She’s Not Like Other Moms

Names have been changed.

My mom, Diamond, was never like other moms. Other moms wore skinny jeans and cardigans in the elementary school pick up area, but Diamond looked like she came from the future, with red hair and butterfly tattoos. 

She was creative and free and didn’t care what others thought. We were poor, but she taught us how to make crayons, put paper on the wall so we could draw on the walls, and took us to affordable fun like water slides and pony rides. She was protective, and she never let anyone push me around. 

Her fearlessness inspired me, but my older sister Alexis and I never knew what she would do next. Our mom was like a ticking bomb; when we were out with her, Alexis and I felt like the bomb squad. 

One morning when I was 8, I was on a city bus on the way to school with my mom and sister. I was looking out the window when I heard my mother shout at a woman nearby. The woman shouted back, and then they were shouting at each other. Watching my mom and another adult argue made me feel anxious. I didn’t think it could get worse until my mom stood up and got in the woman’s personal space. Suddenly everyone on the bus was shouting at my mom. 

A bald man shouted at me: “This is your mother? Your mother acts this way?” Thankfully we were almost to our stop. My mom spit on the bus floor and continued shouting as we stepped off and walked to school.

As we neared the school, I asked her, “Mommy? Are you a bad person?” 

She looked down at me. “Dont you ever say that again. I am your MOTHER!” She had an animalistic expression, the same look she gave to the people on the bus. Fear found its way into my bones. 

“But mommy—”

“SHUT UP!” she shouted. 

That was the first time I questioned her. I used to love going places with her, but that became stressful as she yelled at others more and more. I felt humiliated when people figured out I was her child. I look just like her.

I’d beg her to stop yelling, and crossing her made me an enemy in her eyes. She treated me not like her daughter, but instead like a girl who made her feel ashamed and angry. She began to take her anger out on me when I was 9. 

Before that, it was fun getting my hair done by her, but then she began hitting and screaming. When I was little, I used to tell her everything. But when I was 9, she started using what I’d told her against me during arguments. She’d reference my insecurities and deepest feelings and turned them against me like weapons.

She would explode at Walmart, McDonalds, at my teacher-student school conference, and, increasingly, at home. 

There were good moments. We watched Stranger Things together, rollerskated in the park on summer nights, and walked the dogs in the spring. When I was 10, I still thought if I did everything right, things would stay calm and happy. I tried to figure out what I could do to fix her, to teach her how to be a mom. I believed that if she could see that she was hurting her family, she would want to change, to do the right thing. 

Foster Care

By the time I was 16, I realized she wasn’t exactly a safe person to live with. I expected and started to plan for living elsewhere after I turned 18. I asked friends and family if I could stay with them and even researched shelters. 

But I left earlier than I expected to. 

My mother came home from food shopping one fall afternoon when I was 16 and asked Alexis and me to put away the groceries. The fridge needed food for meals, but my mom had bought nine different cheese dips and way more snacks than we needed. 

As we put the groceries away, my mom told us loudly we were doing it wrong. She escalated to cursing us and calling us “ungrateful dumbasses.” She screamed, shouted, and threw food onto the floor. Then she called my father, and Alexis and I rushed into my room. 

My dad pushed against the bedroom door until it opened, and squeezed through the opening while my mother stood in the hall screaming. My father grabbed my hair and pulled me to the floor, and my sister shoved him off. Then my mother attacked my sister and me. I tried to pry my father’s hands out of my hair as I heard my sister scream in pain on the hallway floor. Our dogs barked and howled from inside my bedroom. 

I believed that if she could see that she was hurting her family, she would want to change, to do the right thing.

Somehow Alexis and I shoved the two of them out into the hall and locked the apartment door, and I called the police. We were taken to the hospital and from there into kinship foster care with our grandmother.

I kept thinking about the fight for months; it didn’t seem real. I kept wondering, “Was that the moment that changed my life forever?”

My grandmother lived on the cramped second floor of a house in the Bronx with my uncle. My aunt and her son were thinking about moving in, too. Alexis and I shared a bunk bed in the living room. 

Living with my grandmother was very disorienting. On my way to school, she’d ambush me with a bear hug, and I’d politely reciprocate before escaping. It was foreign, being cared for and looked after, being hugged and kissed. It scared me, because it wasn’t something I was used to. 

I had been with my grandmother for four months when our lawyer asked me and my sister if we wanted to schedule a visit with our mom. I didn’t want to see her, but my lawyer said the chances of coming home sooner would be higher if I did. 

It may seem strange that I wanted to go back to living with my mom, but I desperately missed my dogs and having a bedroom of my own. I was tired of sleeping in my grandmother’s living room. Living there made me feel trapped. 

My sister didn’t want to go back to our mother’s. The agency arranged a supervised visit for my mom and me, and my mom surprised me by bringing paints and canvases, plus some cousins I’d missed. It complicated my feelings for her. She was the dangerous, out-of-control woman who embarrassed and attacked me. She was also the mom that knew I liked to paint. 

It was weird seeing her. I thought she would be upset about me calling the police, but she pretended as though nothing happened. And I never went back to living with her: She wouldn’t complete the classes that the foster care agency required for her to regain custody of me.

We’re Not the Same

My grandmother (her mother) often brings up how much my mom and I look and sound alike. It’s true there is a strong resemblance. We also watch a lot of the same shows and both enjoy art, reading, and fashion. We both write and make art. The more I find out about my mom’s childhood, the more similar we seem. My grandmother told me that my mom had been in foster care and had picked the same college major I was aiming for. 

Those similarities force me to carry the weight of her reputation. My family treats me like someone who could snap and do something reckless, but that isn’t fair. While I inherited a lot from her, I didn’t inherit her rage. I’m quiet, and I don’t like conflict or being the center of attention.

Alexis and I were both recently diagnosed with autism, and I thought that that explained some things about me. When my mom found out, however, she denied it. “The doctors don’t know what they’re talking about.” I was just glad she didn’t go on an anti-vaccine rant. (She waited a long time to vaccinate Alexis and me.)

That’s another way I’m not like my mom. I didn’t like my autism diagnosis, but I researched it and accepted that it explained some things about how I am. I also know it has nothing to do with vaccines. 

I’m in college, doing well and making friends. I am gaining control of my life. I’ve overcome the challenges I faced, and I’m thriving now. I’m proud of my accomplishments and the work it took to get to this point. It’s been liberating to not worry about my mother. Looking back, sometimes it felt like I was the mother and she was the child.

A year ago, my sister told me that my mom was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. This explains some of her behavior and it helps me blame her less. 

I’m learning to let go of the mother I’d been wishing for, and that helps me enjoy the relationship that is. I no longer have to be disappointed because now I don’t need her to be a responsible, steady mother. 

I graduated high school last June, and I wasn’t sure if she would show up. After the ceremony, my grandmother hugged me tightly and told me how proud she was in her thick Jamaican accent and kissed me hard on the cheek. Then my mother appeared. She was excitable, free, and full of life. We took pictures together, laughed, and talked. She asked what college I was going to, what my major was, how my summer was going so far.

I didn’t feel as anxious now that I didn’t have to look after her or be associated with her. I was free to be my own person, and she was free to be her own person. I was happy she came. 

My love for my mother isn’t a conscious choice, it’s encoded into my DNA. But I don’t particularly miss her. My relationship with her and my life in general have improved as the distance grew between us. 

She did her best to care for the kids she chose to have, which is more than my absent father did. Sometimes I reminisce on the happy times we spent together, and I appreciate how hard she tried to provide for me and my sister growing up.

But I’m 18 now, and I’m proud of how I’m taking care of myself.