I’m ticked off right now!  I had planned on a different post for today but one event has pushed that off until next week.

I stopped at my Mother’s house this morning only to find her crying.  Apparently one of my siblings got it into their head to tell her all the bad things she had done to raise us.  Now they were terribly screwed up because of her!

Let’s stop here for a moment.  Think about your parents.  Were they good parents?  Were they perfect?  I bet each one of you can point out one or two flaws they might have.  Would you turn on them because of these issues?

Is my mom perfect?  Not by a long shot.  Has she done some unforgivable things?  Well, there were a couple of things that it took a few years for me to get over.  But here’s the thing, my siblings and I are between 44 and 55 years old.  We are adults.  If something she did made us turn out badly, guess what, we have the power to fix it ourselves.  Sitting her down and yelling at her for what she did is not going to change who we are!

I said that there were things that she had done to me that I found unforgivable.  After reading tons of self help books and being angry inside for what she had done I had a breakthrough.  Basically what it come down to is this: We have a choice!  We can decide whether we want our keep parents or do it alone or even find someone else to parent us.

But you’ll say they birthed me or they adopted me.  That’s right but you can still walk away from them if you want.  You have the power to choose!  Not only that, you have the power to change yourself if you don’t want to be the person they made you.  Cut the belly aching!

My mother is in her 80s.  She has always believed she was a good mom and my dad worked hard at being a good dad and good provider.  He worked 3 and 4 jobs while we were growing and was home for us as often as he could.  My mom stayed home to raise their 5 children and 2 that belonged to relatives.  When the oldest went off to college she went back to work to help support us.

They weren’t screamers.  They didn’t beat us.  They taught us right from wrong and how to survive in the world.  My mom is a grandparent and a great grandparent.  All the kids turned out great.  What more could my parents have done?  Sure they made mistakes, who doesn’t?  Sure we got hurt sometimes by something they did but we should be able to get passed it.

I choose my parents.  They are not yours, they are no one else’s.  I won’t trade them.  I struggle every day to be as good a parent as they were.

Before I posted this a friend of mine read it.  She shook her head as she told me some people go into therapy for years as a result of what their parents did to them.  Sometimes the only way they can get passed it is to confront them.  We agreed, however, that there is a right way and a wrong way to do it.  Will beating them down really make you feel better?

I haven’t forgotten that some people were abused or even sexually abused by their parents.  I once took part in a self help weekend with a lot of men.  I went in angry about what my parents had done to me.  Frankly, as I listened to the things some of them had gone through growing up it made me realize that my parents were not as bad as I thought.  When I left that weekend I visited my dad’s gravesite for the first time since he died nine years before.  I sat down with my mom and told her that whatever the biological connection I had with her, I was choosing her to be my mother.

Where are you at with your parents?

Some of my siblings don’t seem to be at the same place I am right now.  Somehow I have to show them that hurting mom is not going to improve their lives!  I think they need to make amends with her and themselves and do it soon, she is in her 80s after all.