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My Profile
Because I can't bear to eulogize Doug - 2008-08-19
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3:59 p.m. - 2002-09-22
Mike took the kids with him to work. I have spent this blessedly quiet family-free Sunday morning working on a letter to the beleaguered Mrs. M. Not an attack, but rather a leg up and some guidance on how best to get some control over the kids and some hard nosed practical advice. I called Lou and read it to her. Lou was a special ed teacher for many years and I respect her opinion. When I was finished she was quiet for a moment and then said, “LA, that is basically a master’s degree in the theory and application of teaching special needs kids. If Mrs. M can grasp what you’ve said and apply it correctly, she should be well on her way to getting her shit together.” Cool, huh? I so often feel inadequate as Wolf’s mom. Nothing I knew about momming and what I learned with Alex could be applied to Wolf. Not only did I have the drudgery of starting over, but I’ve had to unlearn and battle against 13 years of doing things one way and do things in an almost opposite way. It’s like suddenly having to operate a backwards car. One where the steering wheel is on the floor and the pedals are worked with my hands. And I have to go everywhere in reverse. I feel like I’m continually stripping the gears and ramming into parking meters. It’s bolstering to hear that after 5 long, brutal years in the trenches I’ve learned enough to be able to articulate how it works with my son and what it is he needs. Especially since nobody, including Mike, believed I could be any kind of good mother at all. Someone who’d grown up as I had, in that twisted horror show with no love, no guidance, just endless abuse, would obviously be a shitty mother herself. Everybody “knows” that abused children grow up into abusers themselves. That evil bit of common knowledge infuriates me. Yet people persist on repeating and believing it. Like it’s the eleventh commandment or something: The Beaten Child Shall Beat Her Own Children. Nothing makes me angrier. And those who populate the White Trash Theater of Springer, Lake, et al and sit there on stage and whine about how they were abused as kids and that’s why they prostitute their own kids, set them on fire, beat them senseless, etc ad nauseum make me want to leap through the TV screen and strangle them. Who has more cause to try and be the best parents in the world than the formerly abused? They should be doing everything in their power to expunge the horrors of their childhoods by NOT repeating the evil. We KNOW what being on the receiving end is like and therefore have a moral obligation to see that our own children NEVER have to go through what we went through. Those disgusting animals who attempt to justify their reprehensible behavior with the “I was abused” defense are the scum of the Earth. There is nothing I do which is more important than being a mom. And not just some sow who casually squeezed out some piglets, but the BEST mom I can learn to be. It’s not just a matter of inverting my childhood and doing everything the opposite of my mother. I’m not a candy-ass who makes unthinking reparations for my own deprivations by drowning my kids in material goods and letting them do whatever the hell they want. I’m striving to be a GOOD mother, not the fucking Tooth Fairy. I take nothing for granted. Every aspect of my children’s lives, from the food they eat, the clothes they wear, to most especially the values I teach and the discipline I mete out, is given careful consideration. I owe it to my kids. To give them the love, respect, and attention they deserve so they can go out into the world strong and healthy is what it’s all about. I make jokes and complain a lot. I come here with my sob stories and riff on what buggers my kids are. I speak facetiously about leg irons and making them walk the plank. My lighthearted goofs on dropping them at the pound and taking off for Bora-Bora, are just that; hot air and some grumbling silliness. The reality is I love my kids passionately and being their mother is the hardest, yet most rewarding thing I’ll ever do. I’m asking you all to think carefully the next time that eleventh commandment starts to leave your mouth. Not all of the abused grow up to be abusers. And if I had my way, none of them would.
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