Raising kids ain't easy. There are so many different schools and opinions about how to raise them... But at least most people try to take the initiative. I am of the school of, let the kids be who and what they're gonna be. As a parent I believe it is my job to guide them, put them on the right path, teach them to be solid, responsible, upright, productive, good people. Teach them about healthy choices. The rest is common sense, balance and knowing that when there is a action, there is going to be an equal and opposite reaction. We all do our best as parents and send our children off into the world when they are "grown" with the very best wishes and hopes and dreams and prayers, while we anxiously sit by the phone just in case they call home.
My parents were overbearing, overprotective, psychopathic, control freaks. I was a jangled bundle of nerves as a baby because I wasn't properly socialized, kept away from other people and whatever for fear of... well.... everything. Everything had to be quiet. Even every day noises. It did me no good at all because after awhile, every little noise scared me or startled me. I didn't eat well, I didn't gain adequate weight, I suffered gastro-intestinal issues and I cried A LOT. As a two year old, I worried about everything. I was a hot neurotic mess by the time I was five, had my first serious ulcer by the time I was eleven... And don't even get me started on the laundry list of things that gave me anxieties. And people honestly wonder why I have O.C.D. issues and A.D.D. issues and blah....
(Um... was it, "You never should have had kids because you suck at raising them." ...No wait. "You're ruining your children because you're an asshole".... Crap.... That's not quite right either.)
Well, when I "came of age", I didn't walk out the door. I fuckin' ran, shooting over my shoulder behind me as I did. My parents had NO IDEA where my first six apartments were and I wasn't going to tell them either. I resented them growing up and resented them even more after I left. I was finally free... But, I was left to discover on my own, who the fuck I was. THAT was an interesting journey... It was wrought with a lot of pain, hardship, troubles, worries, mistakes and quite honestly, I'm really rather surprised I even survived it... The road to self discovery is a real tough one when you were always told who and what you're supposed to be, and it is one full of regrets and resentment too.
If you think about it, it's a form of abuse. It's several steps above selling sex acts on your infant online, beating your child daily because he cries, leaving a child duct taped to a table for days on end while you go on a drinking binge or something like that, but I still think it kind of ranks. I mean you can't say that leaving a year old child in the same diaper for six hours until her whole diaper area became sore, raw and was bleeding because she was sitting in her own filth all day because "she didn't say anything..." isn't neglect and abuse, just in the same way that willfully turning your child into a neurotic mess isn't.
MAYBE I can see that my parents tried to shield me from the world and protect me and keep me safe when I was a baby. But on the other side of that, I kind of have to believe then, that they watched what it was doing to me and if that's the case, they should have taken steps to fix their mistakes instead of making them worse or making excuses for them. What they did was push harder on my already damaged psyche and it really did me no amount of good and it did no amount of good for the "parent/ child relationship" because as hard as they pushed, I pushed even harder and pushed them right the fuck out of my life. So right now, we are but mere strangers that occasionally argue, living under the same roof and soon, we will only be mere strangers.
It's a sad conclusion, but a healthier one for me AND mine. I've come to realize that. In the meantime, my parents ARE still on the market for sale and I am VERY motivated to sell!
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