Why I can't show this book to my mother

I am part of the “generation in the middle.” I still have my mother, and I am also the proud mother of a wonderful daughter. The last time she came to visit, I gave my daughter a copy of Saving Dee and asked her to read it on her flight home. I had one specific purpose in mind: I needed her to tell me – honestly – whether I could show this book to my own mother, who is 93 and still as sharp as a sewing needle.

Daughter Beth and I have the kind of relationship where I can ask her for brutal honesty and she will not disappoint. At the same time, you need to have a healthy self image and a thick skin if you make these requests often.
 
Several hours later, my daughter called me from her car, already heading for her office. “Mom, you definitely cannot ever show this book to Grandma.” I got it. I knew that from the beginning, but I had steadfastly refused to change anything I’d written. Why? Why was it so important to me to keep every sentence intact? Because I felt that it was integral to the storyline. If I took anything out, the very core of my heroine would be meaningless. 
 
It was also my great divide: intellectual honesty versus diluting the truth to save my mother’s feelings.
 
First-time authors often have an autobiographical component to their writing. While it may not feature as heavily in subsequent writings, in a first novel, it can take on a fairly high level of importance. In the case of my first book, the taboo topic is “unconditional love,” which my grandmother gave me so freely and in such contrast to my judgmental parents, who neither knew nor cared about nurturing tiny egos. Their only focus was that discipline had to be maintained, and the highest standards of performance upheld. I never forgave my mother for that.
 
Think of it this way. A woman whose only love has been the “conditional” kind grows up to be a “pleaser.” She has learned that in order to be loved she needs to do everything right, to get good grades, to play a musical instrument, or to become that perfect person. If she doesn’t, she isn’t lovable. And one of the worst things conditional love does is mess up a person’s own love life! On the other hand, the woman who has known unconditional love in childhood grows up believing she can be herself and still be WORTHY of love. That is the key to it – and the key to successful relationships as well.
 
As a result, my “heroine” in Saving Dee goes through her teens and her twenties, and even into her thirties, being a “pleaser” without even realizing it. When she meets Jared she has the chance at the same unconditional love she received from her grandmother. Does she take it? Does she realize what a wonderful gift unconditional love can be?
 
So, now you know why I chose intellectual honesty – and why I can never show my first novel to my mother.