Sure, Why Not?

Dear Mom,

I couldn’t help but notice the plethora of retarded ads on TV, radio, and everywhere else reminding people that Mother’s Day is coming up. Goody. No doubt I will once again hear your passive-aggressive complaint that I will once again totally ignore this cutesy greeting card company crap. Of course, you and everyone else will go on and on about how if I do not acknowledge you lovingly on this arbitrary day, it must mean I’m a horrible person who does not love my mother. So maybe it is time you hear the nitty gritty details of just why this whole thing is bullshit.

First of all, the concern around Mother’s Day, if any, is that the mother of a nuclear family is always horrendously overworked and never appreciated, that she bends over backwards for the family, cooks and does laundry all day long, and never complains once or does a thing for herself. In other words, it’s for people who think it is still 1955. Look. You work, for one. You don’t spend all day in the house cleaning up after us. In fact, we’re way better at picking up after ourselves than you ever were. You used to do my laundry until I got sick of you being so half-assed with sorting it. Did you ever realize how disturbing it is for me to find my underwear in the same basket as Dad’s work shirts? Ewww. Not to mention you never got the fucking laundry done for like weeks, so I’d bring you a dirty shirt while fearing I’d never see it again. And if you really bent over backwards for us all the time, you wouldn’t have decided a few years ago that you were sick of being a wife and mother and totally fucking abandoned us for whatever of your own fucked up needs you felt you needed. You wanted to be more like your slutty friend who fucks twenty different guys a year and lives in a cool highrise in Alexandria. Didn’t want to be a mother anymore, sure, but you sure as hell didn’t want to give up the respect a mother gets. And Dad is the one who cooks, not you!

Oh, but it goes on. You see, along with the rosy colored view of moms’ “plight” we’re all supposed to take this time of year, we’ve got to remember how wonderful they are. Sure. You love me more than anything in the world, right? Probably true. Even if I found you to be even a remotely respectable human being instead of the masochistic moron you really are, what the fuck does it matter if I observe this day for you or not? Mothers aren’t selfless. They’re irrational, whiny, needy bitches. Hell, more often than not, that’s why they became mothers in the first place. Hehe. If it is so fucking important to you that I make some meaningless gesture on some random Sunday to ensure that you still love me, then you’re just more and more proving that you not only do not deserve any nice gesture but that you should really shut the fuck up about me seeming so conditional with love.

Can’t forget. It’s what all the ads are saying. Mom is the most wonderful person in your life. She’s the light of your life. She’s everything nice. Because, apparently, this is the day men around the world should embrace and celebrate their cases of Oedipus Complex. Sick.

What do you mean to me, Mom? If this stupid ass “holiday” is about thinking about all you mean to me, well, no time like the present.

-You’ve always resented me for acting too different from the other kids.
-You didn’t want a daughter who was weird, so just about any expression of creativity I had you were ashamed of.
-Your smoking and drinking while pregnant with me could very well have contributed to the attention issues I have now.
-You’ve told me repeatedly that any accomplishments I’ve made have been flukes and that I’m just going to fail at everything.
-You’ve assumed treating me like I would fail at everything made you a good parent because you believe all the stupid fucking inspiration stories you read about successful people being successful because nobody believed in them.
-You’ve systematically ingrained me with prejudices that I’m too ashamed of to admit to even my closest most trusted friends, prejudices that I fucking hate that I can’t seem to get rid of even if they don’t show up in my normal social interactions.
-You have taught me to never trust my friends, that any friend that I make (read: any friend you don’t already handpick for me) is a bad person who doesn’t want to hang out with me and is too weird for me to be seen with and I shouldn’t even be speaking to.
-You have conditioned me to feel ashamed or guilty if I do anything that you would not approve of, even to this day, even if it is very beneficial to me and others.
-You were only interested in any of my accomplishments or talents if it meant you could show off to your sisters about it, otherwise you wouldn’t give a crap.
-You’d humiliate me for absolutely no reason other than that you knew you could and wanted to feel that power.
-You made me believe for far too long that your fucked up warped view of the world and life is even close to truth.
-You’re always late, never return calls, and you’re the reason I was never on time to anything for many years.
-You’ve told me that I’m not feminine enough because I don’t carry a purse or wear makeup or wear dresses, and that it meant there was something wrong with me.
-You spent all the money I made when I was 16 from a part-time summer job, just so you could buy nice shit for yourself.
-You’d use the most emotional, personal stuff about me, stuff I’d been dumb enough to confide in you about, and throw it back at me just because you’re pissed off and feel like being totally hurtful at that moment.
-Just when my sister and I were having some problems that could have been solved with a little bit of guidance, you fucking disappeared to North Carolina and we didn’t see you again for weeks.

There. Chew on that for a little while. And that’s just a short list! So, please, for the love of all that is holy, stop assuming you deserve any kind of fucking handouts for being such a “wonderful” mother. Fuck you.

Love,
Katrina

P.S. Let me guess. You want to tell me that I’ll understand once I’m a mother? Would the definitions of right and wrong suddenly change because I’m at a different vantage point? Would that make me believe it is okay to be really petty and selfish about what should be natural maternal unconditional love? I hope I’ll never be that petty. I hope to God I’ll never understand you.

P.P.S Again. Fuck you.