The completely fabulous Tita Arlene gave me this book called Mothering Without a Map, and it's one book that I constantly cheat on as I simply can't read it from cover to cover in one go. Not because it's tedious or boring or anything like that, but because the book produces extremely strong emotions and reactions in me. I worry I'll short-fuse if I read it all in one go, so I take it a bit at a time.
As the summary says:
her focus never waivers from what happens when the mother-daughter tie tears and the daughter is left without a role model.
My mother and I fell out. It's a shame and I wish sometimes we could talk more,laugh and cry more together! but I think that what I say is weighed and measured and shared during times of gossipy aggression. There are moments now that I understand what she meant or how she must have felt. But I don't want to be the same kind of mother she was.
In the distant past I think emotional stability was far from being the priority - kids were sheltered, fed, clothed, and anything beyond that was surplus. Sure, mums loved their babies. But in general it was necessary to be practical about emotions and meter out protection.
Later generations I think started to reckon that more was needed than that. Kids are no longer farm hands and resources. Kids are desperately wanted, yearned for, and something some people will walk through proverbial fire for (it reminds me of my . And as that role of children has changed, so have (I think) the emotional needs of children.
My therapist reiterated again and again the fact that I had a very unstable background. Constant moving was one thing, but of greater impact was the yo-yo relationship my family has, ie, my sister's status in her relationship, constant "paninira" thrown to our family just for the sake of ruining it..blah! blah!. Together, apart, together, apart - they seemed to be unable to decide what they wanted from each other. Combine that with my mother's personal view of family - strict loyalty and no boundaries and feelings that changed with the flip of a coin - and I was a basket case.
Unstable. Unstable. Unstable. It was unstable. I was unstable.
My great fear is that my children will turn out like me.
I think I'm a good one. I will love my kids and make sure they know it. Their every need should be meet. But my needs were met and look how I turned out. There's something above and beyond the basic needs, and I find myself determined to root out what that is, to keep my kids safe and happy and healthy. I've got their basics down and then some. I just want to catch whatever it is that made me fall through the net.
Reading this book is difficult. It's strange when you identify with other women, and you look back on your childhood and say Yes, I was fed and clothed and homed and loved. But that wasn't enough. You feel guilty for feeling that way. You feel selfish. You feel like you are a poshy shit taking the world for granted, that you should storm off in a huff because mommy and daddy bought you the blue Beemer, not the red one. All I ever wanted was a Ballerina Barbie in her pretty pink tutu. My birthday, I was 10 and do you know what they got me? Malibu Barbie. That's not what I wanted, that's not who I was. I was a ballerina. Graceful. Delicate. They had to go.
Maybe the truth is some of us grew up broken. We had some fundamental safety missing from our childhood. We were protected, but our protector could turn on us, too.
And the fight concluded last night.
"I love you" i said
"I love you too," she replied.
Not just mothering without a map, but loving without an atlas.
