8 years ago when I was only 17, I wrote this status. My mom and I had gotten into another fight, which sounds normal for a teenager, but it was so far from what you’d think a regular teen/mom fight was. Although I knew at a much younger age my Mom’s relationship with me was far from the norm. It was loving only conditionally, only sometimes, depending on the day, the mood, what I said, what I did, or if she felt like it. My mom had a lot of issues while I was growing up, I won’t share those on social media because those are hers, not mine. Adding to that, I want to make it clear I am not here to make her out as a villain, or a horrible person, just sharing how I chose to make my relationship with my daughter different than what I was given. However I will share my story because that *is mine to tell.
Everyone compliments me on how great of a mother I am, and I always wonder if the people that know me compliment me out of surprise. Like it’s a surprise that I’m such a good mom, considering the one I had.
*Disclaimer: I had an amazing step mom enter my life when I was 9, and my dad was always incredible, so I’m positive a lot of credit goes to them.*
Anyways, like I said I was not exactly totally *loved* as a child from my mom. I’m sure she loved me to some extent, but not how a mother should. I was more often then not told I was bugging her, or I needed to leave her alone, she was busy doing her own thing, I was just interrupting her, or she would flat out “not hear me”. Whether it was for help with homework, to eat, or asking to play outside with my friends. I never asked her to play with me or take me swimming, or watch tv with me because I knew the answer too well. (For example when I was older, visiting her, i “bugged” her to play board games with me, she called my step mom asking why I was so upset and how to deal with it because she didn’t know how.) I’m not saying those things never happened, but it only did when she wanted and when it was a good day for her, not often, and not daily.
Basic necessity care wasn’t the norm, I wasn’t bathed regularly, my teeth weren’t brushed everyday, I didn’t get a full meal everyday (let alone 3 times a day, thanks school. Unless you count beef jerky, dry ramen, hot cheetos, or something you can find at 7-11), and my clothes were not clean most days.
The things said to me were things a young child should never be told or hear.
As I grew older, I lived with my dad, but that didn’t stop most of these things with her. When we argued things were always said, I’m a “bitch,” i “never thought of her and how she was doing,” (keep in mind she didn’t call me regularly, I usually had to call her), she “wished she had gone through with the adoption,” she “couldn’t believe how hateful and uncaring” i was. She even started not calling or answering my calls, but instead wrote me an 8 page letter on how I can’t be in her life anymore because I made it too stressful and it was really unhealthy for her. When family heard of our “fights,” the surface of them, she would say it’s my fault and I was an awful kid who needed to treat her mom better.
So it’s no surprise that as an adult I had to make the choice to no longer speak to her. For myself and my daughter.
That brings me back to my original statement, people that know me and how I grew up compliment me on how I am as a mother. And every time it makes me wonder, is it because they’re so surprised that I came to be the mother I am aside from what I was shown and taught?
I promised myself when I found out I was pregnant, I will do everything in my power no matter how hard it gets, to be the opposite of what I hated as a child. To take what I was shown and use it as my strength to know what not to do, and how to love my daughter how she deserves. She will have the necessities of life, she will get quality time, she will never have to question is she is an annoyance or if she is loved, she won’t ever have hurtful words spoken towards her, she will know she is wanted, and she will know she is loved unconditionally.
Some people with childhoods like this grow up thinking they might not do any better than what they know. But I’m here to remind you everyone, everyday has the choice to be better than what they were taught. To correct the mistakes and use those things as your strengths to create a better life. No matter how your childhood was, good or bad, it’s up to each person to make your child’s childhood better than the one you had.
Cycles get broken everyday and everyone, including you, are capable of breaking them.
And that’s exactly what I chose to do for my daughter, so she never feels how I felt when I wrote that status 8 years ago.
Moments with Munchkin 