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.

The House of My Mother is a story about how unresolved trauma is easily passed down to future generations, creating cycles of abuse and dysfunction that can damage anyone they come into contact with. Individuals like Ruby and Jodi, who attempt to tamp down their traumas instead of coming to terms with them, are at risk of passing their injuries on to others. Throughout her memoir, Franke thus reflects on these cycles and advocates for breaking generational cycles of abuse and trauma instead of perpetuating them.

Much of Franke’s memoir centers around how individuals are impacted by their upbringing. Ruby grew up as the eldest of five children, and her “childhood was less about play and more about responsibility” (4). In their household, babies were not “coddled;” they were left to “cry things out” so they wouldn’t grow up to be “weak losers or crybabies” (10). Ruby never acknowledged any pain this treatment might have caused her; instead, she “spent her life plastering over her childhood wounds with a veneer of perfection” (111) and used the same “tough love” techniques on her own children, raising them in an “emotional desert” that left Franke experiencing anxiety and depression at an early age.