get back to town?
Her text: Friday.
My text: Sounds good!
Her text:
I suspect she flashed the photos to her sisters, ensuring the clan she’s a worthy woman with a diplomatic child...but I can’t be sure.
I realize these gestures - my effort to send her love - didn’t really mean much to her since she was very into being her Mother’s daughter this Mother’s Day. But I do them anyway because they make me feel like I’m a good daughter and am living according to my own values. I also do them so she can’t say I didn’t do them. I don’t really feel the need to celebrate Mother’s Day; the urge to reach out is just an instinct...like, an empathy response. If I were a mom, I’d want my kid to think of me. So I feel like it’s my job to be the kind of daughter I would want to have. It’s my duty.
I reached out again on Saturday.
My text: Hey Mom, hope your flight was safe! I still have your flowers and card - let me know if you’d like me to bring it by for a belated Mother’s Day.
Her text: Call you when I’m home.
A few hours later, I took her the flowers and card. And it was then I realized what was happening...
I was taking care of her - scratching her back and asking her questions about her life. I was inquiring about photos from her trip, while she trailed off about an array of interests concerning family I’ve never met. When there were long silent pauses, I would compliment her outfit or talk about the roses in her backyard. And then she’d get chatty about how she went to a restaurant in New York with beautiful roses when she was with “Mom and Daddy.” And I’d smile and watch her critiquing her own memories with perfectionistic self-loathing.
Her: When we were there (she’d say, with a softening whisper of guilt) we did all the bad things.
Me: What does that mean, Mom? What bad things? Did you go to the casino? (She knows I know she’d never).
Her: No, no, no (rolling her eyes). But we ate all the fattening sugary stuff that’s just so badddddd. (She says this in the same way one would, in a public place, disclose being molested).
Me: Mom, food is neutral. Eating fattening foods doesn’t make you evil. You just enjoyed yourself - good for you!
Her: I know, I know. But it was so good, and...well, today’s a new day. And I’m back to being good again.
She trailed off about the family recipes her sister mastered, about how she wished she still cooked like Susie, but she can’t because it’s all just “so bad.” Opened up like a teenager gossiping about girlfriends at school, she told me what her cousins were up to.
I played my role and laughed and blocked out any lingering emotional needs...or differing opinions...or current information about my life that might take away from her moment of happiness. And I played my role and realized it’s to be her supporter, the obedient female off-spring that anticipates her needs and disappointments...because this is what she is to her parents. And I play my role because I am to her what she is to them...except I rest in the background of her life, while she rests in the foreground of theirs...and for some reason, this year, it was painful.
Before I left the house, my dad came out to see his 35-year old daughter. That’s me.
”Bye Dad, love you,” I said. I gave him a hug.
“Remember to edit that photo I sent you. I need it.”
”Got it, maybe by Tuesday. Love you, Dad.”
“10-4,” he says...
...And then slaps my ass. Twice. It was sort of a “pat-slap” - the same type of pat you might give a two-year-old after changing their diaper and watching them run off to play; the type of pat a husband might give his wife before she leaves for work.
You may have noticed that my dad can’t say he loves me. And he didn’t come to visit the entire hour I was at the house with Mom. But before I left, he made a point to come out of his room and pat my butt.
It never occurred to me before this Mother’s Day moment that (1) this butt-patting thing happens, (2) this butt-patting has been happening for the last three decades, and (3) this butt-patting is very uncomfortable...and inappropriate...and gross feeling...I mean, since I’m 35 years old, and the guy touching it is my Dad...and never happens when my husband is with me. I sort of feel like he should know he shouldn’t touch my private parts.
The whole thing - the whole event - it all made me sad...because the dysfunction was so undenaiably real. I finally realized that other kids don’t grow up this way.
I got sad for the kid I was...the one that grew up without an available mom, and without a conventional dad. The one that grew up with caregivers that were emotionally inconsistent and boudariless. And I grieved for her...
...I’d never done that before...
...I cried for a few hours...and then went numb again.