Don't get sick on my watch!

Growing up in a narcissistic hierarchy was like navigating an obstacle course. The supporting characters in my adoptive mother’s drama weren’t exactly thriving under her iron rule either.

Amid the relentless control, what set my childhood apart was my adoptive mother’s neglect of my emotional and physical needs—a unique twist in an already challenging upbringing.

Mum and Dad checked off the standard parenting boxes: a roof over my head, clothes on my back, food in my belly, an education, and carefully curated leisure activities. Yet somewhere in that checklist, my needs got misplaced, because I was the “lost child.”

In the era I hail from, parenting revolved around providing the basics, with little attention to nurturing. Mum, in particular, wasn’t exactly fluent in the language of emotions, especially when it came to her children, biological or adopted.

It was a different time. Parenting styles then expected kids to be like invisible little ninjas—seen only when necessary. It wasn’t neglect, per se; it was just the way things were. Our grandparents had survived the war, and our parents had inherited the grit to stick to the same home, the same job, and the same life for 30 years. No jet-setting, no tech gadgets—just relentless hard work to secure a mortgage and a car. That was suburban working-class Sydney in a nutshell.

Technology was rudimentary. We were firmly in the cassette-tape era, fixing broken tapes with scotch tape and a Bic pen, smashing down the "record" button on our boomboxes to tape the Top 40 on Sunday nights.

My friends’ parents weren’t much different—most were cut from the same stoic cloth. But there were exceptions. I worshipped those rare families that embodied my starry-eyed vision of domestic bliss. Fueled by my dear friend, the television, I imagined The Brady Bunch lived just down the street.

Ah, the joys of growing up in the “House of Narcissism.” Mum ruled with an iron fist encased in an iron glove—a level of authoritarianism any dictator would admire.

Falling ill in our household was a cardinal sin. Calling for help felt akin to alerting SVU or CSI to a crime scene. Mum had an aversion to anything requiring emotional or physical care beyond her preferred limits.

I sometimes wondered if this stemmed from her childhood trauma. Her mother fell ill when Mum was 11 and passed away by the time she was 13. Her father promptly cast her out into the grim realities of work and survival.

When I fell sick, particularly with my recurring bronchitis, I was left to battle alone—even at the age of seven. I would call out or cough all night long as if sending distress signals into the void. But there was no response.

My room was at the end of a hallway, a good ten meters from the parental “war room.” Mum claimed to be a “light sleeper” who could hear a mouse nibbling in the kitchen from 20 meters away, yet my cries and coughs were mysteriously too subtle for her finely tuned senses.

Desperate times called for desperate measures. When Mum’s selective hearing kicked in, I would cry out for Dad. Unfortunately, he was no knight in shining armour. Either he genuinely didn’t hear me, or Mum’s decree forbade him from stepping in.

Dad played the role of the enabler in our family circus—a role that would haunt him in the later chapters of his life.

Picture a high schooler in the age of disco and Abba, attending class with the flu and bronchitis, coughing up a storm while quietly hallucinating. My pregnant Commerce teacher, with a front-row seat to my misery, sent me to the school nurse. Temperature: 102 degrees.

The nurse did her duty, calling my stay-at-home Mum. A caring parent might have rushed to their child’s side. Not my Mum. She interrogated the nurse as if this were a plot to dupe her.

Ultimately, the nurse insisted I be picked up. Mum, faced with the logistical inconvenience of arranging a ride, begrudgingly called Dad. He made the 40-minute drive, whisked me home, then hurried back to work.

Later that day, the family doctor arrived for a rare house call. Antibiotics were prescribed, and I earned a week’s reprieve from school. Only then did Mum reluctantly acknowledge my illness—though she still seemed sceptical.

To her credit, she did make her signature honey-and-lemon tonic, stored in the fridge for me to retrieve as needed.

Now, as an adult, I tend to suffer in silence. Fuss makes me uncomfortable. My husband knows I’ll let him know if I need anything—a fierce independence forged in the fires of self-sufficiency.

Younger me thought Mum was simply failing at love and care. The older me sees it differently. She gave me independence.

Perspective, perhaps?