Don't call me "Mom" in public

In this excerpt from Chapter Two of my memoir, I reflect on the complicated relationship I had with my mother during my teenage years—how her judgmental nature, constant criticism, and eventual approval influenced the direction I took in life. We worked things out later in life, but sure had a rough start.

Mom and I clashed. I desperately wanted her approval, but those moments were few and far between. For as long as I can remember, we fought—a lot. Right up until I re-established contact with my parents after four years of silence, from the fall of 1997 until New Year’s Eve 2002. 

Growing up, I seemed to get on her nerves. For example, I loved books. Nothing would make me happier than reading on the couch for hours. But mom never let me sit there for too long; she wanted me to get up and “do” something. Just not going to the gym. According to her, people who went to gyms were obsessed with their bodies and their looks. So I stuck to cycling and bodyweight exercises in my room.

(As my memoir further explains, I started to develop an eating disorder around the age of twelve.)

In my skinniest years, Mom would try on my jeans from time to time. “See, your pants fit me too,” she’d say, parading in front of the tall mirror inside her wardrobe door. She’d always glance at me, disapproving of how I dressed or how I looked. She only approved of the baggy clothes I pulled from Dad’s old army chest. 

But mostly, I remember the makeup—thick foundation that gave her a year-round tan. She wore it like armor, always presenting herself as younger. Polished. 

One day, as I was on my way into town, I spotted her walking down the Julianastraat, groceries swinging heavily from both hands. “Mom!” I called out. “Mom!” She didn’t budge. I tried again. Nothing. Later that night, she came to my room: “Listen,” she said. “I don’t want you to call me ‘Mom’ in public ever again. It makes me look old.” She wanted me to call her by her first name—Truus. As if having a teenage daughter exposed a version of herself she didn’t want the world to see.

The constant fighting over nothing wore me down. I vividly remember one shouting match—on the second-floor landing, right next to the steep stairs. We screamed at each other until our voices gave out. I’d had enough. I was almost done with high school, and desperately wanted to leave the house. Away from my mom.

I was sixteen, and had no idea which field of study I wanted to pursue. My original plan to attend the Royal Academy of Fine Arts had fallen through, and I asked my parents if I could take a year to figure things out. Perhaps take photography classes while I thought about what I really wanted to do. But my parents had other plans. They sent me to Schoevers, an upscale secretary school that trained girls to become executive assistants. To them, it was prestigious. An education that would guarantee a well-paying job later. They meant well, but to me it felt like being shoved into a box I didn’t fit in. A box labeled obedience and conformity. 

One of the classes there was steno—shorthand writing. It wasn’t supposed to be hard, except when you’re a lefty like me. I held (still do, actually) my pen in an overextended way—the awkward posture some lefties adopt when writing. It made it impossible to write fast enough to keep up with the business letters being dictated to us. Midway through a test, I had already failed, always a few sentences behind tempo. It wasn’t for lack of practice, though. I practiced so hard that calluses made two of my fingers look crooked. That’s how badly I wanted to succeed.

And yet, not everything in The Hague felt hard. I enjoyed my time alone. My new-found independence. And: I joined a gym—naturally, without telling my mom. Just a few blocks from my college room was a small gym. I had noticed it from the train as it rolled into the Laan van NOI station. The trainers, the other members—they made me feel so welcome. There was none of the shallow vanity Mom always warned me about. No body obsession, no judgment. Just people moving, sweating, working out. In that space, I felt more at ease in my own skin than I ever had at home.   

But even though I no longer lived at home, I was still longed for Mom's approval. And I thought I’d finally found it in my new boyfriend. His name was André.

I had just turned eighteen; he was twenty or twenty-one—I can’t remember exactly. André was a charmer—a professional one at that. Mom approved of him instantly. She fell for his smooth ways, and so did I—hard.

My intuition tried telling me to get the hell away from him on our first date. But that soft voice in my head was easy to ignore—I was already falling head over heels. And I didn’t listen. 

I remembered that little voice years later, after my relationship with André had brought me to the brink of emotional destruction. My long road to recovery included a promise I made to myself: never to lose touch with my intuition again—and to become quiet enough to hear those whispers when they came. 

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This was Part II of a two-fold story about how Dad's emotional absence and Mom's emotional manipulation—shaped by their own unhealed trauma—left its mark on my sense of self. 

Part I, "Daddy's Girl", was previously published.