mommy issues and their consequences

Something I’ve been meaning to tackle since I’ve started writing more frequently is the dilemma of mommy issues and how they differ from the paternal. I often joke that I have “generational mommy issues.” I have a “complicated” relationship with my mother who has completely cut off my grandma who has issues with my Great Grandmother. From infancy, there seemed to always be a primitive disconnect. It’s humorously symbolic that nearly 22 years ago, I wasn’t able to latch onto my mom. Throughout my childhood, while it definitely could have been worse, I was caught in the middle of my parent’s tumultuous marriage (which has since ended) since I can remember. Though the deeper turmoil between my mother and I started around the twilight of my adolescence emerging into womanhood. When the premise of sexuality enters the framework, a lot of generational curses begin to appear. To my mother’s credit, she was the first woman in her line to not be a teen mother and the first to go to college. Being extremely disciplined has its drawbacks. While my mother is extremely intelligent, almost to a fault, with that, frequently comes rigidity. She lacks that sensuality or passion for life, which kills the feminine spirit. Growing up, I always felt like I was punished for that— the spontaneity, the emotion, the indulgence. If she possessed any of that before she had me it was likely forced out of her from her chaotic upbringing. But why take that loss out on your 15-year-old daughter?

Think back to who your mother was when she was your age. Would you have been friends with her? Personally, I think my answer slightly depends on if I had known her before versus after she started dating my father. My mother before my father was similarly pretentious, a liberal French major, and went to metal shows. Still somewhat uptight comparatively, still frightened, but damn I could’ve saved her from completely falling into a stone-cold rigidity like she did when she had children with my father. I think the combination of issues with her mother and its parallels to her relationship with my father curated an anxiety that caused a great deal of turmoil, and unfortunately, took this paralyzing anxiety out on my brother and I.

One of the most painful elements that my mother acquiesced throughout my adolescence was purity culture as well as the suppression of anything perceived as girly, vapid, or frivolous. The thought of talking to her about a boy I liked or a pair of shoes I wanted was completely out of the question. Any expression of beauty had to be contained to a puritanical standard and any expression of sexuality had to be destroyed entirely. This prudish nature contradicts innate human desire and my inherent and personal worship of beauty.

I spend more time than I should worrying about what damaging thoughts I’m going to pass onto my daughter. Truthfully, the hope of having a daughter has been what has kept me from killing myself several times. I think in contrast to the women before me, I’m a lot more introspective and forgiving, but I don’t know if that will necessarily break the generational curse that seems to have been put on my bloodline. All I can hope for is that years later, if all goes right, my daughter isn’t thinking this deeply about how much my tendencies and trauma before her caused her pain.