Monday 11 June 2007

Mother Issues

I have issues with my mother for many reasons, which hasn't escaped the notice of my therapist - every session gets reverted back to her sooner or later. One slightly trivial grumble I had with her until recently was the fact that she wouldn't let boyfriends sleep in the same room as me when they came to visit. This isn't such a big deal since I went back to uni, because obviously I'm not under her thumb there, but I'm having to move back home for the summer and it got me thinking.

The rule is simple and rigid: no sharing a room until you're engaged, and even then it's not guaranteed. Patently unfair, especially since pretty much everyone I know has been allowed to shag their boyfriend in the comfort of their own bedroom since the dawn of time. But my mother's devoutely Catholic and she will not allow me to fornicate while she's under the same roof.

However...

When I was going out with my last boyfriend, about two years ago, he lived a fair way away and we both had jobs so we could only see each other at weekends. And more often than not, on the weekends he came to stay, my mum would arrange for her and my dad to spend at least one night at their friends' house. It was never explicitly stated: "While I'm not here, feel free to fuck him six ways from Sunday in any room you choose". But clearly she knew that was what was going to happen, and I guess that was her stamp of approval, in an abstract way.

She was a touch wild as a teenager, from what I can gather, and I'd like to think she hasn't forgotten how you feel when you're in your late teens and early twenties - all you want is to spend 23 hours of the day naked with a man on top of you.

Like mother, like daughter. Although hopefully she wasn't quite as slutty as me - no-one likes to think of their mother like that do they.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Get this, when my sister was obviously pregnant with her then boyfriend's baby and living with him (!) my mom still made them sleep in separate rooms. So your mom is not the only one that has that hang up.

Still, I guess I can kind of see it from her perspective. (sorry) If I had a child, boy or girl, bring home a girlfriend, I guess I would want them sleeping separate in my house. I mean, obviously I can't control what they do when they are not under my roof, but at least I can in my house. But it would depend on the age of the child and the situation, I guess.