Everything Was My Fault
I’m getting married next year and I really want to wear a rainbow wedding dress. However, all my google searches for rainbow dresses the last few days have seriously dug up some old trauma I thought I had worked through and I need to talk about. My mom had three babies.
My older brother who passed at 32 weeks’ gestation and was born “sleeping”; me, the scapegoat; and my younger brother, the golden child. For being the scapegoat, I had a weird relationship with my mom.
From birth everything was my fault, standards for everything changed on a cruel whim, and I was always in the wrong. But I got the fun added twist of not just being unable to live up to the golden child, but also to a sainted stillborn one. I was constantly reminded as a kid that I was her “rainbow baby.”
This meant: How badly she wanted me to be her rainbow after her storm but also how, and I quote, “she didn’t want a new baby, she wanted the one that was gone,” so I could never live up to or replace her first child. We visited my brother’s grave every week and “talked” with him.
Baked him a birthday cake. Bought him Christmas gifts. All normal enough ways to grieve a stillborn. In no particular order, here’s where it starts to get awful: My great-grandmother gifted me a family heirloom upon my birth as the first baby of the generation.
My mother has refused to give it to me, insisting it rightfully belongs to my deceased brother. She has it locked in a trunk with his hospital stuff. She hates my great-grandmother to this day (the woman has been deceased for years now) because she dared to overlook my older brother.
My great-grandmother helped arrange his funeral but apparently, that’s not good enough. My mother dramatically left both my 8th grade and high school graduation ceremonies in tears because “she never got to experience this with my older brother.”
Of course, she didn’t do this when the golden child graduated. She also pouted at all my recitals and sporting events for the same reason. ALL OF THEM. MY ENTIRE LIFE. (But again, just mine). My best friend in high school happened to have the same birthday as my deceased brother.
I dared to celebrate her birthday ONCE, which lead to weeks of screaming and cold-shouldering about how I never loved my brother (who was gone before I was born) and how I was an ungrateful, unloving monster. I could go on, but I think you get the picture.
Once, when I was about 13, my mom physically went for me, and while defending myself I broke the necklace that she wore in honor of my brother. She was distraught I broke her necklace. More upset that her stupid dumb necklace was broken than the fact she just beat her living child.
I remember screaming at her. Saying she never loved me. That she wished she could have her perfect angel baby and I could never live up to her imagination. That the reason she loved my younger brother more than me is that he was a better replacement. She didn’t say anything.
She just sat there and looked at me. She had her necklace repaired and still wears it. I still believe all of that. But my mom still loves to call me her rainbow. Loves to go to church and talk about how Jesus gave her a rainbow. And I hate it. I hate when I see people talk about their rainbow babies.
Babies are human beings. They will grow up to be independent adults. Babies shouldn’t be born to fill the hole in your life, assuage your sadness, or replace a sibling. Babies shouldn’t have to bear the expectations and weight of someone who can never make a mistake and never disappoint you.
Babies aren’t blank slates, they grow up to be people. You can’t replace people. All I wanted was a rainbow wedding dress and now I think I’m going to have to go back to therapy before I even think about getting married.