XX Factor: the blog

So Your Mother Married a Convict, Get Over It

“My relationship with my mom remains tentative and strained. I worry that it may be damaged permanently,” writes Double X contributor Anna Balkrishna, who goes into great detail about her mother’s exuberant attempt at happiness in an ultimately doomed second marriage. “In 1996, my mother met and later married a man incarcerated in a New Mexico state prison, an inmate who began as her pen pal and ended up as her lover,” she writes. Balkrishna shares her Modern Love-style tale of a second chance gone predictably wrong, titled "My Mother Married Her Prison Pen Pal." The author tells us that 13 years ago, when she was launching her college life, her mother, now in her 50s, “would prod me and my sister to take photos of her in the backyard wearing slinky slips from Victoria's Secret” to send to the mother’s inmate boyfriend, and of her own resentment of the mother who emotionally abandoned her in favor of the unworthy new love. Balkrishna also chronicles her now-twice divorced parent’s emotional recovery: “My mother is back in her house and currently renovating all traces of him away.”

I feel great sympathy for both the mother and the daughter in this story and admire my young colleague’s efforts to examine the painful semi-estrangement she describes. (“We have reached a stalemate, sometimes respectful, sometimes not.”)

It is the nature of families to know details and maintain strongly held perspectives on other member’s most personal foibles. Loving but dysfunctional relationships are practically the definition of family, and traditional roles shift as children become independent. I wrote about my son a year and a half ago in a personal essay that was published in Slate. Even though he read the final draft, and not only gave me permission to submit it, but suggested edits (sub in: “he thought his parents would disown him” for “... were going to kill him”), when it published, six pages of reader remarks, nearly universally negative (yes, I read them all), in Slate's "The Fray" suggested I had been offensively invasive of my college-age son’s privacy. I wondered if I had broken some unwritten rule of family discretion.

If there is such a commandment (thou shalt portray relatives only in the most favorable light), many essayists are guilty of breaking it. Emily B. wrote here about the fuzzy boundaries of the parent-child confidentiality rule. In the reaction to my article, one Fray poster suggested I was actually trying to send my young son a disciplinary message that I had been unable to convey more privately. I don’t agree but I admit it gave me pause. As for Anna, I hope she will able to get past whatever compelled her to write so disapprovingly about her lonely mother and can find her way to visit her for a heart-to-heart talk.

Tags: modern love column, prison, relationships

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Bonnie Goldstein Trained investigator, experienced mother and beginning blogger.

Comments

A Few Comments by the Writer... and Her Mother

By: Anna Balkrishna | Fri, 06/19/2009 - 11:04

Bonnie Goldstein makes some valid, if cynical, observations about my essay, "My Mom Married Her Prison Pen Pal." Some of her points echo my own fears about the article—namely, that writing about my mother could be exploitive. Was I wrongly co-opting her experience as my own? Was I trying to validate my point of view at her expense? I told myself that we share this story jointly—it's maybe the biggest thing to happen to either of us—and that I should proceed cautiously to tell the truth. But what is the truth, and how to tell it?

Like Goldstein, I received my mom's approval to write this story. And like Goldstein, I incorporated my mom's corrections into my final draft. (She was keen to clarify, for example, that she left Joe not because she was jealous of his mistress, but because she couldn't condone his lying.) I tried to stick to the facts of my mom's case, and only add my interpretation where it concerned my feelings or my relationship with her. At the very least, I could tell my own story without putting words in her mouth. At best, I might explain her thinking. Goldstein brings up a good insight here: That perhaps I do not have the right to act as my mother's mouthpiece, whether well intended or not. This begets an unanswerable question for writers in general: Should a writer tell another person's story? Am I violating "an unwritten rule of family discretion," even when the family member has given permission?

I cannot speak to unwritten rules. I can only speak to the understanding between my mother and myself. I object to Goldstein's suggestion that my essay is a poor substitute for a real heart-to-heart with my mom. We have had countless conversations about Joe over the years, many of them in the service of writing this essay. Writing it, in fact, has been the most intimate thing my mom and I have done together in years. The collaboration has helped us work through many of our half-formed thoughts; ironically, it has helped us to "get over it" more than anything else. Our relationship is indeed strained. I say so not to scold, but to acknowledge. We are both relieved by this admission. Stating unpleasant facts is not the same as disapproving or assigning blame.

I asked my mother for her own response to Goldstein's post. She said: "I live my life in an open manner and have nothing to hide.  Each of us lives a life that can have episodes that may speak to someone else and perhaps even offer a gentle lesson, if that lesson be only that we are all human. As for your reactions to my relationship with Joe, I was well aware of the displeasure of my family.  It is only in the face of disapproval that we learn what is really important to us and helps us identify our core beliefs.  Thank you, Anna, for helping me do that."

To that I say: Thank you, Mom.

Rude

By: lightening | Fri, 06/19/2009 - 10:34

She's hurt and she wanted to write about it. Of course she disapproved of the relationship and her mother's actions, that's the point of the whole article. I feel terrible for her, having been through something similar (but not as intense) when my mom dated a loser post-divorce. It's very hard and scary to see someone you love desperately act so bizarre. I think this article is rude.

The Original Article Was Problematic

By: Joyce | Thu, 06/18/2009 - 19:35

I agree with Bonnie Goldstein that the original article was problematic. The mother had completely ended the relationship with her second husband, including at an emotional level. So Balkrishna was not in the difficult situation of trying to decide what she should do to try get her mother to leave a self-destructive situation. The time and the money that her mother spent on this man are gone and there is no way to get either of them back. However, the mother has made it very clear that she is not going to be spending any more of either on him.

Why is he even a topic of conversation? Who is bringing him up? I did not get the impression that Balkrishna's mother was the one who wanted to keep talking about her second husband. It serves no purpose for Balkrishna to keep scolding her mother about him.

Before making any comments about the relationship Balkrishna should ask herself whether she would consider what she was about to say intrusive, unhelpful or mean if the situation were reversed and Balkrishna's mother made that comment about one of Balkrishna's former relationships. If the answer is yes, then Balkrishna should keep her mouth shut.

The ending of the article was completely self-delusional. Balkrishna says that she is upset that her mother no longer strives to be happy. If she wants her mother to be happy she should stop telling her mother that she wasted a great deal of money and time on a con man. You don't help someone decide to strive for happiness by telling them that you think they are stupid.

Cognitive Dissonance

By: akgirl | Thu, 06/18/2009 - 18:47

Balkrishna's article is fine example of the fine line adult children walk in wondering if their parents need parents, but knowing that there is almost an impenetrable boundary until it's too late. One hopes one is not left with regrets. Her mother has decided to process the relationship as a positive one because to do otherwise would leave her (seemingly) with a life full of regretted relationships.

Your original article as well as this current post reflect a similar cognitive dissonance that is not actually present in Balkrishna's commentary on her own emotions. "Mistakes were made, but not by me" is not really a valid literary criticism of one's colleagues' work, particularly not in the case of Balkrishna's article.

These are big issues, actually.

By: nikita | Thu, 06/18/2009 - 16:35

My husband's mother is a sweet lady. She's also impulsive, rash, incapable of being single, and in general has displayed a large range of unwise behaviors in the last few years that involved her aggressive pursuit of marriage with both her ex-husband and the mobster living next door to her, the loss of pretty much all the equity in her modest house, and other dangerous but not catacstrophic consequences of acting irrationally. I suppose we could "get over it" as could Balkrishna, but the fact of the matter is that it raises serious questions about her judgment, motivations, and other aspects of the person we think we know.

What's the point?

By: meggordon.ny.1984 | Thu, 06/18/2009 - 16:02

I don't see the point of this article. It is just a way for you to push your essay about smothering your son and not allowing him to grow up into an adult. Are you asking for more negative comments along the lines of "Hopefully he's paying his own rent and groceries now", "You were going to fly across the country to help him 'settle in?!'", "If you are filling out the college applications, it is pretty obvious that your child is not interested in attending college", "Why did he have to attend college across the country alone when all he's ever known is a parent who will step and in do each and every single thing for him (probably his laundry too, right?), etc. etc.

Balkrishna's essay was much more interesting and "get over it" is not an appropriate response to her problems. I can understand how disturbing it is when a family member-your mother who's suppose to be responsible and mature-engages in dangerous, reckless, nonsensical behavior for an extended period of time. Thank goodness the daughter was an adult and not a child living with the mother's serial rapist second husband.

I hope the mother and daughter can heal their emotional wounds and their relationship. I hope you let your son grow up. Maybe that's the point of this piece?