Dear Mom

Dear Mom,

There is so much I need to tell you.  I have spent the past couple of weeks thinking about our relationship, about you, about how I’ve allowed you to control me.  And I have so many questions.  How can you be so selfish?  How can you be so shallow?  Can you really only care about money and appearances?  Do you really only care about what others think?  Are you incapable of defining your own worth without money or without the opinions of others? 

I am so angry with you still.  And the more I think about it, all I can find is that you have been this way my entire life.  So I need to list out all the examples of your selfish beliefs. 

1.     I have a picture of you from when you were pregnant with me, wearing a T-shirt that reads, “Tax Break”, with an arrow pointing to your stomach.

2.     When Dad bought his mom a car, you had to have the same one

3.     Although you claim that Dad needed you to have fur coat, you kept it long after you were divorced, because you wanted to give it to a daughter-in-law or granddaughter. 

4.     During your divorce, you fought over money that dad claimed was for Paige’s education.  Regardless of where that money came from, if you really cared about Paige the way you claimed, you would have rather let that money go to her than fight about it. 

5.     When Dad died, you contested the will because he used a portion of his life insurance to pay off his mother’s debt to you.  He knew you fight it, and that you would be a bitch to a grieving a mother about the money. 

6.     When I was living in DE, you offered me about $8-$10K as a down payment on a condo.  It was only after I contacted a realtor, looked at several places, and was ready to make an offer that you changed your mind and decided not to give it to me. 

7.     The fact that you handed over EVERY photo you have from when you were married to Dad says that you never really cared about him. 

8.     You married Dad very shortly after meeting him.  In the late seventies, you were a 30 year-old single woman with no kids.  It was socially unacceptable, and so you found dad, married him, and had kids.

9.     You bragged about not having to use coupons, but told Jon & I we couldn’t afford designer clothes.  But you certainly could.

10. A dried floral arrangement that I made for you was casually discarded as just trash.

11. You may have been pregnant with me when you married Dad, and had to get married quickly at City Hall before anyone found out. 

12. Lynn once told me that she wished she could have stayed in touch with me, if it hadn’t been for you.  I now think I know what she meant.  You blocked us from access to our family because you didn’t like them.  They were too southern for you. 

13. Since I told you 3 weeks ago that I never wanted to talk to you again, you just walked away.  Like it didn’t matter to you at all. 

14. It is clear that you favor your attorney son with a wife and 2 kids over your gay analyst son with 4 adopted minority children. 

15. As long as I can remember you have pushed me to be a doctor, or a businessman, despite my desires to be scientist or an architect or a photographer.  Those things that I wanted didn’t measure up as real jobs in your mind. 

16. When my family was in danger of losing our house, you were more concerned about paying a few bucks in fees to the bank than in helping us. 

17. When you wanted to be involved in my schooling, you had to become the president of the Board of Education.  You had to be in charge.  You had to make sure that teachers knew it was Nina Kelty’s kids in that classroom. 

18. I was your favorite student, as long as I was getting straight As.  When I started to slip, you said, “You’re smarter than that, you should be getting As!”  Dad said, “Did you try your hardest?”  I know you don’t see the difference, but it makes a huge difference to a boy who is struggling in school.  It’s the difference between saying, “Can you do better?” and saying, “You need to do better.”

19. Only once could you be bothered to take my brother and I to see my Dad when he was dying in the hospital. 

20. When you divorced Dad, we looked at several places to live, and buy before you settled on renting a small home.  This was probably because you had to look like you had less money and couldn’t afford something nicer. 

21. Once you did move you chose the “right” zip code close to the beach. 

22. When you bought the condo near the beach, you told me I could always call it home, despite not having a bedroom, and having to sleep in the basement. 

23. You used the fact that Dad bought a bike as evidence that he was hiding money from you during the divorce. 

24. You were insulted that Paige and Allison didn’t invite you to their weddings, but never bothered to talk to them after the divorce. 

25. You assumed that I should automatically know how to manage credit and money despite going out of your way to hide your finances from me as a child. 

26. When I needed a new water heater and had to have work done on my furnace and car, you offered to help with a decent some of money.  Then you sent FAR less than offered.  Enough less to be an insult rather than assistance.  Then you had the audacity to ask for a tax receipt for a donation to the non-profit I started.  Even though you wanted the money back! 

27. You couldn’t be inconvenienced to travel to Ohio to be there for my children’s adoptions, or adoption party.  And the best excuse you could come up with was because you were going on a cruise the week after!

28. When you confronted me about being gay, and I confirmed your worst fears, you couldn’t accept me until you had asked enough other people if it was okay to have a gay son.  It was only when you realized it was socially acceptable could you tolerate it. 

Basically Mom, this is a short list of the insults you have given to me over my lifetime.  At least the ones I can remember right now.  I know there are more.  You are a cold careless manipulative Bitch who is much more concerned with how society sees you than what your kids think of you. 

Well I’ll tell you what I think of you.  I hate you.  I can’t stand you.  I want nothing from you ever again, because it is never given in love.  It is given as a means of controlling me.  You give money because you have plenty of it, and can attach strings to it.  I owe you approximately $7000 and I intend to repay you every penny.   But you owe me so much more.  You owe me a lifetime of apologies for atrocities and abuses that you can’t even understand, let alone actually feel sorry for. 

And now that I have removed myself from your life, it will just be easier for you to brag about the good son.  The one who shares your aspirations of societal approval.  You can just ignore the fact that you ever had a gay son.  And now I’m sure that makes you even happier as I have 4 adopted minority children with drug exposure in their past and various troubles in school.  I want to quit my job at the bank to start a farm.  I want to be a photographer and architect. 

You know, I will never understand what isn’t acceptable enough about being a marine biologist, or an astrophysicist, or an architect.  The best I can figure is that you can’t easily enough explain what they do.  And they don’t make enough money.  I’m sure you were thrilled when I took this job at the bank.  At least you could brag about your son the banker.  I’m sure that was impressive enough for your NJ/FL friends. 

What you don’t know, and now never will is how happy I am doing what I love.  How much I love my kids, the way you never could.  I know that Dad always wanted to buy a farm in Montana (or somewhere) but “couldn’t figure out how to make it work”.  My guess now is that you wouldn’t allow him.  And he didn’t live long enough after you to try.  Dad spent money to be happy.  You spend money to be accepted. 

It has taken me 34 years to realize what kind of person you truly are.  And I’m sorry I ever knew you.  And I regret wasting so much of my life trying to please you instead of being true to myself.