I Wish My Mother’s Love Was For All of Us

Blaire Marr

When I was a child I thought my mother loved nobody.

Now I know that’s true.

I am five and my eldest cousin is moving out of our house.

She is only 17 and is going to live with her mom, or dad, I don’t know. No one explains it well enough to me now and still no one will explain it to me in the future. All I know currently was she was gone, and I’d never be as close to her as I was ever again. 

My mom says that it’s for the best, that it was what she wanted, that she was the one who didn’t try in school and asked to leave. This would end up happening to all of my cousins.

Soon enough she dropped out of school, got pregnant, and went to jail. All within a year. My mom says this, too, was her fault. I am too young to know if this is true or not, so I listen. But even now it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, a stinging and burning sensation someone only feels before they start sobbing. But, surprisingly, the tears never come.

  Some days my mom blames my aunts, or my grandma, or my entire family. That they somehow failed my cousin. Whenever I’d come home from my grandmother’s, my mom would throw me into the shower. Saying the stench of cigarette smoke would infiltrate the entire house if we weren’t careful. That if I didn’t immediately wash off the odor would never leave and we’d be soaked in the grody aroma my mom fought so hard to avoid. 

I never got it, I couldn’t smell anything. Plus, I’d always enjoyed the smell of cigarette smoke. But my mom had a much stronger sense of smell and a much stronger aversion to it, so I listened. 

Sometimes I wonder what my mother had noticed that I didn’t. 

I am nine and my cousin has just run away. 

He’s the last to leave, and the closest in age to me, but strangely his early departure is the least painful. Maybe I am used to it at this point. 

He ran out the front door this morning in July. In front of both me and my mom, not even wearing a shirt. One moment he and my mom were arguing. The next he pushed past my shocked mother, hopped on his bike, and rode off. Both my parents followed immediately after, getting into my dad’s car and leaving me laying on the floor of the living room. After 10 minutes I spot a speck in the distance. That speck turns into a bike and that bike turns into a bike with my cousin on it.

He slinks through the front door, making sure to close the door with the poise and care I’d never seen from him before, and shushes me. Putting his finger up to his mouth and physically shushing me like I’m a newborn. He tells me not to tell my mom he came back. He goes to his room, slips on a shirt, and is off for the second time. I’d never live with him ever again.

Soon enough he dropped out of school, got a girl pregnant, and went to jail. This happened to my other cousin, as well, a couple years prior. 

I never did tell my mom about him coming back. Maybe it would’ve helped them find him, maybe not. I was loyal to my mom, but I had other loyalties too. He ended up going to his dad’s, later I found out it was so he could sell weed. My mom, like always, blames him. She doesn’t notice the pattern. I don’t either, yet. She tells me that I’m not like my cousins. 

And I believe her. 

A couple weeks later my mom rides a bike around our neighborhood and I ride with her. Clutching tightly around her waist and digging my face into her back. Thinking that if I were to weaken my grasp even a little bit I’d fly off and hit the pavement. 

I ask her why he was so mean to her, and she explains that that’s how teenagers are. That all of them get snippy with the adults in their life. I tell my mom that I wouldn’t do that, that I would be different. That’d I love her forever and never say a bad word about her.

I don’t know if my mom believed me or not.

A couple weeks after that bike ride my mom tells me that for the time being I wouldn’t be allowed to go over to my grandmothers or cousin’s houses, that it was too dangerous. That news feels like getting shot in the chest. 

I am eleven and I realize that I hate God.

Not that I don’t believe in him, but that I hate him. 

I realize that he’d made me wrong. That he made the world wrong. That he allowed for the world to be wrong and then put people into it without changing a thing. That he could change things, he’s all powerful, but would rather we suffer. 

In Sunday school one day they told us that our father’s were our role models for God. And if that were true, then not only did I hate God but I was terrified of him.

I am eleven and I start noticing things. 

I am home alone in the shower, combing through my delicate waist-length hair I’d been growing out since early elementary school. Soon I will cut it. I am making sure absolutely no conditioner remains. Going through my hair for the 26th time to make sure, obsessively investigating every strand to assure nothing was there. Remembering the time when I was 9 and my dad saw some conditioner still in my hair after a bath. 

He screamed at me for over 10 minutes, about how I was wasting his money and how I had obviously used too much for him to still see it even after I’d tried to wash it out. This was all before he physically dragged me by my shoulders to the shower to wash it himself. Despite the fact that it was a leave-in conditioner. And that he was unemployed and it was, in fact, my mom’s money.

After making sure it was all entirely out, a new-found ritual of mine, I realize that my dad was mean. Unnecessarily mean. 

I’d been noticing this before. How my dad would wince everytime I’d ask him a question. How he’d physically growl whenever my mom would ask him to do something. How he’d bang on walls and kick doors when something didn’t go his way. How he felt the need to yell everything he should’ve spoken. How I couldn’t remember him ever complimenting me or my mom before. How none of my new friend’s dad’s would treat their kid’s this way.

I’d noticed this before, but now I was putting it all together.

I couldn’t care less though. I finish my shower, put on my comfiest clothes, and take a nap without a care in the world. I already knew this, it was just the first time putting it into words. And it was just my dad, it wasn’t like I cared for him.

I didn’t understand how my mother put up with it, however.

How could she love somebody who hated her? All my dad did was ridicule her, or embarrass her, or try to bring her down. The two would argue every night but it was always my father’s voice I would hear. He didn’t even seem to like her. How could my mom stay with him? How could my mom stay with him knowing he was hurting me?

As a child, and even now, my mom would defend my dad with her life. Saying that she knew that he wasn’t the nicest and that he wasn’t outwardly loving and that he was cruel sometimes but that’s just how he was raised. 

She would tell me that he did actually love me, that he did actually love us, but that he wasn’t great at showing it. She would get angry at me for saying he was scary. Saying that he wasn’t, as if she could decide that. My mom seemed convinced of this, but I never was. 

My mom saw what my dad was doing, looking the problem right in the face, and decided it didn’t really exist. She looked Medusa in the eyes and decided that she wasn’t turning to stone. She couldn’t help but defend him. She didn’t have to stay, it wasn’t like she was reliant on him, but she chose to keep herself and me with him. There must’ve been some other side of my dad that my mom loved. That kept her attached. I never saw this side, and my mom blamed me for it.

I almost felt more angry at my mom than I was at my dad. Maybe I was in the wrong for that, but maybe not.

Really, who’s worse: The person hurting you or the person who keeps you in that situation. The person who could do something but instead loves, defends, and worships the other one.

Who’s worse: The world that is evil or the Idle God who does nothing to stop it. 

I am thirteen and my mother cries on my bed.

I asked her to call me a different name. A name that suits me better. A name that doesn’t shrivel me up like a raisin. A name that I actually like. My mom’s response was to cry. Sitting on my own bed like a kicked puppy in the rain, like I am supposed to feel sorry for her. 

She tells me that it’s too much. That I’d been changing too much and too fast. That I wasn’t the same person I was when I was younger. And that if I did this it was like I wasn’t her daughter anymore. 

She tells me that I am different now,

And I don’t know If I believe her or not.

I don’t feel different. But something had to have changed for my mom to feel this way now. It seems, to my mom, everything has changed. For the worse.

She hates my new friends, and she hates my new haircut, and she hates my new clothes, and she hates the new way I do my makeup, and she hates my new hobbies, and she hates my new art, and she hates my new thoughts, and she hates the new way I live my life. And, now, she hates my new name.

My mom tells me that I’m too mean to her. That I make too many snide remarks and I don’t respect her. This is true, and I don’t want to be like that. Yet I can’t control it, the words come out of my mouth without any dictation from me and soon enough I am the person that kicked the puppy in the rain. I hate it, but it’s so hard being nice to somebody who hates every aspect of you. 

My mom cries and cries until I tell her it’s fine. That she can call me whatever she wants and she can do whatever she wants. That her hatred is fine and warranted. That she can call me my old name.

I ask her if she thinks I’m like my cousins and she says no.

And I do not believe her. 

Once she’s done she hugs me and I’d never felt less comforted. Her touch is cold and artificial, she didn’t want to hug me as much as I didn’t want to hug her. She leaves and I realize my mother may not like me anymore.

I’d never see my mom the same way ever again.

And I don’t think she’d ever see me the same way ever again, either. 

I am sixteen and I’m sitting in an empty church parking lot with my best friend.

It is 4 am and I’m trying to light a cigarette. 11 years later and I still adore the scent. The wind keeps blowing it out, though, as if God is preventing me from even smelling it. I hate him even more now.

There’s a lull in the conversation and my mind wanders to a single man. My brain has turned into a record with only one song to play over and over again. I wish I’d never have to think about him ever again. 

I now understand why my mom loves my dad. Turns out it’s really easy to love someone who ridicules, embarrasses, and brings you down. It’s really easy to keep yourself there. Strangely enough I still haven’t grown empathy for her, in this case at least. Just a knowledge for why she does this. Maybe I’m in the wrong for that.

I have grown some sympathy, however. Turns out all father’s treat their children poorly, my friend’s being no exception. All dads are ‘like that’. Am I supposed to blame all mothers for them being their only options? I don’t know. 

I’m trying to grow my hair out, like the way it was in elementary school. Cutting it was a mistake, but now it refuses to grow. Staying only a couple inches longer than it was when I was 13. My mom was right then, I did change. I am different now. 

I haven’t ridden a bike in ages and I haven’t willingly hugged her for even longer. I don’t use the same brand of leave-in conditioner anymore. And when my parents argue now I hear both of their voices. And I don’t hate my old name as much as I used to. And I’d rather shoot myself in the chest than go to my grandmother’s. And I’ve met the other side of my dad, he’s alright but I’m not sure he was worth all I went through. And I don’t believe in God as much as I used to.

I don’t see how this is a problem, though. I think the problem is that my mom never changes. I think I was right when I thought that my mom didn’t like me anymore. I also think I was wrong when I thought that my mom thought I was like my cousins.

My mom, no matter what I do, will always put me somewhat above them. Maybe it’s because I’m her biological child, or because I’m white, or I am actually somehow better than the 3 of them. Either way my mom may hate every aspect of me, but she’ll never hate her daughter. This is a grace that was never extended to my cousins.

By now I’ve noticed the pattern. 

My mom can point fingers and deflect as much as she wants, but there’s a reason all 3 of them left before the age of 18. There’s a reason most of them don’t talk to her anymore. There’s a reason they all turned out that way. 

Sometimes I think I’m the same. Not exactly. I doubt I’m going to drop out of school, because I actually like it. I doubt I’m going to get pregnant, because I can not get with anyone to save a life. And I doubt I’m going to jail, because I’m too scared to do anything to warrant it. 

It’s more of a general mystique. Everyone raised by my mom ‘turns out that way’. I’m going to turn out that way. I already am turning out that way. My mom’s already noticed it, she can smell it on me. Dogs, of course, have an excellent sense of it. She, of course, blames me. It doesn’t really matter, in a couple years I’ll move away and maybe then she’ll see it. Maybe then she’ll be different. I doubt it, though.

I think my mom’s going to run herself in circles forever. Sprinting around getting lost in a dense wood not noticing that the trail points forward. Constantly searching around for someone else to blame, someone else’s problems, someone else to hate. She’ll stress herself to death. And one part of me wants to say that’s deserved, she chose that hill and she can lay there. 

Another part of me wishes she’d smoke a cigarette and change. 

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Blaire Marr is a 16 year old from Michigan who’s been interested in writing stories since they learned how to. They mostly write fiction books but will sometimes dabble into vignette’s and poetry.