Daughter Dependency
By N. Rizzo
During her last year of high school in 2021, the choice to attend CSI for Jessica Guidice was inevitable. Going anywhere else but close to home was not an option. Leaving her mother behind was too worrisome.
“I felt bad to leave my mom because I didn’t think she could handle it,” Guidice said. “Although I applied to other colleges, I decided it wasn’t worth it.”
It has been Guidice and her mom since the age of three after her parents split. Her dad moved far away and although they loved each other, he became absent, which created their mother-daughter-dependent relationship.
In the U.S., every one in three children live in a single-parent household. With that being said, in the Journal of Psychology’s study, results showed that 21% of first-semester college students reported symptoms of separation anxiety.
Being just the two of them, independence at a young age was also necessary. Guidice has minimal downtime and considers schoolwork to feel the most like free time. With her daily routine consisting of taking care of the dog, cleaning, and laundry coupled with working eight-hour shifts necessary to support herself, to Guidice, college life is simpler.
“The stress and exhaustion leave me wishing for just one lazy day of bed rotting,” Guidice said. “Although I love my mom, at times our relationship is also exhausting.”
Guidice is challenged with having a mom who has OCD, making her already heavily tasked home burdens even harder due to the expectation of it being done perfectly. Like many others in similar situations, the difficulties imposed on a single parent create challenges for the single parent and child alike.
Occurrences like this were not uncommon such as Guidice recalling a time when helping her mom clean the house, which should have been appreciated, felt like it wasn’t. While Guidice was cleaning, the Windex bottle broke, so it wouldn’t squirt. Her mother’s reaction was an outburst of screaming, which bodes the question, was she yelling because the bottle broke or because of the piled-up stress of being a single parent?
Guidice said her struggles with these types of scenarios have been difficult, but also recalls wonderful memories with her mom. Guidice explained what she remembers as a magical time when she saw her first snowfall. Her mom took her out to play in the snow for hours, they had snowball fights, made snow angels, and laughed so hard that her stomach hurt.
Whether it be a positive or negative light, the attachment to each other is difficult to sever. As Guidice approaches her end of time spent at CSI and the excitement of graduation, the difficult choice is still here much like her first day at CSI – whether she will break away from her mother to the next chapter of her life.
“It’s been my mom and I my whole life,” said Guidice. “As hard as it is, maybe it is time for both of us to try life on our own at least for a while.”
