It’s quite challenging to live with an adult child without wanting to make all the decisions for them. Any way that I can, to sway my daughter from harm or regrettable mistakes, without manipulating her decision making; is my everyday task. I was my daughter’s age when I felt my Mother’s influence was too involved in my adult life. I ended up leaving the nest, without proper preparation, at age 20. Though I feel my daughter and I aren’t at each other’s throat like I was with my Mom, I still feel the anxiety that she might make the same mistake I did. Only because she has complained we aren’t as close as we use to be. I lived her frustration everyday for years. That is a huge part of who I am that even to this day I feel is unresolved. So many unsettled issues that transpired from that act of fleeing that were never dealt with. I was undeniably shoved into adulthood and have been in “responsibility mode,” ever since.
My frustration was rooted by my wanting to “feel” like an adult, just didn’t have the means to make that idealism “real.” Feeling emotionally crutched by minimal finances and the repetitive criticism at every turn by Mom was deflating any excitement or belief I had in my future………….or even myself for that matter. Like a small child feeling punished for things they aren‘t doing, as if they were. Whether it was growing up in a broken family, having a alcoholic Father, an over-bearing Mother and/or being prone to act of codependency, I was doomed to fail, without given a chance. That does wonders for my self-esteem.
Since I became a parent, I am aware of the patience needed to guide youth, without robbing their self-esteem. I think that is what’s missing in our children these days. The lack of patience lies in the parents guilt for not taking the time to observe and problem solve with the child(ren). For a parent, it would appear easier just to lay down the law, say no trespassing and eliminate ever having to teach all the wonderful benefits of “being human,” and making mistakes. I would give anything to go back to age 20 and change my outlook, my attitude………..my anger towards my Mom. In my regret, I try to be the opposite of my experience.
I keep trying to be a pillar for my first born and tell her that instead of feeling defeated by circumstance, refuse to have it defeat her. That there is an answer, a resolution to every problem and that she should find strength in looking for that answer. Crying prematurely over the potential struggle, is destructive and pointless. Refusing to deal with reality and find comfort in the victim role is equally a waste of time. It’s easy to feel sorry for oneself but it takes character to push oneself through it.
The hardest part of becoming an adult for me, was sorting through all the screaming voices in my head and trying to find the one that was gonna bring me peace. The voice that was gonna tell me about me. It wasn’t the act of intent listening that was hard; it was the religious practice of voicing my input verbally with confidence and taking responsibility for what was heard. Unearthing what my beliefs were and what was important to me wasn’t so easy after being told how to think, how to act and what to feel. Making decisions based on that undeveloped inner voice, can leave a lot of room for doubt. That uncertainty can make one use those haunting voices from the past as a fall back. Which I’ve kicked myself many times for, since it only brought frustration for chickening out, brought feelings of inadequacy about the freedom I fought so hard trying to prove I could handle. I had to let go of my past, force myself to be strong and accept from that point on the only one I could blame for my decision making was “me.” But before I took that role on fully, I wanted answers.
If you are as inquisitive as I have been most my life, I couldn’t let go of my past that easily. When I started asking questions about certain things, my Mother thought I was old enough to understand some truth. I still feel like I only heard half the story cause the other half isn’t really my business or my place to ask. Dignified or not, there is an attitude that parents have that they are making the best decision on behalf of the child and don’t need to be questioned about it. Kids are very intelligent in their observations and words are not necessary in most cases to see what is going on. But still a child is just a child and the perspective on individual events can be like watching a “silent movie,” and young minds are left with their own interpretation. My mind wasn’t mature enough to handle some of the information, the parent’s would treat me as such but yet I had memories that I didn’t want to be protected from any longer. Over the years, there were certain mental connections, little tid-bits of information that allotted me to answer things as I got older. And the unmentionable details are best unsaid. Parents are adults and are made responsible but that doesn’t instinctively make them perfect or in my case; worthy of trust.
Replaying events in my childhood as an adult, with my Mother as the narrator helped me find my voice and my beliefs, as she gave her reasons as to why she did, what she did. The vulnerability it takes for a parent to be completely honest and the present adult child to listen, without judgement. Even at my age, I am still listening when I talk about where I came from and have often had a handful of revelations that my story is still a mystery to me.
In a recent conversation with family members, I was comparing which one of my parents was easier to open up to. I never hesitated to speak fondly of my Father and his unfailing acceptance I felt in his presence. He was more laid back and open-minded compared to the derogatory manner of my Mother. And that confused me about their relationship; how opposite in character they were. As far as I could remember that was hard for me to have one way with my Dad and be another person with my Mom. As a result of the comfort I found in my Dad, I had been a Daddy’s girl til my Mother started to interfere with my relationship with him. She started to talk about him as if I didn’t know him at all. Ask questions about what we spoke of whenever we were together. I didn’t understand her reasoning for this, other then to put distance between my Dad and I. My thought was; just because her relationship with him was a struggle, didn’t give her the right to devalue what connection I had with him. As I was explaining this to my family, someone was telling me my Mom was just trying to protect me, from all the things she knew about my Dad’s character or behavior. I never occurred to me at that age, I would ever need to fear the actions of my Father, as I got older. That my Mother had her justified reasons for protecting me, as she did. Cause I was pushed to be the same advocate for my daughter, with my Father and that’s the last time I saw him.
You’d think I would assess the situation with the same scrutiny as my Mother did for me. I had not foreseen that I would be compelled in my future to put my foot down with my Dad’s forced affection on my young daughter. Even in that act of protecting Vanessa at age 4, I never connected those two instances as similar. I just saw how uncomfortable and fearful Vanessa became when he was around. Where my mother never let it come to that, she saw something I could never fathom. I hated to think that that was possible now but that’s the battle Mother’s fight for their daughter’s. The anger and resentment I had held onto towards my Mother for over 30 years felt like a wall of bricks crashing down on me. To think of all the emotional daggers I threw at her for something that would of normally filled my heart with such warmth and respect for her, if I wasn’t so ignorant to her love. And since she’s not here for me to make amends, I have to somehow make peace with this inside me.
As much as I felt I was nothing like my Mother, her love language is not foreign. I have protected Vanessa from her father, for as long as I could. When Vanessa was in junior high, the need to put a face to his name and see him for the first time, was something she needed. I didn’t see any harm in her meeting him, knowing he would just fly back to the Hawaiian islands. It was very emotional to witness the unveiling of their first meeting, only cause I had been a witness to her aching for him, for so long. When it came time to construct on that relationship, I wanted her to be old enough to handle the inevitable disappointment of who he was. After her graduation from high school she went to Hawaii to discover who he was for herself. She has dealt with that and it has been difficult for her to accept that disappointment in him. As painful as that might be to accept that a parent isn’t who you need them to be, there is a sense of relief in letting go of that expectation. I thank God above for giving her a mentor, a worthy comparison the last 11 years, to what a “real man,” a “loving father,” is like, with her step-father, Peter.
