I am 23, going on 24 soon. I have a college degree, but I’m pursuing dance professionally and I work at Olive Garden and I live with my mom. It’s not like I’m going to school for anything else right now, or I have kids. And while I don’t owe anyone an explanation I’m staring reality in the face and just shaking my head. It is not until I say it out loud that I remember all of the negative connotations that surround “living with one’s mom.”
We, as a society frown upon adults who still live with their parents and we make starch conclusions about their lives and more specifically their work ethic. Folks make the assumption that if you still do not have a place of your own, you are not financially stable, you are lazy, and you have no drive or ambition whatsoever. I have come to learn that these generalizations are false. In fact there are a sea of people I know who live with their parents for a number of reasons but none of those reasons have to do with them being “lazy” or “void of ambition.” I am also learning that immediately moving out of the house is not a practice shared among all cultures, and so the press to live singularly shouldn’t be a press at all. Because I won’t be living on my own for at least perhaps another year, I have decided to take this time to process what living with my mom has been like and how I plan to grow from it.
After having been here for about 7 months I admit that living with my mom is hard. I went from being on my own thousands of miles away in an apartment with 5 girls to being in an apartment with my mom and my two sisters. I went from paying $900 worth of rent to just paying for house bills. Many of the unreconciled issues that my mother and I had in our relationship when I was still a teenager have been exposed. I have learned that within my family, I am conflict avoidant. I have grown accustomed to removing myself from the environment that has caused me pain instead of dealing with the problems head-on. But when I’m literally feet away from my mother (her room is right next to mine), it is nearly impossible to run. I have old demons staring me in the face; reminding me of why I wanted to leave. Beyond that typical “don’t tell me what to do” sort of attitude I find that I am extremely impatient with my mom. When she miscommunicates, I become upset very quickly. Her little quirks have become annoying to me, and I can see how we both have the tendency to want attention. Living with her has shown me the qualities about myself that I dislike. Qualities that are unsavory.
When I come home from work (depending on how exhausted I am) I can be mean and rude and lazy. I might toss a cup here, or fail to put away my laundry. I am snappy with my her and less empathetic. When she asks me to do certain things I sometimes have an attitude, like it’s the biggest inconvenience in the world. And I had no idea that I was even capable of displaying those type of characteristics until I began living with her again and working in the way that I’ve been working. The ugly parts of me have been exposed and I don’t like it at all. I don’t like that I act that way with her.
Living with my mom also forces there to be this sort of accountability that I do and do not want. The accountability is “forced” because it is not the consensual type of accountability that two friends decide they will have. She, as a mother feels an obligation to hold me accountable for my actions because she in turn is being held accountable for how she raises me. Therefore, when she sees me displaying behavior that she feels to be outside of character, or contrary to Christian behavior she calls it out. I appreciate her for that, because I do need to be called out when my attitude is funky or when I’m not living like Christ did. But I find her “checking me” bothersome when her ideals are informed by culture and not by the Word (i.e. She lowkey feels like I should be praise dancing at church and not in a studio. She does not see how one can be Christian and dance on tour for a Diddy concert).
Being in this space of “figuring it out” career-wise is not fun. I am more at peace for sure, but it definitely isn’t fun haha. And it is not fun PRECISELY because I do not have the financial clearance to live on my own while I’m figuring it out. I’m stumbling here, at home, with her. (side eye) Because she is here I DO feel the weight of my decisions a bit more. “What I’m doing with my life” is frequently under scrutiny and I receive sermon upon lesson upon speech from her about “how not to end up like she did.” While these speeches are often unwarranted, they reside in the back of my mind and they haunt me. There are times when I feel like I haven’t accomplished much of anything because I am still living under her roof, and I don’t understand why I am not hard-wired to just pick a job and work it.
She preaches job security, and backup plans, and retirement, and houses and cars and comfort because those are things she feels like she does not have. And to a certain extent I understand her, but I also have my own ideas about money, how much of it I should be making, the difference between “comfort” and “necessity” between “working to live” and “living through work.” I want to life a life that brings glory to Christ, a life that is full of freedom and resistance, one in which I use my gifts to bring light and love to the people around me. I’m trying to figure out how to attend to my passions, and purposes all at once while she pays the rent. I work and I pay bills, yes, but I do have moments where I feel like a total oxymoron.
I do, one day (in the near future) plan to have a place of my own. I’d love to share an apartment with my sister (that’d be lit). But until then God is showing me that I need to work on my relationship with my mom. Working does not give me a pass to be careless with my belongings or to lash out on her. Working a job that is not my dream job does not give me a pass to take out my frustrations on her, or to be angry at her. I am learning how to communicate my feelings to her in a healthy way. I am learning how to be quiet before spewing fire. I am learning to talk about issues as and when they arise, instead of allowing the problems to fester. I am learning to respect her viewpoint on things while also being okay with having my own, YES EVEN WHILE LIVING IN MY MOTHER’S HOUSE.
lafemmecompatissante 