I feel as though I’m caught between a rock and a hard place—my own family and my mother, who still behaves like a child. It often seems I’m not living my own life but someone else’s, as if my happiness is forever postponed because of a grown woman who refuses to grow up. My mother. She’s sixty years old, mind you, yet she carries on like a teenager, drifting through life, incapable of making a single serious decision. And me? I’m torn—between her, my children, my husband, the household, my work. All of it, shouldered alone.
She had me right after school, in Birmingham. Back then, she believed love was all one needed to be happy. My father adored her, protected her, carried her through life as though she were made of glass. He worked, brought home money, solved every problem. My mother never held a job—not a single day. She scarcely kept house, either—that was my grandmother’s duty. And my grandfather? He turned a blind eye. They thought the less she strained herself, the better. And so they raised a helpless woman.
When I was eleven, my father died suddenly—his heart gave out. I still remember that evening: the tears, the screams, my mother’s frantic voice, and the silence that stretched on for years afterward. We moved in with my grandparents—she couldn’t manage on her own. She lay in bed for days on end, refusing to rise, while I, a child, took on more than I should have. Cooking, studying, staying quiet, staying out of the way.
Grandmother, shattered by grief, passed away seven months later. Before she died, she left her two-bedroom flat to me. *”You’re the only sensible one among us,”* she said. My mother stayed with Grandfather, who bore the weight of her, the house, the medicines. Work, pension, doctors, bills—all on him. And my mother? She stayed the same: sitting, complaining, weeping, pitying herself. Occasionally, she’d try to find love, but her *”romances”* never lasted more than a few months. No man stayed—how could they live with her?
Then I grew up. Went to university, met William. We fell in love, married, fixed up Grandmother’s old flat. By then, it was mine—I was the one who felt like its proper mistress. We had our first son, then a daughter three years later. I kept everything moving as best I could, juggling it all—until my mother crashed back into our lives.
First, Grandfather died. Then, almost at once, his sister, who’d helped with the children. And my mother was left alone. No family, no home of her own—she refused to live by herself in the old house and instead stayed in the same flat where William and I raised our children.
She can’t manage a thing. Not paying the electricity, not calling a handyman, not dealing with the council. The bills piled up for months until I stepped in. I begged her to find work—even as a caretaker or a carer—but she wouldn’t hear of it. She’d cry, complain of headaches, high blood pressure, how *”nothing matters anyway.”*
Once, she flooded the neighbours—forgot to lower the washing machine hose. I had to sort it out. She just wept as the furious neighbour shouted. He raged, I flushed with shame, she trembled—yet somehow, *I* was the one to blame.
Now she rings me three, four times a day. If the neighbours are loud, if a lightbulb’s gone, if she doesn’t know what porridge to make. Not a shred of shame in her voice. And I have no strength left, no words. I come home exhausted from work to two children and a husband who wants my attention, too. But I have no right to collapse—because my mother is waiting, again, for me to rescue her.
I can’t rely on her. I don’t dare leave her with the grandchildren—she might forget to feed them, or wander off and get lost. Everything in her world feels half-real, as though she’s peering through a fog.
Sometimes I wonder: does she simply not *want* to change? Is it easier for her to be weak? To shove everything onto others? As long as she’s the victim, someone will pity her. And me? I’m burning out. Silently.
I can’t abandon her. She’s still my mother. But carrying her like this is more than I can bear. I cling to the hope that one day, she’ll wake up and realise—she’s sixty. This is her last chance to grow up. To take responsibility. To stand on her own.
But deep down, I fear her life will always be this way—tantrums, complaints, leaning on others. And me? I’m just tired of being the adult for two.