Parenting: A Lifetime Challenge

How To Win A Disagreement when you're on the wrong side of the truth:

• Throw distractions in comments and remarks mentioning life occurrences so far in the past it takes time to bring them forward into the "thinking" part of the brain
• Hurl insults that aren't accurate and use language that blames, insults and includes numerous accusations
• Explode your power through cc's and direct sends to everyone of email messages altering and leaving out "segments"  & "sections" showing reality & truth
• Involve everyone even if it doesn't affect them directly
• It's your job to ensure confusion and promote negativity 

"Kids say the darndest things' is a quote from a talk show host who had a part of his show "interviewing" very young school age children who sat on chairs on the stage of his TV program in the earlier days of television.

Art Linkletter, Host of the show, moved beside each one with a microphone (a necessity back then) and asked each a question. He listened and watched. 

He often knew just the remark that might get a really interesting answer -- one the audience would laugh about but sometimes the parents would cringe and possibly "lecture" their child once home.

My oldest son takes a twist on this "funny" approach to communication. 

He uses "loaded language" to ensure conflict and continuing discord.

Unlike Mr Linkletter, my son isn't "putting on a show" but he is using children to get a response from his audience and in some ways they're both guilty of taking innocence and using it as a tool to get notoriety and recognition. 

Bright. Capable. Not to say the others weren't, he was just "the first" and therefore almost always "led the way" in terms of what was offered, what was given and what was done.

Eduation: Early start. Toddler. As soon as he was "toilet trained" which was 18 months. He walked at 8 months. Yes, walked, not tried, not stood -- walking....and almost running.

Sports: What's your interest? What would you like to try? 

He named it, we provided it. And, of course for the other two as well. 

We were "those" parents of the 70's and onward; there with the hand and the wallet outstretched. 

Grateful we still had a world; we were born mostly after, and some during, WWII.

We were children of the Post War era; parents who'd lived through the Depression; many started the movement to the suburbs; all wanted a better life for their children.

What do you want?  All you have to do is"ask".

What do you need? When do you need it? 

How high do you want me to jump, how many times?

How far do you want me to bend over backwards?

We'll go out and get all the equipment tonight after my challenging day working, we'll write a check for the membership/dues/donation -- whatever it takes, son/daughter, after all, we do it "for you".

Interested in computers? Science? Drama? Whatever! 

We Are Here For You to "in attendance" from acknowledging 

your first words and steps to your first date with wallet in hand.

Two jobs at once I'm trying to work. Trying times. We sat in lines on specific days to get whatever amount of gas was allowed, shortages, concerns -- but always believing "this too shall pass". Our lives were lived for "you", each of you.

Your brother has similar wants and needs.

I'll find the time. Make the time. 

For you, for him.
Enter a little baby sister. MUCH older Mom and Dad.

We'll make it, we always do somehow, we work together, with & for one another, that's who we are, that's"family".

 

College? Right! Take your pick. 

We can't afford some but we'll find a way to get you THE BEST.

 

We'll take on debt.

Years later.....you'll say you paid your entire way through.

REALLY?  We have the bills and the receipts.

When you came home to "reorganize" your way of thinking and applying yourself at college at their request  . . and returned. . . we took up the slack and the additional cost of your "lost" benefits because of poor grades. 

You'd had a job in local restaurant; we provided a car; you were paid and you received tips. 

Nothing offered or came from you for the time at home. 

No offer to pay for anything.

No mention of how much you made. 

We helped you get "readmitted". 

We gave you a monthly stipend.

 

You "needed" furnishings for your room. We bought them. Clothing? Got it. 

Want to "build" a special loft for your room. Consider it done.

Found a cat and took it in? Shots and food? 

Sure, we can help.

Fell out of a high window and needs to see a vet -- got it!

Visiting meant going to the grocery store and anywhere for anything you "needed".

 

We now had two of you at the same school but you didn't seem to notice -- and your sister who deserved a life -- but she probably embarrassed you coming many years later. 

We're in town, we buy it, if you tell us you "need" it, "want" it or it  will make "your life" easier. 

Rent a truck to cart the materials "to Your place".

When Summer roles around, we pay for the storage of that and other "college items" until you head back for another year of "fun" and "games" and some studying.

You need a car at school? 

Well, it's less expensive than flying you home for breaks.

Here, son, take mine. 

You drove where? What? Why? A little "romantic getaway".

You visited a cousin but no one ever told us about your "travels". 

How thoughtful of them. How deceitful of you. 

You lived off campus. It was hundreds of miles to get back "home". We thought you'd matured, grown, had common sense.

We were so wrong, so very wrong.

And that was only one time you "used" us and "used" your privilege for "self gain", no thought for or about others and certainly no respect for the sacrifices of your family.

That car was supposed to be given to your brother, attending the same college, who had two more years to go. 

But that didn't matter to you, the golden boy, the always being given what was meant to lead to a dream future but ended up building a multi level nightmare for your immediate family.

FAST FORWARD. More than a decade passed. Ups & downs. 

A marriage we did not attend because there was no regret, no feeling of shame about striking me down and your father, causing my teeth to be broken and others to be cracked. 

There were many actions and practices dishonoring your Grandmother, my mother, by both of you. 

When it came to the "wedding" after being told you were "Already married. You'd shared the Eucharist, had sex and there was nothing we could do about it-- after during a visit your "friend" took her birth control pill in front of me, Mom and your sister. Really?

And then there was the physical assault.

You "came to visit" unannounced, walking through the back door, she was outside in the car.

Demanding, accusing, verbally abusing

Storming out the front door

Your father working in the yard

I'd had all I could take of the abuse,

You and she, separately and together, provided

No respect for us, none for your Grandmother

You wanted what you wanted and you wanted it NOW.

I threw some words, you ran at me throwing your fists

Teeth on both sides of my mouth were broken

Your father tackled you; you beat on him,

You ran away as She started the car calling to you to "Get In!' 

No care or concern for us, your Grandmother or little sister. You both fled to "sanctuary", a nearby Church on the campus of where you went to school. 

Over the years, you take a "family" picture standing near the altar of a Church. Reminds me how we learned with Mom's challenges how deceitful and yet "pious" people can be.

You'd totally crossed over to a dark side where all that mattered was what you/what she wanted and were determined to get.

Wondering if you've shared this with your children, two are grown, at least with them?

Putting off repeat dental work due to financial challenges and being told, I should have gotten that done years ago". I did. It only lasts for a number of years and then must be redone.

We struggled to cope financially, physically and emotionally after using everything we had to care give for two immediate family members -- my husband/your father; my mother/your grandmother who lived with us since just after you were born.

Thanks, son, for loading on the guilt when it was already piled high by circumstances you create with something always setting you off. 

Then came the "taking home your toys so we couldn't play anymore" action. Only these are human beings, they grow up and some want/need truth and not just "being told". 

One has decided to seek & find. Just hope she someday realizes time is not infinite and she has a life of her own.

Your removing any and all contact with the children you began to have. Started with the first. Went on for a while. We came back together, not close, but communicating and meeting in your brother's home when we visited.

This is the third time, if I recall correctly. 

Five children now. He's a pre-teen or teen -- I can't bear the weight so I don't think about it. It's survival against more attacks and using the "children" as pawns.

We weren't told you were "expecting".

Or when the baby was born

If it was a boy or girl (a boy), a name or anything. 

This time the split was over your father and my gravesite. 

The one you manipulated into controlling completely and you ensured you had the sole right to owning the burial plot and the erection of a monument. (Added JAN 2024: burial Jan 2011)   

I emailed you I could't find the grave and how a marker really needed to be put up.

You responded, "If you want it so bad, do it yourself".

I will, just as I did for my Mother, your grandmother, I will.

What lies you tell about what you do. 

Like your grandfather, my father. 

You are self centered. 

You are focused on what you want.

Not helping family, not seeing needs, not caring.

I never understood my father and his self centered actions and I never will understand yours.

How sad you chose a woman who supports your actions,  perhaps encourages them. She gains, after all, more power over you. That's hard to write. Sad to write. 

I read letters you sent to us before you "hooked up" with her.

Between the lines I see you were "ripe" to be picked by someone who would accompany you on paths away from and towards what she wanted, what she needed.

I've often wondered. Wondered about her brother, who died of an overdose. Who had a mother who was a Nurse.

I admit I did not see what you were doing and had done but I cannot understand how a mother with a Nursing degree cannot see someone on drugs. Or, did she try and fail as I did with you?

I heard she passed recently and I'm sad for the loss even if I never understood how and why she did nothing during all the years that passed. It's also sad to think about, but was it her plan, also, no matter the cost, to get you alongside daughter?

Finding letters you wrote. 

Before "She" came into your life.
They weren't angry. They weren't hostile. 

They included some choices I see now as detrimental but saw then as "typical college student" and "typical first born".

Close your eyes. You can't see. 

You can be seen. You believe you cannot. 

When will you learn. When will you see.

When will you know the future depends on the past

Time will continue to pass. You have choices. 

When will you see truth and accept it?

I continue to have hopes my grandchidren will see and live in the light not choosing to move into the darkness.