My Afterglow Moment: My Mother and “Class of 2013”

My relationship with my mom has always been a sore spot for me, from my tumultuous teenage years to festering with me into adulthood. Through Mitski’s “Class of 2013,” I’m letting go of my expectations and finally living for the future.

My Afterglow Moment is a series where staff writers and editors share their favorite music-related memories.

Written by Rachel Joy Thomas

Illustrated by Bethany Grimm

Mitski’s “Class of 2013” begins with the three insecure piano notes. They’re soft and unsure, eventually slipping into the confrontational ballad that closes — and helps define — the singer-songwriter's sophomore effort, Retired From Sad, New Career in Business.

The track trudges forward in its simplicity. Mitski, still playing softly, begs her mother in a meek stupor if she can “sleep in [her mom’s] house tonight.” Afterward, the indie singer asks to “stay for a year or two,” insisting that she’ll be quiet and it would be ”just to sleep at night.” She laments that she’ll eventually leave when she “figures out / How to pay for [her] own life, too.”

In her highest refrain yet, Mitski puts in her most vulnerable request: “Mom, would you wash my back? / This once, and then we can forget.” There’s something incredibly tangible about the nakedness of one’s back and its appearance. Being unable to wash your own back implies a certain level of physical frailty, and asking another person to clean it due to an inability requires a strength of its own. For this vulnerability, one that is so uncommon in their relationship, Mitski promises that she and her mother “can forget” that moment of weakness and act as though it never happened, even though, for many mothers and daughters, something as simple as washing each other’s back is a typical necessity, especially when one is young, or the other is old.

Through “Class of 2013,” Mitski turns a mutual, expected mother-daughter relationship into an insecure despair-filled question about labor. Her voice, slowly rising with desperate emotion, proves this hesitation — she doesn’t even know whether her mom will say yes, making it difficult to ask the question. In that way, “Class of 2013” is a tragic song for any daughter to bear.

Throughout my life, I have been around many people for whom this tender mother-daughter relationship is unconditional. They know their mother will love them even if they fail out of college or don’t make the cut in a school play. Their mothers know their favorite things and their faults and love them dearly for it all.

My roommate would attest that she texts and calls her mother often. They joke about the world and love each other. It’s a given that my roommate could stay at her mother’s house for a night, with no questions asked. Her mother would scoop her up if she fell in one protective, instinctive swoop. For her, even if it seemed like a ridiculous request, her mother would wash her back.

My relationship with my mother is fragmented. Beginning at an early age, we stopped getting along the way that many daughters get along with their mothers. As I became a teenager who couldn’t self-regulate, she grew distant from me. It always felt like my mother expected everyone she knew to handle deep wounds and close them up on their own, so I struggled to bond with her.

My mother grew up handling her own issues with an iron fist. She could keep things locked in her mind easily. She could always get through things, even when she felt dismayed. In my early childhood memories, she always went through with her back-to-back 12-hour night shifts. Her grueling work schedule was awe-inspiring, yet impossible for me to fathom.

I was her most sensitive child: I cried easily and gave up quickly. I had temperamental fits and was prone to screaming as loud as I could anytime I got overwhelmed. My mother didn’t know what was wrong with me — In comparison to my siblings, I was incredibly difficult to deal with because anytime something went wrong, I reacted vehemently. We were entirely different people, and our relationship faltered for that, though there were many times when it could’ve improved.

When I was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder at 14-years-old, it took my mother quite a bit of time to believe it. Eventually, she finally recognized that I was on the spectrum but fundamentally rejected some of the things I needed to feel safe, comfortable, and happy. Acceptance was not enough. I needed my mother to accept who I was and understand that I needed support. I required detailed, effective communication, clarification, and presence that often wasn’t there. Sometimes, my mother felt like a ghost rather than a present parent, and I didn’t know how to make her want to be around me.

I practically begged her to spend time with me. She would leave me at my father’s apartment and go on weeks-long trips across Europe or New York for leisure. I yearned for time and energy she could never give me. I felt angry at her when she emotionally hurt me, sometimes by saying things carelessly and other times by forgetting significant aspects of my life that I had told her about.

I desperately needed my mother, but I didn’t see her with any regularity. At one point, I was hit by a car while biking during a stay at my dad’s apartment. I was 15-years-old and didn’t know how to deal with the situation. I called my aunt, who told me I needed to tell someone else about it. However, I knew it wouldn’t do anything, so I didn’t mention it to my mother. In my mind, I wasn’t physically hurt; therefore, it didn’t matter. Even though I felt scared and alone, I kept my mouth shut. I knew that if I didn’t end up in the emergency room, I wasn’t “hurt.” From an early age, I felt compelled to think that if something didn’t physically harm me, there was no reason to involve others or seek help — it wasn’t real otherwise.

What hurt me most was when she forgot things that were important to me — more specifically, when she missed my special days. On one occasion, my mother canceled dinner plans on my birthday simply because she couldn’t leave the house — her husband had a cold, and she tends not to leave the house without him. For me, dinners were whole day events that I needed to prepare for. Canceling plans so casually and callously was deeply upsetting, completely throwing off the flow of my day and destroying my self-esteem. While somewhat rejection-sensitive, I wanted that day to work — not other days.

When I would mention that such experiences caused pain, I immediately became ungrateful in her eyes. She often bought me material items; therefore, I wasn’t allowed to be upset by her absence. There was no way to be critical without her seeing it as a personal attack. I would try to soothe her, but, eventually, I would end up apologizing for my feelings. She refused to accept that anything she did could be hurtful, so I drifted away.

Once I got to college, we stopped speaking as often. My mother occasionally invited me to events happening in our hometown, and I would drive down to see her. She would condescend, “Don’t you have any good clothing? Can’t you get something nicer for yourself?” She would remark that I was not taking care of myself, and I’d get so embarrassed I would drive home to change just because she didn’t like what I was wearing.

Fundamentally, “Class of 2013” resonated with me because, despite it all, I love my mother very much.

“Class of 2013” isn’t a song of complete, arbitrary hatred. Mitski doesn’t hate her mother, as evidenced by her requests for help in trying times. The track feels like an adamant refusal to give up on having a mother who shows love in some way, shape, or form.It is a final, desperate plea not to talk things through but to have one quiet moment where it feels like everything is as it was before. “Class of 2013” is an irrational cry for a mother to accept and be proud of their child — for fleeting, unspoken reconciliation. Opening up one’s back is a final attempt at vulnerability and love.

In a song that is, at its core, about types of love, Mitski asks for acts of service rather than words of affirmation. The song describes a relationship where the child has left behind the notion of “forgiving words” and instead deeply desires a mother’s affection, even if the child must sustain themselves on a non-substantial love language. That very nature reinforces how bare of a minimum Mitski asks for. Symbolically, the singer-songwriter begs, “Please show me you care, even if this is the only way you know how to.”

My mother’s love language is gift-giving. As a child, I desperately sought words of affirmation and confirmation that I was doing well or that she was proud of me, but I recognized that she tried to fulfill my needs from a distance using expensive gifts. A new pair of shoes was a sign that she loved me — a case of Japanese green tea showed that she thought of me while at the store. It was her language, and I had to accept that as her way of showing she cared.

However, the last time I saw my mother, I gave her back the gifts she had brought. She hurt me. I hurt her. I didn’t want a gift. I just wanted her to communicate with me. I wanted more than the bare minimum, and that came with a cost.

With that, the meaning of “Class of 2013” shifted dramatically for me. The realization that I may never speak to my mother again, for the simple act of rejecting her and her gifts, broke me. I cried like a child. I accepted that I may never tell her I want to have average, everyday conversations with her. I accepted that she may never be what I need and that she may never truly know me again.

I cried, thinking it was entirely my fault. I cried because I knew I had ruined everything to a point it couldn’t come back from. I cried because I felt that if I were a little different, my mom would love me the way I thought mothers should love daughters.

It was then that I realized there is no specific way mothers should love their daughters. Many mothers don’t love their daughters the way movies and TV shows make maternal relationships out to be. My plight isn’t individual, unique, or special.

Many daughters will one day age to share their mothers’ crow’s feet, but will never talk to them again. They will never sit in a room together and recognize their shared smile. They will never see their mother’s face in their own with a sense of contentment. They will get older, and they will be okay.

If my mother reads this, I would tell her, “Mom, I don’t hate you. I love you very much.” I don’t think she would believe me because she would hate the idea of me expressing my discontent. I don’t think she will ever understand that she can be hurtful sometimes or that I’ve reached my breaking point. For that reason, I hope she never reads this.

And, I hope I’ll grow older one day and stop listening to “Class of 2013.”