This week, Chloé Thibaud wonders if it’s possible to be a feminist and cut ties with one’s (toxic) mother…
“Stop stuffing yourself, you’ll end up obese!”, “A 12 in French? With all the books I buy you?”, “You know if you stay this clumsy… no one will ever love you!” Have you ever heard these phrases? In Dear Mother (Glénat), Alix has everything to be happy – a job she loves, a loving husband, three children – and yet, something is wrong. This something has no name, no face; it’s a shadow that hangs over everything. The shadow of a “mother” who isn’t really one. “Those words, ‘you’re beautiful,’ I’m pretty sure my mother never said them to me,” the heroine confides. “At least, I don’t remember it.” I read this graphic novel by Sophie Adriansen (script) and Mademoiselle Caroline (art and colors) just before Mother’s Day. Deeply moved by the accuracy and realism of this story, I first realized how lucky I am to have a mother who has told me “I love you” almost every day since I was born. Then I became aware of the number of people around me who have suffered or are still suffering from not being in that situation. “According to experts, 20% of the population grew up with a ‘toxic’ parent,” we read on the back cover. Sophie Adriansen is one of them; she drew inspiration from her own story to write it. “It took me a very long time to become aware of this maternal toxicity,” she explains. “ I felt like a failure in my mother-daughter relationship. I had to confront this idea that you are necessarily an ungrateful daughter if you question your mother’s point of view, if you don’t say ‘yes’ to everything, if you set limits. I had to feel ready to assert myself with my mother, against my mother, and that took time.”
