Sable Monroe

There is a version of womanhood people love to romanticize.

The loyal daughter.

The forgiving daughter.

The daughter who understands that her mother “did the best she could.”

The daughter who stays.

The daughter who helps.

The daughter who sacrifices.

The daughter who takes care of everybody because that is what good women do.

I think that version of womanhood can ruin your life.

Sometimes the best thing you can do is become cold.

Sometimes the best thing you can do is stop caring what your mother thinks of you.

Sometimes the best thing you can do is become the selfish daughter.

The disloyal daughter.

The daughter everybody talks about.

The daughter who leaves.

Because sometimes staying loyal to your mother means inheriting her life.

And I wanted no part of mine.

My mother made choices I did not respect.

She chose men who were violent with her. Then somehow, when those men became violent, the children were expected to absorb the fallout. We were supposed to be scared with her, live through it with her, and apparently even help fight grown men off because, well, there were more of us.

I remember her reasoning.

I was tall.

Therefore, I should have been able to help.

Never mind that I was a child.

Never mind that I froze when I was terrified.

Never mind that we did not even have secure immigration status at the time and getting dragged into a domestic violence incident could have created consequences for our futures that we were too young to understand.

Her fear mattered.

Her crisis mattered.

Her relationship mattered.

Our futures were apparently negotiable.

That was one of the things that made me stop respecting her.

Not hate her.

That came later.

I still tried to have a relationship with her for years.

But I stopped trusting her judgment.

That distinction saved me.

Once I stopped believing that my mother knew better than I did, I stopped treating her opinions like instructions.

If she believed I was selfish, fine.

If she believed I was disloyal, fine.

If she believed I was a liar, fine.

If she believed I was a terrible daughter because I wanted my own life, fine.

Why would I allow someone whose choices I did not respect to determine whether my choices were good?

That is the trick nobody tells daughters.

Guilt only works when you respect the person handing it to you.

Shame only works when you still want their approval.

Control weakens dramatically once you stop caring whether the person controlling you thinks you are good.

I learned that young.

I watched my mother live a life I did not want.

And at some point, I understood something very clearly:

If I let her choose my life, I might end up with hers.

No, thank you.

I did not want violence.

I did not want dependence.

I did not want to spend my adulthood cleaning up the consequences of someone else’s romantic decisions.

I did not want to become a permanent unpaid caregiver simply because I happened to be female and related to somebody.

I did not want to become the family mule.

So I left.

And people can call that whatever they want.

Selfish.

Cold.

Arrogant.

Disloyal.

I have survived every one of those words.

What I would not have survived, at least not as myself, was allowing my mother’s needs to become the organizing principle of my entire adult life.

There is a particular kind of parent who will call you selfish while using your labor, your money, your time, your emotional energy and eventually your future.

They will tell you family comes first.

What they often mean is they come first.

They will tell you that good daughters stay.

Of course they do.

Good daughters are useful.

Good daughters babysit younger siblings.

Good daughters cook.

Good daughters clean.

Good daughters help with Grandma.

Good daughters hand over their paychecks.

Good daughters keep family secrets.

Good daughters absorb chaos.

Good daughters forgive endlessly.

Good daughters grow into middle-aged women who suddenly realize they spent thirty years serving somebody else’s life.

Maybe you should be a bad daughter.

I mean that.

Maybe you should disappoint her.

Maybe you should keep your money.

Maybe you should leave home.

Maybe you should stop answering every phone call.

Maybe you should refuse to become the retirement plan.

Maybe you should let your mother tell the entire family that you are selfish.

Let her.

She needs a story that explains why you escaped without requiring her to examine why you wanted to.

You do not have to correct the story.

You have a life to build.

I think people from dysfunctional families are often taught the wrong lesson about loyalty.

We are told that because our mothers suffered, we should understand them more.

Sometimes.

But sometimes the lesson should be the opposite.

Your mother suffered.

You watched what she did.

You watched what she tolerated.

You watched what she chose.

Learn from it.

Do not repeat it.

If she keeps choosing chaos, choose stability.

If she keeps choosing violent people, choose peace.

If she sacrifices herself for everybody and then demands you do the same, choose yourself.

If she thinks love means servitude, become emotionally unavailable to that definition of love.

Be cold enough to think.

Be selfish enough to plan.

Be arrogant enough to believe your life can be better than hers.

Be disloyal enough to the family script that it ends with you.

People love to say, “You only get one mother.”

True.

You also only get one life.

And unlike your mother, your life is actually your responsibility.

I am not interested in being the good daughter if being good requires abandoning myself.

I would rather be the villain in somebody else’s story than the prisoner in my own.

Losing respect for my mother did not destroy me.

It freed me.

And if that makes me selfish?

Good.

Selfishness saved my life.