The Cruelty You Don't See

There was a girl I went to school with, friendly to my face, but secretly, or not so secretly, hated me. Her mom was friends with my mother, and they lived close. Eventually, this girl ended up just two houses down from my mother when she had a family of her own. Life brought her back around. And like many people in our orbit, she became a target of my mother’s two-faced kindness.

My mother helped her out from time to time, but always with a thread of judgment. Behind closed doors, she mocked her relentlessly—her past, her choices, even her healing. She laughed at her name change, calling it “stupid,” refusing to acknowledge the pain that led to it. “She was born with that name,” she’d say. “I’ll never call her anything else.”

But I understood that choice. I envied it. I’ve wished so many times that I could strip my identity of both my parents’ names, remove the pieces of me that tie back to pain. To be able to rename yourself—to reclaim yourself—that takes courage.

This girl also once had a relationship with a woman. My mother’s response? Cruelty disguised as humor. She called her slurs. Mocked her short hair. Dismissed her identity and her love as a phase or a joke. And she didn’t just say these things once and move on—my mother could stew in judgment for hours, picking someone apart like it was entertainment.

What’s wild is that this girl isn’t some distant stranger. She’s someone my mother knew. Someone she claimed to care about. Someone she helped. And still, that never stopped the venom when no one else was around.

This post isn’t really about that girl—it’s about the way judgment festers in a household and shapes how we see others, and ourselves. It’s about the hypocrisy of someone who can’t love unconditionally. And it’s about learning how not to become that same bitter echo.

The cruelty you don't see if how people like me end up in the positions we're in. Please don't be so quick to judge someone's story based on what you see.