Mom, why did you give birth to me?

Alina Vitukhnovskaya, writer

Now in Russian society there is a split in three directions. Politically, in connection with well-known events. Worldview. In particular, associated with the massive rejection of religion and traditionalist concepts, in principle. And in terms of generations, first of all, in relation to the rejection of the life experience of their parents.

I will explain the last thesis separately. Several times I was forced to advertise my family history. But if history was relatively resolved in its technical aspect, then the problem itself, in its existential basis, remained.

Against the background of indignation at Russian "killing mothers" and their children, the so-called "cultural environment" looks decent, humane, humanistic. But often just looks. Therefore, I would like to present the details of my childhood and family history, which until now have not merged into a single picture, but have now merged.

It is strange and scary to consider the fact of one's birth as some kind of infernal fairy tale, where the "princess" is fed to the "evil deity". And, ostensibly, for her own good. My grandmother was a good artist and even a romantic idealist. But not in everything. As far as her son was concerned, she was an ordinary mother, uncritical and forgiving. Seeing that the child she gave birth to turned into an evil monster, she decided that his own child would, in turn, "heal" him. The result of the approval of such a fatal decision was my birth and immersion in an archetypal hell.

My mother was an educated woman, but naive, led and influenced. Surrounded by this kind of female support, the father continued to rage. He insulted both his grandmother and his mother. Until he got them out of the house. My grandmother ended her days in a workshop, little adapted to life. And my father, meanwhile, survived her sister, my aunt, Lydia, in a nursing home. Why were all these women silent? I do not find a rational answer to this question. And irrational would sound too scary.

My parents divorced when I was 6 years old. Until now, I have been “blamed” for the fact that I stayed with my father. I have to admit that I didn't have a good choice. Both father and mother disposed of their lives so illiterately and mediocrely that it is not clear which of them would have been worse for me. Already at the age of five, with some kind of inner instinct, I was aware of these people "as strangers." And perhaps it saved me from serious mental trauma.

However, it is worth noting that even a smart child like me can be easily deceived. In principle, deception of children is the work of so-called adults. This is their only way to communicate with children. It just gets more sophisticated as they get older. Therefore, infantile Russian adults are just swindling children. Which were initially given not just an incomplete, but a twisted, distorted, perverted picture of reality.

“Mom, why did you give birth to me?” - this is the "basic philosophical question" of any doomed being, a cry into the deaf Russian abyss. However, this question remains taboo for quite understandable practical reasons. In the nature of an archaic, traditionalist society, there is no mechanism for reformatting and updating. It can only rot inside the hard shell of a nightmarish nesting doll, varnished on the outside for an unlucky foreign tourist.

My readers talk about whether they asked this question in childhood and what answer they got. I want to note that my survey on the relevant topic received an unusually large response, in comparison with the previous ones. Which suggests that this topic is far from being sick only for me.

One of the first commentators responded as follows:

“I didn’t ask my mom. But as a student, he once asked random passers-by on the street - why did they have children. As part of an impromptu poll. I remember there was a funny answer: “I don’t know why the first one. And the second - of course, to get an apartment.

My old friend Pavel writes:

“About my parents: Worthless people who did nothing for me, not knowing not only why they gave birth to me, but also why they themselves lived, live, in the world. From early childhood, the thought did not leave me that I was born in the wrong family, in the wrong country, and at the wrong time!

Someone has put it this way:

“My mother answered that there was a setting - they gave birth to you, give birth to you too - that's all. Without any sentimentality and some kind of love there. And my friend, who drank, when asked why she gave birth to four children, answered - otherwise my husband and I would have drunk ourselves.

There was also this comment:

“Usually it was customary to shout in the heat of the moment ‘I didn’t ask to give birth to me’. In response, they also usually beat backhand in the face, then threw a tantrum, then bashfully reconciled. Deep Soviet traditions.

And even this one:

“Russian-Soviet mothers were unlikely to give birth 'why', rather 'why'. Because there was bad contraception, because you have to be like everyone else, reproduce the family, preserve your own health, and so on. Hell is here, Alina. There will be no answers "then to love you and make you strong". What my mother answered me to this question, I won’t even write in public, so as not to dishonor the memory of the deceased. Sorry".

In the context of the ongoing socio-political upheavals, many are wondering whether it is worth continuing relationships with toxic parents at all? I would answer it like this. It is impossible to try to fix or change them. Therefore, communication with them can be minimized, limited to formally polite, and in extreme cases, not communicate at all. At least some significant period, which, perhaps, will serve as an indulgence for both them and you. This is only in the case when the common expression "time heals" can still be appropriate.

But it should be understood almost unequivocally that with a high degree of probability the experience of your parents will not only not be useful to you, but even harmful. Unless, of course, you want to live your whole life in a haze of nightmarish mothers, necrophilic victims and senseless suffering.