Salon: Gods and monsters: To my 3-year-old daughter, I am love incarnate. To my teenage sons, I’m nothing but a servant-jailer by Marion Winik.
“To my barely 3-year-old Jane, I am the world, I am God, and I am love incarnate. She can barely stand to let me out of her sight. She cries my name as soon as she wakes up and anytime we are separated… With the more passionate Vince, things have been livelier… This past year, seventh grade — watch out, my friends, for seventh grade — it got much worse. He cursed at me, he screamed at me, he ordered me to shut up and leave him alone; I was without question the worst thing that happened to him on any given day… he came out on the landing and stuck his face in my face and put his hand on my chest and shoved me, and he said, “Fuck you, you dirty bitch.”
It’s painful to read. And then Winik rationalizes:
“I know I’m supposed to accept this as perfectly normal, part of the job and the process, that it too will pass. But imagine the indignity: The people you once took baths with, whose very tushies you tenderly cared for, will not even answer you when you speak. And nature — that dirty bitch — doesn’t make you fall out of love with them the way it does them with you. They see your embrace as a chokehold; to you, it is still an embrace. They see your curiosity as a vile invasion; for you, it is still a natural act of care.”
This mother is mistaken. This isn’t normal adolescent separation. It’s way over the edge. There’s got to be more going on that’s contributing to this kid’s behavior towards her. Either she doesn’t want us to know about it or she’s not aware of it but either way, she needs to haul the whole crew to a family therapist.