World Of TEOTE #6: Toxic Motherhood
Welcome to World of The Essence of the Equinox, a series exploring the worldbuilding, influences and ideas behind my completed gothic fantasy trilogy.
In this sixth instalment, we examine the role motherhood plays in my series—and how the cyclical violence perpetrated between generations of women can impact our growth as a collective.
“I just think some women aren’t made to be mothers. And some women aren’t made to be daughters.”
―Gillian Flynn, Sharp Objects
This essay was originally published for Ko-fi members and has been revised and expanded for the completed Essence of the Equinox series. Be aware this shall contain mild spoilers for future novels in the series, and so if you’d rather stay blind then do not read onwards.
Motherhood has always been a subject of interest for me, more so now that I get older. It’s not really out of interest of becoming a mother myself, quite the opposite. The more I explore the topic of motherhood the more I become certain it is not a path I’d like to choose. The mothers in my books, however, are rarely the stock archetype of all-loving and all-nurturing fonts of gentleness and warmth. Instead they’re often callous, self-interested, cruel and apathetic.
You could say I write about imperfect mothers as someone who could only see myself as becoming one. But more than that: I think it’s important to explore the idea that motherhood is work, and not an instinctual trait ingrained in every woman. Even when mothers are not monstrous, even when they mean entirely well, they can still fail, make mistakes, hurt their child… and that’s human of them. I’d like to take the pedestal off of motherhood, because I believe it would make it easier for mothers to talk about the way they’ve failed without shame. But also allow children to talk about the ways in which their mothers have failed them.
The person I primarily explore this topic with is Laila. Amira is probably the most central relationship in her life, and a pernicious influence on all of her other ones. I honestly don’t believe Laila would’ve looked twice at Darius in any serious way if not for Amira’s neglect and emotional abuse. As she herself reveals in a later novel: maybe she wouldn’t have fallen in love with a monster if she hadn’t been raised by one.
There are many influences I drew from to construct the relationship between Amira and Laila. Sharp Objects—quoted above—is one of the main novels, and I’d highly suggest a read as it captures the toxic cycles of motherhood so perfectly. Mothers are the primary enforcers of socialisation and indoctrination into their children; they are the first being on earth who is going to shape you as an individual. And Amira certainly shaped Laila, not just from moulding her from clay to bring her to life, but every aspect of her personality. Her fingerprints are all over her.
Laila’s extensive toolkit of social manipulation tactics. Her hypervigilance. Her crippling perfectionism. Her low self-esteem. Her emotional repression. All of those and more can be rooted back to Amira. And Amira didn’t do this out of a malignant need to distort the healthy development of her daughter beyond repair. Amira, like most mothers, hoped she’d raise a daughter she could be proud of—and one in her image. Amira is withholding of affection because she doesn’t want Laila to be in a situation where she is vulnerable to it. As she might have been once. And yet, by doing so, she orchestrated the circumstances where a manipulator had the perfect opening to walk into her life.
The frightening end to a road of bad choices paved with good intentions.
This later makes her relationships both with Vasilisa and Serafina an interesting counter-balance. Because while they may not be her own mother, they are still maternal figures in Laila’s life that she seeks to attain the approval of. The role mother-in-laws—or even the mother of a woman’s male partner—plays in her life is another subject of fascination to me. I think this dynamic can be one of the key divisions from attaining female solidarity. How a woman chooses to treat the romantic prospect that enters her son’s life can reflect a lot about how she views women as a whole, including herself.
In Vasilisa’s case, approval was never on the table. Laila was a competitor for her son’s love and constantly falling short of her arbitrary expectations. She could never be the traditional occassella Vasilisa might have anticipated, but still would not have accepted. Even Dominus’s oafish behaviour to Laila was tacitly endorsed by his mother, and likely would have continued had Laila gotten into a more serious relationship with him. It may have even escalated due to the position of disempowerment Vasilisa finds herself in as queen consort to a violent and indifferent husband. A vulnerable Laila— new to a culture and customs that are not her own—was prime for exploitation and ridicule. And would therefore be an ideal target for Vasilisa to exercise her frustration. Laila could have run herself ragged trying to be all Vasilisa might have wanted her to be, and it would never be enough.
Then we have Serafina.
Serafina also was initially never ready to accept Laila as a daughter. Though not for the same initial position of jealousy on Vasilisa’s part. Instead, Serafina viewed Laila as a threat because she worried that her allegiance to Darius would make her an enemy of the occasselle under her care. Serafina has already been on the other end of a Vasilisa, and she knows how this game works. She knows the way female citizens in Mortos readily throw each other underneath the bus for the sake of male approval. Her decision to choose the alternative path of female solidarity has been fraught with rejection, ostracisation and the fear of violent repercussion from past male rulers.
It’s not until Serafina understands that Laila can but also will be an ally, that she begins to accept her. And also want to save her. Because unlike Vasilisa, Serafina has no interest in tacitly endorsing her son’s misbehaviour if it would lead to the harm of a girl she could have protected. Had she only acted. Because Serafina did not have a mother to protect her when she needed one to do so, only a mother who further primed her for predation.
Yet it’s always a difficult situation for a woman to try and step between another woman and the man she has ties to. There’s always going to be that fear of rebuttal and denial. There’s no way for Serafina to make herself seem anything other than the wicked witch trying to tear apart the loving couple who just want to be together. Yet play the witch she must, if need be. It’s a costume she stepped into long ago. And if she needs to hurt Laila in the short-term to save her in the long-term, then do so she will.
How depressing to think that might make her the best mother of the three that Laila has ever received.
Ready to enter Vysteria?
When the Stars Alight is the first novel in The Essence of the Equinox, my completed gothic fantasy trilogy about a star-born princess, the future king of demons and a love affair that collides with politics, power and the fate of their worlds.
Start with When the Stars Alight →
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Previous: #5 — Who Gets to Be a Gothic Heroine? Writing Black Femininity in Fantasy
Next: #7 — Toxic Motherhood in Fantasy: Mothers, Daughters and Female Power in The Essence of the Equinox
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