I'm Glad My Mom Died
the cut - june 11 - 2024What If Motherhood Isn’t Transformative at All?
We’re often told that becoming a parent will alter one’s identity. For me, the change never came.
By Anastasia Berg, editor of the Point
Art: March Avery, Evening Reading, 1972/© 2024 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; Courtesy of the artist, Private Collection, and BLU
... See moreWhat do you want? Sylvie wouldn’t have asked this question before, because she would have been afraid of the answer, but she wanted to be deeply and truly herself and to experience the world in the deepest and truest way. She’d been compartmentalizing herself for a long time, certainly since her father had died. She was one person with Julia, a sli
... See moreAnn Napolitano • Hello Beautiful: THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
Then, shortly after our daughter Gwen was born, as I understand it goes, my marriage was revealed for what it was. I had a lifelong (and unmanaged) mental health issue, and my husband had an addiction (also unmanaged) to alcohol. Now that we had a baby, we could no longer ignore our unwieldy foundations.
By the grace of God, I no longer hide from Mom. But I can’t fix everything, either. There is room now for both anger at Mom for the life she chooses and sympathy for the childhood she didn’t. There is room to help when I can, when finances and emotional reserves allow me to care in the way Mom needs. But there is also recognition of my own limitati
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