Be The Boss Mom

I was not the favorite child. I was born the last of eight children, nearly all of which were adults by the time of my birth, with children of their own, save one—a sister, five years my elder. By the time my parents got to me, I was an afterthought. My sister, being their miracle child after the loss of two infant sons back-to-back. She was the miracle child and it was a miracle I even existed.

My mother has regaled me time and time again about the miracle of my birth, how the doctors urged her to abort me because of her age, forty-three, and the many risks another pregnancy posed to her. Yet, she refused because of her avid belief that abortion is wrong. She would tell me this as if she were some kind of hero for not destroying me before I was born, instead, she waited until I was a living, breathing child to tear me down and make me wish I’d never been a miracle at all.

I grew up wondering what was wrong with me. Spent years trying to make someone, anyone, love me, because of the failings of my mother. I ended up used and abused as a result, but those are stories for other times. The story I want to share happened when I was eight years old.

My older sister, who was the favorite child, had a necklace, I cannot picture it in my head as it was that insignificant to her, but this necklace went missing from her jewelry box. As she went about the house, ranting and raving about the logistics of someone having to have taken it because there was no way she could have misplaced it, I stood by the wall in the hallway, trying to stay out of her path.

Staying out of her path was a typical goal for me, most days I did not leave my room, or I would play outside where she would not be so I would not become a target.

This time, however, my plan was unsuccessful, and her eyes soon fell on me, assuming I must have been the culprit, because the drug addicted, abusive friends she kept would never have stolen from her. It was discovered later that this had been the case, but I digress.

To facilitate her interrogation, she wrapped her thirteen-year-old hands around my eight-year-old neck, they were warm and sweaty as her hands had been balled into fists while she raved. They squeezed tight, nearly too tight, and instantly my own were at hers, clawing and desperately trying to tear them away from my throat.

Panic rose in my chest, unable to make it out of my mouth as her hands clamped down even tighter. She began screaming at my face.

In my memory, I hear no words, no sound coming from her mouth as I stare into the open maw of fury, everything is drowned out by the pounding of my heart in my chest.

When I do not respond to her screaming, she picks me up by my throat, and with a hard cracking, slams my head against the wall. My head connects and colors burst in front of my eyes.

Dizzy, breathless, head pounding, and my eyes already drowning in tears I look over to where my mother stands. Sounds come rushing back in a kaleidoscope of noises: my sister screaming, someone is crying, but the most deafening sound is the silence.

My mother has eyes the color of chocolate only absent any sweetness, and in that moment, they were frozen. Cold and unfeeling. Her thin lips are set in an equally thin line as she says nothing. She may as well be a statue. I cried out for her to help me, in a small and terrified voice, my throat raw from the tears and my sister’s hands. She did nothing. Only stared.

I never forgot how worthless that day made me feel. My mother looked right at her pleading child and chose to do nothing to protect me. She never stood up for me, never protected me, not from my sister, not from anyone.

So, this story is not about what a boss mom my mom was, it’s about what her inaction taught me. She taught me that this behavior ends with her. That the abuse cycle stops with her. I had many abusers as a child and my mother protected me from none of them. I will not be her. I will take action.

I have a son now and I would never let someone abuse him in front of me while I stood mute and still and refused to help. I would never condemn him to a life of feeling unworthy of love because I didn’t show him I loved him enough to protect him. I wouldn’t damn him to years of bad relationships that only compounded the abuse because he was searching for the love he never got from me.

What I learned in that moment in my life was that I have to stand up for myself, even if nobody else will, and I especially have to stand up for my child. What I learned is that I have to be the boss mom that I never had.