To understand my mother, you have to understand her mother. My grandmother had the veneer of the kindly old lady but that veneer covered a dense, bitter core.
My grandmother's public persona was of the lovely gentlelady so common in Indiana--polyester clad, hair-sprayed bouffant, regular attendee of church on Sunday. She was a farmer's daughter that was worked hard by her parents but not particularly loved by them. When she married my grandfather, also a farmer, and had two daughters I don't think she had the learned skills to be a kind and loving parent. She was a mother that was hard to please. Both my mother and my aunt seemed to spend their lives seeking my grandmother's approval right up until she died at the age of 85. I remember marveling at my mother's desire to please her when it seemed to me more rational to just give it up as an obviously futile exercise.
I would have thought years after my grandmother's death, my mother would have exercised the demons that were her mother's lasting legacy. Unfortunately, she seems to carry with her the insecurities of that emotionally battered childhood.
She spent her life trying to be a mother as unlike her own as she could be. Yet she seems convinced that she failed at this enterprise. I remember a few years after I graduated from college, my mother commented that she was sure I had gone so far away to school just to get away from her. I was shocked when she told me this. To this day, I don't think I've ever consciously thought that.
I went away to school because I didn't like Southern California. I didn't like who I was in Southern California. I was an introvert with a few friends but not much of a social life. My brother was what they called at the time "hyperactive" and spent most of his time testing my parent's coping skills. I was shy but fairly self-sufficient. I kept to myself and let the activities of our household just swirl around me. I think I saw opportunity for escape from the stress of living at home but I don't feel like I left for college specifically to get away from my mother. She obviously felt otherwise.
I think if I experienced any resentment it was with the division of time and attention between my brother and I. As I said, he sucked up a lot of their time and resources yet I was the smart kid. I was the one with untapped potential. They started me out in life with a jumpstart, they skipped me a grade in school which was a good first challenge but somewhere along the way they gave up working on me. If I had been more extroverted or demanding, I might have been able to push my way forward on my own. I wasn't one of those driven overachievers. I needed to be pushed. Once I was pushed I was perfectly willing to excel. When I was in my 30's, I often wondered why my parents did not get me on the AP track in high school. I still remember that by the time I graduated, the guidance counselor didn't see me as college material despite the fact I was an "A" student. Maybe it was just sexism from a dimwitted middle-aged man but seriously, what happened here?
So, yes, life isn't fair and it's rarely equitable. I don't think I've carried an abiding resentment though. I don't think I did at the time, I don't think I do now. Yet my mother still worries she failed....
-to be continued-
My grandmother's public persona was of the lovely gentlelady so common in Indiana--polyester clad, hair-sprayed bouffant, regular attendee of church on Sunday. She was a farmer's daughter that was worked hard by her parents but not particularly loved by them. When she married my grandfather, also a farmer, and had two daughters I don't think she had the learned skills to be a kind and loving parent. She was a mother that was hard to please. Both my mother and my aunt seemed to spend their lives seeking my grandmother's approval right up until she died at the age of 85. I remember marveling at my mother's desire to please her when it seemed to me more rational to just give it up as an obviously futile exercise.
I would have thought years after my grandmother's death, my mother would have exercised the demons that were her mother's lasting legacy. Unfortunately, she seems to carry with her the insecurities of that emotionally battered childhood.
She spent her life trying to be a mother as unlike her own as she could be. Yet she seems convinced that she failed at this enterprise. I remember a few years after I graduated from college, my mother commented that she was sure I had gone so far away to school just to get away from her. I was shocked when she told me this. To this day, I don't think I've ever consciously thought that.
I went away to school because I didn't like Southern California. I didn't like who I was in Southern California. I was an introvert with a few friends but not much of a social life. My brother was what they called at the time "hyperactive" and spent most of his time testing my parent's coping skills. I was shy but fairly self-sufficient. I kept to myself and let the activities of our household just swirl around me. I think I saw opportunity for escape from the stress of living at home but I don't feel like I left for college specifically to get away from my mother. She obviously felt otherwise.
I think if I experienced any resentment it was with the division of time and attention between my brother and I. As I said, he sucked up a lot of their time and resources yet I was the smart kid. I was the one with untapped potential. They started me out in life with a jumpstart, they skipped me a grade in school which was a good first challenge but somewhere along the way they gave up working on me. If I had been more extroverted or demanding, I might have been able to push my way forward on my own. I wasn't one of those driven overachievers. I needed to be pushed. Once I was pushed I was perfectly willing to excel. When I was in my 30's, I often wondered why my parents did not get me on the AP track in high school. I still remember that by the time I graduated, the guidance counselor didn't see me as college material despite the fact I was an "A" student. Maybe it was just sexism from a dimwitted middle-aged man but seriously, what happened here?
So, yes, life isn't fair and it's rarely equitable. I don't think I've carried an abiding resentment though. I don't think I did at the time, I don't think I do now. Yet my mother still worries she failed....
-to be continued-
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