How many times have we all heard the litanies about repeating our parents' mistakes? We have all heard the stories of abusers and general "bad" people blaming their actions on their parents. My question is why is this an acceptable excuse for doing bad things? As a woman who grew up in a dysfunctional home, I simply cannot believe that just because you were treated badly you have to continue they cycle. I am not saying that childhood does not leave indelible marks on a person, but how does someone get away with never taking the initiative and learning from the things that they knew in their hearts were wrong? My childhood was not normal in any way; I made my mistakes growing into adulthood just like everyone else, but I continue to strive to never become the parents that I had.
I came into this world as the result of a lie. After two boys with my mother and several other children from different relationships, my father wanted no more children. My mother, however, wanted one more child so she could have her daughter. She lied to my father, said that it was "safe" for them to make love. The rest as they say was history. My mother knew she was pregnant, but no one else did. She hid her pregnancy for 6 months, at which time I decided to make my entrance. Surprise dad! You are a daddy again, and it's a girl! Today I am eternally grateful to my mother for that lie, even though my life was in no way easy.
I remember as a very young child loving my parents. I had the usual memories of my mother taking my brothers and me on family outings, and there were even some times when my father was there as well. Things started getting a little weird when I was around five or six, and from there everything went crazy. My mom had diabetes, she was obese, and she was always in and out of the hospital. If she was in the hospital, I always wanted to sleep in my dad's bed so that I didn't feel so scared. At about this time I remember my dad touching me in ways that I felt odd about, and I vaguely recall painful encounters that I knew had to be wrong. I believe I was seven or eight when I decided I did not want to sleep with my father any more. The odd touching did not stop, and I remember wanting to tell my mom about it. I talked to my two older brothers, and they said that she would not believe me; I might even make her sicker. I believed them, but I know now that they were just trying to make sure they did not get in trouble for the same thing.
When I was nine years old, my life was totally turned upside down. Picture a nine year old talking to her mother. All of a sudden she is asking you who you are. She does not know the dog's name that is lying beside her, even though it has been her dog for years. Then, she wants my dad because she cannot see. I recall running to my dad, obviously scared, and asking him why he would not help her. Instead of the response I expected, I was yelled at and whipped for crying. He told me my mother was faking it, and I needed to leave her alone. I believe it was at that point that I learned how to shut down my emotions. The next day, my aunt took her to the hospital. When I got home from school, the woman that I would later dub as one of my father's "affair women" met me at my house to tell me that my mother had had her fourth stroke. My mom had already lost small parts of her memory to the previous three strokes, but with this one she lost most of her vision along with a large part of her short term memory. I was upset, but there would be no more tears to get me in trouble.
My mother was in the hospital for what seemed like a long time. When she came home I became her caregiver. I learned how to give her her medications, fix her insulin shots, and how to cook for a family of five. I do not recall how this came about exactly, but I remember being yelled and cussed at a lot until I learned what I needed to do. I asked my father when I was ten why he did not take care of all these things; His was response was that if something happened and she died, he did not want people to blame him. By the time I was thirteen, if my mother had a doctor's appointment, I missed school to go. I was the one who had her medications filled, told her doctor what was going on with her, and made sure that the results from her blood tests were given to me in order to make sure her blood thinners were updated accordingly.
