I can’t watch abuse, even on television. I can’t watch horror and I could never physically hurt anyone. I never hit my children, discipline to me was a verbal form of communication. Yes, I’ve screamed and shouted, after all I am human. My life experiences have taught me how to remain calm through storms. A lot of what makes up me, stems from my childhood. I’m not sure how many of you have had counseling, but they always start off questioning your childhood. It’s this process of introspection that will broaden your understanding as to why you behave the way you do. It’s the wrongs that happened and the things we witnessed and the emotions we felt that mold us into the adults we become.
The after effects of my departure from a marriage left uneasiness, a bad taste, if you will, for my children. After decades of trying, things fell apart for me. My children are grown up and although they supported me, what I didn’t realize is that no matter what the age, children will hurt. In the process of trying to make the right decision for myself, I’ve hurt them more than I thought was possible.
Like every parent, I wanted a fairytale life for them. One where the grass is always green and the sky blue. Unknowingly I tainted their perfect upbringing, but then, was it perfect if their mother was unhappy? If I could change it, I would in a heartbeat. I’d bring back the sunshine and white clouds. No mother wants her offspring to suffer in any way. What they don’t realize is, when those gray clouds formed, I too wept. The same mother that protected them 24/7 during their entire youth is the same mother that would protect them today. I did just that for decades. I silently lived an unhappy life for the sake of the family circle.
Sadly, I did fail to protect them from separation and a malfunctioning family. I failed to protect them from distance and a loving home. You only see what is right in the moment and we act on it. A distorted vision won’t bring clarity when an unjust situation is emotionally absorbed. You don’t see the long term effect it will have, because those waves haven’t hit the shore yet.
So in my anguish, I began reluctantly to walk the yellow brick road. I concluded to realize that no matter how perfect their world may seem, every child will have a story to tell. Just as I have episodes from my youth, disfigured chapters and unanswered questions. No child is immune to chaos and turmoil, no childhood is a perfect children’s story and no parent is really a superhero. Parents are real people wanting to be super heroes. They are humans with an instinct to shield and secure. Children however, are an enigma. In a paradox, they can feel the energy and they sense the vibes. They know, they know things we think we can hide from them, they know how to read their parents and they know how not to rock the boat, they also know when things are wrong.
You don’t start a family wanting a bitter future for your children, you don’t have them in the hopes to neglect and harm them. I write child stories and these stories talk to me about the roles mothers and fathers play. We do everything possible with what we know and what we have at the time. It’s not a punishable crime to play with the cards we are dealt. We shouldn’t be punished for wanting to make the sky blue for them and the grass green for us.
Yet, we do sacrifice to make it a perfect world for our children but we cannot protect them from life itself. It’s unwarranted for them to grow up in a bubble immune to life and its challenges. We also don’t have a manual to tell us what page to turn to when things go haywire. These wrongs, the hurdles, the disappointments, this is what will make them who they are. The wrongs will hopefully define how right they can make it, this is what life unknowingly teaches us. In the end, every child will grow up a slightly stronger version, because to some degree they were exposed to those challenges and because fairy tales only exist in books.