Dear Abby and Ann Landers raised me. I'd run barefoot to end of the long driveway to pick up the newspapers; the carrier threw the Houston Chronicle every morning and the Houston Post every evening. I'd run back to the house, settle down on the living room couch and flip to the "women's" section. I guarantee that everything that I have questioned or tackled in my life so far was first brought to my attention and then solved by Abby or Ann.
It's easy for us, as grown ups, to look back and see everything our parents did wrong. Do we keep a mental checklist of every error, every misstep and every harsh word? Some people do but I have to think that's pretty damn unhealthy.
My raising was odd and I was so precocious that, in addition to relying on Abby and Ann for life advice, I read parenting books when I was in middle school and made my own mental notes on what I perceived to be my parents' child rearing blunders. I can remember crawling into bed at night and thinking "well, they should have done _______ and that would have made me feel so much better but instead, they chose to do _____________ and that made me feel bad."
I spent way too many childhood hours trying to figure out the strained relationship between my mother and her mother. As I grew up, that sad history would be revealed in bits and pieces and I would, better late than never, realize that most parents do the best they can with the tools they are given by their own parents. Children learn what they live.
When my mother was a girl she wrote in a little red diary. She gave it to me many years ago. The binding is loose, the ink is faded and every page, front and back, is full of a young girl's cursive. I have never read it. It's not because I have no interest and it's not because I don't care. I just believe that reading it will stir up such a hurricane of emotions that I have avoided even picking it up. I can't even look at it without feeling sad for the little girl that she was and sad that her own childhood would leave scars on her heart that kept it from opening up to fully give and receive love.
When I started dating my husband I was awed that his family members said "I love you" to each other. We married and I vowed to not just love him but to say it often and, when we had children, to make sure that they were not strangers to those three words. I smile when I hear my grown kids talk to each other on the phone. They could have seen each other mere minutes ago but they never fail to hang up without saying "I love you." It may seem like a small thing but it's my proudest parenting accomplishment. I know some of you out there understand.
I didn't grow up hearing "I love you." It's not because my parents didn't love us. I know they did. They didn't say those important words because they didn't know how.
My mother parented in panic mode 24/7; she always believed the worst and was convinced that a tragedy was looming. She was a big believer in withholding affection if her terms were not met; her love was conditional. She also believed in material compensation; shopping was in lieu of talking. I had a closet full of clothes and an empty heart. Do I blame her? No. She did the best she could. Her parenting was a direct reflection of how she was raised.
My grandmother, had she ever seen a psychiatrist, would have been diagnosed as mentally ill. She was prone to temper tantrums, flashes of anger, pouting and scathing comments. She had, by the time she passed away, alienated every family member stretching all the way back to those born in the 1800s. Quite a feat. My mother drew the short straw in the "who will be my mom" tourney.
Her mother sent her away, at 8 years old, to live with family members on the other side of the country. They didn't see each other for over a year. My grandfather, as the story goes, finally put his foot down and, damn his wife's rage and erratic behavior, insisted that his oldest daughter was coming home. Home she went but I imagine it felt more like hell. Her little red diary is a journal of her time traveling alone by train to California, her time spent with an aunt and uncle she hardly knew, and her travels back to her parents and little sister.
"We learn what we live. We learn what we live. We learn what we live." It is a parenting mantra for me and it reminds me to try to be the best mom I can be. I know, through little things my mother said, that she gave me that diary so I would better understand who she was. That couldn't have been easy for her. My mother passed away almost two years ago. Every year I get closer to picking up the little red diary and making peace with her past.
