Parenting is hard

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After reading a woman’s confession about her daughter, I thought about it and decided to write her back with my story. I don’t want to offend her by doing so, but I can’t help but respond. The thing is, I am 25 years old now, and I had a similar situation with my mother (yes, all of my relatives are fixated on “good parenting”).

Ever since I was a little girl, she taught me all the good things: that I should get good grades, go to university, get a good job; that I should choose only good friends, that I should be modest and easy-going.

She forbade me to wear short dresses, forbade me to let my hair down, considering it a manifestation of “promiscuity. I never went to summer camps, because they could teach me bad things. Until the age of 14 I could not go for walks outside the yard, and the funny thing was that my mother always drove me home at 7 p.m. sharp (she called me from the window). On TV I watched mostly Russian cartoons (that was still nice to watch) and all kinds of instructive programs.

She controlled my every move. And you know, my life was a nightmare…

It all started back in kindergarten. When all the kids were playing together in the sandbox, I sat on the bench and did nothing. And it was because my mother told me that I shouldn’t get my hands dirty, and that new shoes can be scratched very easily.

I did well in school, my teachers adored me, I got certificates, but my classmates hated me. At first they just made fun of me, and when it became absolutely unbearable, I told my mother. She immediately rushed to the school to sort things out. After that they hated me even more. They beat me and tried to slander me. I didn’t tell my mother anything else, and I tried to get home before her to clean my dirty school uniform (so she wouldn’t find out about the beatings).

I was called a “mama’s daughter,” a “snotty mama’s bore,” a “sissy.

In the yard, not many of my peers interacted with me. That’s why my friends were kids three or four years younger than me (they were the only ones I could make friends with). For my mother, every girl my age seemed like a whore, since she was wearing a short skirt, and every guy looked at me in a “dirty” way.

My peers were already wearing pretty clothes, going to discos and meeting guys. And I was sitting at home, reading, studying, sitting next to my mother.

I listened to her all the time then and whatever I did, I did it the way my mother would do it, not me.

Finally, I had my first boyfriend when I was 16. He was three years older than me, but that didn’t stop me from falling in love with him. For his part, he was very polite, neat, and smart.

However, I was very embarrassed to admit to him that I only walk until seven or eight in the evening. Because of this I made up all sorts of excuses, like someone in the family was sick or I had to go to the tutor.

I told my mother that I study with my friends.

It was a year of such anguish and the guy left me… Because I am so old-fashioned, boring, and most importantly, I am a “mama’s girl”: I can’t make a move without my mother and have no other opinions than my mother’s.

I came home with tears in my eyes and my mother immediately started questioning me. I dared to tell her about my first love, but I was bombarded with such a flood of exclamations that I was dumbfounded.

– So you had a boyfriend?! What were you thinking?! My backside? You know it’s too soon for you to be thinking about boys! Finish university first, get a job. Then you can look for a boyfriend. God, what did I teach you? Oh, so you’ve already kissed. I hope you’re still a virgin. What if he raped you? And then what would you do if you got pregnant? You’re out of your mind! Or do you want to be like your good-for-nothing girlfriends?

I couldn’t stand it and snapped:

– Don’t you see, Mom, I have no friends, no boyfriend, no dreams!

– How so? – she marveled. – How come you don’t have a dream? You wanted to go to such and such a university and start working there.

– Mom, it’s your dream, not mine! And I’m sick and tired of all my classmates doing what they like while I’m bullshitting. Stop imposing your principles on me, your rules. My life is already joyless!

She was silent for a long time, and then she answered:

– That’s how I raised my daughter… Ungrateful, how much I spent my nerves on you, how many nights I didn’t sleep, and you behave like this!

After that, I moved in with my grandmother.

That’s when I went completely “off the rails. I started drinking, smoking, going to discos, buying frank outfits, and changing boyfriends like a glove. In general, began to try all the things that my mother forbade me. And honestly, I reached the bottom.

The worst part was that I had absolutely no independence. I didn’t know where, what and how to do, because my mother used to do everything for me. Because of my naivety and ignorance of the current world, I got into such trouble, which is hard to remember now. I did not know how to behave if someone insulted you. I didn’t know what to do if you were taken advantage of. I didn’t even know how to meet people! That’s what I realized…

Then I realized that this was no way to live, so I tried to get a job. And it was very hard. I didn’t know where to look for vacancies, how to get a job at all.

I settled in, and started “getting ready.” I was learning to communicate with people normally, learning to understand the world, learning to be independent. My grandmother supported me all the time and “corrected” my mother’s shortcomings. I soon had a beloved person, and finally had friends. I began to live a real life. My own life…

After that scandal, I didn’t see my mother for about two months. During that time we were both able to think things through. When we finally got together, we made up. She realized that she had been somewhat wrong in trying to impose her life on me and that, in spite of everything, she had always been proud of me.

It’s just that once, when she was my age, because of her frivolity, she could not go to university, got pregnant by a man (whom she divorced a year later), gave birth to me. So she had a residue that made her kick me all the time.

Everything is fine now. I live with my man, I visit my mother every day. So that she wouldn’t be lonely and so that she would have someone to take care of her, I gave her a dog, a Pekingese. And you know, she managed to teach the dog almost all the commands!