My biggest fear in my life is that I would turn out to be like my mother.
There is nothing worst than becoming a person like my mother, because I have been at the receiving end of her wrath and I know how it feels.
Yet for a mere matter of my child losing a retainer, I acted just like her.
I know I can justify my anger by saying that December is a very expensive month for me. ( I have to buy Christmas gifts for the kids, I also have to get Mr. Nick’s gifts and then I have to send money and get my friends in India to send gifts for the kids purportedly from their loving Ammachi, so my kids continue to believe that their Ammachi loves them). I didn’t want to have additional expenses added to my fast depleting bank balance.

But the thing is, My mother too can justify her own actions.
Imagine having to raise 4 daughters all by herself.

My son is back to being the happy and cheerful ( Yaya would add Annoying) guy that he is. He told me this morning that “You are the best mother on planet earth” (Of course I made his favourite tortilla de patatas for his school lunch!)

Yet I keep looking at the letter he wrote to me and I remember sitting in my room and scribbling on every scrap piece of paper How much I hate you Amma.

I don’t want to be like my mother.

12 thoughts on “

  1. Sarah,

    We hope you out of the mood of guilty by weekend. I remember my mother saw me hiding behind the door of kitchen and telling “Ninne njan kollum” and by the time she was asking “what.. what” I run away… But she was most nice to me lot of other times so I know she is good… So it’s common that kids feel bad about parents sometimes when they hear some no or so… But really uncommon to have a very difficult childhood from mother. So I guess you dont have to compare your childhood with ur kids childhood as they have a lot of other moments when they really wanna say I love you mamma…

  2. Sarah,I am not inteterested in picking a fight with you, i just said what i felt and everbody is entitiled to their opinion.
    I didn’t say your blog was crap and i don’t feel offended as well.
    But i’m sure if your family ever comes across it ,thy might feel offended.I’m not questioning your intentions, but there is always two sides to a story and noone can deny it.

  3. Rebecca: Churchil once said
    ” The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it,ignorance may deride it,but in the end truth is always the truth”

    In your first comment, you sounded just like my mother. Full of spite.Just want to rub it in, hoping that you can inflict some sort of pain, that it would hurt.
    I need you to know I survived my mother’s spite and I will always survive, come what may.
    Like you mentioned, there is always two sides to a coin. I had mentioned in my profile that this is my story. And my story is about my love hate relationship with my mother. So just as there is hatred, there is also love, but you need to be open minded to see that.

  4. sarah,just to let to know that i was not full of spite….As u only
    mentioned everyone needs to openmided to see the truth.
    As I said earlier I’m not at all interested in picking up a fight as there are lot more interesting things in life…………..

  5. I have been reading your blog for quite some time and maybe I cant empathize but surely do get a sense of what you must have gone through.
    It was is and will always be a cruel experience to have gone through life like that..
    But at the same time,you always tend to over react when even there is a slightest bend in the opinion or comments you get..You become quite the tigress..Whats the need of that?
    We are not here to judge you..Nor do we have any right to..Frankly Im here because I love to read your writing style.
    And like the one comment above, everything has two sides..truth is not always absolute..your right might be my left depending on where we sit…Its an open blog..but dont let it be a weapon where others can get at you and you can attack them back!!

    Please dont care about what the opinion a commentor has to say..You have a right to your opinion..so do they have..No matter how angry or hurt you get, it might not change it..It might only be worsening the opinion…And I believe you deserve more than that!

  6. First of all thanks cayanne for posting this comment.

    This is an open blog and people are only giving their opinions. We come to this blog purely to read a woderful writing style, and it is not about you. I had been wanting to post similar thing, but did not want to invite a string of counter responses from Sarah. I think that may be the case of with lots of other readers. No one is here to hurt you, as we are total strangers. People have better things in day to do, than delibrate and plan to write hurtful comments here. Calling a total stranger “like your mother” is ridiculous. Some one has to agree with you all the time and you mention often in blog: You have to win all the time in an argument.

    Even the books published as autobiographies (that you claim this blog is) are open to comments from people. When you put some thing in open/public, it is bound to generate some oponions, that some you may like, and some may not. But it is never about hurting your feelings.

    Please donot bother responding this comment, bcoz I will not.

    Thanks.

  7. Cayanne: I believe in freedom of expression, I also believe in fighting for my own rights.

    So if you say something that I consider to be against my own basic beliefs or rights or feelings, then I sure would react.

    My rights to simply put. are the essential needs that society, and members of that society, are required to provide for each other and ourselves. Anyone(or any authority) that seeks to deprive me of the opportunity or the ability to provide those rights is in breach of its responsibility under The Human Rights Act.

    Human Rights acts require that all people have a right to survive, provide, and be free from discrimination, oppression or slavery. It also give us the right to protest.

    An open blog ia an open blog, but I still own this blog.And I reserve the right to answer to any comment in any fashion that I seem fit.
    You are reading this blog on your own free will, I don’t force you. I never did, I never will.
    But reading a blog still doesn’t you the right to tell me how I should behave or write.
    If the way I react offends you, then I am sorry. This is who I am.

    Gardenlane: Calling a total stranger “like my mother ” is ridiculous, what about calling someone that too a total stranger a Liar?
    You keep harping about this being open blog. I never disputed that.But don’t forget, Just as I let you comment freely, so will you get the responses freely. Again if you have a problem with that, I am sorry.

    Now before everyone jumps in to the bandwagon of how annoying, terrible, bad, arrogant blah blah I can be, let me just tell you that I suffer from severe PMS snd right now I am in my element and I must honestly admit that it felt good to type such a long and winding answer to something so trivial.
    So if you see me going off tangent in the beginning of the month, please do understand that it is my evil twin that is doing all these.

  8. fair enough…
    You stated yours and i stated what i feel..Im not here to lobby against you or pull you down….
    Maybe I shouldnt be, but I treat your work in my mind as a literary piece and a good one at it..And i read it with objective lens..
    For you, its an entirely different level coz its ur own experiences..I respect that..
    At the same time,also please understand while it is good to protect yourself,be reasonable to the comments..We are not here to pick a fight with you.I dont know you.But from what i have read, I do think I will like you as a person and who knows we might even have been friends…

    So goodluck with the PMS..

  9. I need to reiterate something about open blog.

    An open blog is like an open house. When I was in Malaysia, we usually had an open house during Christmas, Raya, Deepavali and CNY. My friends dropped in any time on that day. We chat, we eat, we get drunk and sing karaoke. But that was it. Nobody said this is an open house and we can do whatever we want.Because everyone knew it is my house and in my house my rules matter.
    So Please, don’t think that this is a public blog and therefore you are entitled to say whatever you want at the same time expect me not to reactor tell me how I should react.
    Every single word in this blog came from my heart snd I will make sure I don’t get hurt, just because I blog the story in the public domain, instead of taking up all those offers to publish it and let my editor take the flak!

    So let me make this clear.
    This is my blog and I am not perfect. I made/make/will make plenty of mistakes in my life and I also own up to my mistakes.
    My penance is my memories that haunt me every single minute that I am awake.. For me that is good enough.That is all I am willing to take.

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