I am my mother's mother; just who exactly is the child?

A little background on my mother. Growing up, she always seemed to me to have it all together. I remember up until I was 12, dinner was served and we all sat down together as a family to eat. I think it got a little bit harder as we got older and everyone had different things going on in their lives.

Mom would occassionally have bad days. Even as a kid, I knew she suffered from depression, but it really wasn't something that I dealt with every day since she took medication which seemed to keep her chemical imbalance in check. It wasn't until I left home that I saw a sad and sudden change in her.

Who knows what changed? It could be attributed to some medication that only exists as a generic now. It could be that my mother's whole purpose in life (to be a mother) came crashing down as soon as the kids started to leave home. It could be that her health had started to deteriorate. It could be that my dad was laid off from his employer of 20+ years and made a financial investment in a restaurant business that went down the toilet, making the family finances tight -- especially with kids heading off to college. Frankly, it probably wasn't one thing, it was everything.

The first time I knew something was wrong was when she was hospitalized because she was not really as much depressed as much as she was experiencing paranoia and nothing was making sense. One night I remember getting a call at 1 am from her babbling on about something my brother had done years before when we lived overseas and that she thought that he was going to get put in jail for it. (For the record, it was an incident where he spit on a local, and while that was rude and completely uncalled for, it's obviously not something that would be considered worthy of jail time by any stretch of the imagination, especially over five years later.)

For the longest time, and living far away, I always felt like I had to be my mother's protection from the rest of the world. No one else understood her and I was so afraid that she would not be able to deal with it on her own. And then over the years, I started to see the toll it took on me, emotionally and personally. She would call me constantly needing reassurance. I'd have to talk her off the ledge that whatever she was obsessing about and overanalyzing was in fact not reality nor worth her time or emotional energy.

I mean I heard it all. I actually started going to a therapist of my own to figure out how to deal with my own mother. I realized that what made me saddest was that I mourned the loss of the mother that I thought I should have. Instead, being the oldest and most responsible of the six children in my family, I had taken on being a parent to my mother. Where was my mother who could be there for me when I need support, who was there to be my cheerleader and tell me that I was doing the right things with my life.

Instead I have a mother who doesn't know what she wants. She needs someone to tell her. "Should I take a class in college? What color should I paint my bathroom? Do you think that I should xxxx?" You name it, she asks what she should do, think, etc.

I'm so not that way. I've been pretty strong minded since I was young. I knew what I wanted, and I made it happen. Sometimes I wonder how I turned out to be as normal and adjusted as I have.

So that said, there has been one big point of contention with my parents ever since I left home and became my own person. I was raised in a religious family, and of course as a dependent child, you are expected to adhere to that lifestyle.

Once I graduated from college and was out on my own, I decided that I wasn't going to live my life for anyone else by myself -- and that meant that I didn't want to have the life that my parents expected I would have when I grew up. I got and education, I built a career, and didn't settle down and get married in my early 20s like my mother and several of my sisters did. The culture is such that the women are the caretakers -- stay at home and have the children. Just wasn't meant for me. So any way, while my parents say that they can accept me for who I am, I know deep down, they hold out for the day that I'll go back to church, marry some nice boy who grew up in our religion and have lots and lots of kids.

So while I know that it's a combination of my mother's mental illness and her desperate need to have her kids fulfill her own dreams, there are moments where I sit there and say, "I cannot believe that this is my mother."

"It's My Fault"
Mom: "I wished I hadn't read to you when you were little because now you are so smart and intimidate the boys."

Me: "Hmm. So you are saying that you would rather that I be less educated, dumb and married with children, than educated, smart and successful?"

Mom: "Yes."

Me: Not surprised by her response, but maybe a little stunned that she really believes that marriage and kids is the only way to have real happiness.


Promiscous Alcoholic
6 am, the phone rings. I'm asleep but need to get up for work anyway.

Mom: "I'm worried about you. Are you in trouble?"

Me: "Mom, seriously what on earth are you talking about? Exactly what kind of trouble do you think I am in? I am the most responsible of all of your kids. I am the one you should be least worried about."

Mom: "Well, I was talking to your father and I'm afraid that you are in trouble."

Me: "What kind of trouble? Are you asking me if I am pregnant, doing drugs, in debt?"

Mom: "I think you drink alcohol and that you are immorale."

Me: "Is that all? Well, ok. Yes, I drink and I've had sex. Anything else?"

Mom: Silence.

Me: "Ok, now that we've got that cleared up, I need to get up and get ready for work. Talk to you later."

"Don't Come Visit"
Context: My parents live 3000 miles away. I usually see them once a year and it's typically meeting in the middle at my sister's or brother's houses. We moved all over when I was a kid and so I have never lived in the house or city where they currently live. The last time I went to stay with them in their house was four years ago. I have a business trip in two weeks that allows me to have a few days as a layover to see them.

Voice message from Mom: "Don't come to see me. I don't think I can handle it."

Return phone call from me: "Gee, Mom, having a bad day? I know you didn't mean it, but that was still not a very nice thing to say on my answering machine."

Mom: "I know, but I'm afraid that I won't be doing well when you come down."

Me: " We'll I'm not changing my airline tickets, so I can stay with [sister] if you think it's too stressful to have me at your house."

Return phone call from father: "I heard your mother leave you a not-so-nice message on the phone. You know she didn't mean it, she was just having a bad day."

Me: "Yep."

Just par for the course.