"Why Can't I Be Me?"

 I've written about my very complicated relationship with my mother previously, but as I'm working through my grief over her recent death, it's funny the things I recall. I never really understood where the expectations, demands & pressures she put on me came from as a kid, but as an adult, I can look back and see exactly where all of that stemmed from.

When it came to academics, there was never any question as to my intelligence. If there was a subject I excelled at, like reading, writing or art, I always did well. Math was another story entirely, though. It was a language I just couldn't comprehend. Addition, subtraction & multiplication made sense to me, but I saw NO point in doing endless algebraic equations. Geometry, which was a visual representation of an equation or angle, also made perfect sense to me, but anything beyond that, like physics, calculus or higher level stuff made my head spin. I barely passed sohomore Algebra in high school & took a remedial, "business economics" class that actually made far more sense to me, with its practical applications. And despite having math tutors throughought my school career, my mother never understood why I couldn't grasp mathematical concepts... I remember sitting at the kitchen table, crying as I tried to solve homework problems & being berated by both parents for not "getting it." You would think, as a teacher, my mother would've had a little more compassion & understanding that math was clearly NOT one of my brain's intelligences, but alas, no. 

Clearly my forte was in writing, drawing, painting, crafting dioramas, doing plays in the school's theater program (which involved singing, dancing & acting) & anything to do with nature. Yet, instead of building me up & praising my skills in those areas, I was criticized & shamed for not being able to do math. It's mind boggling really, because even the most basic child psychology & parenting books will tell you that praising a kid & reinforcing positive behavior greatly develops a child's self-esteem. I didn't get ANY of that from my parents during my school years. What I got was my mother's expectations laid heavily upon my shoulders.

The comments from the teachers during conferences & on report cards were always basically the same, "Ellen is a very bright girl, but she just needs to apply herself." or "Talks & socializes too much in class". This drove my mother crazy. Because she AND my teachers all recognized the potential that was there, I just lacked the motivation. And my mother's brand of motivation was to tell me, "You could be a straight A student if you wanted to. Why are you so lazy?"... And yet when I DID "perform" at the top of my game on a paper, test, quiz, gymnastics meet or a dance recital or play, it was always, "Well, it was good, but you could've done better.". What I realize now is that those were HER expectations, not mine. She wanted me to conform to those standards, the standards that SHE was held to by her parents. For a long time, I tried to oblige, but after awhile, I just stopped listening, stopped caring, because I KNEW that it took a LOT of guts & talent to do ALL of the things I did excel at, so I stopped wanting & needing her approval. I somehow had the courage & strength to listen to MY inner voice that was telling me I WAS good enough & always had been. I could get up on a stage or a balance beam, in front of HUNDREDS of people, with no fear, no hesitation or shyness & sing with the clear voice of an angel or defy gravity & then stick a landing. THOSE things took guts & a lot of chutzpah!

During my school years, the Jewish & Asian kids were always the smartest & at the upper eschelons of those groups, it was a highly competitive game as to who would have the top ranking. I was smart, but not THAT kind of smart. I remember my mother constantly comparing me to them & holding these kids up as examples of the "gold standard" of academic excellence. One girl in particular, who was always the valedictorian, was held up as perfection personified. Our mothers were friends, but she & I were only periferally friends. After high school, she went on to go to the University of Michigan, graduated with a BA, magna cum laude, went on to law school (I forget where), then made a switch to a Master's in Library Sciences, then ultimately got married, had kids & NEVER even used her advance degrees. I can't even recall how many times my mother asked me why I couldn't be more like HER, and yet, I had NO desire to be like her at all. And as an adult, I am keenly aware of all the pressure that must've been on her to be that valedictorian & to live up to whatever expectations her parents & she herself put on her to be that person. And I recall that one of the last times my mother said, "Why can't you be like Jackie Stern?", my reaction was to spin around, in a very sharp, confrontational way & reply, "Why can't I be like ME?!". And interestingly, she had no response to that, because I had finally silenced that hurtful, damaging, brand of criticism. That comparison was never made again, at least not to my face.

As a parent, I vowed NEVER to do that with my own daughter. And just like me, her strengths are in the visual / verbal realm. And like me, she is highly intelligent, very intuitive & sensitive, quite creative & math is the bane of her existence. And also like me, when she finds a subject she likes & excels at, the sky's the limit. My philosophy with her academics has always been to do your best & make an effort, even in math. I KNOW she is never going to get straight A's in math... it's not going to happen & so I don't have ridiculously high expectations in that respect. She has needed extra help in math since grade school, she is genetically predisposed to suck at it, thanks to the DNA she inherited from both parents. When I tell this to teachers & counselors, they sometimes look at me funny, but I don't care. One had the nerve to tell me that because she believes she's bad at math, she will always do badly... Not true! I know my daughter, like I know myself, her brain is neurodivergent (thanks to ADHD) & mathematical concepts are not ever going to be something she excels at. So, rather than reinforce her weaknesses & set those bars ultra high on something she will never be able to live up to, why not build her up ion her strengths, because she has SO many?! I am 100% okay with the fact that she's having to retake sophomore algebra, because maybe she'll get a C or a D this time, instead of an F. I don't care if it's not an A, as long as she passes the class & has enough math credits to graduate, because, let's face it, unless she's going into engineering or theoretical physics (and those are certainly not going to be career options she's even remotely interested in), she WILL NOT be using algebra in her daily life... I haven't!

So yes, unlike MY mother, I am self-aware enough & undertanding enough to know how damaging expectations can be to a child, especially ones that are unrealistic & unattainable. I know exactly how it feels to be forced into a mold that was not ever made for me. I know how it feels to be made to think I was somehow "less than" & how that affected my self esteem up until adulthood. I know all of the ways a kid, especially a girl, can rebel against that, with some very negative repercussions like eating disorders, self-harm, depression, risky behavior like doing drugs, drinking or being sexually promiscuous, ALL because of the never-ending seach for some form of "approval". I do my very best to accept my daughter for the person she IS, not the person I think she should be, faults & flaws included. My mother was a spectacular exmple of what NOT to do as a parent, so I have always tried my damndest to not repeat those mistakes, to learn & hopefully evolve from those awful patterns of behavior that I endured. My daughter gets to be HERSELF & I finally get to be ME & that is a very good thing.

Grief And The Maiden

 My mother has been gone for a month now. I wasn't sad about her passing. She had suffered a lot in her last few years between the diabetes that ravaged her kidneys & necessitated surgery to create 2 different fistulas, then thrice weekly dialysis, along with dementia & heart disease, plus loss of mobility, falls, weakness, a significant change in personality & towards the end, incontinence. Her quality of life had totally diminished & it basically revolved around her dialysis schedule & doctor's appointments, with a few fun outings thrown in there. Still, she was a presence in my parent's house, sitting there, in her recliner chair, with the TV remote & phone nearby, watching endless hours of "Murder She Wrote", "Monk" or ridiculously bad Hallmark & Lifetime movies, sometimes game shows or the local news. 

There was still a spark of the disapproving mother I had always known, even towards the end, when she was hospitalized after her peritoneal fistula failed & was unable to be fixed by the vascular surgeon. The decision had been made by her medical team, that stopping dialysis and having her transfer into hospice care was the only option, since her veins were not viable, one kidney wasn't functioning anymore & the other was working only at about 10%... I knew that renal failure was quick & took about 2 weeks for a person to die, thanks to a hospice nurse friend. So, I also knew that before things got worse, I needed to ask my mom some questions. When I did, I got a typical response, "Ellen, stop quizzing me. Leave me alone!". I wasn't mad, because I knew she was tired & her dementia addled brain simply couldn't handle the things I was asking of her... I laughed, because it also showed me that she still had some fight left in her. It was the last "real" conversation we had & it epitomized our relationship.

From the time I was a toddler, my mother & I were at odds. I could never accept "No." for an answer & instead of being a nice, compliant child, I always argued back... I was strong willed & stubborn & would try my damnedest to wear her down, so I could get my way. Sometimes it worked, but most of the time it just created tension & a battle of wills. I loved testing the limits... I still do. 

I suppose that it had something to do with the fact that at 9 months old, I was sent to stay with my Aunt & Uncle in Des Moines, because my mother had slipped a disc in her spine when she was pregnant with me & needed to have major surgery to repair it. She wouldn't be able to hold me or carry me during her recovery, so instead of hiring a nanny or caretaker, or having my father take time off work to care for me (this was long before the days of FMLA) the decision was made to send me to relatives. My cousins loved having a little doll to play with & I'm sure I loved having 3 instant siblings to fuss over me. I took my first steps at their house & used to think it was hilarious to pour out all of the kibble from their dog Rascal's food bowl all over the kitchen floor. I called my Aunt Lila "Mommy" & was thoroughly confused when I was returned to my parents, after being in Des Moines for 3 months. I was also apparently the reason my Aunt & Uncle never had a 4th child! And although it all worked out, I'm sure that son some level, I had a sense of abandonment. How could a mother give up her only child like that, for even a few days?

I do remember my mother being AMAZING if I was ever sick, which was rare & if I were ever hungry, she was a fantastic cook, although I was an extremely picky eater. I did love her Jell-O molds & the fabulous meals she'd make for Jewish holidays, like brisket & matzoh ball soup. Yet when it came to academics or athletic performance (I did dance, gymnastics & briefly ice skating), there was ALWAYS judgment & disapproval. If you got a B, it should've been an A. If you came in 2nd place in a regional competition, it should've been 1st. There was NEVER any praise for the great job that I did manage to do, only scorn at the fact that I could've & should've done better. The message that was firmly planted in my psyche was "You're not good enough.". And of course, I internalized that. 

I was always good at writing, artistic pursuits (drawing, painting, collages & anything creative), as well as the biological sciences... I was fascinated with nature & animals & I used to read my grandmother's National Geographic magazines from cover to cover, whenever I'd visit her. I would spend hours underneath her mahogany dining room table, with the claw & ball feet, writing & illustrating stories, while sucking on the Brach's sour balls candy, that she had in abundance, in the crystal candy dish that resided in the middle of her round, mid-century living room table. My grandmother was not a warm, loving, demonstrative person, so I'm sure she was happy that I could entertain myself, while she sat in her favorite chair, smoking Winston's, reading the paper or talking in the phone to her friends. She always loved whatever creations I made & sometimes, a particularly good drawing would end up being displayed on her refrigerator. Unlike my mother, who would tear me apart for being so "bad" at math (it was never my strong suit), instead of praising my artistic abilities or writing skill.

In facr, in the 3rd grade, I wrote & illustrated a story about a mole, cleverly drawn with white crayon on black & brown constriction paper, to show how dark it was underground, which actually got entered into the Illinois Young Artist's contest & my story made it all the way to Springfield. My teacher, Miss Moy, who I adored, was VERY excited & proud. Much more so than my own mother. I remember being so disappointed that I didn't get a prize, but Miss Moy, who was a kind, creative, nurturing mentor (and is still my favorite teacher to this day), told me how lucky I was to have made it that far, to the "finals" & that I should be really proud of myself. I wasn't, but she knew how to put a positive spin on it for me, versus the disapproval & judgment I got at home. I'm sure my mother WAS quite proud of me & my accomplishments, but she NEVER showed it, not to me anyway.

Throughout my high school, college & early adult life, ALL I got from my mother was the same message, slightly varied, but always that my efforts weren't ever good enough, nor were my choices in jobs, friends or boyfriends... I made "bad" decisions & when THE most traumatic thing that has ever happened to me, after the breakup of a bad relationship in my early 20's occurred, instead of providing comfort & empathy, my mother BLAMED me for it. It was the ultimate form of parental rejection & gaslighting... It's a wonder I had ANY self-esteem growing up! And to be fair, I found out years later that she did the SAME thing to my sister, when she didn't medal in a high school swim team event or when she ran off to Las Vegas to marry her African American husband, who was a musician with dreadlocks (the horror of her middle class, Jewish daughter doing such a scandalous, rebellious thing was almost too much to bear). When my mother had a heart attack in 2002, she apparently blamed my sister for it. Nevermind the fact that she was overweight, didn't eat a healthy diet or exercise & she is genetically predisposed to heart disease, thanks to our wonderful Ashkenazi DNA. Her daughters were clearly doing these things to punish HER & she was going to make sure we knew it! She was a martyr.

My mother grew up during war time, as the youngest daughter of a doctor & a teacher, both immigrants, who were college educated, which was almost unheard of. She was quiet, pretty & smart. She grew up in a household with a sister who was 8 years older than her, 2 parents who were emotionally unavailable, where education was paramount & finishing the food on your dinner plate was required, because "there were children starving in Europe". She rebelled quietly, in her own way, but ultimately led a very sheltered life. Her father died of a heart attack when she was in college (on a full academic scholarship to Roosevelt University in Chicago) & she lived with her mother until she married my Dad in 1966. She became a teacher, like my grandmother & Aunt had, then a stay-at-home mom for 10 years, while my father was the breadwinner (back int he days when you could raise a family on one salary) until my sister was old enough to go to full day kindergarten, then she went back to teaching. I'm SURE she felt unfulfilled, since most of her high school friends went away to college & married wealthier guys than my father. She was smart enough to have been a doctor or a lawyer, but back in the 50's & 60's, girls weren't given the message that they could do or be "anything". I'm also sure that losing her father, who she was close with, was traumatic & I know she dealt with it as an adult by overeating. She battled her weight for as long as I can remember, trying every fad diet, Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, Richard Simmons exercise plans, books, the lot... 

Yet I would always find her food stashes, especially the chocolate candy & cookies she hid. Her overeating was an example to me of what NOT to do, so I went the opposite direction. I had always been petite & a picky eater... I would take more food on my plate than I could possibly eat, so my parent's would chastise me about it, which resulted in the old "battle of wills". Although my mother vowed never to make me or my sister sit at the table to finish a meal (since she hated having been forced to do that by my grandmother), I decided to skip the arguments over food & simply stopped eating altogether, just to shut them up. And it DID shut them up. I don't think they even recognized that I had an eating disorder and if they did, they never consulted with professionals or got me any help. When I was doing dance & gymnastics, it was a way for me to have some control over my body, in addition to having to "perform". I honestly loved the feeling of being so starved that I'd experience the euphoric, lightheadedness that came with it. I loved that my friends would pig out on snacks, but I had the "discipline" to only eat a few bites of an apple. If I wasn't "good enough" in academics or athletics, I could be the best at not eating. And when puberty came calling around 12 or 13 & my lithe, boyish figure started to become soft & curvy, with tiny boobs appearing, I was PISSED! I was 15 and a half when I got my first period, probably because I had no body fat & had been a gymnast. My mother was ready to take me to the doctor before it finally happened... I'm sure she was relieved, but again, there was no congratulations, only the fact that I was a failure at puberty, since it took so long!

And later, when I became a mother myself, I couldn't go to her for advice on things like breast feeding (since women of her generation didn't do it, in favor of bottle feeding formula, which the doctors recommended). I know she was proud of her only grandchild, but she also made me keenly aware of my own daughter's "stubbornness & iron will" as a baby & toddler (and what would you expect from a child who was a mix of centuries of pure Ukrainian & Scottish DNA?). My mother had NO idea that when I was pregnant & found out the sex of the baby, that I cried for TWO days... Because I knew what was coming & I was terrified of repeating the same awful mistakes my own mother had made with me. I ended up having to have a scheduled c-section delivery, 3 weeks before my due date, because I had placenta previa (which is a dangerous condition where the placenta is low in the uterus, blocking the cervix & potentially causing life threatening hemorrhaging if one goes into labor & the placenta comes out before the baby does), which was also terrifying to me, since it meant a surgical birth, rather than a natural delivery. I also suffered from a bad bout of post partum depression, which I wasn't expecting & again, my mother had no point of reference & offered me very little support or help with her newly arrived granddaughter. She longed for grandchildren & then when I provided her with one, she simply couldn't be bothered to actually engage with her or do fun things with her, like other grandmothers did. I'm not sure why, but my mother acted like babysitting o r spending time with her grandchild was an inconvenience. This only further disappointed & frustrated me.

I had ALWAYS had a closer relationship to my father. We were far more alike than my mother & I. We related to each other with our love of adventure, books, movies, music & creative pursuits (we once built a Viking ship from a kit, painted it & mounted it on a stand). My father worked in retail, so he was always working, but we managed to have special time together doing Indian Princesses through the YMCA or weekend jaunts to antiquarian bookstores & antique shops. My father had been orphaned at the age of 14, got sent to live with his older sister in NY & then joined the Navy at 17. He was my hero & the tough guy who was really a teddy bear when it came to his daughters. My mother was my enemy, since she was the disciplinarian, the "bad cop", the person who's approval & love I would never have. 

Although, even from childhood, my younger sister, who was olive complexioned with dark hair & eyes, like my Dad's mother & sister, was always the favorite. She got away with murder, unlike me, who was always punished for the slightest infraction. My father spanked my sister ONE time & because she cried & carried on, he felt terrible... Unlike me, who took it like a man each time I was in trouble. I was too stubborn to cry in front of him & show that I was upset... I was stupid, because my sister's "manipulation" turned him into jelly. She was the one who went on to become a high school science teacher, then got her Master's & PhD (paid for in part by her affluent school district)... I was just the asshole who had 2 bad marriages, managed to do well the 3rd time & produced a precious grandchild. My mother LOVED to brag about the fact that there was once again "a doctor" in the family, which made me secretly furious, because had I had the opportunity & the money, I would have loved to get a Master's degree myself. 

And as my mother lay dying, at the end of her life, ALL of these feelings & resentments bubbled up inside me... ALL of the years of disapproval, judgment & the complete lack of emotional availability were laid bare. I had been lucky & smart enough to find "other mothers" to fulfill that need for myself in the form of neighbors like Karen Farber, Judy Tecktiel, Pam Gorges or teachers like Miss Moy, my mom's cousin Marlene & my beloved Aunt Lila, who in some ways were better mothers to me than my own. They gave me things that my own mother couldn't & for that I am eternally grateful. 

But when I looked at her, lying in that hospice bed, her brain & body under the medicinal twilight spell of a Haldol, Lorezepam, Dilaudid cocktail, all pale, Her once beautiful hair all sparse, whispy & white against her skull, her once beautiful face all sunken in, her breathing labored, her pale skin, still amazingly soft as I held her hand & told her it was okay for her to let go, I couldn't be mad... I could only feel pity & sadness. I was not the daughter she wanted & she was not the mother I needed. And after she died & the funeral was over, I had to grieve over that... the infinite melancholia of a mother that I had almost no real relationship with, the person who I couldn't really go to for advice or comfort for anything, the person who had abandoned me as a baby & damaged me psychologically to the point of an eating disorder, the person who blamed me for my mistakes, the person who criticized and judged me up until the very end, the person who NEVER ever understood me or accepted me for who I was and the choices I made with my life. THAT is what I had to grieve & I am still grieving. 

I'm sure it will get better & easier over time. Although, I don't accept the standard bullshit excuse of, "She did the best she could"... No, she didn't. Because the best she could have done was to love, accept and support her daughter unconditionally & that never happened, despite how "proud" she claimed to be of me. And as a mother myself, it has always been my burden & challenge to do my best to be a different kind of mother to MY daughter... to always be the mother that she needs, no matter what. Because I promised myself a long time ago that I would not let history repeat itself, I would not be like Fannie Janofsky or Sybil Marshall, I would be better than that. I would be me.