Why I'm a Bad Person on Mother's Day

There is a ton of guilt involved in thinking bad thoughts about my mother ever since, you know, she got diagnosed with cancer and every new trip to the doctor could bring news about her impending death. I had a rough time when I was a teenager, so in turn my parents had a rough time. It took me a few years into adulthood to be able to appreciate my parents enough to overcome any anger I felt from my childhood. Still, I knew that my parents were flawed, more than a lot of parents probably.

I wasn't beaten. My mother does have anger issues and yells a lot when she gets mad at children. Not at adults, just children. She is one of those parents that has brought the guilt trip to the level of art form. I can remember having a shoe thrown at me once. I suppose if I cared to I could make a case for emotional abuse. Example: My brother is a definite black sheep. Drug problems growing up, stole from us, ran away a lot, got arrested, etc. Mom used to yell at me when she got really mad, "You're turning out just like John!" Then after a couple of years, she stopped yelling that. Instead, she yelled at my younger sister, "You're turning out just like Tina!" That cut deep. I really wasn't that bad a kid. I never did drugs, didn't drink til I was 18, got good grades, didn't get in trouble at school. I got a bad attitude sometimes. That was as bad as I got.

Considering where my mother came from with her childhood, you could say she turned around quite well, but the scars of her youth sometimes shine brightly to me. Now that I am grown, they show most not in her dealings with me but in her dealings with my father, and secondly with my niece. What are the scars? Her father was a real bastard. He beat his children and his wife. He molested the daughters. He would eat steak while the children and his wife had to eat crap food. A treat for my mother and her seven SEVEN brothers and sisters was when my grandmother snuck a bag of M & M's (the small bag) and they got to sort it into piles by color and split the piles among them all.

Then my mom got married and had my brother. While she was pregnant, her husband left her for another woman, except he lied to her, saying he was going to a different state for a job and would come back for her when he was settled. When she found out the truth, soon after giving birth, she dumped all his shit onto the front lawn and washed her hands of him. This forced her to have to move back in with my grandparents until she married my dad four years later. So yeah, she has good reason for her anger toward men, and I do honestly think she never realizes how horrible she is being to my father but still . . . it is so hard to witness. It was hard enough when I was growing up but now that I am an adult who has been in relationships of my own, it is even harder to witness.

Example: My mother didn't want to celebrate Mother's Day with the Grandmonster. Understandable. So she devised a plan to invite the Grandmonster to breakfast at NINE AM, so that the obligatory time with the woman would be over with early and she could enjoy the rest of her own Mother's Day. Of course, the Grandmonster refused because it was too early. Mom told Dad that he should just go spend time with the Grandmonster on his own today. Also, she didn't want my dad involved in her plans with us girls today. She wanted time alone with us. So my dad, who is very forgetful, got up and was ready to go to breakfast with the family at 9 AM today and was upset when no one else was up. He blamed poor communication and threw a little hissy fit. (Again, more on Dad some other time.) So he went to spend an hour or so at his mother's and then my mom decided that we girls should all quick take a shower and get out of the house so we could go somewhere together! So basically we ran away from my dad today.

We were out of the house for about 4 hours; meanwhile, Dad got home and expected to find us all there so he could spend time with us. He called and we told him we were at the store getting stuff for dinner (which we were by that point, but still my mother didn't want to tell him we had really left so we could all go out for a late breakfast together). When we finally got home late in the afternoon, my mother walks into the kitchen to find a large bouquet of flowers in a vase with a gorgeous handmade card leaning against the vase. What is her immediate reaction? Surprise? Happiness? Try disgust. She clucked her tongue, rolled her eyes, and made a big production about how she's told my dad a million times "small bouquets!" This harping on my dad about buying the wrong kind of flowers went on for about ten minutes with no thank you among the muttering and bitching. I watched my dad's expression turn from being proud of himself for doing something loving to him looking like someone kicked his puppy, tears welling in his eyes. The man had been waiting at home for hours for his family to show up while we were out ditching him, and when we get home he gets yelled at for buying a gift.

This kind of scene is all too common in my parents' house but what bothered me most today was watching my sister Stacy get angry at my dad along with my mom. Stacy is turning into my mother. She treats her boyfriend nearly as badly as Mom treats Dad, and now she's taking on my mom's irrational anger toward my dad. My mother really can be a bad person and it's rubbing off on Stacy; also the twisted relationship she and my dad share has clearly affected all of their childrens' abilities to have healthy relationships of their own. More on the relationship some other time I'm sure, but really this is about how hard it is for me to come to terms with some contradicting facts.

I love my mother a lot. I will be devastated when she is gone. She is not a great person all the time; in fact, sometimes she is a downright bad person. I have guilt even thinking this because of her illness. It is always hanging over my head that I shouldn't get mad at her, I shouldn't criticize her, because she is dying. And here I am on Mother's Day thinking about the things that bother me most about my mother. Double guilt.