My Mother’s Special Birthday Cake Recipe

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour for dry and intense conversation with my mother.

2 tsp baking powder for my smiles and jokes I make to try to lighten her mood.

1/4 tsp salt for reminders that I do not deserve to have a homemade cake.

3/4 cup butter, room temperature for the tears that spill from my eyes while I stay quiet.

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar for my siblings who join and try to make me smile.

3 large eggs for my siblings’ ability to break down the walls my mother has up.

1 1/2 tbsp vanilla extract for the dash of sweetness I get from my mother.

1 cup buttermilk or whole milk, room temperature, to loosen the pressures of this day.

2 containers of store-bought frosting to celebrate a day I normally dread.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and prepare 8” cake rounds. I feel the heat in the kitchen rise.

In a medium bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, and salt until well combined. Set aside. Mixing up emotions of sadness, resentment, and anger from my mother and me.

In a large bowl, cream together sugar and butter until fluffy with a stand mixer. My mood lightens from the love of my siblings.

Mix in eggs one at a time and vanilla to the creamed mixture. While the mixture gets lighter and fluffier, so does my mother’s mood. However, it has nothing to do with me.

Slowly add the buttermilk or milk to the mixture. The pressure dissolves in the kitchen.

Mix the dry ingredients in portions into the wet ingredients. Starting to feel like I can enjoy this special day.

Add mixture to the prepared cake rounds and bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown. Feel the burdens of my birthday melt away.

Let the cake cool and assemble! Enjoy the sweet silence.

My mother's participation normally stops after the cake is made. She would say it was my job to frost and decorate it. That she had done enough and I should be grateful that she made a cake in the first place. My siblings and I would take the 2 containers of store-bought frosting and whip them with the stand mixer to make them fluffy. However, they never allowed me to frost the cake. My siblings would send me away and frost it so I wouldn’t see the final cake before they sang happy birthday. It was a small action that made me extremely happy because it let me know that I was loved. That I was not a waste.

On my 13th birthday, my mother realized my siblings decorated my cake for me. She was so upset. She made me come back to the kitchen to yell at me even though my siblings were trying to explain that it was their idea. My mother did not care. She blamed and shamed me for being lazy. She said I was taking advantage of my siblings and being selfish. “You don’t deserve a cake!” she yelled before she took the cake and threw it away. I could not help but break down into tears because it felt like a stab straight into the heart. I wondered how my mother could be so cold to me. Why would she? My mother has three other kids: two boys that are older than me and a girl that is younger than me. She never treats them this way. It was as if my mother’s life was made too salty the day I was born, and the taste is stuck in her mouth.

Every year, the same fear of birthday tears. My mother displays enmity towards me. What about me makes me the ‘glass child’ of my siblings? Every negative thought my mother has is told to me on every birthday. She reminds me of the stain I put on her life just for being born. That is the special occasion that I can only live through thanks to my siblings. I have small moments of happiness on a day my mother uses to torment me.

These moments would be non-existent without my siblings. They are the sweetness of my life. Of course, I love my mother, and I try to understand her, but she is more of a stranger. She has moments where she is nice and sort of motherly, but they do not last long. She does not hit me or anything on that level. She only hurts me verbally and by being there for my siblings in ways she would never be for me. Is it possible for a parent to hate one of their kids? I have come to discover it is. It is like my mother sees something in me that makes her hate me. I want to change it; I want to be someone she can love, but I do not know how. No one tells a child what to do if their parent does not love them or how to handle it. If it is something that can be changed or fixed. If my mother could change.

It hurts to not have the love of the only parent I have. It is like a piece of me is missing. A piece that most kids around me have. I am hurt and embarrassed that my mother feels so much resentment towards me. This cake feels like the only sign of love I have from my mother. It makes me feel like she cannot be all that bad, but then something happens that makes me change my mind. She hates me. She always has, and she always will. I am unsure if I will ever know why or if my siblings will even know why. However, I know now that I deserve love and words of affirmation. I deserve to be treated like my siblings are treated. I will not let my mother break me down into nothing. I am important too, and the cake was the bare minimum for my mother to do. Her responsiblity was to be my mother and to love me.