Memoirs of an Unfit Mother

Chapter One: The Founder of Our Plenty

Fifteen years after a mother has left the earth there is a grown-up daughter standing in a shop, saying petulantly to a saleswoman, "I know it looks nice -- but I don't wear purple." Why doesn't she wear purple? Because as a little girl, and then as a bigger little girl, a voice was saying, "Don't wear purple, it's for old people." The same voice that said, "Once you go into brown you never wear anything else," and "Short-sleeved jackets are common," and "Pull your shoulders back and don't frown."

And when the little girl had stopped frowning, rejected the purple outfit and the jacket with short sleeves, but was still undecided between the green dress and the blue dress, the final command: "Have both."

This is my mother's voice. The stylish, excessive, gold-medal shopper.

There was also my mother the unyielding, unforgiving taskmaster. So a cleaning lady or a gardener or an offspring foolishly imagining an element of corner-cutting would go unnoticed ended up terrorized and forever regretted the economy.

Then again, there was my mother the empowerer. "You are," she would dec ... read full excerpt from Memoirs of an Unfit Mother ebook