Cages & Wings: A Tale of Two Childhoods

A parent's view from a far window

The Weight of Silence and the Lightness of Digital Laughter

The taste of copper pennies floods my mouth as I remember the way fear lived permanently under my tongue in 1985. That metallic tang of anxiety, sharp and unforgiving, coats my throat like a film of desperate quiet. Every morning brought the same ritual: I tiptoed across hardwood floors that seemed to scream betrayal with each creak, my bare feet cold against the unforgiving surface, while I calculated the exact angle of my mother's mood based on the way her coffee cup sat on the kitchen counter.

Tonight, many years later, my phone buzzes with a text from Ylse that makes me smile so hard my cheeks ache. A photo of her and her friends at an escape room, their faces flushed with victory and adrenaline, followed by a string of laughing emojis.

The contrast hits me like a physical blow, settling deep in my chest where old wounds still pulse with phantom pain. Where I learned to make myself small, transparent, forgettable, Ylse expands to fill every digital space she touches. Where I swallowed words like bitter medicine, she sends me videos of herself laughing with friends, shares her victories and frustrations with the casual confidence of someone who has never been told her voice is too loud, too much, too there.

Her texts arrive like little bursts of joy throughout my day—photos of her life, screenshots of memes that made her think of me. Each message is a window into a life lived fully, fearlessly, authentically. Each one represents a freedom I never knew when I was that young.

The Architecture of Control vs The Geography of Trust

The house I grew up in was a masterpiece of psychological architecture. Every room was designed to amplify my mother's presence while diminishing mine to nearly nothing. The walls themselves seemed to pulse with her moods, the wood paneling in the living room fading and brightening like a fucked-up barometer of her emotional state. When she was in one of her episodes, the very air became thick and oppressive, like breathing through wet wool.

My world in 1985 extended exactly as far as my mother's need for control could reach. The house, the yard, wherever I was least likely to be a distraction from her driving performance—these were the limits of my geography. The phone—that bulky beige monstrosity tethered to the kitchen wall—might as well have been a museum piece for all the access I had to it. Even the rare times I was permitted to answer it, she would hover nearby, her ears straining to catch every word, ready to snatch the receiver away if the conversation went in directions she couldn't control.

My child’s geography spans cities, states, experiences that would have been unimaginable to my teenage self. Through our phone calls and text threads, I watch her navigate escape rooms, late-night dinners where teenagers have been gathering, doing things, living life. Her world is bounded not by fear but by reasonable safety considerations, trust built through consistent communication, and the understanding that freedom comes with responsibility.

The Fortress of False Love vs The Foundation of Digital Connection

In my childhood house, love was a weapon disguised as affection, deployed strategically to maintain control and crush any hint of autonomous development. Typically, narcissistic parents are exclusively and possessively close to their children and are threatened by their children's growing independence. Every gesture of supposed care came with strings attached, conditions that would shift without warning based on her mercurial emotional needs.

I learned to read micro-expressions like a forensic analyst, scanning her face for the first signs of an oncoming storm. The way her left eye would twitch slightly when she felt ignored. The particular tightness around her mouth when she was preparing to launch into one of her monologues about how much she sacrificed for me. The theatrical sigh that preceded a guilt trip so elaborate it could have won a fucking Tony Award.

Communication in that house was always fraught, every word analyzed for hidden meaning, every silence interpreted as rejection or rebellion. The rare times friends called, she would listen from the kitchen extension, her breathing barely audible but unmistakably present. Privacy was a concept that applied only to her; my thoughts, feelings, and relationships were community property in her narcissistic kingdom.

Compare this to the easy flow of communication between my child and myself. Our text threads read like conversations between friends who genuinely enjoy each other's company. There was no fear in her voice, no careful calibration of her words to avoid triggering an emotional explosion. She sought my input because she valued my perspective, not because she was required to include me in every decision. Nor would I ever expect it.

The Sound of Different Doors: Physical vs Digital Boundaries

The auditory landscape of my childhood was designed around my mother's need for omniscience. Doors that creaked warnings when opened, floorboards that announced every footstep, walls thin enough that she could monitor every conversation, every breath, every moment of my existence. The house itself was her surveillance system, engineered to ensure that I could never fully escape her watchful presence.

In contrast, the boundaries between Ylse and me exist in digital space, created through mutual respect rather than imposed through fear. Where ever she is, our connection happens through screens and signals, but it feels more authentic than any interaction I had with my own mother under the same roof.

Her phone buzzes with notifications from multiple friend groups, college preparation apps, her schedule, and yes, messages from me. But she chooses when to respond, how much to share, which moments require immediate communication and which can wait. This isn't neglect or distance—it's healthy autonomy in action.

Yesterday, her voice carried the easy confidence of someone who trusts that checking in is enough, that I don't need to monitor her every movement to feel secure in our relationship. Freedom is a taste that we all must enjoy, and learn from. Alas, some of us never grew up with that freedom or that growth.

The Texture of Different Fears

Paralysis vs Navigation

Fear shaped both of our childhoods, but the quality and source of that fear couldn't be more different. My fears in 1985 were immediate, personal, and completely justified: the fear of triggering my mother's wrath, of being abandoned if I showed too much independence, of never being good enough to earn the conditional love that was dangled just out of reach like a carrot I could never quite grasp.

These were fears that lived in my body, in the constant tension of my shoulders, in the way I learned to breathe shallowly so as not to take up too much space, in the chronic stomachaches that plagued me throughout my teens. They were fears that served no protective purpose, that made me smaller and weaker rather than wiser or more capable.

When my child’s fears reach me, they're the normal, healthy concerns of a teenager who understands that the world can be dangerous but refuses to let that knowledge paralyze her. She calls me when she's stressed, and that’s how it should be. She is far more worldly and expansive than I was at the same age. A person of immeasurable beauty and kindness, yet also caution and healthy skepticism.

The Revolution of Ordinary Digital Moments

Sometimes the most radical thing about my child’s adolescence is how beautifully ordinary our communication has become. The way she randomly asks questions or makes jokes. It’s just normal. The way a child is supposed to grow up and learn. And explore. And fail. And yet, learn more.

She can, and does, disagree with my suggestions about things or summer plans without fearing that her dissent will result in emotional warfare. Our phone conversations become negotiations where we both win sometimes, lose sometimes, and often find third options that work for everyone involved. The idea that a parent and child could be on the same team, working together toward the common goal of healthy development, would have been incomprehensible in my childhood home.

In my childhood, birthdays were performances where I was both the audience and the supporting actor, never the star. I hate my birthday. I despise it. Normally I try to just sleep through it and cocoon. My preferences didn't matter; what mattered was how well the acknowledgement of it reflected on my mother as a parent. Another way to elevate her higher than everyone else around her.

The Weight of Isolation vs The Joy of Digital Connection

Social isolation wasn't an accident in my childhood; it was a carefully maintained strategy. My mother would find fault with most everything, every person who showed interest in my development, every adult who might offer me a different perspective on what normal looked like. Her constant refrain of "You don't need other people when you have me" became a lullaby of psychological imprisonment sung in the key of false devotion.

My child’s social world unfolds across multiple platforms and communication channels, and I get to witness its richness through the stories she shares with me. Deep down she has learned to tell stories the same way I do. She weaves these beautiful narratives about things with the same flair that I used to. Her group chat with her closest friends (where they send each other daily affirmations and help), her collaborative Instagram account, her casual texts with classmates about everything from lunch plans to existential questions about the future.

When she tells me about spending two hours talking to her boyfriend, her voice carries the matter-of-fact tone of someone who understands that supporting friends is just part of being human. The casual way she describes these moments of connection and mutual support makes my throat tight with emotions I can't quite name. In my house growing up, caring about anyone other than my mother was treated as betrayal. Here, through the window of our phone conversations, I get to witness a teenager who knows that relationships are what make life meaningful.

The Science of Different Outcomes

What the studies document in clinical terms, I experienced in visceral detail: the way narcissistic parenting creates adults who struggle with identity formation, who have difficulty trusting their own judgment, who find it challenging to form healthy relationships because they've never seen what healthy relationships look like.

But the research also offers hope. It confirms that different parenting approaches create different outcomes, that children who grow up with supportive but choice-driven parents—parents who combine reasonable expectations with high warmth—develop the confidence and competence that I witness in every phone call with Ylse.

Over the course of adolescence, children gain the cognitive skills needed to reflect on complex questions about their aims in life and their role in the world. The longitudinal studies show that teenagers who are given appropriate autonomy, who are trusted to make increasingly complex decisions within safe boundaries, develop better problem-solving skills, stronger self-esteem, and healthier relationships than their peers who are either over-controlled or under-supervised.

My own child is living proof of this research. Her ability to navigate social situations, to advocate for herself, to take reasonable risks while maintaining good judgment—these aren't accidents. They're the predictable results of parenting that prioritizes her development over my own emotional needs, that sees her as a separate person worthy of respect rather than an extension of my identity. And honestly, I can not say that I am responsible. I want to be. But I cannot.

The Taste of Freedom at 11:30 PM

When my child tells me about her 11:30 PM adventure and that she got home safely, the message carries traces of her evening's adventures. I can almost taste the sweetness of her freedom through the screen—the lingering excitement of puzzles solved and friendships deepened, the satisfaction of independence exercised responsibly, the comfortable tiredness that comes from a day lived fully.

The easy gratitude in her voice, the casual way she acknowledges both my concern and my trust, the natural sharing of her friends' dramas and developments—all of this represents a relationship built on mutual respect rather than control. She doesn't text me because she's required to, but because she wants to maintain our connection, to include me in her life even when we're apart.

This is what healthy teenage development looks like when it unfolds across digital spaces: confidence that translates through screens, relationships that deepen through consistent communication, independence that coexists with connection. She's doing exactly what she's supposed to be doing at nearly 18: exploring her autonomy, building relationships outside the family, testing her capabilities in low-stakes environments where failure is just another learning opportunity.

The escape room becomes a perfect metaphor for the difference between our experiences. While I was trapped in a psychological prison with no exit strategy, my child is rather literally practicing the art of finding her way out of difficult situations, working collaboratively with peers, thinking critically under pressure. She's developing the exact skills that my mother's suffocating control prevented me from learning.

The Physics of Different Love Across Distance

The fundamental difference between our respective childhoods isn't just in the rules or restrictions, but in the basic physics of how love operates across space and time. In my childhood home, love was a finite resource that had to be hoarded, protected, and earned through perfect behavior and complete submission. My mother's version of love was gravitational—it pulled everything toward her, allowing nothing to exist in its own orbit.

Our love operates more like radio waves—it travels across distances, maintains its strength regardless of physical separation, creates connection without requiring constant proximity. She doesn't have to earn my affection by being smaller, quieter, more compliant. She earns my pride by being authentically herself, by making good choices, by growing into the person she's meant to become.

When she calls me excited about something, her joy is infectious even through the phone. There's no calculation in her sharing, no worry that her success will somehow diminish my sense of importance. She simply wants to celebrate with someone who loves her. Because she is amazing.

The few times I dared to express desires in my childhood—to take art classes, to join the school newspaper, to simply spend an afternoon at a friend's house—were met with such theatrical devastation that I learned to stop wanting things altogether. The manipulation was so expertly crafted that I felt guilty for having aspirations that didn't center my mother's needs.

The Echoes and the Healing Across Miles

The distance between us has become its own form of healing. Without the daily friction of shared living space, our relationship exists in its purest form—built on genuine affection, mutual respect, and the choice to stay connected rather than the obligation to coexist. Every phone call, every text exchange, every other time is a conscious decision to maintain our bond.

Watching her navigate her teenage years with such confidence and joy through the window of our digital communication has been one of the most healing experiences of my adult life, but it's also been unexpectedly triggering. Every time she sends me a photo of herself doing something completely badass that I would never have been allowed to do, shares a story about advocating for herself with a teacher in ways I never could have imagined, or simply texts me a random thought without fear of judgment—I feel the ghost of my own teenage self stirring in my chest.

There's grief there, deep and complicated. Grief for the experiences I never had, the confidence I never developed, the sense of belonging in the world that took me decades to build from scratch. Grief for the relationship with my own mother that might have been possible if her wounds hadn't made her so hungry for control, so terrified of my independence.

But there's also profound gratitude. Gratitude that I recognized the need to seek help, to do the therapy work, to break the cycle before it could claim another generation. Gratitude that technology has made it possible to maintain this kind of intimate, supportive relationship across physical distance. Gratitude that my child will never know what it feels like to fear that her authentic self is too much for the people who are supposed to care for her. Those of us who love her.

The Sound of Phones That Ring with Joy

Today, as I finish writing this, the reply to a message where I thanked her for the connection shows up. Welc. It is a single word. But it is a beautiful and kind word. Much like when I talk to her.

As she talks, I'm struck by how different this moment feels from any conversation I had with my own mother at her age. There's no performance here, no careful calculation of my reactions, no fear that her excitement will be too much or not enough. She's simply sharing her life with someone she loves, trusting that I'll meet her energy with matching enthusiasm.

This is what it sounds like when love travels through fiber optic cables and cellular towers. This is what it feels like when technology becomes a bridge rather than a barrier, when distance becomes a choice rather than a punishment. This is what happens when we choose to heal our own wounds rather than passing them on to the next generation.

In 1985, I could never have imagined that such a thing was possible. But here it is, real and present and beautifully ordinary, playing out in escape rooms and late-night dinners and text messages that arrive like small gifts throughout my day.

The revolution isn't dramatic. It's quiet, persistent, and more powerful than any storm my mother could have created. It's the revolution of raising a child who knows, in her bones, that she is enough exactly as she is. And that changes everything.

As her mother, I am profoundly proud of the woman she is becoming. Every text message that shows her advocating for a friend, every phone call where she works through difficult decisions with wisdom beyond her years—these moments fill me with overwhelming pride and love.

I watch her navigate teenage life with grace and confidence that takes my breath away. The way she handles disappointments with resilience, celebrates victories with gratitude, stands up for what she believes in. These aren't accidents—they're the fruits of choosing connection over control, of believing in her capacity to become exactly who she's meant to be.

The love I feel for her isn't the possessive, consuming fire that my mother called love. It's something cleaner, brighter, more sustaining. It's a love that celebrates her independence, that offers comfort without trying to fix everything. It's the kind of love that says, "I see you, I believe in you, I trust you to write your own story."

Most of all, I am proud that she will never know the particular pain of believing she has to earn love through perfect behavior. She will never spend her teenage years walking on eggshells or choosing between being herself and being loved.

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The contrast between these two childhoods—one constrained by fear and control, the other expanded by trust and freedom—illustrates how profoundly different parenting approaches shape the humans we become. Where narcissistic control creates children who shrink to survive, healthy boundaries create young adults who flourish. Where manipulation masquerades as love, authentic care creates the safety necessary for genuine growth.

In the end, the greatest gift we can give our children isn't protection from all risk, but the tools and confidence to navigate risk wisely. It's the knowledge that they belong in the world, that their voices matter, that their independence isn't a threat to our love but the very goal of it.

To her I say, you are everything I hoped you would become and so much more than I ever dared to dream. Watching you grow into your own power, your own voice, your own magnificent self has been the greatest privilege of my life. You are proof that cycles can be broken and that wounds can heal.

I love you beyond words, beyond distance, beyond time itself. And I am so very, very proud to be your mother.

I also hope you never read this……