The parent rap

I’m estranged from my mother
Marcy Williams, 37

I don’t think my mom and I ever had a healthy or loving relationship—it was destructive more than anything else, bordering on emotional abuse. After college, I just effectively didn’t go back home. I told her I was moving out, and then I lied about law school so she wouldn’t know where I was. I cut myself off so that I could define myself, instead of seeing myself as she saw me.

She never believed in me the way you expect parents to believe in their children. She would say things that were hurtful—and didn’t care that they hurt. I remember her telling me that no one was going to want to date me. And she never noticed my accomplishments. She once brought me along on a date, like I was the smart daughter, something shiny to show off. She pulled me aside beforehand and said, “I told him you got a such-and-such on the SATs, so play along.” It was my actual SAT score—I had certainly told her, and I had gotten National Merit Scholarship Finalist status for it—but it hadn’t stuck in her head. That was the kind of thing that made me think, Okay, nothing is going to make this woman proud of you, she is just going to write you off.

When we had fights, I could leave in the middle of the night and go to a pay phone on the highway to talk to someone, and she wouldn’t even check for me until the next morning. There was a lack of concern for my welfare. There was just no maternal protectiveness; I felt like this nonentity. And even though I was a quiet honors kid outside the house, inside I was somehow this black sheep; I was led to feel terrible about myself. I had a very firm sense—and I still do—that if someone really cares about you, they won’t not care when they see that they’re hurting you. I would point things out that she did that hurt me and she wouldn’t care. You could be in tears in front of her and she’d still be cold.

Your parents are the ones who are supposed to love you no matter what, and I had one that just didn’t love me. That was a constant blow to my self-esteem; I needed to get away and create my own image of myself to rebound from that.

I think it’s been a hardship in relationships and work, the lack of a family foundation. Battling your self-esteem is not a plus in any of those arenas. [Laughs] But the fact that I did not have family to lean on made me very determined to be independent—and very capable of being independent, the way New Yorkers need to be.

—As told to Billie Cohen