Bubble Mom & Long Island Princess

A stone’s throw from Queens, NY live the “Long Island Bubble Mom” and her Princess of a daughter, Liz and Victoria. Jet black heart, bedazzled costume jewelry and accents that would put Fran Drescher to shame; there’s nothing subtle or simple about this duo. To say they’re codependent wouldn’t be accurate. According to mom “co-dependency suggests that two people are involved in the equation.” Victoria and Elizabeth are one person living in two different bodies. Oh, and they both live together!

Victoria never went away to college because she couldn’t leave her mother… When most daughter’s fly the nest, “Vikki” still lives at home with mom, her father Tony and her older sister Angelica. At 18, Vikki still slept in her mother’s bed and quite frankly tries her best to wiggle her way back into it still at 24! She wears her mother’s pajamas to go to sleep because she likes to have access to her mother’s scent. When it comes to each other’s bodies, once again, there are no boundaries. When Elizabeth doesn’t feel well, Victoria will help her wipe in the bathroom. When Victoria first started menstruating, mom was there to insert the first tampon. AND when Victoria, who is still a virgin, once thought she accidentally lost her virginity, she had her mother and sister drop their pants and compare hymens. Simply put, there are no boundaries here!

Family and friends all agree that Vikki is a privileged princess who is absolutely the apple of her mother’s eye. She dotes and pampers her adult daughter like royalty, catering to her every whim. Washing her clothing, ironing her underwear(!?!), buying her expensive purses, meals, and even cars! Nothing is too good for her little girl! Meanwhile, the rest of the family is left in the lurch, wondering where these women get off?! The door swings both ways as Elizabeth admits she has no interest in seeing her daughter leave and she thrives on and defines herself by the moniker of mom. Like Rapunzel, Elizabeth wants to shelter and protect her daughter from the outside world. Even if that means isolating her from it. That means, that if Victoria makes mention of moving Elizabeth says she’ll ditch her husband and get an apartment with her immediately.

Elizabeth hasn’t always had it easy as a mother. In 2004, when her son Rafael was just 18, he was diagnosed with leukemia, making an already anxious and panic prone mother absolutely petrified. If something happened to any of her kids, she would be inconsolable. He is healthy and cancer free now but the fear of losing a child hasn’t gone away for mom. Elizabeth is a textbook, nervous wreck of an-over-protective, “where are you and who are you with?” mama bear. She’s unequivocally overinvolved in her children’s lives, but especially Victoria’s.

That said, the obsession and attachment with Victoria started long before any family trauma. Elizabeth breastfed Victoria until she was 3 years old, a sight that cracked up everyone in the neighborhood! To this day, Victoria gets called out by neighbors and family friends who recognize her as the toddler who breastfed until she was three! The running joke was that Elizabeth would walk Victoria down the aisle attached to her nipple.

No topic commands more concern and scrutiny for Elizabeth than her daughter Victoria’s dating life. Anytime Victoria has a date, Elizabeth does a deep dive and retrieves a slew of information from her daughter to have on hand. When the date arrives, she proudly walks out to the driveway, takes a photo of his car and license plates and inputs his number into her phone. When Victoria and her date proceed with their evening plans, there’s a fifty percent chance Mom will show up at the same bar or restaurant… and if she didn’t get a chance to meet the guy, there’s a 95 percent chance she’ll show up on the date!

To Angelica, who is now 32, divorced and living in the family’s basement apartment, the overzealous approach Elizabeth has to Victoria’s love life is dichotomous. On one hand, she is dying to see her sister with a great guy. Angelia will approach hot guys in public and show them pictures of her cute sister, she even DMs sexy strangers on Instagram to ask if they’re still single and sits and swipes away with Victoria. It’s all in the name of love! But on the other hand, Elizabeth scares men away, gets too involved and may secretly want Victoria all to herself, according to Angelica, who knows firsthand just how much Elizabeth can overstep into her children’s love lives.

Angelica admits that her mother’s meddling, unfiltered opinions, and involvement was one of the reasons that her marriage failed. Coming out of a divorce, Angelica tries to teach her baby sister that she needs to make her own decisions regarding romance. Vikki needs to seek a relationship that serves her, not her mother. She needs to prioritize herself, wants and needs as well as that of a future partner’s if she is to have a successful marriage and not to make the mistakes that Angelica made. But asking mom to not get involved is like suggesting the Lincoln Tunnel at Five o’clock on a Friday. Not going to happen.

Tony, the dad agrees that things have gone too far between his wife and his daughter. He thinks his wife is out of line and too controlling and simply driving everyone nuts! His parenting approach is completely different, as he’d love to see his daughters explore more, see the world, and meet more people. Children need to be equipped to be independent, self-reliant, critical thinkers who are curious about the world outside of their family structure. There is more to life than their tiny bubble of long island! Go see the world! Meet new people. Open your wings and fly! Elizabeth’s love and protection (although well intentioned) is paradoxically stunting her daughter’s growth and independence. With one daughter freshly back in the house and Victoria reaching an age where women naturally want to explore their romantic and sexual lives, it’s clear that this family may need to change some of their patterns if they are all able to find a real life happily ever after.

Additional Characters:
Angelica- Elizabeth’s Daughter/Victoria’s Sister (32)

Rafael- Elizabeth’s Son/Victoria’s Brother (31)

Tony- Elizabeth’s Husband/Victoria’s Dad 62

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