The House of My Mother: A Daughter's Quest for Freedom

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of child abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, depression, and mental illness.

“A couple of kids would’ve suited Kevin fine, but Ruby craved a clan, and Kevin was happy to agree to Ruby’s grand vision, vowing to move heaven and earth to support her in her dreams. Thus, the dynamic was set: Kevin, the perpetual supporting actor to Ruby’s lead role in her epic production of ‘Ultimate Mother.’”

In this passage, Franke describes the early days of her parents’ marriage, illustrating how Ruby was in control from the start of their relationship, and claiming that Kevin was always dedicated to fulfilling his wife’s wishes. Although this dynamic would become more toxic and extreme over the years, it existed from the beginning of their courtship.

I often wonder how much of my adult self was forged in those early formative years. My tendency to bottle up emotions, to present a stoic face to the world—are these echoes of an infant learning that her distress will always go unheeded? Even before I could form words or thoughts, was I learning that my pain didn’t matter, that my needs were inconvenient?”

In The House of My Mother, Franke often reflects upon The Psychological Impact of Abuse. She delves into the childhoods of adults in her life to explain their behavior and personalities, and here, she considers how her own infancy and the lack of affection she received from her mother might have been influential in shaping her adult self.

“We never chose to be internet celebrities. But that made no difference—soon, our lives now revolved around nonstop content creation—whether we liked it or not. Birthdays, barbecues, even lazy Sunday afternoons—no moment was too mundane to escape documentation. Ruby, her sisters, and her brother Beau—who had also jumped aboard the vlogging bandwagon—were now constantly filming us for their respective vlogs. You couldn’t sneeze without it being immortalized from multiple angles.”

This passage delves into the complexity of consent when children become the focus of social media content, invoking The Role of Social Media in Shaping and Distorting Family Dynamics. While it might not have occurred to Franke and her siblings at the time that they were being taken advantage of, Franke certainly suggests that they were never given the opportunity to say no or decline being filmed on a particular day.