My Mom “Forgot” To Save Dessert For My Son At The Christmas Party And Said, “We Didn’t Set Any Aside.”

Mom said Noah was being difficult.

I sat there for a second choosing my words very carefully.

You saw what happened with the dessert. I typed back. She looked at my kid and told him only family gets to eat.

and then gave your kids seconds.

There was a pause.

The typing dots popped up, disappeared, popped up again.

Finally, she replied, “You are being dramatic. It was a joke.

You know how mom is.

You cannot blow up the whole family over one awkward comment.”

That was the thing. To Emily, it was always one comment, one joke, one moment.

Never a pattern.

I stared at the message and realized we were not having the same conversation.

She had grown up as the golden child, the one they bragged about at dinner parties, the one who could screw up and still get rescued. I had grown up as the example of what not to be.

I did not bother arguing. I just replied, “If it was a joke, it was at my son’s expense, and I am done letting them laugh.” Then I set my phone down and pulled out an old notebook from the kitchen drawer.

The one I used to write grocery lists and half-finish resolutions in.

On the first clean page, I wrote a date.

And then I started listing every time I could remember my parents choosing a favorite or using money to pull the strings. The time they skipped Noah’s birthday party to take my sister and her kids on a trip to the lake house.

The time they told me I should be grateful they watched Noah for a weekend and then turned around and held it over my head when I would not cosign alone.

The time my dad suggested again that it would be easier if the house was in his name for taxes, for the family, for our future. Seeing it all in black ink made me feel less crazy.

It was not one dessert.

Continue reading…