The Crawford

Selfish Mommy Dearest

"Mildred Pierce is a doting,

dutiful, self-sacrificing,

martyred mother, blindly

devoted to her selfish,

unfeeling, ungrateful,

scheming, vicious, hateful,

greedy, no-good daughter”

—David Halperin, “The Passion

of the Crawford,” How To Be Gay

Well, honey, all I can say is that there’s always two sides to a coin, my dear—and I’m not in the least bashful about revealing my side of the story.

Yes, sweetheart, I was the doting, dutiful, self-sacrificing, martyred son, blindly devoted to my selfish, unfeeling, ungrateful, scheming, vicious, hateful, greedy, no-good Mommy Dearest.

I know what you’re going to say—that both of us were simply just a tacky pair of sex-starved whores preying on young high school cheesecake.

And you’re probably right—objecting to each other’s louche, greedy behavior was sort of like the trashy tarnished tea-kettle calling the dark soot-stained pot black.

After Mommy Dearest’s demise a decade or two ago—one of her most intimate Woman’s Auxiliary girlfriends told me that she was really a “live wire!”