Ever since I was little, I longed to have a surprise birthday party someday. When I turned sixteen, I was close to having one, until my mother stormed in to ruin it. Arriving at my friends house with a blindfold, should have been the exciting moment I was waiting for. Yet instead, I arrived with a furious mother screaming and hitting me in front of everyone. This was all because she found out I was with a guy earlier. That birthday has never left my memory. It didn’t matter if it was my sweet sixteen, or if my friends were gathered to surprise me, all that mattered to my mom was disciplining me. My friends never looked at me the same after that day. I was categorized as “girl with the crazy mom.” I realized every friend I’ve ever had, always had the greatest relationship with their mom, everyone but me. She, on the other hand, makes my life difficult.
My mother would sit on the same sofa in the living room every single day watching over us, next to the large white window in the front of our house.Walking past her was like a celebrity going through a crowd, her scornful eyes never left your sight. It was almost as if she had nothing better to do. Although graduating college, she never chased a job. She just wanted to be a mother; it took over her life. Where her kids went, what we ate, who we talked to; everything needed to be under her control. She spends her days cooking, cleaning, and micromanaging all four of her kids, especially my sister and I. She never did treat her daughters the same way as her sons. It was almost like living in a cage while being at home. The outside world is what my mother kept us from. I knew she wanted to protect me, but I began to think, protect me from what?
My mother seemed to always turn something that was beautiful, into wicked, including her appearance. She appeared as a gentle and beautiful woman when she would act nice temporarily. Her skin as smooth as silk was always her most valuable delicacy. Night after night, she would moisturize her face tracing her fingertips in a circular motion around her cheeks. She believed that it helped her to look younger than she really is. Her black supple curls spiral down to her shoulders in a way that nearly resembles mine. In fact, there has been many times where strangers mistake us for sisters. Her hands are translucent, with veins spreading visible to the eye. These same hands continually clean and cook for the family; those hard working hands. Her bones are as delicate as could be, bruised easily and unable to grow. Yet while this may be true, when she became mad, her image greatly transformed into evil. Those soft small eyes did not look so gentle anymore, they become filled with black anguish. Those hands whom I thought were delicate, were used to cause me pain when misbehaving. The shaking of her legs every time she became to panic out of fury, agitated me. These movements and images will invariably be cemented into my head. My own mother has taught me to fear her. The idea of her getting mad creates a worry in me that I never wish to encounter.
Ofcourse, there have been many times where I encountered it though. Mothers are typically protective over their daughters, but my mother took it to a whole other level. She worried as an occupation and never let me experience life on my own. Her reasons for never letting me out always made me question the way she thought. Never being let to sleepover because someone’s father or brother could potentially rape me. Never being let to a party in scare of my drink being tampered with drugs by a stranger. Never being allowed to date, because my mother thought it would make me come home pregnant. Never letting me out of the house past 8 because as my mom would say, “It’s not safe for a girl to be out.” She wanted to teach me the horrors of the world, but did it in a way that made me resent her. When I cried in anger, she would shout at me to go to my room to cry, because she did not want to hear it. I would ponder in my room for hours being filled with anger and frustration. I just wanted to be normal and go out with my friends, like every teenager did. I used to blame it on the news for creating my anxious mother because that is all she would watch. Every day, no matter the hour, she would have the news chanel on and study the horrid incidents that took place. When I would walk by, she would point to the TV and knowingly nod her head, as a way of telling me “Told you so.” I always wondered if she would still be this way with me, even without watching the news.
Accordingly, this made her very overprotective. My mother never fell asleep until everyone in the house was home and in bed. Suspiciously standing by the big white window, my mother would wait until I arrived home. She always needed to see who was dropping me off and would not leave her stance until I came back home. Similarly, if someone was picking me up, she would rush to peek through the window to see who it was. If she was not okay with who it was, she would not let me go. One time, my friend came to pick me up for a birthday party and my mother felt the need to walk me out that day. She followed me to the car and said, “Do not go with her, I will take you. I don’t know how she drives!” In front of my friend, I rebelled and explained how I am still going to go with her because she came all the way to pick me up. Then, my mom with her spine-chilling look, forcefully took me out of my friend’s car and yelled at her to go home. I ran into my room crying for the rest of the night, while my friends were able to enjoy the party. I was left humiliated and embarrassed of my own mother. My friend never reached out to me after that night, and I blamed it on my mother. I understood she just wanted to protect me, but oppositely, she was beginning to ruin me. I just was not ready to admit that to myself.
Although my mother presented herself to be black-hearted with me most of the time, I knew deep down that she cared for me in different ways than others. If I was sick, she would not rest until I was feeling better. She would spend days preparing the best middle-eastern dishes just to sit in silence and watch her kids happily eat. In spite of not having a job like my father, her job to me became a hard-working mother. She always drove me to the places I needed to go. She would do the laundry and clean after everyone, as if it was her job. Certainly, she lived to care for her kids. As soon as I came home from school, a meal was placed in one of her fancy plates on the table. My mother often did not like to ask for help and instead would spend hours working on the house. During the night, she would peak in my room to make sure I was okay. Afterward, she would set her alarm extra early to prepare us lunch for school. I suppose these were the only ways she showed her love for me, but nothing more. I have never seen any of my friend’s mothers care for them in the way she does. Yet in the same manner, I have never seen a mother as overly protective as mine. My mother had a strange way of showing her love while being an obsessed worrier. Ultimately, one could see that she deeply cared and protected us. But at the end of the day, she was back by the white window, sitting on the sad old sofa, making her daughter grow up to resent her for being kept in the house.
Analysis
My mother wanted to protect me, but all she did was destroy me. Her way of raising me showed me a lot about the world. It made me question why the world appeared to be so dangerous to my mother. Over protecting your child from the so-called harmful world, does not do anything besides tear them apart. I was taught that the world would cause me harm, but in reality, being locked in the house was more destructive than being outside. I now have a strong desire to be free. The world is not as bad as my mom tried to show me. I want to experience life and learn lessons on my own. Being locked in the house as if I was in a jail cell, has made me resent my mother. Respect your elders is often taught in society, yet how can you respect someone whose ripped your life from you. The physical and mental abuse I have encountered in my life, due to my mother, is nothing that should be respected. She wanted to protect me, but I did not feel protected over. I felt like a puppet, having to obey her wishes because of the power she held over me. Maybe if she would step outside the house, she would see that life isn’t that bad afterall. You can make the world beautiful if you stop lying and worrying about it.
I often wondered if my mom was the way she is for a unknown reason that she kept from me. Every person was once as soft as a cloud before turning black-hearted. However, my mom’s hard touches on my skin will stick to me more than her soft touch did. My mother revealed many things to me that I hold very significant to my heart, but the one thing that I will never forget is that overprotection is not protection. My mom revealed this by never letting me live life to the fullest. The more rules that were set on me, made it all the more likely to break them. My mother wanted to raise a well disciplined daughter, yet all she turned me into was a liar. Having to sneak around and lie about where I am is the cause of the way she raised me. She has created feelings of strong resentment from me. But most importantly, she makes me see the world unfair.
I often find myself comparing the friends I associate myself with my life. I see how great their life is not having to worry about their mom when leaving the house, and it only creates jealousy and anger. Why do I have to have a mom that treats me this way? Why can’t I go out like my friends? Is life really this unfair that I have to sit at home, while everyone else I knew got to be out? Looking back, I realize now that I began to hate life. If it was so unfair, then I did not want to partake in it. For a period of time, I wouldn’t go out with friends because I was tired of getting in an argument with my mother about letting me go. I let her win. She wanted me to see the world as ugly as she did, and it worked. I would not have known this before, if my mom didn’t have such a strong influence on me.
Consequently, what my mother revealed to me about how the real world works is that over protecting someone from the world, does more harm than good. This was significant to me because my mother taught me how not to raise my own kids some day. I now see the harmful effects of keeping one inside the house all day. Yes, all my mother wanted to do was protect me because she cared deeply for me, but what she failed to realize was that it was doing me no good. I did not know this before because I was under my mother’s control, being the submissive daughter she always wanted. But looking back, I now realize that the world is not as bad as it seems. It is okay to protect your child from harm, but to keep them away from experiencing life is simply indecent. The world is a complex place, filled with good and bad, unfairness and jealousy, yet it is up to me to learn my way through it.
Ironically, all the bad things I learned from the world was thanks to my mother, the one who wanted to keep me from it all in the first place. She revealed the lesson of submission to power. She taught me how to fear someone you love. She showed me how unfair one’s life can be truly be. Yet above all, she revealed to me that overprotection belittles the protection itself. Protection to me is letting one learn lessons on their own, not shielding them from each risk that might come their way. My mother failed to realize that by being overprotective, she made me unprepared for when I got into the real world. She played a significant role in the way I live my life today. I am now learning lessons I should have learned when I was younger. I am like a flower, learning to grow and flourish with the dirt. The world is not the way my mom made it seem to be and I hope one day, she will be able to see that for herself.
