![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Why I dislike Mother's Day
I can't say that I ever waited anxiously for Mother's Day to get here so that I could give gifts to my mother, but I used to enjoy it when it did come because of how I chose to express my love for her. It started with sappy storebought cards, of course, and later on I made my own, writing in them little poems that talked about how much I appreciate everything she'd ever done for me, how much I loved her, how great a mother she was. She used to cry happy tears when she read those cards.
Then I stopped being able to do that. Not because creativity left me, no. Because my mother did.
Now, at this time of year, I pass by racks of cards proclaiming the very things I used to enjoy saying, and I feel uncomfortable and bitter. I can no longer say any of the things I used to with a clean conscience, because they would all be lies.
She wasn't always there for me. She would attempt to leave my father and come back to this city, then when holding down a job and taking care of finances became too much of a chore, she would leave to go back with him. Only she wouldn't tell me any of this. I would find out only when I became worried that she hadn't contacted me for weeks at a time. I would call my father's phone number three or four times to find out if he had heard anything from her, and usually then she would pick up the phone and in a subdued voice tell me that indeed she had left, and didn't bother to tell me because she didn't want to hear me get upset.
The first time she did this, she was living with me at the time and made sure to sneak away while I was at work. I came home to find all of her things removed and an email filled with lies as an explanation of why she left.
If this had happened only once, perhaps I could forgive her. But this happened three times, and I can't count the number of times she called me to say she was leaving him, and I only found out she had changed her mind because I asked what was taking her so long.
She is not a great mother. We had made plans, two Christmasses past, to get together and have a nice meal, just the two of us. She forgot about that and made plans to go to Christmas dinner with her new boyfriend's family instead. I had to remind her that she had thus broken our plans.
It shouldn't have come as a surprise. By the point in my life, I should have been used to coming second in every aspect of her life. When I was much younger, she would make plans to do fun things with me, like going to the museum or the park, and then break them at a moment's notice in order to go have a coffee with my father when he returned from one of his numerous trips. She never once tried to fit both things in the day. Even if she only ended up spending an hour with him and still had time to do with me the things she had promised, it didn't matter. I came second. I was the lowest of her priorities.
I can't bring myself to lie and give her a card filled with expressions of emotions I don't feel. I can't bring myself to make her cry happy tears again, letting her think she did the right thing all along and that I bear no grudges, no lasting scars over her negligent and hurtful behaviour. It hurts to see so many adults still loving their parents when I can't even begin to fathom what they feel. The dependent love of a child, yes, I can remember that, but nothing else. I feel especially alone on days like today, days that I am supposed to spend in celebration of my parents and all they did for me.
They raised me with scars and neglect. They raised me with ignorance, and rationalize it still. They did the best they could, they say, and will not apologize for mistakes that have caused lasting damage. Get over it, they tell me. It's been years.
Years of little changing but my age and my distance from them. Years of realizing that I haven't really had parents since I was 12. Caretakers, people who provided a place to live and food to eat, but not parents. Parents are interested in their children. Parents support their children. Parents do not view their child as a convenience or inconvenience, but instead as something to love and nurture and raise.
Parwnts do not, three days after a punishment for a very messy bedroom, interrupt their child's story of what happened that day in gym class by saying, "Don't talk to me. I'm still so angry at you, I don't even want to hear your voice."
Parents do not leave their pre-teen children unattended for hours until after midnight, telling them first that they'll be back "in half an hour," in order to pull childish pranks on a friend.
That is why I dislike this day. I feel toward it as a lot of bitter singles feel on Valentine's Day. This is a day built around the celebration of something I cannot relate to and that those around me feel in abundance. I feel more lonely on days like today than on any other day of the year.
Then I stopped being able to do that. Not because creativity left me, no. Because my mother did.
Now, at this time of year, I pass by racks of cards proclaiming the very things I used to enjoy saying, and I feel uncomfortable and bitter. I can no longer say any of the things I used to with a clean conscience, because they would all be lies.
She wasn't always there for me. She would attempt to leave my father and come back to this city, then when holding down a job and taking care of finances became too much of a chore, she would leave to go back with him. Only she wouldn't tell me any of this. I would find out only when I became worried that she hadn't contacted me for weeks at a time. I would call my father's phone number three or four times to find out if he had heard anything from her, and usually then she would pick up the phone and in a subdued voice tell me that indeed she had left, and didn't bother to tell me because she didn't want to hear me get upset.
The first time she did this, she was living with me at the time and made sure to sneak away while I was at work. I came home to find all of her things removed and an email filled with lies as an explanation of why she left.
If this had happened only once, perhaps I could forgive her. But this happened three times, and I can't count the number of times she called me to say she was leaving him, and I only found out she had changed her mind because I asked what was taking her so long.
She is not a great mother. We had made plans, two Christmasses past, to get together and have a nice meal, just the two of us. She forgot about that and made plans to go to Christmas dinner with her new boyfriend's family instead. I had to remind her that she had thus broken our plans.
It shouldn't have come as a surprise. By the point in my life, I should have been used to coming second in every aspect of her life. When I was much younger, she would make plans to do fun things with me, like going to the museum or the park, and then break them at a moment's notice in order to go have a coffee with my father when he returned from one of his numerous trips. She never once tried to fit both things in the day. Even if she only ended up spending an hour with him and still had time to do with me the things she had promised, it didn't matter. I came second. I was the lowest of her priorities.
I can't bring myself to lie and give her a card filled with expressions of emotions I don't feel. I can't bring myself to make her cry happy tears again, letting her think she did the right thing all along and that I bear no grudges, no lasting scars over her negligent and hurtful behaviour. It hurts to see so many adults still loving their parents when I can't even begin to fathom what they feel. The dependent love of a child, yes, I can remember that, but nothing else. I feel especially alone on days like today, days that I am supposed to spend in celebration of my parents and all they did for me.
They raised me with scars and neglect. They raised me with ignorance, and rationalize it still. They did the best they could, they say, and will not apologize for mistakes that have caused lasting damage. Get over it, they tell me. It's been years.
Years of little changing but my age and my distance from them. Years of realizing that I haven't really had parents since I was 12. Caretakers, people who provided a place to live and food to eat, but not parents. Parents are interested in their children. Parents support their children. Parents do not view their child as a convenience or inconvenience, but instead as something to love and nurture and raise.
Parwnts do not, three days after a punishment for a very messy bedroom, interrupt their child's story of what happened that day in gym class by saying, "Don't talk to me. I'm still so angry at you, I don't even want to hear your voice."
Parents do not leave their pre-teen children unattended for hours until after midnight, telling them first that they'll be back "in half an hour," in order to pull childish pranks on a friend.
That is why I dislike this day. I feel toward it as a lot of bitter singles feel on Valentine's Day. This is a day built around the celebration of something I cannot relate to and that those around me feel in abundance. I feel more lonely on days like today than on any other day of the year.
no subject
no subject