Today is Mother’s Day, and while it is a wonderful day to celebrate and appreciate those people in our lives who are mothers, grandmothers, aunts, sisters, or any other motherly figure, it is also a day for me to remember that not everyone’s mother is alive or they may have a really difficult relationship with their mother. Also, motherhood, while rewarding, can be difficult. You are literally taking care of a human being for eighteen years and then even when they become an adult, you still worry about them. I am not a mother, but from listening to my female friends who are mothers, having kids is a huge responsibility. This is why I also love to watch movies and read books because they show that human relationships, particularly the relationships between parents and children, are complicated and sometimes traumatic. Film and literature can give us an opportunity to learn from other people’s perspectives, especially if, like me, you have never gone through another person’s experiences or trauma and cannot relate. A lot of these books and movies I list contain mature material and may be emotionally difficult to read or watch, but as I was thinking about what to blog about (especially because my blog has been collecting digital dust and cobwebs for months) I thought about all of the movies and books that I watched and read about motherhood and/or complicated relationships between children and their mothers, and it seemed like something that was worth writing about. So I hope you enjoy.
- I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy: After reading this book, I could not stop crying. And honestly, I don’t know Jennette McCurdy that well. By the time iCarly came on Nickelodeon, I was busy with extracurricular activities and schoolwork, so I rarely had time to watch TV. But from the little that I knew about the show, I remember that there was a character in the show named Sam, played by Jennette McCurdy. Although I have not seen iCarly, reading McCurdy’s memoir helped me understand that everything was not all laughs and sunshine when she was doing the show, and in fact is why I am glad she finally pursued her dream of becoming a writer and left acting. In fact, Jennette was battling a serious eating disorder and grappling with the passing of her abusive mother, Deborah, while dealing with fame, toxic relationships and workplace harassment during her time as an actor on Nickelodeon. Before she died of cancer in 2013, Deborah criticized and belittled her daughter throughout her childhood and well into her teen years, and pretty much controlled her life. She forced Jennette to become an actress as a child because she herself never got to achieve that dream. Deborah’s parents never let her become an actress, so she projected all of these unrealized expectations and dreams on her daughter, who was only six at the time that her mother forced her to go into acting. She restricted Jennette’s calorie consumption, leading Jennette to develop anorexia nervosa, a severe eating disorder. While I am not a psychologist, it is evident that Deborah probably had narcissistic personality disorder, because her behavior towards her daughter was manipulative and also Deborah also had a sense of entitlement. She used her cancer diagnosis to manipulate people into casting Jennette for acting roles, and it is sad because Deborah’s parents also were very controlling people who restricted her calorie intake and also probably wrecked Deborah’s self-worth from an early age. I’m just saying, hurt people hurt people. When Jennette wrote a script for a movie when she was young, her mother dismissed her project completely, saying that “writers are frumpy” and that Jennette was never going to be a good writer (when I read this part, I shrugged and thought with a small chuckle, “Well, fuck it, if Deborah thinks writers are frumpy, then, I LOVE being frumpy if it means I get to do what I love, a.k.a. write. In fact, I relish it.”) Deborah also treated Jennette’s siblings poorly and it was painful to have to read how they watched Jennette’s mother abuse her and manipulate her. The hardest part of the book that stuck with me and had me sobbing was when Jennette goes through the painful recovery from another life-threatening eating disorder that she developed after her mother’s death. After her mother died, Jennette experienced complicated grief, an intense form of grief that continues for months and even years. People with complicated grief experience intense emotions, such as resentment, anger, and guilt, and they cannot imagine life without the person. This kind of grief has a significant impact on someone’s daily functioning. After Jennette’s mom died, she could not imagine life without her. Even though Deborah abused her throughout her childhood and managed and controlled her daughter even when Jennette become of legal adult age (18), I think because Deborah had so much power and influence over her daughter’s decisions and life, Jennette didn’t really have anyone or anything to fall back on as she grappled with losing her mother, and she felt that without her mother to constantly punish her and restrict her calorie intake, she developed bulimia nervosa, an eating disorder where one eats copious amounts of food and then purges through vomiting, exercising more than normal, or taking laxatives. Even after falling in love and getting into a romantic relationship, she still battles with bulimia, and her partner at the time sees that she vomited in the toilet and tells her to get help or that he will not stay in the relationship. Even though Jennette receives a lot of compliments about her body, these people have no idea that she buries a lot of pain. As someone who never dealt with an eating disorder, I did not realize how arduous and painful the process of recovery and rehabilitation is. In one scene, while in eating disorder recovery Jennette has a bowl of spaghetti placed in front of her, and she has to eat the food without purging. It is an excruciating experience. for Jennette because she spent so much of her life with this unhealthy relationship with food and her body image that was filled with shame and guilt because her mother, who had her own unhealthy relationship with body image and food growing up, made her daughter feel like she could not enjoy even one bite of a cheeseburger without feeling like she was committing some sort of crime. I take it for granted that I can just eat and enjoy food, but for people who have developed eating disorders, food can be a source of anxiety and shame, so it’s not just like you can tell someone, “Just eat, it’s just fries and a cheeseburger.” Like any mental health condition, recovery takes time and it’s not always pretty. When I read the part in Jennette’s memoir when she was able to refrain from purging for 24 hours, I put the book down and could not stop sobbing. I cried until I thought I was going to stain my bedspread with tears. As someone who dealt with self-harm and depression, I will tell you, getting help for mental illness is an accomplishment in and of itself. When Jennette got professional treatment for her eating disorder, I felt like I just wanted to meet Jennette so that I could give her a huge hug. Because by the end of the book, all I could think was, wow, this girl went through so, so much. Even after reading this book a couple of years ago, it has stuck with me for quite some time.
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