For many women, however, it’s not an abusive background, a shattered, or even strained, relationship that haunts them or causes sadness, there’s just a vague disharmony, a distance. It seems to me particularly true for boomers, I believe because most of us bought into the culture of the times.
We were the first generation who not only wanted different lives than our mothers in almost every possible way, but were able to do it. The majority of us were largely contemptuous of their Donna Reed lives, with the culture’s encouragement, certainly with Madison Avenue’s and Hollywood’s. Most folks don’t know that The Gap started out in the sixties as The Generation Gap. It was when we were teens that it became cool to reject our moms.
Then, as adults, with the therapeutic community’s blessing, we discovered we had inner children. The thing about inner children is that they see the world through a child’s eyes, but with a grown-up’s ability to inflict harm. Children don’t have a well-developed understanding of cause and effect. Not to mention they’re immature, usually selfish, and know Mom forgives everything. Which made us perfect victims, and Mom a perfect target.
First we made our moms and their way of life irrelevant, not worthy of influencing us, then our inner tykes made them über-relevant by saying they had too much influence. We blamed them for everything wrong with us, for our “issues.” We took our cues to denigrate our mothers for not having coddled us enough from the very same therapeutic community that told them in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s not to coddle us, not to be too loving. During the twentieth century, even the government bashed moms; Judith Warner points out in her excellent book A Perfect Madness that during World War II the military blamed the fact that one in five young men flunked the draft on “smothering” mothers.
Freud set the tone in America early last century: Femininity, the necessary turning away from the mother, is accompanied by hostility; the attachment to the mother ends in hate. Do we really believe that anymore? If it were true, why is it only in the United States that healthy psychological development depends on separation from the mother, emotionally and physically? Why is it only in our country that letting your daughter go is synonymous with letting her be who she is? Women in first-, second-, and third-world countries become successful, professional, emotionally healthy adults while living at home till marriage.
How could an entire generation of American mothers all be wrong, and an entire generation of kids all be right? They washed our diapers before they had disposables, made clothes from scratch, washed floors, and devoted their lives to us. Then society changed all the rules; it took away alimony but wouldn’t allow them to get credit in their own names once their husbands began to dump them, while we were off watching Pink Floyd, changing the world, and too busy to care. By the time any of us had an inkling of what many of our moms’ lives were like, if we ever did, decades had passed.
They didn’t nurture enough or criticized too much? Oh, now that we’re older and wiser, most of us will say, “They did the best they could.” How big of us.
What if the best they could was pretty damn good? Our moms must have done something right, because by and large they raised and shaped what is arguably one of the most successful, creative, influential generations of all time. We went off into the world with a sense of self-esteem, life skills, independence, and confidence that evades a lot of our own kids. And they did it without the guilt of today’s moms; they didn’t second-guess their every maternal move, do our homework for us, or worry much about our self-esteem.
I’ve lamented that the culture is the biggest parent of all for our children. But parents are just as much a product of our culture and era, for better or worse. I’ve read about twentysomething malaise, but only in observing and listening to Mia on this trip am I beginning to grasp what it’s like for them, and see the impact of the changes in motherhood that we’ve adopted since the sixties.
I spent years complaining about my mom, yet when I look back at some of the smartest things I did as a parent, I see that I learned them from my old-world mother. Like putting Mia to nap wherever I was, so she’d train herself to sleep through anything, instead of putting her down in a quiet room so she’d train us all to drop dead while she napped. Like not to worry if Mia didn’t eat all day (relax, no little kid ever starved themselves to death), and to use a playpen so I could take a shower or cook unimpeded (lots of moms would label that abusive today, but Mia loved her little “housela,” and I loved being able to go number two uninterrupted). My mom taught me not to feel guilty for holding her as much as I wanted (“You’re supposed to baby them when they’re babies!”) or for letting her cry when it wasn’t important (“She’ll never learn to comfort herself, she’ll cry over everything.”).
My mom taught me to be a relaxed mother, which, until the caca hit the fan when Mia was a teen, I was. I certainly had, and have, my flaws as a mom, and I did join the Kumon math bandwagon (against my mom’s counsel) with a daughter that couldn’t care less about math, but I never questioned that I’d know what to do with a baby or that I’d be a good enough mom. I read only two books on mothering, beat-up copies of Dr. Spock’s Baby and Child Care and Selma Fraiberg’s The Magic Years. From my mom I learned that mothering can be as natural to a woman as breathing.
It certainly was for her, which is remarkable, given her history. She lost her own mother at twelve, went to live and work in a strange city, all alone, at thirteen, survived a war and the murder of her family before she was eighteen, lived for three years in a displaced persons camp in occupied Germany from the age of nineteen, endured an unhappy marriage to my dad (definitely no picnic), and raised five kids in a foreign culture.
She never once complained about any of it to us, not once. It used to bother me that she rarely talked about her wartime experience. How selfish and foolish of me! I was too busy thinking of my own curiosity and “right” to know to think about how it might pain her, or how wise she was to know that it would probably have been more damaging to her children to talk about it. What six-year-old needs the horror of the Holocaust in her brain? And adults’ and children’s worlds were more separate then; parents then didn’t want or need to be their child’s friend.
I also see now that in the sixties, in Orange County, California, sewing dresses and baton uniforms and making tuna casseroles for a big, healthy family, laughing with the neighborhood moms at their kaffeeklatsches, knitting on the sofa and watching her crush, Elliot Ness, my mother was happy. She always said that all she ever wanted to do was be a mother and housewife. And she succeeded, she made a happy home; other than the two bullying incidents, my elementary school memories are of sunshine, Kool-Aid, Simplicity patterns, playing freeze tag till dark, my mom’s beautiful soprano filling the house all day, and homemade fried chicken at the beach.
Then the seventies hit and we became teens. Raising American daughters who suddenly acted like they no longer wanted or needed her, in a culture of sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll, with almost nothing from her own childhood as a guide—my God, she must have felt as if she woke up on Mars. A few of her kids gave her major heartache. My older sister and brother were pretty even-keeled and respectful. I was a studious girl who never got into any trouble, but I went through a long phase of being pretty bitchy to my mom; one of my younger sisters was sweet to my mom but, if they had programs like Mia’s back then, she was a candidate; Vivian was a good daughter but at sixteen, after ignoring a sore throat for two weeks, she got scarlet fever, followed by encephalitis, and went into a coma for weeks.
The doctor told my mom in a hospital hallway, bluntly, with no one there to support her, that if Vivian did live, which they didn’t expect, she’d be a vegetable. He used that word. When I flew home from college and got to the hospital that night, I walked right by my own mother. She’d aged so much overnight that I didn’t recognize her. Her face never looked the same. Miraculously, on Thanksgiving Vivian came out of the coma, stared at my mom, then c
hastised her for having a third eye. She couldn’t add two and two for a year, but we’re a tough bunch—she eventually went on to get a master’s degree. I went back to college the following semester and since then have never lived in the same city as my mother.
None of us do. Only now do I think about how lonely her life must have been for twenty-five years. Only in the last year have I gone over the whole of my mother’s life in my mind, over and over again. It has taken me a lifetime to finally, fully see my mother. Not as I wanted her to be, but as she was. And she was pretty amazing.
I want desperately to say all these things to my mother, to apologize for unintentionally, and occasionally intentionally, hurting her when I was younger, for not really acknowledging or appreciating her when she was older. I want to tell her how sorry I am for not slowing down to walk at her turtle’s pace the last time I was with her. I’d crawl at a snail’s pace to walk beside her now.
Walking through the empty hallways of Morava, my old boot-camp school, feels like wandering through the watery remains of a sunken ship; the rooms and furnishings are just as they were but it’s eerily silent and still, all signs of life long having floated away. I suppose the life left Morava ten years ago, when sixty American teens packed their bags to return to the States.
After I opened up to my mom in Sénanque about still feeling badly about my teenage years, she suggested that while we’re in Budapest I take a side trip to visit Morava. I arrived in Brno, the city on whose outskirts Morava sits, earlier this morning and was met by Peter, an old staff member who hadn’t changed one iota; the same bold blue eyes, cropped blond hair, and boyishly handsome face. We toured the city that morning, which I’d never actually seen despite having lived there for six months (you had to reach a certain level to go off-grounds, and considering I was scraping leaded paint from the walls to snort it for the buzz, I didn’t exactly qualify). Brno is an ancient bustling city, and it was nice meandering with Peter through its charming historic center, updating each other about the whereabouts, careers, and family lives of the students and staff we’ve kept in touch with.
It’s late afternoon now and as Peter drives toward Morava I’m surprised by the beautiful homes and gardens interspersed with small farm plots and big black sheep. I have zero recollection of any of this. The last time I drove by I was furious, beginning to withdraw from drugs, and trying to memorize the street signs so I could run away. It’s strange driving past and seeing it as any tourist would: beautiful.
Morava Academy, boot-camp school for troubled teens, is now Hotel Jelenice, a pension whose sole current occupant is Francesca, the raven-haired Gypsy cook who’s been there forever. She bundles me in a great big hug, kissing me on both cheeks, while Peter translates that ten or so former students have visited Morava over the years, and how much she loves seeing us.
She takes us inside, talking to Peter and smiling at me while she leads us through the dining room, to the room we used as a classroom, to the space where we exercised. As she does, it’s like the rooms re-create themselves, textbooks pop back up on shelves, seats rearrange themselves into schoolgirl rows. The air feels heavy, almost like it still carries the suppressed shouts and laughs of teenage girls not permitted to speak.
It’s well past dark by now, and Peter and Francesca both have to get home to their families, but they agree to meet me in the lobby tomorrow morning. I’m the only person in the entire hotel, something that would normally unnerve me, but this used to be my home and I’m actually glad for the solitude. It’s easier to imagine how it once was.
I start at the bar near the entrance, sitting on the same stool where I had my intake done, glowering at my mom while a staff member took me away to go over items I was and wasn’t allowed to keep from my suitcase. Two liquor plaques stand where hand-decorated motivational quotes used to be, but other than that it looks exactly the same. Earlier, Francesca beckoned for me to walk behind the bar and opened the cupboard where our medications were stored (the bar used to serve as the nurse’s station). Still on the shelves’ sides are pieces of tape with students’ names written on them; she never had the heart to take them down.
I open the cupboard now and take a photo; I know the other girls I’ve stayed in touch with will get a kick out of seeing their names still taped up. I walk down the hallway toward the bedrooms, remembering standing in perfect lines and doing head counts before leaving the area, remembering the smiles, nudges, scowls—there was a language spoken even in the silence.
In my room, it’s the details that bring it all back, the brick-colored tiles in the shower and bathroom floor, the mottled brown-and-cream fuzzy fabric, the lace curtains. I get down on my hands and knees to remember picking up lint without a vacuum, which we were only allowed to use on Sundays. Getting ready in the bathroom and slipping under the covers still feels like a familiar routine even after all these years.
I remember what my mom said back in Bulgaria, about people tending to be motivated by going toward pleasure or away from pain. It’s true, I’m very much a go-to person—I’m inspired to act when I think about the future, about what things I want to do or have, what places I want to see. I have never liked looking back and I’ve always had trouble with endings. Even as a kid, I’d rarely finish books or movies that seemed sentimental to me, like A River Runs Through It or Where the Red Fern Grows, for the same reason it’s easier to slip out the door than say a tearful good-bye.
But sitting here on my old bed I’m realizing how much is lost by not doing that. Looking forward carries with it a sense of urgency and movement that almost creates an adrenaline rush, but remembrance has a certain warmth; I never realized how cozy nostalgia can be. Yes, there’s a tinge of sadness, but it’s not the kind of sadness associated with pain or suffering. It’s a wonderful kind of sadness that I have no desire to avoid or escape.
Lying here in my old room, the same place where I first learned to be silent and find myself, I feel as though I’m watching a movie called Morava through to the end. Quiet exits may be easier, but some moments in life are best experienced in full.
There’s a chill in the air when I wake and I nestle into the covers, looking at the pale gray shadows cast on the wall by morning light filtering through lace curtains. I trace my finger along the patterns, enjoying the minute-long vignettes of my old life here that are coming to mind.
I hear the faint clanking of pots and pans, and after a quick shower, I walk into the dining room and I laugh out loud. Whether it’s for my benefit or because it has and will always be the usual fare, the breakfast laid out by a smiling Francesca hasn’t changed. Thin slices of salami, triangular wedges of La Vache Qui Rit cheese, and six-inch-long, cylindrical bread rolls dubbed by incarcerated teenagers das penis brot.
How history repeats itself in families. In Mia’s case it skipped a generation. In many ways she’s more like my mom than I am. Both have the same blue-gray eyes and an impulsive nature that had them running away and landing themselves at fifteen in Brno and Budapest, cities four hours apart. Both are extremely smart and love to read, but neither cared much for school the way I did.
Mia’s always understood my mom in a way my sisters and I haven’t. My mom used to stay in Mia’s room whenever she visited, and the two of them could talk and play cards for hours. My mother talking to anyone for hours is a rarity, but she’s happy and relaxed around Mia.
During one visit when Mia was seven, as we were about to head out for a Saturday outing, my mom announced that we couldn’t leave till Mia made her bed. Mia took my mom’s hand and patted it gently, saying sweetly, “It’s okay if I don’t make the bed today, Bubbie. Really, it is. It can stay like that all day and everything is going to be juuuuust fine.” Completely disarmed and charmed the Bubster. Nothing’s changed between them.
Mia has that talent with everyone. She’s always been wise beyond her years about people; she sees right through to who you are and speaks to that per
son, intuiting almost immediately the right thing to say or do. I am sometimes concerned that she puts others before herself more than is good for her. Mia rarely asks for anything for herself, never has, materially or otherwise; she can be content in almost any situation. It can be a healthy attitude and approach to life.
It can also be a way to settle for less, from others and from yourself. I’ve often expressed this to her, and she listens, but I know it doesn’t have much impact; she’s always been one to insist on finding out things on her own, often the hard way. I’ll have to simply trust that she’ll create whatever life experiences she needs to get whatever lessons she needs to grow.
I’m excited that she’s gone back to Morava; it was such an important part of her life. And I’m glad she went alone; the experience was entirely hers then and should be now. And what an experience. We’ve heard from countless others who’ve graduated from schools like hers to thank us for writing about something that’s impossible to explain or understand unless you’ve lived it.
What emotional fortitude it must have taken, even in her then-drugged-up state, to be locked up across the planet, with strangers, in near silence, forced to look at herself in a way very few adults ever do. It wasn’t until I spent three weeks with the kids at the school she was transferred to in Montana that I had even an inkling of what it must have been like; doing everything but school and therapy in silence (on the lower levels), walking in lines to go anywhere, the complete and utter lack of freedom, month after month (it took quite a while to earn privileges).
Have Mother, Will Travel Page 29
