Sins of the Parents
Posted under: It is the job and honor of a mother to hold her child in her arms and comfort her when she falls. I could argue there is no love greater than that of a mother for her child. I know that is not the case in every situation. A mother’s love should be unconditional and freely showered on her children. While I have this type of love for my children, I feel it for my own mother as well.
My relationship and history with my mom is not the one I would have chosen for us, if it had been my choice at all. Alcohol and drugs influenced the behavior of my mother before I entered my teenage years. She left my four siblings and I with our father during the very formative years of our lives. I went through periods of depression, anger, resentment, disappointment, hatred and complete apathy where she was concerned. Those emotions revolved in a complicated and emotional cycle that left me exhausted and emotionally drained with each go ‘round.
I do not know why my mother did what she did and I probably will never understand her actions or her choices. I can tell you that I have stopped trying, but I grieve for my teenage years that I didn’t get to spend with my mother. I also grieve for my baby sister’s entire life that she never knew what it was like to have a loving mother living under the same roof. My mother’s childhood contributed to the addictions that later became a part of her life.
If my mother had the kind of mom that I strive to be for my own children, perhaps she would have taken a different path in life. As I sit here and think about it, it makes me angry to think that my grandparents contributed not only to instilling dysfunction into her life, but ultimately completely changing the lives of five children and their father as well. It breaks my heart to think of my own mother as a little girl, the age that my little boy is now, not receiving the love, the care and the attention that we shower on our own children every day. I know my mother wasn’t read to as a child and that no one taught her all the things that we teach our children. What a very sad and lonely life that must have been.
I wish I could take that little girl into my arms and tell her it’s going to be ok. I wish I could have found new parents for her, a new family that would love her and give her the strong and stable home life that she needed. I just wish I could put my arms around her and tell her that she was loved, she was beautiful and smart and funny. I wish I could rest her little head on my shoulder and let her know that everything would turn out ok, that she just had to understand who she was and that her birth parents do not define her. Her situation does not define her. If only she could stay strong, she would one day have five gorgeous children who would all grow up to be college graduates and who would give her amazingly sweet grandchildren.
I wish I could tell that little girl that turning to alcohol and drugs was not, nor would it ever be the answer to any of life’s problems.
And that she didn’t have to grow up and be like her parents if she didn’t want to be.
What a sad, sad thing it is when children aren’t loved by their parents in the way that they should be. It affects so many more people than just that one child. Every child deserves love and attention. Look at the disastrous consequences that result from their absence.
