Raise your hand if you think your parents are crazy!
::raises hand slowly... looks around::
Well... I'll just assume your hands are all up. Even if you can't admit it, I know... I've listened to too many of you gritching, more than once or twice, about your parents.
Over the last few years, I've become what I'd like to refer to as an adult. I know I'm not ALL the way there, and I still have a lot to learn, but I've grown up. I've expanded and opened my mind and left it to air in the breeze.
I wouldn't say I lived a sheltered life as a child, but I might say it was privileged with limitations. I was allowed to have friends, do fun things, spend money frivolously. I had a car to drive to school when I was able, and I never went wanting for anything. I always had more than I needed.
My mom was the "cool" mom. My friends in middle school actually referred to her as "G Mom" because she was so gangsta! No really! She was the cool mom and hosted many slumber parties through my school years. She was almost TOO lax with the rules and kind of let me "do my own thing." We also fought like cats and dogs when I did or said something wrong, but we were so closely bonded that when we recovered from our fight, things were wonderful and fun again. Y'know... the honeymoon phase?
When I was older, out of high school, and working on my own, my mom allowed me more into her memories and shared a lot about her past that I'd never known. I began to understand why my mom had the emotional issues she did and why she raised me the way she did.
She and her brother had been physically beat with a belt repeatedly in anger for the indiscretions of her 2 younger siblings on many more than one occasion. It sounded as if it were daily, for my mom (being the eldest child), anyhow, throughout a particularly bratty time in one of the others' childhood. These were the days of housewives who wouldn't do the disciplining. So when Dad got home, he was informed that it was time to beat the children for what they'd done during the day while he was at the job he hated so much. So he was both upset and inconvenienced simply because he wanted to just relax, and the frustrations were taken out on the kids' backsides.
She'd been picked on at school without defense or understanding from her parents, bullied, beat up, called names. (Remember the time before they had the "No Bullying" policies in schools? Back when no one cared about the abuse? Well, that was the time. but then again, the parents were beating the kids, too. So name-calling wasn't so bad.)
She even began her period with NO warning or information as to what was going on with her body. She fashioned pads out of toilet paper and duct tape for an entire YEAR before one of her friends finally got her period as well and she found out she wasn't actually dying, or spontaneously bleeding to death. She was TEN years old!! TEN!! Can you imagine how scary it must have been??
I know she had some good times growing up, specifically with her grandparents, but the bad times were bad. There are SOOOOOOO many other independent incidences that would make you cringe in HORROR that someone would do that to a member of their family, especially a "Christian" family... Ha! Don't get me started there...
I began to understand WHY my mom parented me the way she did. She wanted me to feel loved, unrestricted and free to live my life, make choices she hadn't been allowed to make and know I had support behind me. While I know she had the best intentions, I feel that I might have had a different direction with my life had I had a little more discipline. My mom was my best friend, not really a Mom.
It wasn't until I had a daughter of my own and moved out of my mom's home that I realized how abnormal my mom's parenting was. My mom suffers from a type of PTSD because of her traumatic childhood, and lately it's been causing a LOT of tension between us. I love my mom SOOOOOO much, but I really had to try to distance myself from her (which was easy because she lives 600 miles away). My husband pointed out to me that when I would get off the phone after talking to her, I would either be upset, irritated or crying. I really hadn't noticed. That was just how we got along...
So I began to distance myself more, but this time, my mom had a meltdown. She pretty much tore me a new one, cut me down to size and really dug deep with the dagger. (Any other cliche' that I missed??) She was angry for so many things and had built up so much rage, hurt and depression that she just... snapped!
After all the pain, hurt and anger between us, I think we've reached a level ground. She's taking some time away from people to seek professional counseling and guidance as to how to proceed. I'm really proud of her. She chose to do this on her own, not because someone gave her an ultimatum. I really hope she can stick with it long enough to see the changes in herself. I love my mom, but I can't fix her. As a general rule, you can't fix someone else until they have the motivation to change themselves. My mom wants to change herself now... That's why I have faith that it will work.
I was thinking about airing all my dirty laundry and telling you about ALL my family problems, but I do, after all, need something to write about tomorrow. ;)
P.S. The picture above is NOT my family... If you DON'T know who they are... leave. Leave now...
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