I’m not going to tell you it’s OK. It really isn’t.
Sometimes you call me on the phone, wanting to talk about the old days. When you get like this, you always want me to reassure you that you were a good mom.
You weren’t.
I don’t want to berate you. I don’t want to list out the ways you failed as a mother. I don’t want to recount the ways you took out your anger and fear and loathing of yourself on me. The times when you left me to carry the household’s burdens. You can’t scream at me anymore, isolate me, bully me.
Everyone else left you long ago. You’re old, you’re alone, and you’re sick.
I don’t want to make you feel guilty. I don’t want to harm you. You don’t have power over me anymore- you’ve reaped what you’ve sewn, and in your dotage you can harm no one.
But, please. Stop asking me to tell you that the way you treated me as a child was OK.
It wasn’t.