At a staggering rate, I get at least one like a day on my blog posts. I am a humble writer so that is all the encouragement I really need. I have a modest number of followers.  (Hello, dear reader.) Were Mom still alive, I might have surmised that single daily “like” came from her. Not that she was a consistent fan of my writing. Quite the opposite. Mom recognized early on that I could string words together but she balked at what I wrote about. Usually some uncomfortable memory from my childhood in which she was a key protagonist/antagonist.

It felt like her public shows of support for me were more designed to keep me (and her) from looking bad in front of friends, neighbors, and colleagues. She was thoughtful that way. I came to believe her over-the-top displays of support had the same undertones as “methinks the lady doth protest too much.” Acknowledging to herself, as she must have, that she wasn’t there for much of my childhood. Her expressions of support in young adulthood were no doubt relief, as much as motherly pride.

In university, I once received an amount of money in the form of the curiously named Anonymous Donor Scholarship. I was convinced my mother was behind it. I could only speculate about her possible motives. Boost that girl’s resume/prospects. Buttress the child’s/mother’s deficiencies. “But,” she would assert. “I never interfere.” 

I was well-coached as a child in the absolute “necessity” of repressing my truth or feelings, especially about “bad things.” Not only was I discouraged from standing up for myself, but I was also coached into playing along with the hypocritical societal sleight-of-hand that we lived in. All “to keep the peace” and “keep up appearances.” “Because it could hurt someone.” And “someone” usually meant the perpetrator.

My mother had odd ideas and choices in who she was driven to protect and a perplexing empathy for the underdogs she championed. It was clear that her own children did not merit the same degree of protection as an arms-length transgressor. How could she have been? They were HER children, after all. Invincible and special. They didn’t need protection. They were independent and self-reliant little girls. From a very early age.

Mom may not have been all that different from her parenting peers. The “keep the peace at all costs” message targeted girls and women – with the crystal clear sub-text – “… even if it kills you.”  In the Fifties, many women did just that. Poet Sylvia Plath’s unhappy ending at the open door of a gas oven is one of the decades’ more prominent victims. But in other ways, Mom was her own special creation.

All of this subterfuge and narrative shaping falls under the general category that we had drummed into us in the “Fabulous Fifties:” “Don’t spill the beans.” I won’t divulge more just yet. I have recently pledged to keep most of my emerging stories close to my chest until they “is” fully-growed. But flawed Fifties child that I am, I am happy to report that my memoir will be full of beans. Lots and lots and lots of beans.