When my family insisted on throwing my baby shower in the backyard, I felt uneasy before I even saw the decorations, because in my family, celebrations were never just celebrations.

They were auditions.

They were loyalty tests.

They were moments where someone always tried to remind you who held the power and who was expected to swallow the humiliation with a sm

I told myself I was being dramatic, because pregnancy makes everything feel sharper, and I didn’t want to start another fight with my mother two months before my due date.

So I agreed, I showed up, and I tried to be grateful, even as my stomach knotted the second I stepped through the gate and heard her voice cutting across the yard.

My mother had arranged everything to look perfect from the outside, pastel balloons, matching tablecloths, and a dessert table so elaborate it looked like a photo shoot.

But perfection was her favorite weapon, because it made her cruelty harder to accuse.

If the setting looked beautiful, she could claim any pain you felt was your problem, not her behavior.

My sister, Lana, was there too, glowing in a fitted dress, one hand on her own belly, because she was pregnant as well, only a few months behind me.

That should have been a bond.

Instead, it was a competition my mother invented and fed, like she couldn’t breathe unless two daughters were being measured against each other.

The guests arrived, relatives I hadn’t seen in years, neighbors who smiled politely, and a few friends I had invited as a buffer, hoping their presence would keep my family on its best behavior.

It didn’t.

It only made them more careful, which is sometimes worse, because careful cruelty leaves fewer fingerprints.

At first, everything stayed on the surface, small jokes about how “sensitive” I was, comments about my body disguised as concern, and hints that I should be grateful my husband “puts up with me.”

I kept breathing through it, one slow inhale at a time, because I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of seeing me crack.

Then the “gift game” began, and my mother took control of the microphone like she was hosting a show, calling people up, narrating every present, and turning my pregnancy into her

When my friend Maya handed me a small wrapped box and hugged me, my mother smiled too widely and said, “Look at that, someone who actually understands what family means.”

The insult wasn’t aimed at Maya.

It was aimed at me, because in my mother’s world, “family” meant obedience, not love.

I tried to move the moment along, but my mother wasn’t done.