My mother, recently separated from her abusive third husband and father of her two youngest children, wouldn’t leave the sanctuary of her bedroom all day. God only knows what she spent her time doing. My best speculation is that she chain-smoked, watched soap operas, and thought about killing herself. As the oldest of her five children, it’s been a running joke with my mother that as soon as I was born she declared me her babysitter. While C, A and I were at school, B and D, respectively 3 and 2 at the time, would be put in front of the television or told to play in their rooms. Sometimes they would be banished to their rooms for the entire day if they required too much attention. My mom would emerge from her smoky hiding place to prepare lunch, usually a quartered peanut butter sandwich on white bread and a sippee cup of 2% milk, but as soon as I was home from school they were my unspoken responsibility and she disappeared behind that closed door for the rest of the evening.

This continued on from the time that I was 12 until the day I graduated high school and moved out, ten days before my 18th birthday. I was allowed virtually no social life while C, only 18 months younger, participated in extra-curricular school activities and spent her free time with her friends.

During my 'sentence' my mom’s excuse for shrugging her responsibility off on me changed from depression to occupation. When I was away at church camp in the summer of my 14th year, my mom got the first job I remember her having. She worked at a deli, fixing sandwiches for barely more than minimum wage. After being wrongly accused of stealing, she left that job for a bartending gig at a local tavern. Her at-home hours went from bad to worse and so did her temperament. She was never home, she shouted at me if the four other children were acting up out of my control and I had to call her at work. We dreaded her days off, because we were starved for her affections and wanted to spend family time with her at the dinner table like we used to, but if she even acknowledged us all she did was yell.

Very little has changed with my mother except that now her alcoholism keeps her out of the house as much as her job does, and my role in her life has changed from the care-taker of her children to the peer daughter that picks up the pieces when she falls apart at the seams.

D and I are the only ones left to deal with her now. C and A have moved on to adult lives of their own, and B was banished to his strict father’s care after physically attacking my mom at a neighbor’s 4th of July picnic two and a half years ago.

D is a pretty typical teenager. She does a half-assed job on the dishes and seems to understand when I explain that if she washed them well the first time she would save herself the trouble of having to do them again, but then puts forth no more effort the next day. She haughtily demands a reason why when authority is shown, and she lives and breathes the friendship of four annoying, equally disciplinarily-short-changed neighborhood girls. For the most part she can be relied upon to tell the truth, to be where she says she’s going to be, and to be home at the time she’s told. If she makes a poor decision, it is usually found to be the influence of one of her aforementioned friends. She makes decent grades at school, desperately wants to be popular, and manages to be independent without getting into much trouble. I see a bit of my teenage self in her ability to make responsible decisions, but I have a hard time comprehending how she can be given so much free reign and still think her life is unfair. She comes and goes pretty much as she pleases and is simply required to check in every hour to let us know where she is. She stays overnight with one friend or another three or four nights a week, and never has to put up with much parental supervision. Her only chores are to do the dishes, take out the trash, and occasionally help pick up the rest of the house. As far as I can tell, she’s got it pretty easy.

Is it the destined plight of every adolescent girl to think that nobody’s life is as terrible as her own? That nobody over the age of 17 could possibly know what it’s like to be her? If I have children of my own, am I going to have to put up with the arrogance of a high schooler who thinks that he or she knows everything? Or is it possible to raise a well-balanced child who will never challenge your authority and understands that you do have a clue what you’re talking about? Are you there God? It’s me, Eryn..

**EDIT**
In an attempt to protect a bit of the privacy of my family, I am only going to use their first initial whe referring to them.