Mother knows best
by Ashley wong
The myth of the natural mother.
Motherhood is not every woman’s purpose. You repeatedly told me in my youth and even to this day say that you wish you never became a mother. You’ve even been frank with me about the difficult choices you’ve had to make in the past regarding motherhood. Whenever I gush over and coo at passing babies, you solemnly remind me, “Children are a crushing responsibility”. Safe to say a puppy was out of the question.
You are my role model. You are the strongest woman I know. I only hope to one day gain your respect. Imagining us as the same age terrifies me; you terrify me. You have the greatest ability to lift me up, yet you often choose to diminish me instead. You are obliged to love me, but not to like me. You are my best friend but also my worst enemy. Entering adulthood feels like always needing your mother, but at the same time knowing that you will never be able to have the mother that you once had. And even then, what I had wasn’t necessarily the most conventional form of “maternal instinct”.
I always think you know best. When you say I can’t wear a certain cut of swimsuit because it’ll make me look fat. When the first thing you bought for my dorm room was a scale. When you feed me laxative tea. When you hand me a ziplock of 6 grapes (a day’s worth of food) for my diet. You compare our weights at different ages, how you were never over 100lbs until you hit 30. You snicker at how we have to buy the same size underwear. You chase youth in a way that makes me afraid to age.
You and I, each other’s angry shadow. We cannot untangle ourselves. Our blood binding us fundamentally different women together. What we have is a poisoned love story. You are equally as obsessed with me, if not more enraptured by my very presence (e.g. calling the police when I block you from tracking my location).
From my major in college to my participation in beauty pageants, everything has been your dream. I have been coddled into being indecisive. I wouldn’t be who I am today without you. I hold my breath as await your opinion; I crave your acceptance more than anything in the world. Your nod of approval can change everything for me. It hurts every time you pushed me away like a plate of food you didn’t like. I bet my therapist is sick of hearing your name.
The sound of your voice on the phone puts sickness in my gut. Sometimes it makes me feel swallowed whole. The waves overtaking me as I drown in your words. The unbearable weight of never meeting your expectations. But a recent visit to your hometown helped me realize the environment that moulded you. The backhanded compliments, unwanted opinions, and lashings that made you leave early altogether. Pitting women against each other, comparisons that only tore down not empower. Not to mention your own complex and twisted relationship with your mother. The divorce, her passing on your birthday. You are just as wounded as I am. Only trying to do better than what you know. I want to go back in time and pick you up, embrace you in the sincerest hug. You’ve made it a point to never cry in front of me, not even while delivering both your parents’ eulogies. I understand why you became the way that you are. But I also understand that it is up to me to break the cycle.
Feeling like a lost daughter, a neglected child, I struggle to express my feelings. The tide flowing in and out, waves. I learned that I only captured your attention when I performed when I was the star of the show. Making me prone to falling into romantic attachments doomed to replay familiar family dramas. You encouraged me to find partners that made me feel small unless I was fitting their ideal image of me. It is all that I know, and over the years, it has eroded every aspect of my being.
Going home shouldn’t be difficult, yet my last trip back inflicted a panic attack on the plane. I feel as if I suck everything out of you. I was petrified of facing you knowing that I hadn’t amounted to what you envisioned for me at this age. Dad gingerly handed me tissues as I gutturally sobbed in the car before heading in the house to greet you. I tiptoed around you my entire duration there, waiting for you to finish breakfast before heading downstairs, fearing what critique was ready for me around the corner. It was like being back in high school, waking up each day wishing I was invisible.
I have to fight against my very learned nature in order to not end up like you. The bits of myself that I find most beautiful are the parts that are alien to you. Yet I build myself in your image. Born out of the hubris of my own mother. Every insecurity of mine has been carefully crafted by you. It is hard growing up with a narcissist. I love children and I hope to have my own someday. I do not wish to bring them up in the kind of household that raised me, one that had me cowering in fear.
I am not trying to put blame. But I do not believe that it is too late for you to change. I so desperately want to work through our relationship. It keeps me up at night replaying all the moments I could’ve taken back to make you like me more. Why am I not enough? When will I ever be enough?
The pain of feeling like you don’t want me hits so far deep into my chest. Always hunting for a rare version of my mother who actually listens and empathizes with me. I want us to disrupt the inherited patterns of stubbornness and hurt. As our calls become less frequent and I start to feel you slipping away, I fear for our relationship in the future. I want us to learn to love each other better because sometimes it feels like you know me better than myself.
You now take me to my doctor’s appointments, check on my prescriptions, and even send me mental health articles (albeit from WeChat so they’re fraught with medical inaccuracies). You compliment my tattoos rather than scold me. You openly accept my sexuality and even encouraged me to bring a girlfriend home. These milestones mark a transition in our relationship. Less push and pull, more pure familial love and acceptance. And for that, I am grateful.
