What My Mother and I Don't Talk About: Fifteen Writers Break the Silence by Michele Filgate

It's always given me a little thrill when, as an adult, I've confessed things to my mother that I did as a kid that she was completely oblivious to. There are really no consequences at this point: no possibility of being grounded, of losing the phone or of not being able to hang out with my friends. But there are still plenty of things that I wouldn't tell my mother about in a million years. It's not for fear of teenage consequences at this point, it's just that mother/child relationships can be sensitive. They seem to come with their own kind of built-in baggage. Sometimes it's just best to keep certain things to yourself, even if they're far, far in the past. 

It's for this reason that I admire and applaud each of the fifteen writers who contributed to this book. It took a lot of bravery to dig deep and tell these truths about their relationships with their mothers with such candid spirit. Some of the writers' mothers are deceased, so it's from a place of relative safety that the authors were able to let out their secrets. Others' mothers are still alive, which adds a whole other dimension to what they chose to say and how they chose to say it. 

So many writers become inhibited when it comes to writing about their family members. After all, there are so many tricky emotions tied up in our life stories and our original core relationships. Some families are intensely private and would sooner die than have someone read about them. Others are more aloof, but when it comes down to it, it's still a very delicate balance for an author to decide if they tell all of the facts straight-up, consequences be damned, or if they choose to blur some details to make them more easily digestible than their original version. 

In this particular book, all of the writers were upfront with their stories even when it wasn't an easy task. There were issues of abuse, neglect, physical disabilities, wealth and step-families. There were also all different sorts of mothers: they were overbearing, cruel, loving, unfulfilled, free-spirited, lonely, proud...There is no such thing as a perfect family although we've all daydreamed about being part of one at some point. But some of these stories prove that when we think that the grass must be greener on the other side, in some cases, it turns out there's no grass at all, just an empty lot where that green, green grass should be.

It wasn't lost on me that I was reading this book while visiting my family for the weekend over Mother's Day. It got me thinking about all of the things that my own mother and I don't talk about. I'm just not sure I'm quite brave enough to have that conversation quite yet. Maybe I'll just keep it all buried safely away for now.

Judge the cover: 2/5