Once when I was in my twenties, my mother was probing me about my life goals. Which, that’s a mother thing to do so I can’t blame her for it. At one point, though, she was exasperated at me and snapped, “Do you not want to work?” I, being stupid, took her at face value and said, “I would prefer not to.” The disappointment in her face and tone was heavy. She made it very obvious that she thought I was a failure for admitting that.
Story of my life, though. One of the things my last therapist said to me that turned on a lightbulb was after I was lamenting about all the ways I had failed my mother. I was very much aware of my mother’s checklist of things that her daughter should be. Skinny was at the top of that list (but not skinnier than she was because that made her jealous0.
Side Note: After I came home from the hospital, eating was difficult because my father could not understand my diet. I did not eat gluten or dairy. He and my mom would eat something with one or both of those and he would offer me some. I would decline, which should have been the end of it, but half the time my father would question why I didn’t accept it. He would say, “Don’t you want any?” Not in a nasty way, but in a puzzled tone. I would explain I couldn’t eat it, and I could see that he didn’t understand. That was fine. Annoying, but fine. It was when he conflated my hospital experience with my diet that it got frustrating. He thought my doctors had put me on the diet and would ask when I would be off it. He couldn’t understand that I had been eating that way for several years, which, again, was fine in and of itself. It just got old after some time.
Anyway, my mother wanted a skinny, feminine, perfect clone of herself. She wanted a daughter who had a career, yes, but also was a mother of two children. Someone who went to church every Sunday and was heavily involved in the church life, and someone who did not swear.
What my recent health scare had done for me was make me see with brilliant clarity that my mother does not like me. I already knew she didn’t love me as a person (I will concede that she loves me, her ‘daughter’)., but it took me longer to realize that she doesn’t like me. At all. She likes nothing about me, in fact. Not that I do Taiji (she thought it would invite the devil to dance on my spine. Which is surprisingly poetic for her, but a bunch of horseshit) nor that I am a writer. The one short story she read from me elicited the only comment of ‘there’s a lot of swearing in it’ and nothing else. She doesn’t like that I’m fat, single/unmarried, and she most definitely does not like that I don’t have children.
She doesn’t like that I don’t have a regular job (which is fair), and she doesn’t like that I have a cat. She wishes I cared more about performative femininity, even though she has a complicated relationship with it herself. Yes, she wears makeup (has eyeliner tattooed on her lids), but she does not wear skirt/dresses much, and she is much more comfortable in pants. Plus, she plays sports. Or used to, anyway. She exercises every day, too.
Oh. Back to what my therapist said. I was giving her the litany of everything my mother hated about me because I was feeling the weight of that disappointment. I felt like a completely worthless human being because I was a big failure. After listening to me, my therapist said, “Minna, you talk about how you failed your mother. How about how she failed you?”
Again, as I type it out, it seems trite and obvious. But at the time, it was a light dawning on me. I had been so used to being the failure in terms of my mother, I had never thought about what she was supposed to do for me as my mother. My therapist followed this up by saying that my mother would may never be the mother I wanted/needed/deserved, but I could do that for myself.
My mother, not coincidentally, didn’t like my therapist. My mother said that she (my therapist) put a rift between us (my mother and me). My mother spouted her standard refrain about Taiwanese families versus }American families, and she’s not wrong–but she’s also not right. Yes, Taiwanese families are closer in general, but that doesn’t mean the complete obliteration of the individual. Or rather, that’s still dysfunction, no matter what culture it happens in. In addition, if it’s always one person giving up their individual happiness/personality, then it’s bad in general.
Also, I notice my mother spouts family togetherness and unity when it suits her or is to her advantage (or to my father’s, which is hers by extension). It’s ever about what is best for me that might be less beneficial to her, for example. She would counter that it’s because elders are venerated in Taiwanese culture. Which, fine, but it still shouldn’t be a completely one-way street. In addition, I was borna nd raised in America. I am American, for better and for worse. That means I have an American mindset, not a Taiwanese one. Plus, she doesn’t make Taiwanese culture inviting. “Do everything I want at great expense to yourself” is not a good sell, no matter who is saying it.
I want to write about this. In a more organized way, I mean. We don’t talk enough about family dysfunction, in any culture. There’s the belief that family is sacred, but it’s…look. We’re all human beings. We all have our flaws. The fact that I’m related to people doesn’t make that any more or less true. I would never be friends with my parents if they weren’t my parents. I would have nothing to do with them. They put me down all the time and don’t like me. Why should I excuse that just because they’re my parents?
It makes people intensely uncomfortable when I mention that my parents don’t love or like me. They rush in to say they’re sure it’s not true. Which, I suppose they mean to be comforting, but it’s pretty insulting to think you know more about what I’ve experienced than I do. I know it’s mostly because they don’t want to have to consider that can of worms, but I really wish people would think before they spout platitudes like, “I’m sure your parents love you.”
They don’t. They don’t love ME the person. How can they when they don’t know me as a person? And what they do know, they don’t like? When my mother tried to talk to me about what a terrible shock it was that my brother was getting a divorce (to her, but not to me), I said they gave it a honest go for nearly 30 years, really trying to make it work, but he was very unhappy. Before I could continue, she burst in and said in a nasty tone, “Why can’t they try for another 30?!” I was so shocked, I couldn’t say anything (which is very much unlike me). I am pretty inured to anything my parents say, but that honestly shocked me because she was saying she wanted my brother to be miserable for thirty more years for the sake of her rigidity (also, because it cast a light upon her own marriage, and that was something she did not want to examine. At all) and very outdated beliefs.
It’s hard to convey how utterly shocked I was at what she had said, but it profoundly bothered me that she didn’t want her child to be happy. I mean, I’m used to her dismissing my life and everything about it, but this was my brother! The golden child. The one who had done everything right with his life (except for not obtaining a post-grad degree). All of that was for naught because he had made one decision with which my mother disagreed. He was supposed to continue being deeply unhappy because…why? She couldn’t even give a good reason. Just that he SHOULD stay married.
I finally said something about supporting him and wanting him to be happy, but I could not forget the ugliness of what she had said and how she had said it.
I am trying to returned to studied neutrality when it comes to my parents, but it’s really hard to put that back into Pandora’s box.