“Mommy, you are a liar.”
Hearing my pink cheeked twelve year old daughter say that to me was like a kick in my gut. She was yet to find her true voice, but the truth that rang through her mouth was a reality I was not prepared to realise.
That was when I decided that I should write my story.
I am a liar. But, I wasn’t always one. I became a liar because of my mother.
My mother is a temperamental woman who always seemed to have a lot to say.
“Siya, girls should always help mothers sweep the house.”
“Why only me mom, why don’t you ask him?” I used to point at my twin brother and whine.
“Boys help in different ways, now come here and help me sweep the house.”
“What ways, pray tell?” I challenged. I argued.
I liked to question. I didn’t want to work when the male offspring was somehow spared from tedious housework. Even I wanted to kick back and watch the TV while someone else did the work. But such questions are not appreciated in a household which has been the result of systematic patriarchal ideals.
But not to misunderstand. Even though our family followed the skeletal remains of patriarchy, I wouldn't exactly say my house followed a strict patriarchal regime. No. Far from it, actually. I have seen days where my father would just meekly become the verbal equivalent of a punching bag for my mother’s temperamental rage episodes. And then there were other days where I have seen my mother meekly listen to my father when he made the big decisions for the family. It was like an ugly fusion of traditional ideas with modern empowerment.
Now for some more context, I introduce to you— my family problems! Sit back, grab a bucket of popcorn and maybe grab a box of tissues.
Let's start with my parents, who will from here onwards be referred to as Mr. and Mrs. Communication-problems, or Mr and Mrs. Commi-pro for short. Mr. Commi-pro was a data analyst. His occupation was a direct reflection of the irrelevance of human to human conversations in his daily life. It was perfect for a man of few words like him. His silence was widely regarded as a result of virtue of his patience. Knowing him as his daughter, I disagree. Mr. Commi-pro was terrible at socialising. He never seemed to know when to say what and when to not say what. That was his problem.
Mrs. Commi-pro was fantastic at socialising on the other hand. With others, I mean. With people closest to her, not so much. My theory is that once she becomes emotionally invested with somebody, she expects things as if she has telepathically planted her desires in others' heads and they should follow them without her having to tell them those things. She was fiercely protective of her husband from others, but she was justified to be mad at him for not telepathically understanding her.
They were the most unsuitable of each other in the communication department. One partner had no social awareness and the other one yearned for clairvoyance. These two were brought together by arranged marriage.
Long story short, their communication problems killed their first child. Both were at fault, and they both knew it. However, typical of all mother-in-laws, it’s always the fault of the new addition to the family, never their own child. A battle went down between both the mother-in-laws. Relations became strained. The woes of the couple were forgotten between the familial ego clashes, and a once joint family accommodation became a nuclear family as my parents moved cities to get away.
Years later, my brother and I were born. Despite the problems with in-laws on both sides, we were close with our maternal grandmother. We would meet and call her very often. It took some time for my growing wit to notice but there was a glaringly obvious pattern in our calls. Dad was never around when the calls happened. Grandmother never asked for him either.
I pointed this out to my mother once, she brushed me off. But then one day, my father returned home from work during our weekly call with our grandmother. Before I could even offer him the phone, mother swooped in and snatched the phone, said the phone is dying and ended the call. That was the first of many other lies I noticed.
In our childlike view of the world, rules were concrete and clearly defined. As we grow old, school teaches us things, such as good behaviour and bad behaviour. Lying is a bad behaviour. Whoever engages in lies is a bad person. A bad person gets punished. At home, when I get into trouble, my mom used to yell at me. So if my mother lies, I should also yell at her.
That is exactly what I did.
I challenged my mother at every call. I yelled at her. Said that if she lies to grandmother once again, I will tell grandma everything. When that didn't work, I used to call her a liar and said that I no longer trusted her anymore. Even if she did something out of the goodness of her heart, I questioned her intentions and those questions turned into ugly fights. When even that didn’t work, I thought to take revenge.
I lied on purpose. Small lies like “The teacher told us today to bring the map tomorrow” when really I had forgotten a notice from a week before. Eventually if I got caught in one of those lies I would defend myself with “Now you know what it feels like when you are lied to”.
Now lying became justified because I was punishing her.
Now there were two liars in the house.
Years later, now as a mother myself, I realised something.
Parenting is confusing. When my girl was born, I swore to myself to raise her differently. I didn’t want to raise her anything like how my mother raised me. I wanted to reduce my mother’s influence on my daughter’s life. I wanted them to meet as little as possible so that my daughter would not have to grow up listening to the kind of things I listened to. I lied to my mother and said that my daughter was in tuition classes when she wasn’t. I told her she was too busy to go over to her grandmother's house to spend time.
As differently as I wanted to raise her, I was just like my mother when it came to lying. I was still a liar.
And now my daughter knows it. And she might become a liar because of me as well.
That was my wake up call.
Sometimes we may have started off with a pure intention, such as not wanting my mother to be a bad person. And over time, when our attempts to make our intention true fails, we may take the wrong route and fall into a habit of doing exactly what we hate. I became a bad person in my attempt to stop my mother from being one. It’s a vicious cycle unless we realise it and break out of it.
It took me almost twenty five years and a daughter to realise this. That is why I chose to write my story. I hope my experience can help some others who might be in a similar situation as me.
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