It was a beating to last a lifetime – one I will never forget.
As a child, I thought I was giving my mother the greatest gift I could possibly offer. I had a tiny glass bottle I adored – no bigger than 5ml, delicate and perfectly formed. I cherished it for its size, its fragility, and the way small treasures often captivate young minds. To me, it wasn’t just a bottle. It was my bottle – my most prized possession.
In my innocence, I thought combining my favorite item with hers – her favorite fragrance – would be the ultimate expression of love. I imagined her unwrapping it, smiling at the thoughtfulness of the gesture: her perfume, my bottle, one cherished thing inside another.
But I was painfully mistaken.
She didn’t see a sweet gift. She saw waste. A waste of her expensive fragrance. A waste of her money. A thoughtless act, not a generous one.
And instead of praise, I got punished – severely. I was beaten. And I learned, in the harshest way, a lesson about boundaries, about value, and about what “gifting” really means – especially when it involves something that doesn’t truly belong to you.
The beating wasn’t just physical. It marked a turning point. I learned to keep my hands to myself, to think twice before using anything that wasn’t mine, and to understand the financial pressure she was under – even if I hadn’t fully grasped the weight of that as a child.
What stung more than the physical pain was the emotional fallout. I had tried to surprise her, to make her smile. But instead, I triggered her anger. And from that day on, something shifted. She resented me more. Maybe because I was her daughter. Maybe because girls weren’t allowed mistakes the way boys were.
It’s almost ironic now, watching my brother do what I never could. Spending her money freely – not just on himself, but on his girlfriend and her family. My mother, sick and bedridden, gets bank notifications from her hospital bed about every new purchase he makes. And she allows it. No beatings. No lectures. Just silence.
I think about how differently she would have reacted if it were me. A single cent of her money in my hands would have been seen as theft, not thoughtlessness. But he’s her son. And sons are treated differently.
The perfume I used that day – how fitting its name was – Poison. At the time, I thought it would make her happy. Instead, it became the symbol of everything I didn’t understand about her, about money, about love. That tiny glass bottle didn’t just spill a few drops of fragrance – it shattered whatever bond we might have had. From that moment on, it felt like I became a burden, a disappointment she could never forgive. And somehow, that moment – so small, so innocent in intention – became the line between being her daughter and being her mistake. Poison was the scent, but it was also the beginning of the rot.
SomeonesMother 