A Typical Haitian Mother & Daughter Relationship

By Marie Romilus, MA, CPC

When I think about the relationships I have with people in my life, I think about how they began. What do they mean to me? How do they benefit me? What makes a proper relationship, anyway? Who teaches us how to have a good relationship?

The answer is in the beginning of our lives. We learn how to build proper relationships in our childhood. The relationships we build with the people who raise us help us to build relationships with others in the outside world. But here’s the thing: What if you’re missing or lacking attachment to some of the people who are raising you? Are you able to build proper relationships with other people? At the age of 20, I finally identified that my depression stemmed from the lack of an early relationship I had with my mother. I looked for guidance and love from older female figures to fill the void of support and love I felt from my mother.

My mother is a beautiful, strong, vocal Black Haitian Woman. The woman who gave birth to me is a now-healed Black Haitian woman in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti. I was her firstborn child with my father, the best Black Haitian man I know. If you know anything about life in Haiti, you know that for many people, leaving Haiti to seek better opportunities and provide for their families was necessary. My mother was one of 12 children, my father, one of 5. Although in the eyes of most Haitians, we were seen as well off, it was not enough to provide a child with what they needed.

Every year on my birthday, my mother and father call me and tell me the story of my birth, the struggle they went through, and their love for me. When I was born, I was a sick child. I struggled to take formula and constantly needed breast milk. The special formulas needed could not be obtained in Haiti. My mother struggled to maintain breast milk supply and earn enough money for a generic form of formula that would be ok for me. My father worked several jobs in order to provide for us, but it was still not enough.

At a little over 12 months, I became quite ill after catching some form of virus. Unable to obtain the nutrition or medical care I needed due to the lack of medical care available in Haiti, my mother and father described that one night, I passed away in their arms. My mother described feeling as if her life was over. My father described that the family prayed over me, thinking I had passed away; however, as they prayed, I began to take another breath. My father describes that to be the moment he knew God was real (he is now a pastor).

It took years of therapy to realize that was also the moment my mother became determined to do whatever it took to be able to provide financially for her family so their lives would never be at risk again. That was the moment she decided to leave her almost 2-year-old daughter behind as she traveled to France, then to America, to build a better life for her family.

I didn’t see my mother again until I was 4 years old. For a child, 3 years felt like a lifetime. So many things happened to me during that time when she was absent. Traumatic things happened to me that she wasn’t there to hold my hand for. Women in my life who were left to care for me didn’t give me the love they thought they would. I’ll save those stories for another day.

I remember when my father and I finally got our visas for America. For the past 3 years, I would send tapes to my mother, telling her about my day, that I loved and missed her, but was almost forgetting her face. What did she even look like? I got on that airplane, and envisioned what she looked like, my grandmother’s eyes, probably, since we all have her eyes, maybe her freckles. Did we have the same lips? People always told me I was my father’s twin, so did I look like her at all?

Coming off the airplane, I remember going down the escalator and looking around everywhere for a woman that looks like my grandmother, but couldn’t find her. Then my mother pops out from behind the wall, screaming, “Surprise!” She held balloons and a teddy bear for me. I remember holding my father’s hand so tightly, not sure whether to let go. Is this really her? I remember us walking to my mother’s car, where my uncle was sitting in the front seat. My mother later explained that she had asked him to drive so she could sit in the back seat with my father and me.

I will never forget my first car ride in America; we drove from Logan Airport to Harwich, MA, which was about an hour and 15 minutes. I remember my mother holding my hand, playing with my fingernails, and twirling my hair. I remember her making a comment about how now that we are together, she will make sure to take good care of my hair.

I remember feeling hungry and my mother pulling out a bag of snacks with several choices because she wasn’t sure which one I would like. I chose the cheese puffs, but this was the moment I realized American cheese puffs and ones made in Haiti don’t taste the same–we use real cheese. So it didn’t take long for those cheese puffs to end up outside my stomach and into a plastic bag.

Oddly enough, my mother felt honored to clean it up. I remember wanting to lie on my dad after, because I was always daddy’s little girl. When my mother wasn’t around, my father and I were never apart unless we HAD to be. As I lay my head on my father’s chest, I peeked over and could see the disappointment in my mother’s face. “Should I lie on her instead?” I thought. I now realize that moment was the start of me wanting to do anything I could to please my mother.

I placed my head on her lap and fell asleep. I later remember my father carrying me up the stairs to our new home, and my mother changing me into my new pajamas. My first night in America, my mother was lying on one side of me as my father was lying on the other side. I was the luckiest Haitian girl.

I remember waking up that next morning to the smell of the most amazing meals being cooked. At first I thought it was a dream, am I really here? I felt like we lived in the most beautiful place. Even though my mother, father, and I lived in one bedroom sharing a house with my 2 uncles and my mother’s cousin, at the time I couldn’t imagine asking for more.

My mother came upstairs to check on me when I woke up; she heard me calling for my dad and came instead. I remember being startled seeing her again, but I remember telling myself, “Oh yeah, you’re here now.” I remember her kissing me and hugging me and presenting me with several new clothes, toys, ribbons, bows–OH MY! But after showing me all that affection, she also began to tell me that as a lady, I needed to get up, take a shower, fix my bed,  then go downstairs. I, of course, followed directions because I didn’t want to upset her. I didn’t want to be without a mom again, so I'd better make sure I act right!

This feeling I had: “Better make sure I act right!” Lasted for years. It lasted at times when I felt my mother didn’t understand me. It happened when I would get punished for my siblings’ actions; it happened when I was expected to come home and take care of them, cook meals, and still find time to do my own schoolwork. The pressure to act right was, at times, making me unable to act “right”. Ever heard of self-sabotage?

As a teen, self-sabotage might as well have been my middle name. My training in Education and Master’s in Mental Health Counseling, as well as my years of experience, have provided me with a plethora of knowledge on self-sabotage behavior. This type of behavior limits others from accomplishing their overall goals, even when you aren’t aware of it happening. Feeling overwhelmed and facing unrealistic expectations can lead individuals to self-sabotage. For some, self-sabotage would be “normal teenage behavior”. In my culture, it isn’t.

In my case, an example of self-sabotage was abnormal behaviors for a Haitian woman when it came to my family’s expectations. It seemed that the harder I tried to reach perfection so I could obtain a warm embrace and positive feedback from my mother, I would still end up making a mistake that would cause her to be unhappy with me–and let me tell you, when my mother is upset with you, be prepared for weeks of silence. That silence even came with less affection and warmth; how much less affection can a child who spent years without her mother deal with?

The women in my culture have also been taught to be strong. Don’t show signs of weakness; if you spend time dwelling on them, you will never be successful in Haitian culture. So we never spend more than a day grieving, we don’t talk about our emotions, we don’t understand mental health, and children should always be obedient or else you have failed as a parent. My mother would constantly sacrifice her energy and sanity, working long hours to provide for everything her family needed. So in her opinion, that sacrifice needs to be respected.

At that time, I never knew what it meant to experience that fear as a parent, that fear that you may have failed your child. Until I became a mother, I only understood what it felt like to fail your parents, and I hated that feeling. I was also wise enough to understand that I was lucky to be where I was instead of back in Haiti.

The Haiti I remember now seems like a fictional story. Over the years, I watched the country I love continue to burn to the ground, and there became this sense of fear that I would do whatever I needed to in order to never be FORCED to live there again in the same conditions. Parents in my culture knew that was a fear for most children who migrated to the United States and would often use it as a threat for punishment when children would “misbehave.”

But here is the issue with my mother’s expectations and what they were doing to me:

1. The pressure to always do the right thing caused me to question my decisions and thoughts constantly and triggered behaviors such as indecisiveness.

2. The pressure to not disappoint my parents would cause severe anxiety and depression. Stress is a contributor to anxiety and depressive thoughts.

3. The lack of emotional connection often made me feel alone, misunderstood, worthless and hopeless. A hopeless teen, left alone with her thoughts, is never a good thing. The teenage mind is not fully formed: the frontal lobe doesn’t fully form until you are between the ages of 21 and 25. So this means that naturally, teens and young adults struggle with consistently making the most rational decision, especially when other contributors are in place, such as stress and peer pressure.

4. Trying to constantly please someone by sacrificing my happiness caused me to behave this way in relationships with friends and romantic relationships–at times sacrificing my morals, lowering my self-esteem, and failing to acknowledge my worth.

In college, I experienced a horrible dating interaction that took me down the road of self-blame. I began doing poorly on my coursework, and my professors would pull me aside to ask if I was doing ok. I remember my only Black Professor at the time asking me if I needed a hug. Normally, I would have said no, but this day, I remember thinking to myself, “I wish I could hug my mom,” and began to cry. She reached in, gave me a hug, and walked me over to the counseling center. I remember before she walked away she said, “You know, we can’t always be the strong ones.” I didn’t understand what she meant then, but now I get it. I get it now… Black woman, I not only get it, but I feel it now.

After years of therapy, I understand now why it’s important culturally for me to allow myself to not always live up to this “Strong Black Woman” narrative. My mother has been the “Strong Black Woman” her whole life. What choice did she really have? Taking a moment to focus on her feelings meant time not focusing on work or the needs of her family and extended family who depended on her. She never got mental health support for trauma that may have occurred from living in a 3rd world country and experiencing natural disasters, gang wars, and more.

But, I learned that I couldn’t allow my mother’s hurt to also be my hurt. The reality is, I didn’t ask to be conceived. My mother is allowed to have her own happiness and so am I. Basing my happiness on her level of acceptance was causing me emotional turmoil.

Now that I am a mother, I have reframed how I think about building a relationship with my mother. I have learned that I do need to protect that little girl inside of me still desiring a close, emotional relationship with her mother by putting in boundaries based on understanding who my mother is as a person.

Children don’t usually view their parents as adults with their own lives, their own traumas, triggers, flaws. Naturally, we expect them to live up to our unrealistic expectations. A child wants to play with mom when she comes home from work, but mom is exhausted and wants to sit down, maybe watch some trashy TV. On Monday, mom plays. On Tuesday mom plays. On Wednesday, mom is so stressed that she snaps at her kid, who is only asking to play. Kid now feels mom hates him/her, mom feels guilty and goes into deeper depression and the cycle continues. I am kid, kid is me, I am also now mom. I relate to mom, I now relate to my mom.

One of the things I have learned is that I was seeking behaviors from my mother that were completely unrealistic based on her upbringing, traumas, and other factors completely out of her control.

In the United States, mental health care became acknowledged in the 1800s; The National Mental Health Act was created in 1946 by Harry Truman. In the 1960s, although controversial, mental health care became available to Black Americans. While this may have been the case in the United States, in Haiti however, my mother knew nothing about mental health care. Research on mental health illnesses and services did not begin until the 2005 Earthquake. So to make this clear, it took over a million people to die from a natural disaster that only caused greater poverty and stress, in order for mental health care to become important. So how could I expect my mother to address her traumas?

I needed to practice more patience with my mother, just as I was asking of her. I also needed to stop connecting my happiness with her happiness and level of acceptance. It was also time that I accepted my mother for who she was, understood her ways of communicating, and acknowledged that although I may not agree with her, I now trusted that her opinions came from a place of love. I now take the initiative to communicate the things I need instead of expecting it from her. So if I want a hug, I just reach for a hug, my mother will never turn me away.

I now think of my relationship with my mother as similar to a relationship you may have with a hard coach. They are constantly making you do drills, single you out  at times in front of others, on you about your GPA and more. Maybe you feel frustrated, then you reach that goal, win that game or whatever and realize, “Wow, that’s why my coach was so hard on me so I can do better.”

I know my mother’s goal is always wanting the best for me. She has never given up on me; I will never give up on her.

Dear Mommy, I Love you.

Meet Marie Romilus, MA, CPC, and founder of Bel Lavi Life Coaching. Bel (meaning beautiful) and Lavi (meaning life) has a mission to provide guidance and partnership to a diverse community of individuals who want to overcome their obstacles and achieve true happiness and success.