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Recently in Salon Mothers Who Think

Harvard and heroin
I coasted to an Ivy League degree as a drug addict, but forever damaged the bond between mother and son.
By Seth Mnookin
[08/27/99]

My son, the junkie
I finally had to let him save, or kill, himself.
By Wendy Mnookin
[08/27/99]

Emotional handicap
What do you do when your normally sweet, loving child wholeheartedly rejects his suddenly disabled, wheelchair-bound grandmother?
By Diane Lore
[08/26/99]

Wild Thing
Is hell satisfied?
In keeping with their authors' dark histories, "The Iron Giant" and other children's tales by Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath tell ominous fables about ambition, despair and people's disregard for nature and one another.
By Polly Shulman
[08/25/99]

The dark side of Disney
There's no escaping the commodification of childhood.
By Samuel G. Freedman
[08/23/99]

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By Laurel Touby

Aug. 30, 1999 | I dreaded seeing her when she arrived home from the hospital. I hated the thought of caring for her -- the feedings, the baths, the making merry to entertain her. She talks, she squawks, she even cries real tears: Baby Mommy. But this grown-up baby doll would be no crib joy, I knew. She's a bad dollie who can turn any sickroom into a mental ward with her demands, who will spit up her radiation therapy and sneak estrogen pills even when her oncologist waggles his finger: "No, No, No!"

She was at the door of her apartment when I arrived from the airport, with an "Aren't I being brave?" smile mounted on her face. "Hi, Baby! I've missed you. Don't bother hugging me because it hurts. Put your stuff down and let's go shopping," she commanded. "I don't want to miss the sales." I was flustered by her apparent fine health -- on the phone, she had described her condition post-lumpectomy as pre-Père Lachaise. I even considered the possibility that I had been duped into this visit just to accompany her to the mall. But, as we walked toward her car, I got a better look at her sateen nightie and fur-lined mules. Mardi Gras attire at best -- except Mardi Gras was still weeks away.

"When did you come down off your anesthesia?" I asked, giving her the once over. "Maybe the Home Shopping Network is more your speed today."

"Don't be ridiculous," she snapped, tottering back to the house to pop some painkillers and change clothes. "I'm just fine, now that you're here to take care of me."

The next few days sped by in a blur of shopping and errand-running. Along the way, we squeezed in a few visits to cancer specialists to bone up on the merits of chemo vs. radiation. Later that week, we would get the results of a biopsy that would tell us if her cancer had spread, so we had time for many tactical discussions about Mom's cancer treatment.

"Hmm. Two practicing lady oncologists. Now that's a magazine story, isn't it, Laurel?"

"What do you mean?"

"You're not looking out for me," she says with exasperation. "Don't you think you could tell them you were writing a magazine article about them? I'll bet I could save 20 percent on my bill, at least, if you did an article on them."

"Sure, Mom."

"And the voodoo priestess who promised she would pray for me, I'm sure she'd give a 25% discount if you said you were definitely going to write her up for Glamour magazine. Do they have any columns about voodoo in Glamour?" Mom asks, all worked up now at the idea of a discount. As she turns toward me to gauge my reaction, the car leaves its lane and heads toward the guardrail.

"No, just horoscopes. Maybe your astrologer will give you a bargain on your next chart. Watch where you're driving, will you?"

As soon as we get in to see Dr. Sinz, Lady Oncologist, Mom begins angling for a discount. She recites my resume: "This is Laurel. My daughter. She's in from New York City, where she's a journalist [pause for effect]. And she writes about women in business and [pause] female surgeons. Right, Laurel?"

My mother looks at the doctor meaningfully, arching a brow. Sinz just stares back at Mother sternly, unaware of her role as the designated nurturing caregiver. Sinz insists that mother put on a gown, please.

Thus admonished, Mom tears up and her mouth clamps into a crooked smile that is mockingly reminiscent of the "Aren't I being brave?" smile. She wrestles her way into a flimsy robe and heaves herself onto the examining table. As the doctor pages through her chart, mom starts reciting her own version of her patient history. "This is Charlene," she says, flinging her right arm up in the air like a pooped-out pom-pom girl and proffering the affected breast to Sinz's probing fingers. "She's highly emotional, has no history of cancer in her family, but she did smoke years ago. And she won't do anything bad ever again if you can just make this go away." The tears start to spill out onto her cheeks. Mom looks back and forth from Sinz to me for reassurance.

But I'm interested only in practicalities. How can we avoid future cancer? Subtext: avoid future maternal histrionics. I inquire whether Mom should maybe start eating more green, leafy vegetables and stop ingesting so many known carcinogens.

"Are you implying that she could have prevented her cancer?" Sinz asks.

"No, of course not, but aren't there certain risk factors that she could avoid? For years, she's been living off lard and Sweet-n-Low ..."

"There is absolutely no proof that your mother's diet caused this. Nobody really knows what causes cancer in an individual," Sinz retorts.

"I can't believe you're blaming me for my cancer," my mother shrieks. "My own daughter. How dare you!"

Now, everyone's angry at me. But I think I know some things about the patient's condition that the doctor doesn't. Given the power of the mind in relation to the body, I suspect that her physical illness may be triggered on some level by her emotional illness. She's an emotional invalid with a pathological need for love and attention. She intentionally puts herself into situations in which she must be rescued by others, thus proving that she is worthy, that someone cares about her. This disaster or something like it was bound to happen. It is simply the next stage -- the physical manifestation -- of the patient's chronic emotional malaise. As the daughter-caretaker, my prescription for her (and for myself) has been homeopathic doses of therapeutic inattention. In other words, a cheap placebo marked "sympathy" on the box cover. But such therapy doesn't seem to be going over well now that this cancer complication has presented itself. Given these developments, I realize Mom has good reason to expect some real sympathy. I had better measure out a dose of apology. "Don't be silly, Mom. Of course I'm not blaming you," I reprimand.

Next page | She mocked us kids for our idiot love, and we just cried