Thoughts on mother-daughter relationships, inspired by Amy Tan’s The Bonesetter’s Daughter
I remember with fondness the first time my mom shared stories of her early life with me. The topic came out of nowhere, and I recall feeling excited, listening intently, and seeing her in a new light.
Mom’s eyes gleamed with childish glee and, at that moment, I saw a woman whose identity had nothing to do with me.
Since then, I have seen Mom beyond being my mother in all its role model, caring, and authoritative sense. That day, I saw her as a human, with her unique background and upbringing. She’s different, yet we are also so similar. I have realized that if we were the same age, we could be the best of friends, and fast!
It was a precious moment in part also because Mom trusted me enough to share her most treasured memories. Not all mothers can do that, even in fiction. In Amy Tan’s The Bonesetter’s Daughter, for one, mothers struggled to lay bare a part of their past to their girls for heartbreaking reasons, leading to tragic results.
The Bonesetter’s Daughter: A generational tale of mothers with tragic pasts
Tan’s multi-generational tale follows Ruth, a ghostwriter in 1990s America, who had to deal with her mom’s deteriorating memory. The early chapters show Ruth fumbling to accept that her mother, named LuLing, might be suffering from the early stages of dementia. As LuLing’s illness progresses, so grow Ruth’s worries, until she decides to pause and reevaluate her priorities.
Readers will see at the onset that Ruth isn’t exactly on good terms with her mom. The two operate with a wall between them, established there in the context of cultural differences. LuLing spent most of her formative years up to early adulthood in China, exposed to curses, ghosts, and the hardships caused by war. On the other hand, Ruth was born and raised in America and grew up with a liberated, Western mindset, albeit mildly restrained by her Chinese roots.
Ruth did a lot of retrospection when she learned of her mom’s illness and saw how dangerous dementia could be. I could relate to her — her response is what most of us would do when someone dear to us, whom we were taking for granted, suddenly showed signs of disappearing.
From those look-backs, I learned about Ruth’s difficulties as a girl with two identities (Chinese and American) and how it became a communication hurdle between her and her mother. The two were pathetically bad at expressing themselves! Attempts in meaningful conversations, at least from how Ruth recounted them, often conclude with her giving up and hiding, or LuLing getting frustrated and threatening to kill herself. They hurt each other in many ways, yet could never completely sever their bonds because they know they love each other despite their contradictory words and actions. And for that same reason, Ruth tried to keep her mom at a distance.
Ironically, her retrospections also gave Ruth a much-needed push to revisit her relationship with her mom. And I love that her solution didn’t involve the usual heart-to-heart conversations (which, considering their track record, would only bode disaster). Instead, she turned to her mother’s writings.
The power of stories: How a mother’s past changed a daughter’s perspective
LuLing wrote extensive recountings of her past for years before she began showing signs of a failing memory. Ruth received several pages of those writings but couldn’t get into them because she’s busy with work and, I daresay, she’s grown indifferent. Of course, she took a 180-degree turn when she realized she needed to be there for her mother.
She had the writings translated (they’re in Chinese, and she regretted not taking her language lessons with her mom seriously). Upon reading the account’s translation, she learned about why LuLing is who she is today, in all her illogical fearfulness, resentfulness, and pessimism, and in all her protectiveness and eagerness to be a reliable mother for her girl.
Ruth also learned that LuLing was just as rebellious and resentful of her mom (Ruth’s grandma) as she was. However, unlike her situation, LuLing’s defiance resulted in far worse consequences.
It was a turning point for Ruth. Reading her mother’s history helped fill in the communication gaps she had with her, allowing her to see where LuLing was coming from. She learned that her mom’s fears and worries aren’t nonsensical or oppressive but misguided. Finally, she had time to listen to what her mother had to say, and she understood. She started sympathizing.
As children, we often perceive our mothers only in the context of our existence as their kids, so knowing about their history before we were born provides crucial information about their identity. This information completes our image of them. We learn more about their humanity. We see them as individuals.
And in that way, we learn to love them more as their own persons.
Taking time to learn about a loved one’s history does wonders
Learning about the history of our parents can help contextualize things. And no, your mom sharing with you her darkest past does not necessarily mean she’s trauma-dumping. If your mother told you her story the way LuLing did, know that she did it because she wants you to see her as a person with a past, present, and future, hoping that if you can understand, you two can finally start having real conversations.
And if your mom is like LuLing, who, in her accounts, included her admission of her mistakes, you would realize that your mother has worked and is working to better herself. Just like you.
Misunderstandings will happen because we exist in different generations and have experienced different upbringings. And saying sorry after accepting that we’ve wronged each other is still the best way to close the gap between parent and child.
But if openly apologizing is too high a hurdle, knowing our parents on a deeper level first is a good start. It will remind us that our moms and dads are humans just like us. No parents are perfect, but we take comfort in knowing that they are trying their best.
That was how her mother had always been, difficult, oppressive, and odd. And in exactly that way, LuLing had loved her. Ruth knew that, felt it. No one could have loved her more. Better perhaps, but not more.
As long as we can feel this parental love from our old folks, isn’t everything else just background noise?
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