Transactional Motherhood

 Last post, I talked about how I've been singing for my supper my whole life, trying to prove I deserve a spot in my life. And I touched on a lot of the reasons why and how it's really the cumulative effect of all of them which has taught me to feel this way, but I want to expand on one, because I think it effects a lot of us.

I've been watching this Netflix show, Spinning Out, about ice skating (of which I know very little), but I find myself relating a lot to the main character, Kat, and seeing a lot of my mom in her mom,  Carol, played by January Jones (and quite well, I might add). 

MAJOR SPOILER ALERT 

Kat's mom isn't entirely like mine per se. Carol is Bipolar and has some self-destructive tendencies in regards to her meds, booze, and sex, which doesn't necessarily apply to my Mormon mother (My mom does abuse her prescription drugs, but she'd never avoid taking a pill she needs.). But the narcissism, the failed aspiring star (In the show's case, figure skating. In my mom's ballet.), and the narcissistic abuse of her daughters is uncanny! I've found myself predicting what she'll say word for word, because she's written so accurately. It's incredible.

But there are two things she says that I want to address (I'm paraphrasing from memory):

1. When Kat is expressing how her mom is hurting her, mom says something like, "Oh if I'm so awful, why did I pay for all your skating and drive you around all those years? Why did I sacrifice for your dream?"

2. When Kat is on her own and needs to pay for a competition costume, she finds out her bank account, which should have had over a thousand dollars in it, has been emptied by the account's co-owner, her mom (I saw this coming a mile away!). When she confronts her mom, Carol replies that, with all the stuff she's paid for for Kat over the years, they could call it even. As if Kat owes her. 

Y'ALL. My mother could have written those lines herself. If I had a dollar for every time my mother used her motherhood as a way to guilt me out of my money or tallied how much money she spent on me to make me indebted to her, well I'd probably have the same amount of money she "borrowed" and never returned. 

It's no wonder I feel like my unemployment makes me worthless. My whole childhood was spent returning my mom's investment. 

This only worked on me for so long. By my mid-twenties, I just started lying to her and saying I had no money, because whatever I did have, she'd take and then I wouldn't be able to pay my bills, and then I'd get a lecture about how to manage my money better. Make it make sense! So I lied. And I paid my bills. And she told me what an ungrateful bitch I was, but at least I, for once, wasn't being used as her own personal money tree. 

And don't get me started on the "all I sacrificed for your dreams" bullshit. Carol is an ice skating mom and my mom was a classic stage mom. It was HER dream to make me a little star of some kind. When I asked to do ballet, that meant she signed me up for 6 different dance classes. We were a musical family, so I never had any choice about singing lessons or violin or forced performances every damn Christmas. And that's just scratching the surface of the many many many activities I was carted around to, when I would have loved to do maybe two and spent the rest of my time reading alone in my room. She always played the, "you love X activity" card, so she had me to blame for her "sacrifices," but I always BEGGED to do gymnastics and she wouldn't let me, lest I injure my feet and ruin my future ballet career. Because it was never about what I wanted; that was just her excuse.

Fun fact: Gypsy was based on me and my mom, Mama Rose

Well, joke's on her because I never pursued dance professionally, or any other performing arts job for that matter. I hope she dies mad about it. 

My mother is a narcissist, so she'll never ever understand this, but children are not indentured servants. They're not little robots that you put money into so they do a little dance and then pay you back. They're not a return on your investment. You don't get to tally up everything you spent on them and ask for your money back when they're grown. Paying for your children's needs is YOUR JOB and if you want to put them in activities, that's on you. Don't keep a tab open. 

I don't have children, so I know the moms will balk at me deigning to give parenting advice, but I think maybe, just maybe, with all the therapy from my mother, I know a little bit about what not to do. I may not be a parent, but I remember being a child quite clearly. 

And hell, with all the damage my mom has done, maybe I should send her the bill for 15 years of therapy. 

LOL like she has any money! Good one, Andrea. 

So yes, I don't want children and won't have children, and having to pay for all the crap kids need is reason 604 that I decided not to have them. Because of this, people ask me who will take care of me when I'm old. I reply, my insurance. 

Don't have children just to have caretakers. If you have a great, loving, supportive relationship with your kids, I'm sure one day that they will take care of you when you're old, but I just don't think that's a good enough reason to have children. And you don't get to abuse your children and then expect them to take care of you. That's really not how any of that works. Love gives and receives, but it's not transactional. 

I guess I should be glad that I don't view relationships as transactional now, given all that. Well, I don't expect anything in return for my love, but clearly I feel the need to earn my keep, as it were. That's a problem. 

Guess what I'll be bringing up in therapy this week!