Surviving: Life with a Maternal Bully

Any child will know when she’s loved unconditionally. And every child should be entitled to a nurturing environment and love—but this is not what always happens.

In 1943, Anna Townsend, at the age of six weeks, is adopted by a couple who is unable to have children of their own. With her pretty red curls, the little infant has no way of knowing she’s been adopted for the wrong reasons: Vera wants the status that “being a mother” will bring her among family, neighbors, and friends. Her husband, Alf, is enchanted with the pretty little child. However, his fatherly affection will prove the undoing of their father/daughter relationship because Vera is unwilling to share love or attention with the little girl they have named Glenda.

Follow Glenda Taylor’s account of struggle for survival in a story of societal expectations that is also a case study in parenting. After enduring nineteen years of bullying, she leaves home to begin a new life. Building on skills from school, she hones her secretarial talents working for a major tobacco company in England. Her resiliency blossoms, and she accepts a position abroad for two years before immigrating to the United States, where she works for a prestigious legal firm in San Francisco.

In her mid-forties, she finds her niche as a compliance officer in northern Arizona, investigating civil rights complaints in employment and public accommodation and establishing a mediation program. In 1994, she relocates to southern Arizona and finishes her career working in human resources. She currently lives in Tucson, Arizona.

Her life story—at times poignant, sometimes uplifting examples of the human spirit and others heartbreaking accounts of pain and loss—are woven into a compelling story of triumph and survival.