Its All Your Fault

Parents are to blame for everything. I mean everything. There is no hope.

Do you feel like that sometimes? I feel it more often than not. It's a personal challenge to allow my children their own "issues". I am learning it is paramount to their existence that I do not accept the blame. I am excellent at accepting the blame. Blast!

Here is what is working for me; loving them. Seems easy right. I would venture to say that we all think we love our children unconditionally but there are spots, sometimes giant holes, in our ability to do so. Generally those spots have everything to do with us feeling glaring eyeballs from society screaming at us that we must have messed up for them to do that, or, for them not to do this.

Case in point. A big event played up for months. So and so has a royal melt down complete with physical infractions on another's personal space. So and so must stay home. There will not be another "event" such as this in the child's life. It is devastating for parent and child. Although said child sees it as cruel and unusual punishment. Parent struggles and attempts to justify and save child from self because it must somehow be my (woops!) the parent's fault. Ultimately, the responsible things to do is keep the child home.

Upon arrival to big event, "Where is so and so." Speculation abounds when the simple answer, "You can ask him/her if you'd like." Does not suffice. "Are they sick?" "Did they get in trouble?" "What did they do?" Huge amounts of pressure on siblings and parents to explain or justify something that is not theirs to justify.

Maybe you have never dealt with something of this nature. I talk to a lot of people that have. I am one of them. It is difficult for me to love said child when screaming eyeballs and probing questions laden with ulterior motives are worming their way into my psyche.

I have learned that the responsible choice is always the loving choice. I am working really hard at being responsible over being liked and understood by those in my networks.

We live in a society that is steeped in abusive cycles. I am not saying we all run around punching our children. There are forms of abuse, hidden within this lovely word dysfunction, that seriously hinder our ability to love, and their ability to learn to function in healthy and appropriate ways. We have become so desensitized that behaviors are tolerated, medicated, explained away, and simply ignored as normal.

There is hope and it is as simple as unconditional love. Separating love and trust is easier than I thought, and has done wonders for my relationships. Read this book, it will change your life; How To Hug A Porcupine, John C. Lund.

In a way, it is all my fault, but I can do something about me and hopefully inspire others to do something about them. But again, changing others is really not the point.