My mother was everything I would not become. I was convinced I would have a close relationship with my children, I would treat them with respect as a person, and never say, “because I said so” without a rationale. I vowed to help them be social and learn from the world first hand as much as possible. I had so many ideas from babysitting and reading that I started an independent study on how to be a good mother. I promised myself to protect my future children from abuse at all costs. My mother knew about the sexual abuse my sister suffered before me and did nothing to protect me. That would not happen with my children.
I became a latch-key kid and raised myself after the divorce. No matter how hard I tried to have a mother-daughter relationship she was cold as ice, judgmental, offered no support or encouragement, even went to lengths to prove I was a dreamer like my father. At 12 years-old I loved gymnastics and pleaded to take classes so I could go to the Olympics. She brought someone she knew to evaluate my skills. They were average at best so she justified not sending me to class. How could I improve without coaching? I was not allowed to leave the house as a teen because she was out closing the bar with her bar-tending boyfriend til 3am. My brother worked as a valet and my sister a hat check girl, so I was alone and confined to the house. A house that was haunted and I was terrified of. The same house I was alone with my abusive brother. I tried year after year to be close to my mother but she never let me in. When I lived in Hoboken and went home weekends to work as a waitress, I would bring home Godiva Chocolates, her favorite. I borrowed her car and left it washed, detailed, and full of gas. While I was there I cleaned the house.
I’ve had lengthy conversations with my mother and sister, both trying to break through to Mom. Days later she would say, “I never said that,” and it was like the effort accomplished nothing.