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Posts Tagged ‘parenting’

The other night during the girls’ avoiding going to bed chit/chat the sentance was uttered, “[certain family member who shall remain nameless] told us we are oops babies.”

Oops Babies.

This is not the first time this [family memeber who shall remain nameless] has over stepped her their bounds.  It is not the first time they have opened their mouth and told my kids things they had no business telling my kids.  All because they felt my kids should know and didn’t agree with my parenting decisions.

But Oops Babies? Seriously?

I don’t care who you are, you don’t ever tell a child they are an Oops baby.  I know that it was said as a derogatory remark against me and/or their father (mostly me).  I mean, not every baby out there is planned for or at the right time.  And does it matter if we planned for them at that exact time? They are loved and wanted.

I had to explain to them that the comment wasn’t meant to hurt them, but was made in the hopes it would get back to me and hurt me.  (It pissed me off).  I had to explain to the girls that plans aren’t always written in stone.  The planning doesn’t matter, it’s the journey and the love and caring they’ve had along the way.

When it was said, my first instinct, as a mother, was to protect my girls and in protecting them, I wanted to attack the source of the stupidity that had put that hurtful idea in their heads.  I wanted to call [family member who shall remain nameless, unless you want to name her meddling, coniving hateful *ahem*] and give her them a piece of my mind.

Then I wanted to call a different familymember who is removed from the situation and get their take on it.

But I didn’t.  I walked away from it.  The remark was said in the hopes it would piss me off and stir up a whole lot of drama.  If I reacted, then it would be playing into her their hands. I didn’t need to make a big scene out of this. I needed to just blow it off and be the bigger person.

And I need to remind the girls that what [family member who shall remain nameless, but not absent from their life] said it doesn’t make it true and it doesn’t change what truly matters.

Planned or not, they are loved.

Every now and again something someone says or does or whatever reminds me of something from my past. (How’s that for a lot of somethings that amount to well, nothing?) So I travel back and wander peeking in various windows of my past.

Until I find some fucktard thing I did that could have turned out so different than it did. Like in a good way. As in nobody got hurt or died or lost good kind of way.

And I obsess about it.

And by obsess I mean, well obsess about it until I have worked up a really good guilt trip. And I begin to wonder why it is the people in charge of things like life, let me walk around unsupervised most of the time.

The girls’ dad and I used to have some whopper fights.  Violent and loud and break the furniture, holes in walls kind of fights.  At the time I used to think it was best to get the kids secured in a bedroom and then take him on to prove I wasn’t afraid of him.  Or the time he locked me and kids in their bedroom and stood outside telling them that I was a slut and a bitch and whatever else he could come up with.  I sat in that room and asked him what he was trying to prove and why was he doing this?

What Ishould have done, that time, and every time, was just ignored him and walked away.  I should have taken the kids and walked away.

I should have taken the higher ground.

I wonder now just how scared the girls will be in the future from the past I put them through.  I wonder what their future relationships will be like because of the things I did.

Or didn’t do.

What about all the manic episodes they have witnessed me go through? Will all the times we got in the vehicle and drove around town because I needed to be moving all the time will be etched in their minds forever?  I wonder if all the things they have witnessed in their life will have lasting effects on their life.

Of if they think less of me as a mother because of the episodes.

Will they grow up and remember a crazy mom with mental issues, or will they remember the calm happy normal years instead?

Will they grow up remembering the fights between their parents that they witnessed?  What about the violent fights their dad has had with the girlfriends he’s had since then?

I know we all have rough times in our childhoods.  I think my girls have had more than their share.

And I feel it’s my fault.

That somewhere along the line I failed them.

Things are better now.  I’m on medication. I’m half a state away from their father.  They don’t witness violence or mood swings every day.  They know who’s coming home to them every night.  They know that they will go to sleep and wake up in the same bed.

But is that enough to erase the evil, the stains of the past?

I can only hope.