Writing about mothers and daughters

[marsupial*mama]

One of my recent writer's magazines contained an article on writing about the mother-daughter relationship. It's a complex one - complex enough that I thought it deserved it's own thread in the Mother's Writing Group.

So feel free to post it here. It can take any form; poem, letter, prose, stream of consciousness, but ultimately, non-fiction. To offer some inspiration I'd like to ask contributors about the nature of your relationship with your mother... or daughter. Are you similar or different? Do you talk? What tensions prevail? What tenderness have you discovered?

You don't have to address these questions directly in your response. In some ways I suppose I hope this will be a cathartic process and I hope that readers will chime in with their reactions to any contributions. Do you relate to it and why?

[marsupial*mama]

After reading Umiak's First Breath I felt compelled to come here and confide that I am writing, but not yet ready to share. Sunrise mentioned there that she was not raised by her biological mother but has made friends with her now. I'd love to read your story Sunrise!

But I don't think it needs to be complex to be worthy of writing about. Even a few lines can give insight into the dynamics between two people. Less is more, yk?

[Tellera]

stream of consciousness

I do not consider myself a good writer, or much of a writer at all, but if I ever get past the fear and go for it, I will write about the mothers in my life.

I was telling a co-worker about a time I chose to spend a few months with my mother, as an adult. We didn't as I was growing up - she did not raise me for long - and my co-worker made the comment, "how could your mother not want to be with you when you were growing up?" I have thought about that periodically, but only peripherally, to delve into it head-on had been far too wrenching. But as I have recently become a mother myself, it is now often on my mind. I seem to have more sadness than anger inside. Just a lot of sadness and frustration. My mother was my knight in shining armor, my every now and then savior from the daily pain of my step-mother's hidden emotional abuse. I would see her hap-hazardly, when the wind struck right, when she had money, when she had time, when my dad allowed. She was/is unstable. Had different boyfriends often, changed jobs/was out of jobs frequently, and moved around a lot.

After I had my baby, I begged her to come stay with me. I had a very hard time the first several months and whenever we talked I had to bite my tongue not to keep asking her to come. She did not. Could not, she was busy. It made a hole in my heart.

I love her fiercely. I do not know what my infancy/toodlerhood was like with her, obviously I cannot remember. We must have bonded tightly then, though, for me to be so wound around her still.

...

edited for spelling

[marsupial*mama]

My heart breaks for you Tellera! I hope you can process that relationship more through writing about it.

By comparison, my own mother was somewhat smothering. I will make it my purpose to write about it before the week is out.

[marsupial*mama]

I come from a legacy of abuse. My maternal grandmother was adopted into a loveless family. In 1929, at age nineteen, she stole her older sister's identity to run away and give birth to her illegitimate baby. The baby was stolen from her for adoption. All her life she believed her baby had died at birth.

My mother was the eleventh of my grandmother's twelve subsequent children. She grew up in the fifties, lonely and deprived of healthy attachment. Subjected to emotional abuse and sexual harassment from her father's alcoholic friends, she was raised by an older sister and married my father after falling pregnant with me.

In motherhood she found her purpose. She was a caring and attentive mother - sometimes stiflingly so. We were close until my teens when her emotional deficits clashed with my emotional awkwardness and I resented her constant fussing and questioning. Amazingly, we respected each other but her constant approval of everything I did obviously hid her true feelings. I sensed that she would not cope with criticism or confrontation. The lack of communication created a void that still exists today.

She was not a happy empty-nester. I never comfortably confided in her, turning instead to my boyfriend, now husband and soulmate. Now and then she would explode at me for being unavailable to her. Her need for me was greater than my need for her and she did not let go easily. She became gradually more unhappy with the passing years and menopause inevitably brought her to a crossroads.

In the weeks before my third child was born my mother took action. My father called to read me the Dear John letter on the table. Her drawers and cupboards were empty. She had obviously planned to escape for a long time and for many weeks none of us knew where she was. Preparing to birth, I was incapable of immersing myself in her problems. She claimed I was selfish and uncaring. Maybe she was right.

My father was a good man but with a damaged childhood himself, he was never very understanding of my mother's pain. It was hurtful that she never communicated her unhappiness to any of us in all those years. No, not true: she communicated her unhappiness every day in her manner and her sarcasm and her angry outlook. We didn't listen. We thought that was just how she was on a bad day and that really, she was 'content' in her life. But leaving didn't make her happier, and in many ways it exacerbated her depression. There was no going back, and once my father realised that he somewhat callously moved on.

My mother copes very poorly with confrontation. She would rather write letters than express her inner feelings in my presence. As a busy mother, I'm not often capable of sitting and handwriting a delicately worded letter to my mother. She has no computer so our correspondence is limited.

I'm grateful to my mother for breaking the cycle of abuse in raising me and my brother. But she still has a long way to go in her own healing journey. I struggle to understand my feelings for her. She is my mother! But the woman I know now does not compare with my childhood memory of her.

Three years have passed since she left my father. I feel the time has come to address our history and build some bridges - perhaps start fresh. I don't want my children to feel awkwardly towards her like I felt towards my grandmother. I want us to be mature and easy-going in our affections but I don't know where to start.

[indiegirl]

1975

I reposted this on my blog.

[Fiestabeth]

How about grandmothers? I wrote this a few years ago:

Searching For Grandma

It’s hard to constantly be told you’re very much like someone whom you can never know. For as long as I can remember, family members have told me how much I look, act, and even talk like my paternal grandmother, who died when my father was fifteen. My other grandmother lives several states away, and neither she nor we ever have the amount of money it takes to visit more than once every year or two. I am close to her, but in a long distance sort of way. I always longed for the cookie baking, gardening, shopping, and tea parties that I thought a grandmother relationship should be.

My mom provided some of that, or as much as I would accept from her. I didn’t show much interest in cooking, sewing, or especially gardening, but it’s different when your grandma wants to teach you something. Mom is mom, the person you feel you have to resent at one level or another at all times or it’s not a true mother/daughter relationship. But a grandma, I thought, would fly in on angel wings whenever I needed her, let me eat as much candy as I wanted (and keep an endless supply in her home), play dress-up with me, and shower me with presents.

As I grew, and kept hearing, “Oh, my goodness, she looks so much like Juana,” I developed an interest in knowing who this woman was. Unfortunately, however, my dad and grandpa were left with few pictures or keepsakes of their mother and wife. Well meaning family members swept in after her death and took things for safekeeping, and everything had seemed to all but disappear by the time I came around. The only things my father had were one picture of his mom at the age of three, sitting on her mother’s lap, a vase, her glasses, and her wedding ring, which I now proudly wear. But other than the one of her as a child, I didn’t even get to see another photograph of her until I was fourteen, but when I did, it was one of those moments that words can’t even describe.

Just seeing how much I really did resemble my grandmother I found reassurance that she was part of me, regardless of her death before my birth. It is startling to stare into a photograph and see yourself in someone else’s eyes. I believe I inherited so many of her qualities to give me peace about not knowing her. And I must say, I have been somewhat startled by the similarities between us. Sometimes, I will catch my father or grandfather staring at me in a way that I realize they’re not seeing me at all, but her. I can’t put on her glasses without giving them warning because it startles them so much. In my teen years I developed a love for Dr. Pepper and Doublemint gum, having no idea that those were my grandmother’s favorites as well. I love acting, dancing, and can hold a grudge for a very long time, also attributes of hers. I live passionately, love fully, and appreciate family.

A couple of years ago I embarked on a quest to find out more about my grandmother by interviewing those who knew her, and gathering as many photographs and other artifacts as I could. It was wonderful to learn things not just about her, but my living relatives as well. I am amazed by the lives they have lived. They were not just spectators, but players in the incredible events of the last century. My quest to know my grandmother brought me closer not only to her but my whole family.

I celebrate my grandmother’s spirit by learning and recording my family’s past, but also through emulating her passion and zest for life. I have also been blessed in being able to experience a wonderful grandparent relationship through my daughter. Mikaela has grandparents coming out her ears, and she has developed a special relationship with each of them. My mom lives within blocks of us, and I love to snag a little “me” time by sitting on her couch, putting my feet up, and reading all her magazines. Often though, I’m not paying attention to the magazine, but smiling to hear my daughter’s squeals of delight from the kitchen, where she is baking apple crisp with Grandma. Instead of mourning what could have been for me, I rejoice in what is for my daughter.

[marsupial*mama]

I loved those Beth and Indiegirl. I think I will have to try my own story again and explore the emotional side a little more. All that journalistic training has left my writing a little cold.

[Fiestabeth]

Actually, marsupial mama, I really enjoyed your piece. I read it awhile back and meant to post a reply and then got distracted. Sorry! I didn't think it was cold at all, and I related to it from knowing my mom's experience with my grandma. Hers sounds very similar to yours.

The last line of your piece made me feel at once happy and sad, and hopeful that you are able to establish a relationship with your mother that you will both be satisfied with. So, I didn't sense coldness. Clarity and honesty, yes, but not coldness.

[Wolfmeis]

I wrote this for my blog some time ago, but I think it would be appropriate here. My mother and I are not in contact. The last time I spoke with her was on mother's day 2004. After that contact, she blew off my son's 2nd birthday that week, my dd's 4th birthday the next month (also my bd that same month), and I never bothered to tell her about my third pregnancy. We moved across the country that December and while I have written her, she has never called, written or emailed in return.

Chicken Skin


I remember being a child with crystal clarity. There are gaps of blank time, but on the whole I remember it well. These flashes of memory come and assault me when I least expect them; tonight's came while I was preparing my shopping list.

My-mother-in-the-kitchen is a whole category of memories, most of them good. I learned to sing in the kitchen. My mother would sing while she cooked, or washed dishes, or baked. We were poor and in the South, so there were no convenience foods. There was no air conditioning. For many years, it would be my mother, the heat and me. The back door was off the kitchen and the screen would keep out the mosquitoes but let the breeze in.

My mother would skin chicken she'd bought from Winn Dixie. It was nasty work, but she didn't seem to mind. I am sure my constant chatter was annoying, and to pass the time she'd say "open your hand." I would, every time, full well knowing what was about to happen. I would open my hand, knowing but simultaneously hoping that maybe THIS time it would be different, and it would be a candy or a ....something. Into my hand she would drop raw, tepid chicken skin. I would shriek and it would fly up, up into the ceiling as I threw it away in disgust. She would grin or shout at me for dirtying the ceiling, alternating her reactions depending on her mood. This was our dance, and it passed for intimacy between us. And it got me out of the kitchen, out of her hair.

I remember loving her in a huge pulse, even and especially then, because it WAS the routine. It was a sure thing. I remember the high-pitched creaking of the screen door as it would open and out I would fly, leaving the hot kitchen and the dead chicken behind.

I guess in one way this memory is a gift; I can turn it around and believe that surely Graham loves me this passionately, and her love is a something to be protected and appreciated. In another, I never skin chicken.

[Fiestabeth]

Lory, that was beautiful. Heartbreaking, but beautifully written.