With Mothers’ Day at hand, I’d like to tell you about all the ways my mom is the worst.
Her worst-ness is evident in most of my stories from childhood. There was that incident when I was 2, when I spied the vacuum plug coming out of the outlet and tried to have fun dropping pennies on the prongs, and she completely ruined my fun by pulling me away from the excitement of electrocution and house fire. When I was 7, I wanted to repel down a cliff alone, and she made me go tandem with my dad.
She enforced cruel and unusual punishment in the form of piano practice and music theory homework over the course of more than a decade. She made me bike to school for years despite life-threatening skinned knees and the very real danger of my having to get off and walk my bike up tall hills.
Later on, she was a wet blanket all over my first blushing crushes—when I wanted to gush about how cute the boys were, she would point out the practical concerns of our incompatible values or entirely unrelated recreational interests. During my college years, she constantly ruined my blissful immaturity by reminding me to buy textbooks for next semester, asking whether I knew my finals date yet so she could fly me home, and checking on my financial status.
In fact, I’ve missed out on dozens of essential young adult experiences because of my mother. Last summer, I had the perfect opportunity to be evicted from my apartment and experience life as a homeless girl in New York City, but my mother snatched the chance away from me by transferring rent money into my bank account. I’ve had opportunities to grow malnourished taken away by her buying me groceries, and I’ve had opportunities to be alone on dangerous streets at night removed because she called to make sure I was getting home safely.
Because of my mother, I’ve had to consider other people’s perspectives. Instead of coddling me as she should have during my formative years, she demanded I talk out my struggles, and confront my problems. I distinctly remember being made to apologize to my brother before bed as a young child and, later, being forced to talk out a serious argument. My mother took away all my chances to have extended pity parties and burn with resentment. She also took away every opportunity for feeling helplessly angry—by constantly advocating for me and teaching me how to pursue my rights as well as my dreams, she ensured I would never enjoy passively complaining.
It’s not only emotional opportunities my mother deprived me of. During junior high and high school, my mother forced me to engage in physical activities on a somewhat regular basis, and because of her, I will never know the bliss of a sedentary lifestyle. It’s all her fault that I know the basics of multiple sports and understand the nutrition needed to maintain an active life.
As you can see, my mother is the worst. I know this was difficult to read and explicit at times, but thank you for allowing me to get this off my chest.
