Dirty Little Secrets - Kerry Cohen [29]
Janet and Shawna are a mother and daughter who have lived on their own since Janet and her ex-husband Greg divorced. Janet always told Shawna that she didn’t want her to give herself away to just any boy, but when Janet began to date, Shawna felt like she was seeing her mother in a different light. She dressed in sexy outfits. She changed her hairstyle. Once Shawna saw her mother French kissing a date in the kitchen. His hand was squeezing her behind. Shawna felt sick but also slightly aroused. She was happy for her mother, but it also frightened her. She felt like she didn’t know her mother at all.
Janet and Shawna’s situation is a common one for many teenage girls. Janet isn’t necessarily doing anything wrong, but without any discussion, Shawna sees her mother’s behavior as hypocritical. There are layers to every story, too, that are harder to see. In that brief anecdote, for instance, you don’t see that Janet also had a history of needing men’s attention. When she married, that need went into a sort of remission, but suddenly free she found herself craving attention again. In this cycle, Janet will find it hard to be there fully for Shawna. But if Janet can build awareness about her own behavior, she can discuss her tendencies with Shawna. They can talk about how women are made to feel in their culture and how hard it is to fight the current. She can promise Shawna that she will work on this issue in her own life and that Shawna can come to her with any feelings about the process, even unpleasant ones. In other words, Janet doesn’t have to be perfect. No parent can be. But she can take responsibility for herself and be honest, the two most important things a parent can do.
Hannah has a very different story. Her parents divorced when Hannah was ten, and a few years later, her mother met Chris at a singles’ dance. Hannah’s mother immediately began to transform, and not in a positive way. Whatever Chris liked, her mother did. For instance, Chris liked high heels, so Hannah’s mother went out and bought a few pairs and she wore them all the time. Hannah didn’t like Chris one bit. He insulted her father, whom he’d never met. And he insulted Hannah, too. When Hannah would say something back to him—something like, “Excuse me?”—her mother told her to stop it, to not act fresh with Chris.
Every day, Hannah felt like she had to hold herself still, not talk, not express any of her feelings. If she did try to talk to her mother, Chris would show up and give her mother a why-do-you-let-herget-away-with-it expression. Soon after, her mother would warn her to knock it off. It got so bad, in fact, that Hannah started having occasional panic attacks. Her mother found Hannah shaking uncontrollably in the bathroom one time, and she still did nothing. One time, Hannah said point-blank to her mother, “You choose him over me,” and her mother didn’t deny it. Now, Hannah says, she tries not to think about it too much. Instead, she fantasizes about having a boyfriend. She told me, “I think of having a boyfriend’s arms to wrap me up tight, kiss my hair, hold my hand, and cuddle with. I find myself now looking at any guy, imagining that. I don’t find many guys at my school attractive, and the ones that are have personalities that ruin it, or they’re into smoking pot, or I just have no way of approaching them. Now whenever I think I like a guy, I don’t know if it’s just because I’m desperate like my mom or if my crush is genuine. I just want to feel good and have someone there to love me like that. And it doesn’t help the way my mom is acting, and what she says makes me think I can’t be happy if I don’t have a man.”
Hannah’s mother has