Every once in a while I 'allow' myself a bit of self indulgence.
Trust me when I own that's not a good thing........
I got angry.
A 'wake up at 3am' angry--when something I'd tolerated, in practice of 'love and tolerance is our code', resurfaced.
Maybe I didn't need to tolerate that.
People can feel what they feel, and have their opinions. I can honour those and respect those. But I don't have to respect what I don't respect. And I didn't respect a comment about a child's obligation to their parent as the parent aged. Not in reference to their child.....but in reference to the (grown) children in my life.
Yup.......'wake up at 3am' angry....... And it wasn't the 'aged' remark either........
I don't have some of those values and beliefs that others have.
I just wasn't raised that way. I learned some core values long after I probably needed to--from strangers.
I didn't come from a 'traditional' family.
I wasn't surrounded by cousins and aunts and uncles and relatives up the whazoo.
It was me and an alcoholic father.
My mother died when I was very young.
The other kids were scattered here and there, making their choices to cut bait and run cuz that's what they needed to do for THEM.
I remained.
I wasn't a part of a 'family' in the traditional sense. There wasn't family involvement--there was family displacement.
Siblings were people 'over there' who might find their way back on a holiday........or might not......
Move into the next generation with a divorce, it was one parent here and one parent there.......bouncing back and forth until the 'lit and staying' happened, and that's the family history. The other parent was alienated from family for reasons--and there weren't family members TO attach to. By then the only thing that might have resembled a grandparent had died......
Me.
Kids.
The end.
I don't know what a 'traditional' family unit FEELS like. I don't know how a traditional family unit deals with aging parents--not experientially.
Toss in my own battles with health and the lurking truth that at three different points I was told to get my affairs in order cuz I wasn't going to be on the planet--and you have an adult who doesn't KNOW what a traditional family unit does in those circumstances either. All you know is there are kids that don't need to be focused on that or responsible to be something they're not. I'm sure I complicated that in my own brain by not wanting them to assume responsibilities *I* had to assume as a child (even if the disease was different).
I didn't see the kiddos in my life needing to assume any 'obligation' to me in my illness nor do I see that needing to occur in my 'old age'.
Sorry.
I just don't.
That's not how I function and it's not how I raised them.
Coming from what I came from--and honouring where they'd come from with the back and forth and the uncertainty and the having to tend to themselves while in the care of the OTHER parent.......my job was to parent them, teach them, point them in right directions....and get the heck out of their way so they could be functional, productive, loving human beings. The end.
THE end.
But their 'obligation' to me?
Yeah......notsomuch gonna happen.
I did things out of 'obligation' for a very long time, in a very dysfunctional family unit (scattered and screwed up as we all were).....and it took me forever to step back from that and do what was right and good and loving. Maybe I'm hypersensitive and overly aware of the power of 'obligation'.......and I don't see it as a 'good' thing. It didn't play out so good in my life.
I'm just the parent. They're not 'mine'. They're G-d's kiddos. I got to love 'em and raise 'em and teach 'em and get the heck out of their way. And I get the privilege to still be involved.
If there's more and I'm missing it.......and it's a bit late in the gig now!
I don't see 'obligated' as a 'good' thing.
We do things in love and out of love.
Yup--gonna haffta go back and 'make right' when I tolerated what another assumed was 'right' for me--cuz it's not.
I do NOT like spinning over something at 3am.............
5 comments:
For you, Mel (((you))) and yes I know how you feel.
As I read your words my mind flooded with thought, with memories.
I pushed the world away
I was safe, but alone.
Love is the answer
not obligation.
I agree with you...do something out of love for someone...not cause your 'supposed' to or are 'obligated' to. When 'supposed' and 'obligated' are at the forefront so is 'resentment' and that's not a path anyone wants to go down.
C x
Dad was away so much that mother was the primary parent. She told all of us that we were to get on with our lives and to never think that Mom & Dad would expect us to take them in or have them live with us. They wanted their own space and lives, she told us.
What a great gift knowing that our job was to be the best we could be. They followed my husband and me to this island-of-no-winter-weather. Because I had to go off island to work, I warned them that they'd have to be very self-sufficient. They were happy with that and hired "a staff" to help them have the life they wanted.
Knowing I was not "obligated" made it very east to take on the role of keeping an eye on the two of them as they rattled and bumped around their home into their 90s.
One day Mom called me, "Amy! Your dad, at the age of 85, is up a tree sawing off one of its branches so he can see the birds better from his seat inside!"
I said, "Mom? Does he look happy?"
We both laughed and she quit worrying.
I think an attitude of obligation leaks through love and tarnishes its spontaneity. Who wants someone helping out because they feel obligated. Pffffffft is right!
I feel the obligation is the other way - and it suits me fine. I owe my children so much happiness and love and pleasure, I can never pay it back and that's not a problem because I don't mind owing them. We've done the best we could for each other and we can keep on doing that.
Of course if they don't love me when I'm, er, even older, I'll be right royally pissed off!
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