On Mothers

I have a student who has issues with her mom.

And I'm not talking about your typical "I'm super ticked at my mother because she grounded me for breaking my 11-p.m. curfew" issues.

I'm talking about serious, scarring issues.

Abusive issues.

Issues I've never actually witnessed between a mother and a daughter in my entire life, and, therefore, don't really know how to handle.

The mother tells her daughter she hates her; she steals her daughter's things.

When the little girl does something her mother doesn't support - like enroll in an elective art course that the family doesn't approve of - she cancels her cell phone plan and stops paying for/making her school lunches.

She makes the girl's father sleep on the couch when he defends her.

She pits her little sister against her, so much so that both girls hate each other and refuse to speak unless they're screaming cuss words across a joint classroom they have to share (e.g., my classroom.)

The mother leaves her - but not her sister - without rides to and from school, soccer practice, poetry club, and night-time college classes.

She calls her names.

Her mere presence at her daughter's awards ceremonies, school speeches, and big class presentations sets her own child off into such tearful, anxiety-ridden breakdowns that oftentimes, her daughter can't even perform up to her own potential.

The mother tells her daughter that no one likes being around her and that no one in their right mind would ever choose to love her.

She's her mother, and she tells her that no one loves her.

That no one will ever love her.

I ask you, who says that to their child? Who says that to any child? Who says that to another member of the human race, for heaven's sake?

Granted, I am this child's teacher; I only know one side of the story. This mother is by no means reaching out to me for help. According to her daughter, she doesn't really like me all that much, anyways, for some reason that has eluded me for the past two years. And one, for which, I could really care less.

Still, regardless, she's this child's mother.

Even if her daughter has issues - which I'd wager she does - and even if she's difficult to live with or bear sometimes - which I'd imagine she is - she's her daughter.

Her first-born.

Her own flesh and blood.

And the spitting image of her to boot.

Who talks like that to the little girl they birthed and raised for 18 years?

I'll admit, it's painful to watch a kid I care about run away from home multiple times; it hurts to watch her cry at school the next day.

It stings to watch her scrimp and save for college because her parents threatened to cut her off if she picked the "wrong" major.

It burns to witness a child have her own self-worth taken away.

Because whether or not this 18-year-old girl is in the wrong - which, again, I'm sure she is sometimes - it hurts to watch a child hurt.

It also hurts to sit by, unable to do almost anything to stop it.

Fact is, I've never known a mother to treat a child like this.

Sure, I've seen mother-daughter fights. Had a few of those myself as a teenager.

I've even seen mother's make bad decisions - decisions I didn't agree with, sometimes from the get-go.

But most of the time, regardless of the fits thrown or the parenting decisions made, most mothers I know are acting out of love.

Love for their children.

Love for their families.

Love.

Sometimes, yes, I've seen physical abuse. I've known kids who were dragged away from mothers who beat them or molested them.

But this is different. This is a different sort of confused and twisted and wrong.

And I don't know what to do about it.

Because I have no proof of anything.

To the rest of the world, who haven't seen this child cry, this family seems normal - superior, even.

But I just see a child who has been bruised - in some capacity - by her mother.

As a woman, it goes against every maternal instinct I've ever had.

And yes, my maternal instincts may be untested as of yet. But I am a woman, and they are there.

As a woman, it also goes against every familial relationship I've ever seen modeled.

My mother never told me she hated me. I never once, not once, truly feared her. The love in our home was not conditional.

And as a woman, it goes against every natural reaction to children I've ever been taught.

Mothers are to love and care and discipline and teach.

We were not gifted to our mothers to be manipulated and lied to and beaten down and disrespected.

Ask any mother - heck, any woman that wants to be a mother - and she'll give you a long, drawn-out explanation of her job description.

But the one word almost every mom's job description will have in common?

Love.

Mothers love their children.

Still, what about the one's that don't?

What do you say to a mother who has, most likely, scarred her child for life?

What do you say to a mother who digs a figurative knife in her daughter's back and twists it?

What do you give a mother on Mother's Day, when, literally hours before, she told you she hates you?

I am not this child's mother. I'm not even close.

But that woman isn't, either.

***

I know that Mother's Day weekend is upon us. It's an important one, and one that deserves celebrating. Mother's are gifts and the single most influential people in our lives, in my opinion.

I was given to a wonderful mother, who I sometimes don't give enough credit to.

And then I run into women like the one I talked about here.

In light of women like her, I was blessed beyond measure, as were the majority of my friends, my husband, and my co-workers, to have mothers who, no matter what else they struggled with along the way, loved us.

Unconditionally. Whole-ly. Supportively.

So Happy Mother's Day to my wonderful mother. To my beautiful mother-in-law. To the mothers of all my wonderful friends who loved me because I was their child's best friend, because I was on their child's sports team, because I was in their child's college dorm, because I was part of their their child's wedding.

Also, Happy Mother's Day to all my friends who are mothers. And to all of us who want to be mothers some day.

We are blessed to know these women, to be raised by these women, to be loved by these women.

Because we had mothers.

Some kids don't.

Have a wonderful Mother's Day weekend, everyone.