As a bit of an addendum to one of the previous posts I reblogged, I have to be honest... my biological dad isn’t the only parent I deeply resent now that I understand just how much effort Leonard put into raising my siblings and I.
I resent my mother as well (though not as much as my biological father, for sure).
I remember I got into a massive argument with her when I was 9. It sparked because she wanted me to turn off the TV, even though I was in the kitchen and she was in the living room... right next to the TV. After I made a passive aggressive comment about how she could have turned it off herself, she grounded me for the rest of the night. This hadn’t been the only time she had me doing something for her that she could have easily done herself, and definitely not the last time. So I yelled at her, I called her out because, in my words “All you ever do is treat me like a servant.” Her response was the same as it always was: “Bullshit, I’m your mother and you’re the child, you listen to what I say.”
I’m almost 21 now, and I still feel the same way. I can’t even go upstairs anymore without my borderline senile mother asking me to do something for her. If I’m not getting her food for her, I’m grabbing her phone for her, or her laptop, or I’m doing her laundry again. Hell, I’m still turning off the TV for her when she’s the one with the remote! And I’ve had to learn not to say no to her; that’s a one way ticket to a slap and then angry silence. It’s always the same approach: “I’m the parent, you’re the child. I’m in control.”
All I can ask is “Where were you to raise me, then?”
I already know the answer, and It’s not going to just be “work”. That’s her go to, but it’s as much a lie as her dyed hair. True, she had a lot of working and commuting... Unless, of course, you’re talking about after she finally transferred closer in my early-mid teens. Her commute went from an hour both ways to 20 minutes, in addition to having a shorter work schedule and an extra day off in her last few years. Otherwise, she was at AA meetings and... god knows where else. She was anywhere but home until way late most days. When she was home, she was in her bed, watching TV. Asking myself and my siblings to bring her drinks and snacks (she still does btw).
Hell, there even came a point where I had to keep a fireplace going all by myself for an entire winter, wood and all, and I was still A expected to do all the chores for her (even the folding of clothes, which she promised ahead of time to do but only ever did half of it by the end of the winter) and B called lazy because I slept for so much of that winter (I was dealing with hauling cut wood down stairs, maintaining the fire, keeping the cast iron pot filled with water to keep the room from getting too dry AND putting up with the ashes and sawdust. WITH. ASTHMA.) Hell, I didn’t even mention keeping the dogs fed and watered.
For a long time I considered myself lazy and useless around the house. But my god the past few DAYS even have been an eye opener. I had to replace broken sprinklers and repair them out of my OWN POCKET (I still don’t have a job, so it’s a miracle that I even managed to have pocket money at all). I also had to buy milk and bread during that, and then I also had to dig the holes, use a wet/dry vac to clear debris and dirty water, get it all put together and reburied properly, make sure it worked, mow the lawn, trim the trees and a few dutch elm starts... and I still haven’t even touched on doing MY chores yet. from the first year after Leonard died to now, I had to pick up and learn a lot of this myself (or RELEARN, in the case of lawn care sorryleonard). I had to learn how to budget soap and money alike, I had to learn how to cook my own meals, I had to learn how to saw wood, to shovel and move dirt properly for banking, to tear down fix parts of an ancient ass deck, and I even had to pull apart a GODDAMN REFRIGERATOR. And I did so much of it on my own conviction. Hell, I TAUGHT HER SHIT. I did that all on my own and I could not give two shits how lazy she thinks I am.
And you know what? It all kinda comes full circle. Because under most circumstances I could say something “wasn’t always like this”... but not with her. She has ALWAYS been off to a meeting, or off to work 20 minutes away, or out with friends or by herself to watch a movie, or in her room/ the living room watching tv. Before Leonard she was that way. After Leonard she was that way. Hell, even with Leonard alive she was that way (though I never noticed it unless he was really hurting from his construction/plumbing jobs, even Leonard wasn’t immune to the room service treatment or the passive aggressive tone).
But as for me... I can see at least in part how much I’ve grown. I can even feel it sometimes; I couldn’t lift some of my own furniture two summers ago, but now I can lift just about all of it alone. And you know what, I did most of it on my own. Once I get a job, I’ll be that much closer to being free from her.
And you know what? I may be anxious about it, but deep down, I feel like once I get going, I’ll outwork her. I’ll take her “lazy son” comments and directed to me “entitled millennial” jokes and make her choke on them. I’ll work so hard she’ll get a double dose of how she forced me to feel for my entire teenage life, and my early adulthood. I know I can.
