I am** five, and I still hold a certain sparkle in my eyes as I look up at my mother with pure awe and devout love for a woman who I assume to be my hero, my teacher, my one true love. Never would anyone replace a child’s love for their mother, right? She is the one who brought you into this world, and teaches you how to walk, how to speak, how to eat and how to be. She is the one who is there when you cry, when you scrape your knee, when you have a fever or just want a hug from mummy. No one can replace that. No one will love you like your mother…

I am eleven, and my mother is the bane of my life. She won’t let me go and see my friends because I didn’t clean my room. She is such a *****, right? We argue, we make up, then we argue some more… It’s a never ending spiral of “I HATE YOU, YOU’RE RUINING MY LIFE” and “I’m so sorry mum, I didn’t mean the things I said”. I still appreciate what she does- making my dinner and cleaning my room, giving me some cash to go into town with my friends, always being there when I need a cuddle. Sorry for being a horrible daughter mum, I love you…

I am fifteen, and I realize now that the last few years I have been nothing but horrible to my mother, who does all she can for me to have a good life even when she’s struggling. Finances are a *****, and life is **** but we still carry on trying to make the best out of it. I love her and she is the one constant in my life. Fallouts with friends and boy troubles? Forget all that, I’ve got my mum. I see my friends argue constantly with their mothers and all I can think is, “I’ve been there and trust me, one day you’ll regret it”. My mum tells me stories of how my dad is just an annoyance and not worth the space he takes up, and I’m ashamed to say it, but I believe her. Because she is my mother, she would never lie to me, right? Right…

I am eighteen, and my mother is no longer a part of my life. Words occasionally exchanged, I see her every few months when I come home from university. But it’s not the same. You see, my mother is not good. She is rude, and untruthful, and unfaithful and this is not what you want to see from your mother. She moved out, took her stuff and ****** right off. My mother, my hero, my one true love has done the unthinkable and left me behind. She can try to redeem herself by defending her actions and saying that she “deserves happiness too” but in reality, she’s wrong, and there’s nothing she can do…

I am now forgetting the good times, when my mother was… well, a mother.
I am now seeing her for what she really is, and I truly wish I wasn’t.
I am now realizing she is volatile. She’s the common denominator.
I am now becoming immune to the pain she causes, and to the promises she’s failed to keep before.
I am my mother’s child but she is not my mother, not anymore…