Oof, this line about mother wounds: “Ordinarily if someone were to hit you with a shoe, you would either run away or try to defend yourself. But when a mother did it, the appropriate response was to cower. And ask her how she was feeling. And tell her not to feel bad for beating you.”

I wasn’t hit as a child, but this felt exactly like trying to have any kind of emotional conversation with my mother, and having to protect her feelings before my own.