TheBanyanTree: I AM A BAD MOTHER-PART 1

[Sharon Mack]

I AM A BAD MOTHER-PART 1

I've always been a bad mother.  It was not my intent, but it is what I
became.  I had the dream.  I surely had the dream as I watched my mother and
father live it, and even when I turned fifteen and all hell broke loose
inside my head, I still believed the dream would, in the end, be mine.

It was a simple dream.  A 1950's type husband and wife based on the notion
that Father Knows Best, and the proverbial Beaver and Wally would look more
like the Nelson boys--and our little girl?  Well, she would be the sweet
chubby pink thing my sister, Elizabeth, always was.  I wanted the house too.
Not too large, not too small with enough bathrooms and a basement I could
stand to go into without the fear of spiders dropping on my head.  And
floors, I wanted them covered.all of them.covered with soft plush carpet,
white carpet.  Not that shag shit of the 60's that usually came in
disgusting colors like orange and purple and olive green.  

Speaking of the 60's, I hated the 60's...and the 70's, but the 60's more.
It an ugly and tawdry time.  The music, loud and meaningless, seemed to call
us into a sexual frenzy littered with drugs and countercultural values.  It
sucked. It frightened me; it drew me and repelled me at the same time. I
hated the styles, the clothes, both male and female.  I hated the white
tacky vinyl, plastic, cheap look from head to toe.  Big black and white
checked squares or polka dots.  Nothing had class, nothing came from
classic. I shuddered while shopping picking with disdain through the crap
that was offered.  At least I could play the part of the hippie if I wore
the bell-bottoms, leather sandals and halter tops.  The rest I left behind,
and finally found clothes solace in The Good Will Store and Salvation Army.


I hated the taste of booze and I hated grass.  It gave me a headache, but
felt I had to fake it.  A long time ago,  Pastor Stevens, mentioned in one
of his overly long sermons, "approval addiction."  I guess I had it.  I
faked all these things (being a hippy, liking booze, liking grass and other
drugs) just so I could be accepted, approved of by my peers, and my mind
kept screaming at me to be who I was.  The white picket fence girl with
straight A's, who loved her parents, loved her family, but I couldn't.  I
just couldn't.  The other voice was louder.  I don't understand why my
approval addiction, if that was indeed what it was, did not extend to my
parents.  Why didn't I seek their approval?  Why wasn't it enough?  I was a
bad teenager, I was a bad daughter, I was a horrible girlfriend, a worse
friend, but I was awfully good at sex and I didn't even like it.  These are
the things that led up to being a bad mother.

I never knew why I did the things I did.  They were outrageous and it was as
though I knew it while I was doing it, but couldn't' stop myself.  Instead I
would go through it to the end, like it was an obligation, a responsibility;
then when it was over and guilt completely consumed me, I punished myself
with more of the same, insisting I was useless and had no value, least of
all to me.  This took me through to boys, those half-grown young men who
just want to experiment with their sexuality and do it with anyone they can,
sometimes even the ugly and unwholesome.but, I?  Somewhere, somehow, in all
of this mess, I had become quite attractive physically.  My only dilemma was
how to use it to smash someone.to smash me if I could.  Who was I to receive
such a gift?

My thoughts were mostly dark and morose.  I cried a lot.  I liked to sleep,
but when those low episodes left me, I was a crazy person.  So much energy,
I flew.  I got up early cleaned my room, made clothes (yes, I sewed in
preparation for 'the dream'), I zipped and zoomed between my 'hang-arounds'
(you don't want to call these females, friends, ever).  I polished, I
shined, I did what my mother told me to do, I talked on the phone
incessantly, I cut my hair, I dyed my hair, I bleached it blonde, sometimes
only a swatch, and I punched my sister in her face when she did not get up
and join me in my fervor.  I was punished.  I was smacked.  And my father
stood before me with his hands shaking stunned at his own strong reactions.
I receded into the closet and cowered under the clothes, on top of the shoes
and wouldn't come out until he made me.  I was never to touch my sister like
that again, did I understand that?  Was he making himself clear?  Of course,
I understood.  Of course, he was clear. Did it stop me?  No.   My anger was
uncontrollable.