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Originally Posted by healingme4me
I had a mixed bag childhood. I always had friends that were worse off, but no doubt, a childhood that left me with my own wounds, battle scarred up. I had a sui attempt as a teen, no hospital stay, but spoke volumes. Had my share of abuses, me the child as a weapon in a custody battle, lived with my dad until he moved in my stepmom, si, sui, then runaway.
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At about 7, I wanted very badly to sui and saw it as the only way out but couldn't think of a painless or quick way to do it!
By the way, do you think that any parent ever reads these writings and LEARNS anything of value from it? I often feel like it's completely useless to put these words out there since there already is a TON of parenting info out there yet kids seem to be getting no benefits whatsoever from any of it.
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I definitely harbored anger.
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Yes, it's hard to vent and let go of anger which is our - ooops -
my most basic, natural defense mechanism but I am trying to let it go as much as possible.
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but his temperament exisisted since day 2. Literally.
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Ouch! That must have been quite challenging for you, based on your own past traumas. I now believe that my parents were deeply disappointed and upset with me since I was not very healthy at birth and not as pleasant and easy as their 1st child plus I was NOT the little girl that my parents dearly wanted! Their own nasty pasts must have played a part in how they unhappily dealt with me. I don't know if I was "colicky" but I was told that I had a lot of health problems in the beginning!
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found a support group that promoted that so long as one parent is at least displaying healthy behavior, the children will stand a chance to learn and model that behavior.
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Our mom found a support group at the Mormon church so dad up and left! But with him out of the picture, many things got way better in our family and she became a much better role model for us kids but, my brother and I were in our middle teens so most of the damage was already done and not much of mom's better modeling effected us. Our best "role model" was our uncle, mom's brother.
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They are turning out ok. Their last district grading system is a difficult read, i suspect they are all honor roll probable. They aren't perfect themselves. It's going ok, considering what both myself and my ex endured in childhood.
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I am very happy for you and your kids.
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As for my own parents. We made amends at varying stages, the kinds you'd mentioned not receiving. It helped.
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It sure would have helped me. Can't speak for my siblings who are both parents and I suspect that they have put it all behind them with DENIAL so our parents, parenting and ugly past is rarely mentioned. I suppose if I had been a parent, I might want to hide behind Denial as well and just pretend that I'm A-OK now - even if I'm not. Oh well.....there might come a time when my siblings want to vent their bottled up, inner pain - maybe in another lifetime.
healingme4me, I respect and appreciate your post and the wisdom contained in it
and hope some struggling parent reads it and gains a few insights into how to improve their own family.
Respectfully yours,
jimmy rich
