Life, parents, and all the inequities between.
I've been thinking lately about my changing relationship with my Mother.
In my childhood, she was my caretaker and disciplinarian, as a teenager, I flip flopped between being a passive acceptor of her authority, and a rebel against it. Now... I'm not really sure. There was an episode of "Friends" that asked why parents had to become people at some point. That they couldn't be just parents forever. I've been slowly moving in that direction for a long time.
As a child, mom took off work to raise my siblings and me, and as a single income family, that meant that we lived pretty lean sometimes. We never really wanted for much outside of our means, but sacrifices had to be made here or there. Because she took care of us, mom became the face of "Not this time, kids". We didn't often get ourselves into trouble, so we weren't often yelled at, but there were days when mom would get angry, and the sound of that rage, more often then not, scared us straight.
During my teenagerdom, mom was sometimes my friend, and sometimes my enemy. This pattern emerged that we started to fight back against the boxes our mother put us in. She never imagined that her son would be teased by his peers in middle school. Having your mom fight your battles is never cool. Her older daughter was nothing like she expected. They grate on each other, and their relationship has been rocky ever since. And I think that perhaps I'm the most like she wanted us to be, but my sister is so much more a part of my world than my mom that I raised up against her as a show of solidarity to my sister. Mom did everything to keep us together, and it seemed that once the leash, pulled to tightly for to long, was inevitably going to fray and break. This was the most turbulent time of my life. I never really hated my mom, but I have to admit that there were days when I really tried to. I might of succeeded, had I the guts to pack a bag and never look back.
But now I've grown some. Years of fighting, and seeing the end results of other people's fights, and all I really want is for it to stop. Reflection and patience have taught me things about my mother that I never knew as a teenager. She depends on me in a different way than she does with my sister or brother. Of the three of us, I'm most like her, so often times when mom needs to vent, I'm the child she picks to talk to. We can bond in a strange way, talking about things like mom's past, or her frustrations with my dad's family. I'm only just beginning to see parts of my mom, the person, and it makes my relationship with her, the mom, better, a little.
Like how she's scared all the time. She fears for things that I never thought to be scared of- mostly because if there was that much fear in my life, I'd die of heart failure. But she's my mom, how can I get mad at her for worrying about me? About our family? Truth is, I really can't. I'm beginning to see how much my mom doesn't like herself, she feels ugly, unwanted, and depressed. That scares me, because never in my whole life has my mother ever seemed incapable of moving mountains. She's never been ugly in my eyes. She's constantly comparing herself to who she was as a young woman, and she finds herself lacking in so many ways. I can't really understand why she does that, but I know it kills her to really think about it. Sometimes, all it takes to get her feeling awful is stepping into our house and seeing 'a mess' (really, it's not that bad. Mom is just used to an unnatural level of 'clean'). It makes me feel sorry for her, because she's never been anything like that in my eyes, and it hurts to see someone I love so much in pain.
Mom is a perfectionist, and its hard to live up to those expectations. She makes me feel that anything less is somehow... less all around. Its like she can't see the forest for all of the trees in it, and I'm not like that at all- so it makes it hard for us to get each other sometimes.
Tonight we argued. You see, my family has been going though some tough times. Financial, medical, educational, just about every type of stress there is, we've had to deal with it this summer. Mom rushed into my room, phone in one hand, the other carrying my sister's checkbook. She glances up at me, and tries to explain. "They're telling Brianna she hasn't paid her rent!" And the next thing I know, she's rattling off dates of checks written up to our complex, and how much they were for. This came as a real surprise, because Brianna is the type to pay a large lump sum to cover her rent for several months at a time. In February she wrote a check to cover her straight through July.
Mom is so freaked out she's going through dates and numbers faster than Brianna can write them down or try to organize them, and if there's one thing I know about mom and Brianna, its that they can't communicate. Almost at all. I managed to convince mom to give me the checkbook and phone, and proceed to find out that a calculation error has made her lump payment almost a full month short. At that point, Brianna is talking to me in one ear, and mom in the other. Somehow, we work out a plan to get the rent paid, and to keep Brianna calm, I end the phone conversation there. Mom's not through though, she's mad- and then she yells. I'm there, so I get the brunt of all that frustration and anger.
'I didn't do anything wrong! This isn't my fault!' I want to say, but I can't. Mom has this way of being angry, "I'm smart, and you're dumb. I'm big and you're little. I'm right, and you're wrong, and there's nothing you can do about it!". I know myself better than to open my mouth, I'd be just as hurtful and all that would get us is more anger. I keep my mouth shut, and try to be as impassive as possible. My mom hates that look. She ranted for a bit, about how no one listens to her, and how we blow her off, and how she's pissed. She leaves, still mad, and I try to go back to the book I was reading before any of this happened.
But I can't concentrate. I can't think. 'I didn't do anything wrong! This isn't my fault!' I still wanna say. I sobbed a bit, and my brother must have heard. I huddled myself into my closet, not crying, but not comfortable in as big a space as my room (At one point, I realized that this must be how my sister feels when she wants to be in her hidey-hole. It wasn't much, but that comforted me some). Ian must have told mom about me crying, because before I know it- she's there. Telling me all the things I want to hear, trying to lighten the mood, but nothing is making me feel better. She leaves. And I pack myself away again. Dad tries several minutes later, and so I tell him.
Its not about guilt, I'm mad. He suggested that perhaps its hard to hear the message behind the yelling, but I cut him off. I say that its not about that. It's not my fault Brianna made a math error. I know that. Its how mom gets angry. She blows up, regardless over whether or not the person she's directing her anger toward is the person who deserves her ire. Its not my fault, and I was yelled at. I told him how my silence is self imposed for the sake of peace. He stared at me a moment, and said, "Well, I've done that myself a few times. Truth is, your mom sent me back here because she thought you felt guilty." I shook my head no, I'm just mad. I tear up some, because my dad is more wonderful than words can express. He stays, because I'm crying, but he asks me why, and the only thing I can say is, "I just wish I could tell mom that."
Dad and I had a heart-to-heart. It ends with my father telling me, "Everything I have is yours, yours and your siblings. Eventually, that will be literally true." and he let that hang for a bit, before bidding me goodnight. The moment felt surreal, because more than once, mom has told me, "This is MY house! MY this MY that"... and though its not the first time my father ever said that to me, it was the first time I realized how starkly different my parents are from each other.
In any case, it made me think of how my mom, the parent, is so at odds with my mom, the person. I feel like I'm standing on the cracks, and all the parts of ground supporting me, are shifting apart. I try talking to my mom, the person, sometimes. Its what she wants me to do, I think, but she gets defensive, and all of a sudden, she's making me feel stupid, or like my opinion isn't valid. Just because she's older than me, and has experienced things that I haven't. It frustrates me, because then I have to back pedal, and start talking to my mom, the parent, again.
Sometimes I wish it were more simple than this. Then I reconsider. But I still don't know what to do.
In my childhood, she was my caretaker and disciplinarian, as a teenager, I flip flopped between being a passive acceptor of her authority, and a rebel against it. Now... I'm not really sure. There was an episode of "Friends" that asked why parents had to become people at some point. That they couldn't be just parents forever. I've been slowly moving in that direction for a long time.
As a child, mom took off work to raise my siblings and me, and as a single income family, that meant that we lived pretty lean sometimes. We never really wanted for much outside of our means, but sacrifices had to be made here or there. Because she took care of us, mom became the face of "Not this time, kids". We didn't often get ourselves into trouble, so we weren't often yelled at, but there were days when mom would get angry, and the sound of that rage, more often then not, scared us straight.
During my teenagerdom, mom was sometimes my friend, and sometimes my enemy. This pattern emerged that we started to fight back against the boxes our mother put us in. She never imagined that her son would be teased by his peers in middle school. Having your mom fight your battles is never cool. Her older daughter was nothing like she expected. They grate on each other, and their relationship has been rocky ever since. And I think that perhaps I'm the most like she wanted us to be, but my sister is so much more a part of my world than my mom that I raised up against her as a show of solidarity to my sister. Mom did everything to keep us together, and it seemed that once the leash, pulled to tightly for to long, was inevitably going to fray and break. This was the most turbulent time of my life. I never really hated my mom, but I have to admit that there were days when I really tried to. I might of succeeded, had I the guts to pack a bag and never look back.
But now I've grown some. Years of fighting, and seeing the end results of other people's fights, and all I really want is for it to stop. Reflection and patience have taught me things about my mother that I never knew as a teenager. She depends on me in a different way than she does with my sister or brother. Of the three of us, I'm most like her, so often times when mom needs to vent, I'm the child she picks to talk to. We can bond in a strange way, talking about things like mom's past, or her frustrations with my dad's family. I'm only just beginning to see parts of my mom, the person, and it makes my relationship with her, the mom, better, a little.
Like how she's scared all the time. She fears for things that I never thought to be scared of- mostly because if there was that much fear in my life, I'd die of heart failure. But she's my mom, how can I get mad at her for worrying about me? About our family? Truth is, I really can't. I'm beginning to see how much my mom doesn't like herself, she feels ugly, unwanted, and depressed. That scares me, because never in my whole life has my mother ever seemed incapable of moving mountains. She's never been ugly in my eyes. She's constantly comparing herself to who she was as a young woman, and she finds herself lacking in so many ways. I can't really understand why she does that, but I know it kills her to really think about it. Sometimes, all it takes to get her feeling awful is stepping into our house and seeing 'a mess' (really, it's not that bad. Mom is just used to an unnatural level of 'clean'). It makes me feel sorry for her, because she's never been anything like that in my eyes, and it hurts to see someone I love so much in pain.
Mom is a perfectionist, and its hard to live up to those expectations. She makes me feel that anything less is somehow... less all around. Its like she can't see the forest for all of the trees in it, and I'm not like that at all- so it makes it hard for us to get each other sometimes.
Tonight we argued. You see, my family has been going though some tough times. Financial, medical, educational, just about every type of stress there is, we've had to deal with it this summer. Mom rushed into my room, phone in one hand, the other carrying my sister's checkbook. She glances up at me, and tries to explain. "They're telling Brianna she hasn't paid her rent!" And the next thing I know, she's rattling off dates of checks written up to our complex, and how much they were for. This came as a real surprise, because Brianna is the type to pay a large lump sum to cover her rent for several months at a time. In February she wrote a check to cover her straight through July.
Mom is so freaked out she's going through dates and numbers faster than Brianna can write them down or try to organize them, and if there's one thing I know about mom and Brianna, its that they can't communicate. Almost at all. I managed to convince mom to give me the checkbook and phone, and proceed to find out that a calculation error has made her lump payment almost a full month short. At that point, Brianna is talking to me in one ear, and mom in the other. Somehow, we work out a plan to get the rent paid, and to keep Brianna calm, I end the phone conversation there. Mom's not through though, she's mad- and then she yells. I'm there, so I get the brunt of all that frustration and anger.
'I didn't do anything wrong! This isn't my fault!' I want to say, but I can't. Mom has this way of being angry, "I'm smart, and you're dumb. I'm big and you're little. I'm right, and you're wrong, and there's nothing you can do about it!". I know myself better than to open my mouth, I'd be just as hurtful and all that would get us is more anger. I keep my mouth shut, and try to be as impassive as possible. My mom hates that look. She ranted for a bit, about how no one listens to her, and how we blow her off, and how she's pissed. She leaves, still mad, and I try to go back to the book I was reading before any of this happened.
But I can't concentrate. I can't think. 'I didn't do anything wrong! This isn't my fault!' I still wanna say. I sobbed a bit, and my brother must have heard. I huddled myself into my closet, not crying, but not comfortable in as big a space as my room (At one point, I realized that this must be how my sister feels when she wants to be in her hidey-hole. It wasn't much, but that comforted me some). Ian must have told mom about me crying, because before I know it- she's there. Telling me all the things I want to hear, trying to lighten the mood, but nothing is making me feel better. She leaves. And I pack myself away again. Dad tries several minutes later, and so I tell him.
Its not about guilt, I'm mad. He suggested that perhaps its hard to hear the message behind the yelling, but I cut him off. I say that its not about that. It's not my fault Brianna made a math error. I know that. Its how mom gets angry. She blows up, regardless over whether or not the person she's directing her anger toward is the person who deserves her ire. Its not my fault, and I was yelled at. I told him how my silence is self imposed for the sake of peace. He stared at me a moment, and said, "Well, I've done that myself a few times. Truth is, your mom sent me back here because she thought you felt guilty." I shook my head no, I'm just mad. I tear up some, because my dad is more wonderful than words can express. He stays, because I'm crying, but he asks me why, and the only thing I can say is, "I just wish I could tell mom that."
Dad and I had a heart-to-heart. It ends with my father telling me, "Everything I have is yours, yours and your siblings. Eventually, that will be literally true." and he let that hang for a bit, before bidding me goodnight. The moment felt surreal, because more than once, mom has told me, "This is MY house! MY this MY that"... and though its not the first time my father ever said that to me, it was the first time I realized how starkly different my parents are from each other.
In any case, it made me think of how my mom, the parent, is so at odds with my mom, the person. I feel like I'm standing on the cracks, and all the parts of ground supporting me, are shifting apart. I try talking to my mom, the person, sometimes. Its what she wants me to do, I think, but she gets defensive, and all of a sudden, she's making me feel stupid, or like my opinion isn't valid. Just because she's older than me, and has experienced things that I haven't. It frustrates me, because then I have to back pedal, and start talking to my mom, the parent, again.
Sometimes I wish it were more simple than this. Then I reconsider. But I still don't know what to do.