Like Mother, Like Daughter

I have spent my life trying to avoid being like my mother. I know that somewhere in the world there are good mothers whose children do not have nervous breakdowns at the thought that they might have to spend time with their mothers. I know not all mothers are as abusive as mine was. But I have done an informal survey of my adult friends, and though they preface their comments with this--"I love my mother, but..." What they end up saying is "I'd rather not have her visit me--she cleans my house as if I can do nothing right. I know she means well, but she makes me feel like a failure at everything I do."

My mother was many things. She was foul mouthed and confrontational. But of course she kept her abuse of me a secret from her friends. To her friends she claimed to love me, but was baffled at what a mess I'd made of my life. To my mother's friends I was a fuck-up and her cross to bear. To her friends she was a fabulous creature. She was beautiful and fierce. She was a pioneering feminist. She was unafraid of power and willing to stand and face the powerful and in a full throated blast call the powerful out as the frauds she believed them to be. She started the Utah Chapter of the National Organization for Women. She started the Utah Chapter of the National Women's Political Caucus. She won awards for her contributions on behalf of women. She was fearless and shocking in her confrontations with Utah politicians running for state or national office. She was a fierce advocate and champion for the Equal Rights Amendment to the constitution. What she could not see was that I was a woman too.

Though I was proud of her stature, and supported her causes, I kept my distance. She was on the board of directors of the ACLU. I was always a supporter of the ACLU, but avoided the board meetings, and tried to keep out of her way, which made me seem like a woman without a strong commitment to social justice and civil rights. Some of her friends tried to befriend me, but from past experience, I knew that my mother would see that as competition and betrayal, so I kept my distance.

It's easy to admire a parent with such stature, but hard to love one who claimed to have never had a maternal feeling and believed the concept of maternal instinct to be one more oppressive way men kept women down. I knew too well the way a child feels to hear her mother claim to feel no maternal feeling. It is devastating. It makes you feel profoundly unlovable, for if your own mother never loved you the way a mother loves her child, you feel responsible and internalize her assessment that you are not a child worth loving.

My mother always had me call her Maggy. To her the word mother was a diminishment, an insult. So she was always Maggy to me. And with my close friends, especially the friends I grew up with, she was a cold and dismissive bitch or she was competitive with them as well as me.

You would think my history with a mother I thought of as a political powerhouse and a bitch I'd do almost anything to avoid, would make me a sweet and gentle woman, uninterested in the political. But it hasn't. There are moments I fear I've been possessed by her malignant spirit. I am not gentle, nor sweet. I am not soft, I'm fierce. I do not treat the few men in my life well, though I'm glad I know a man or two who still speak to me, but I don't think I really deserve their attention.

I looked forward to L's visit and worked hard enough the week before to make every muscle and joint sore from the exertion. It was important to me to feed him a nice meal. He is a man who had a friendship with Maggy independent of his relationship with me. I think I still hold that against him a little. But one on one, I'm truly not much gentler or kinder or nicer than Maggy. My mother was competitive. Well so am I. My only saving grace was that I did not have children.