When I turned eighteen, my mother, without batting an eye, declared, “You’re an adult now. Either pay for the room or find your own way.” She said it calmly, without anger or resentment, as if charging her own daughter rent for the very bedroom she’d grown up in was perfectly ordinary. Back then, I didn’t fully grasp how much it hurt to hear such words from someone I’d loved unconditionally since childhood.
As far back as I could remember, Mum always made it clear the house was hers. Even when I was seven or eight, she’d say, “You don’t make the rules here. This is my home.” She’d barge into my room without knocking, rummage through my things, and refused to let me move so much as a chair. I complained that my bed was too close to the radiator—the heat gave me headaches, made it hard to breathe—but she dismissed it as dramatics. Only when I was sick one night and the doctor warned of overheating did she grudgingly let me shift the bed away.
Like any child, I loved my mother. For too long, I believed love meant enduring. That if I were good enough, quiet enough, she might finally see me. But Mum only saw what suited her. If I stayed out of the way, silent, unassuming, it was as if I didn’t exist.
After school, I enrolled at the local university. Mum didn’t even attend my graduation. Yet on my eighteenth birthday, she marched into my room with her ultimatum: pay up or leave. “I raised you, clothed you—my duty’s done,” she said. I was stunned. I had no job, no family to turn to. So I agreed to pay.
The next day, I started washing dishes overnight at a café near the train station. Mornings were for lectures. Sleep was a luxury. Every penny I earned went to “renting” my childhood bedroom from my own mother and the cheapest food I could find. Those first months were hell. But eventually, I was promoted to kitchen assistant. A glimmer of hope appeared—and so did a man. Thomas.
He was a waiter, renting a flat, having moved from the countryside. We rarely saw each other—both of us worked gruelling hours—but every moment with him mattered. One day, I told him about life with Mum. He listened in disbelief. “We never had much,” he said, “but my parents shared what they had. Even if it was just carrots from the garden, they’d send them my way when I was studying.”
He couldn’t bear it and asked me to move in with him. Splitting rent made sense. I didn’t hesitate. The day I packed my things, Mum didn’t say a kind word. She just watched, making sure I didn’t take so much as a spoon that was “hers.” She kept my bedsheets. At the doorstep, she coldly said she’d change the locks tomorrow. Then she shut the door behind me.
Thomas and I built a life together. We married a year later. First, we stayed with his parents, then rented a cottage nearby, and eventually bought it. We had two children, a home, a routine. Work, family, a place of our own—everything I’d dreamed of.
Nearly a decade passed. Six months ago, Mum called. I’d kept the same number, so she got through. She spoke as if we’d last met a week ago. “Why don’t you call? Why don’t you visit?” Without waiting for answers, she got to the point: she’d lost her job, her pension wasn’t due yet. “You owe me help. I raised you—now it’s your turn.”
My hands shook as I listened. And for the first time in my life, I said everything I’d held back. About her “care,” about paying for my own childhood, about the loneliness and pain. My voice trembled, but I didn’t stop until there was nothing left to say. And she… She was silent. Then, icily: “Fine. Understood. Now—transfer the money.”
I hung up. Blocked her number. But she called from others. Sent messages, threatened legal action. Demanded support.
I don’t feel guilty anymore. I don’t owe her. I don’t owe anyone. And for the first time, saying it aloud doesn’t scare me at all.
