parenthood
The older I get, the more I understand why my parents acted the way they did, but I still know they should have acted differently. It makes some things better, some worse. Like okay, now I know how that felt from the other side, how hard adulthood and parenthood can be, finances etc. but it makes some behaviors even more questionable, ridiculous and abusive than they did before. I guess it’s a little better than just feeling like your parents did that for no reason, like the way my mum felt possessed by an evil spirit to me at times as a child, but still.
Also, sometimes I remember something kind they did, feel grateful for it, then realize it was the bare minimum, they only did it once or made me feel like a burden for it, using it against me. I will remember something good for once, but now me having more experience puts it into perspective and I realize they did not even wanna be there. As a child I could never truly pinpoint why I felt so neglected and like a burden, rejected; but now I can. I finally am able to understand their behaviors back then that used to be so confusing and hard to interpret, and they were just… bored. Performing. Enduring it. Hoping it would be over soon. Giving me a crumb so I’d let go. Do it once for the sake of it. Afterwards, wanting to be left alone. Emanating the vibe of “I’ll never do this again”, like when you force yourself to attend an event you had agreed to and end up regretting it, having no fun at all. It’s like every now and then, they had brief moments of trying this parenthood thing again more seriously, and then leaving these interactions disappointed.
I don’t know what my parents expected. I wasn’t a complicated or difficult or rude child. Wasn’t moody. Quiet, tended to myself most of the time, avoided conflict, always immediately folded. It’s like they expected another adult maybe, or someone with their exact interests, or a blank canvas they could mold, and I wasn’t really that, and I was afraid of them too.
The way my mum tried to connect with me was very often by force - like: I would like a child that does the trapeze, so I buy this for you, hang it up in the garden and I’m going to teach you lessons on it. Of course I was terrible at it, afraid to fall, and scared as she screamed at me. Same with being forced to take walks with her, or forced to sunbathe, despite not tolerating heat well. That one time I had a bad asthma attack during a walk and thought I was gonna die (had never had one before and none after), she pretended I was just faking it to go back home sooner.
My dad just didn’t interact at all, except after the divorce, where he thought it would be fun to agree to go to a movie with me that I wanted to see, afterwards kept insulting it how trash it was, and then said it would only be fair that I now had to go with him to a movie that he enjoyed that I had no interest in, to make it up to him. Which doesn’t even sound that bad if it was lighthearted banter in a good relationship, but we had no relationship, it wasn’t lighthearted, and it felt like he only did that with me because he had to find something to do with a 13 year old daughter, and treating her in a weird reciprocal way you’d do to a buddy that owes you something.
I remember how he basically never attended anything in my life, like school stuff or riding stuff, except like three times where my mum successfully forced him, and it was usually resulting in a huge fight between them. It’s crazy to think back to it now, because instead of my mum realizing that at least one parent should then keep showing up, she stopped doing that too after I turned 16. No one of my parents even attended my graduation ceremony.
I’m sad that parenthood was a failed expert they had to endure. I hate that I always felt so unwelcome and was gaslit about where that came from, too. I hate that being together felt like 3 mismatched strangers stuck together on an island.
I sometimes think about having a child. I used to be afraid of children and being pregnant and giving birth, and I kinda still am, but I guess biology does its thing. I get the maternal urge to birth something I can take care of. Too bad that everything is expensive, we are scheduled for a heat death, I am sick, my spouse is on T blockers, I have PCOS, I don’t like the whole kids and smartphones thing, and unfortunately I don’t want my kid to go through life with only one half of a family. It’s better than I had, but I don’t want to have these heartbreaking conversations. They deserve a full family from both sides that shows up and is warm and kind and local, and parents that can offer them a lot. My child deserves a house with a garden and that a parent is always there to help with homework or drive them somewhere and enough money for all kinds of hobbies they wanna explore. It’s impossible though. That thought makes me cry. Maybe if we could offer the child all that, I would seriously consider it, which is crazy, because I never imagined I could want a child. Whatever.