You have never known what it is like to have privacy in the bathroom or in your bedroom, and she goes through your things regularly. She asks nosy questions, and snoops into your email/letters/diary/conversations.
When I was 13, my mother conducted a hugely expensive project of redesigning our apartment. As a result of this project, we ended up with a bathroom that had no lock on the inside and bedrooms with transparent glass in the doors. The bedroom where my sister and I slept was close to the entrance into the apartment. Anybody who walked towards the door (and we had crowds of guests all of the time) would see me lying in my bed on full display. Changing my clothes or underwear would always be a fraught task because there was no privacy anywhere. After I started living alone at the age of 27, I would only be able to dress and undress in the bathroom with the door locked.
Any attempt at autonomy on your part is strongly resisted. Normal rites of passage (learning to shave, wearing makeup, dating) are grudgingly allowed only if you insist, and you’re punished for your insistence (“Since you’re old enough to date, I think you’re old enough to pay for your own clothes!”) If you demand age-appropriate clothing, grooming, control over your own life, or rights, you are “difficult” and she ridicules your “independence.”
One of the greatest battles I had to wage was the battle to wear the top of my swimsuit on the beach. For some reason, it was hugely important to my mother that I go to the beach topless. For years, I begged her to allow me not to be topless in public but to no avail. As an argument in this debate, she would ask other people for their expert opinion.
“She doesn’t even have breasts,” she would say, pointing at my bare chest. “Look closely. Can you see breasts? Yes, I mean, it looks like they are growing but it’s not like they are big or anything. Can you see the swelling there? Does it look to you like her nipples are swollen? Come closer and take a look!”
When the people she tried to involve in the examination of my chest refused to participate, she would try to guilt me into not wearing the swimsuit top.
“You will feel so sorry about this when you grow up!” she would say in a tragic voice. “You will experience pangs of conscience forever! You have no idea how sorry you will be!”
I finally managed to win this battle. At that time, I was 12 and had already gotten my period. The period itself was a battlefield as well.
“Mom, I got my period,” I told my mother when I first had it. In the USSR, there were no tampons or hygienic pads on sale, so I needed my mother’s help to learn to manage the issue.
“Oh, of course, you haven’t!” she said. “You are not even 12 yet.”
“Yes, I have,” I insisted, growing desperate. “I promise it’s true.”
“I only had my period at 15,” she explained. “There is no way you got it so early.”
After 15 minutes of “Mom, I swear to you, I got my period”, my aunt interceded and informed us that a period can happen earlier than the age of 15.
“Well,” my mother commented. “Of course, everything about you just has to be weird. Why can’t you do one thing normally, I wonder? Now that’s it for you. Do you know that Jewish men thank God every day for not making them female? This is the reason why!”
It was obvious that I wasn’t going to get any help with handling menstruation, so I invented my own method. I will not go into any naturalistic details of this method here. Suffice it to say that it involved excruciating pain. At the age of 15, I traveled to England and finally bought a huge pack of tampons. My mother was extremely disturbed by the purchase. Once, we were standing in front of our building, and my mother saw a young doctor who lived two floors above us.
“Doctor!” she yelled. “My daughter has started using tampons! I’m worried! I’m afraid they will puncture her. . . you know! Please tell her not to use them!”
The poor doctor turned crimson. The neighbors who were sitting on the bench in front of the building perked up.
“Tampons are perfectly fine to use,” the doctor managed to squeeze out.
“They will not. . . I mean, will she remain intact?” my mother kept yelling. “I’m afraid I won’t be able to marry her off if she keeps using them!”
“They are fine to use,” the doctor mumbled, running away.
Clarissa's Blog 
Leave a comment