All parents screw up their kids. Seriously: think about your biggest quirk or your greatest aversion. If I ask you why you're like that, you'd probably say, "When I was little, my mom/dad..."
Maybe your smirking because your answer starter with, "My brother used to..." Wipe that expression off your face. Who do you think brought your brother into this world? That's right. It's all your parents' fault.
(And if you are a parent who is smirking and thinking that you are doing everything perfectly, your child is either
really screwed or heading down that path. Oh, yes she or he is, Little Miss/Mister, "I breastfed my child until the evolutionary ideal wean date of seven years, never raised my voice, from day one didn't discipline but treated my child as an equal who received verbose explanations for everything and took exceptional care to remove any signs of gender from my home." The fact that you think you are immune from making parenting mistakes means you left no room for yourself to learn and have, in fact, effed your kid for life. Please come back in a decade or two and link me back to your Dear Abby letter asking why your child wants nothing to do with you.)
I'm not immune. My parents did plenty to mess me up, and I'm happy about it. For instance, I tend to have an amazing poker face. (EDIT: I just got off the phone with my sister. She mentioned that she could always tell when I thought something was "utter and complete bullshit but you weren't going to let it bother you. But maybe that's just because I'm your sister? I don't know. Other people might not see it.") That was born of immigrant parents who didn't allow for the self-pity and over-analyzing that seems acceptable and sometimes encouraged in North America ("You're traumatized because I told you to pick yourself up after you fell and didn't let you scream and cry? You know, when I was a child in the Philippines, my mom and dad were always in the fields working and even then we didn't always have something to eat. Try crying when you don't have the energy to cry because you haven't eaten in two days!") I also have four older siblings who would have eaten me alive if I'd shown any signs of weakness, and nothing any mean classmate could say could ever compare to that. I'm good at hiding most of my emotions. While I
might have a Tootsie Roll center, I guarantee that my hard candy exterior will break your teeth if you think you can crush me. That's all thanks to my parents.
This isn't to say that I don't have some insecurities. I've dealt with most of them - mainly of the "Mom loves you more" variety. New ones have grown in their place, which have been harder to deal with because they came in the form of questions that no one else can answer. Both of my parents have passed on.
One of them has to do with my own mom. It's no secret that I wasn't planned, nor that I threw a wrench in things because my mom had been looking forward to going back to work when she found out I was on the way. She was never mean about it, just matter of fact.
When my son was born, I felt the need to give up a lot of things that defined who I was - or at least put them off to the side for awhile because my baby needed me. This planted doubt: how much did my mom really resent me? I was number five. She had put her career, her own life on hold, for thirteen years before I had come along. Mom had always been more of a business woman and she saw the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel when suddenly - BAM!
"Sorry, Mrs. F, this isn't menopause. You're pregnant again."
On top of my bad timing, I was always the most challenging child. I was the one who didn't listen. I was stubborn. I was loud. We fought so much. Unlike my son, I wasn't planned. I don't know if it would have been accurate to say that I was wanted.
It's not something I would lose sleep over. My parents were practical people and raised us to be so, too. If my choices are dwell on this and let it ruin my life (which would translate to failure, because I have control of my reactions, and therefore my path in life) or deal with it, I choose the latter. I know, after all, that I was always loved and cared for. What's the point in getting technical and wondering, "But how much of a bother was I really, Mom?" (Even typing that makes my mom's face appear in my head, staring at me incredulously and asking, "Really? It takes that little to traumatize you? You would have never survived growing up in the Philippines, that's for sure.")
That doesn't mean that I wondered with the same distant thoughts that one has when they wonder what would have happened if they'd gone to Disneyland instead of Knott's Berry Farm.
And then I found the following photo:
This is what I see: a child leaning against her mother without fear that she'll be pushed away. Actually, that's not the first thing I noticed. The first thing I noticed are the way my mom's arms are wrapped around me. I can't remember her ever gripping me like this, and yet this is the same hold that I've used on my own child. It's the "I'm going to hold you close and love you forever and not let you fall, not ever, because I will always be there to catch you." And when I recognized her pose, I thought, "You know, everything is all good."
Well, that and this picture was taken at the elephant pens. If I'd really been such a horror, this would have been an action shot at the lion exhibit and I would be flying over for lunch.
