Thursday, August 17, 2006

Forgiving Your Parents

I watched the season finale Of "Keshia Cole: The Way It Is" last night. She went to visit her mom in a prison camp after not seeing her for at least a year. While I could tell thst she loved her mom, she seemed to be fed up with her "shit" and wasn't very trusting of her claims that "this was the last time" and "I'll straighten up".

This got me to thinking about my family and also The Other Half's family situation. Will my kid's fault me for how I was raised?

I found my birth certificate a few years ago and noticed that in the section marked Father's Name it said: PREFERS NOT TO STATE
I guess I didn't think much of it at the time, I knew the man that called himself my dad was not my biological father but he was all I knew.
My stepdad brought the subject up once and my mother cried so hard and seemed so uncomfortable that I vowed that I would never ask her about it again if I could help it. My stepdad was just that type of asshole that would torment someone like that.

I always felt that my mom didn't protect me from things that she should have and I've carried that resentment with me. I think she senses it and tries extra hard to call me every day and "check in on me". A lot of times I feel like I'm "saving" her, money-wise, emotinally etc..I really love her but that emotional wall is still standing very tall between us.

People always envy The Other Half for having his father around his whole life. In "our" community it seems to be rare. He's says that he's bothered by their envy because he feels that even though his father lived in the house, he was never "there" for him. His dad had a very bad drug problem and was an alcoholic. His dad was able to come and go as he pleased or he would literally kick ass.

You always tell yourself that you would NEVER turn out to be like your messed up parent but how many times do we find ourselves repeating the cycle?

For instance I find myself distancing myself from my baby sister. Even though I'm not her parent, I don't think I tell her enough about the dangers of the world.
I also see The Other Half's father surfacing in him. He bristles at my questions like "where are you going" or "when will you be back" and I notice that he drinks to the point of assholeness at least twice a month.

I guess we all have things that we need to get over, but is it possible to REALLY forgive your parents if THEY haven't forgiven theirs?

1 comment:

Amanda. said...

"You always tell yourself that you would NEVER turn out to be like your messed up parent but how many times do we find ourselves repeating the cycle?"

Not to sound all "Lifetime Movie of the Week" (because for all practical purposes, I had a pretty sweet childhood) but my mom was totally EFFED up! Totally. I have vowed to not repeat with my children what she did to me. So much so that during my last visit with her, I told her that this would be the last time she saw my kids unless she straightened her ass up because I didn't want her to influence them from things I was working so hard to guard against.

I dunno. It sucks.

Sometimes I see the crazies I inherited from my mom peeping out in my parenting and it scares the shit out of me.