My children have a special smile they reserve for their grandmother, a sort of twin upturning of the lips and cocking of the head. They love her unreservedly. When they were still little and living at home, the thought of a visit from her was like Christmas. They barely slept before she arrived on our doorstep bearing gifts and hugs and questions and, of course, her own special smile just for them. A similar smile lifting similar lips, a buttery glow of love encircling them all like halos. I have always stood just a little bit outside that circle, their smiles taking a decisive U-turn around my anxious frown.
I am the buzzkill in the room everyone tries to avoid.
It’s not like I don’t love my mom, and it’s certainly not as though I don’t love my children or want them all to love each other. On the contrary, I have spent two decades doing my best to enthusiastically encourage their closeness. I invited her to every school play, every soccer game, every music recital. We spent most of our holidays with her. Her walls are filled with framed photos of my children from me. Her cupboards stocked with mugs about the joys of being a grandmother. Now that they’readults, I update her on all of their accomplishments and downplay any of their struggles. I give her ample content for bragging on social media and long phone calls to her friends.
I hate it sometimes, though: The ease of their love for each other. The falseness of it. I hate myself sometimes for fostering this relationship that feels, in so many ways, monumentally unearned but also I hate myself for resenting it so much.
My mother was not this person with me when I was a child. She lied about everything. She did not hug me or tell me I was good or nice or loved. She parented only when we had an audience and otherwise, I was alone. All the time I was alone. I spent my childhood watching after her, catching glimpses of her as she moved past me and away from me like an accidental celebrity sighting. She was not cruel. She did not hit me or neglect my basic needs. Our home was full of nice furniture. Our fridge full of wholesome food. I had a closet full of clothes that fit me.
It was simply that motherhood was not for her. This was what she told me when I was eight years old. Being a mother was not what she expected, it was boring and annoying and thankless and I really did not bring anything to the table to change her mind. I was just a regular kid like all kids with regular grades and a regular haircut and a regular face. It was never enough to bring her on board.
My children, though, are enough for her. Grandmotherhood, it turns out, is very much for her. She loves the pageantry of it. The constant stream of adoration. She benefits greatly from their clemency, the way they smile indulgently at her obvious lies. Her deeply involved stories in which she is the hero of all things and I am a footnote in their lives if I am mentioned at all. Every moment of my own motherhood stripped away with a few careless sentences at the breakfast table, my face red with frustration and tongue-biting as she erases me from every story. As she slots herself into my absence. As she becomes center stage, yet again.
My children have chided me for getting upset about her lies. They tell me they know the truth, they remember their childhood full of me and us and our lives together where she was simply a benevolent guest. So what’s the harm in letting Gran tell a few harmless fibs. They tilt their heads. They look at each other with doting smiles full of affection. Oh Gran, they’ll say. You know how she is. Don’t let it get to you.
It makes me want to stomp my feet and scream like a petulant child. I want to tell them that yes, I know how she is. That my life has been shaped by “how she is.” That it’s not as easy for me to laugh off her lies, her manipulation, her careless erasure of me and my role as it is for them. They have been gifted with Gran-lite. The watered down, palatable version.
The truth is, they have the relationship I wanted for them. They get to know my unknowable mother in a way I never will. Uncomplicated, easy. Transparent. Someone who lies because she’s old, who is a bit selfish because her days are quiet. Someone who thinks the sun rises and sets on them. Something we have in common.
Maybe it’s simply jealousy. Maybe I wish, even at this late stage of the game, that my mother thought the sun rose and set on me too.
Maybe I wish I was in their little golden circle. All of us smiling at each other. No long, painful history always hiding in the shadows. No one to kill our buzz. Just easy love.
I wish. I really wish.
source https://www.scarymommy.com/parenting/my-kids-love-my-toxic-boomer-mom-why-does-it-drive-me-nuts
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