I didn’t receive any tenderness. Not from my mother, not from my father, not from my brother. We didn’t hug in my family. We didn’t touch. Nobody told me “I love you.” When I was on my way to bed, my drunken mother never left her couch, but she would order, “A KISS!”
A few years ago, I figured out that my aversion to the word “cuddle” was rooted in my childhood. A bizarre twist of logic had made me hate what I didn’t get. I found the word ridiculous. Ugly. A term reserved for the weak, for silly wimps who had been babied growing up. The word “tenderness” came second on my most-hated list.
Still today, there are people who tell me, “Your mom is such an amazing lady.” What do I say to that?
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