Sometimes Mother’s Day Isn’t Picture Perfect and is Dysfunctional Instead

There are days that slam you in the face and remind you that your family is less than perfect. Sometimes it feels like holidays were invented for torture.

Mother’s Day was yesterday. Everywhere you looked there were constant reminders that it was a day to celebrate moms. Not women. Moms. But the day is unfair for women who wish to be moms but who are not.  It’s a very sad day for those who have dead mothers.  The day is also crappy for people who have dysfunctional relationships with their moms. Let’s face it. Many people are not perfect and some are perfectly imperfect.  This is a post written by a girl who is estranged from her mom.  The reasons are numerous, complicated, and hard to understand if you didn’t grow up in my family.  That being said, I will admit that I am perfectly imperfect.  I have many faults and flaws.

Growing up in dysfunction there are two choices: to do as you know and continue the same lifestyle OR to fight like hell to rise above how you were raised. To sink or to swim.  I am in the latter group. While I know my parents love me, my childhood was less than ideal. My parents would run in to their dealers house to buy drugs while my brother and I waited in the car. I have visions of lines of cocaine on mirrors with razor blades at their friends houses. I could go on but I hope I have painted a photo of a less than ideal childhood.  For what it’s worth….I am one of those rare adults you meet who has never smoked or done drugs.  I saw the disaster they created in the world around me and vowed to never, ever make those same mistakes.

Kids who are estranged  from their parents are not uncommon but there is such a taboo about talking about it.  People’s first reaction is to put blame on you or your parent.  Then they judge you….sometimes that judgement comes out in a sentence or two that was supposed to be well intentioned but stabs your heart instead.  After that people try to bargain with you.  Surely there has to be a way for you to rekindle your relationship with your parent.  Once people have completed these tactics….always unsuccessfully….the next thing that happens is a complete avoidance of the subject of your parents.  It makes them uncomfortable that someone they know has a less than ideal relationship with their parent.  It’s like your “condition” is “contagious.”

Thoughts from an estranged child.

I wouldn’t wish a rocky relationship on anyone.  Everyone involved feels sad and hurt.  It becomes a matter of he-said-she-said, finger pointing, and the inability to get along.  Holidays make you wrestle with a million different thoughts?  Should I pick up the phone and call that person?  What if I just sent a card?  Would it open up a can of worms?  Where would I even find a card? Hallmark doesn’t exactly make cards that say “Thanks for giving birth to me.”  Period.  Nothing more than that.  Hallmark should.  There is a whole market of people who would buy a card like that.  But chances are those cards would be purchased and then sit unmailed.  In the end, you don’t want to pour salt into a never closing wound.

I am sure I speak for all estranged individuals when I say this.  Please leave your judgmental feelings about the estrangement (of me from my parent) out of our conversations.  It is something I deal with all the time.  Days like Mother’s Day, Christmas, Birthdays, and random questions from children/people are a constant reminder of the parental figure not in my life.  If you want to check on me, that is fantastic, please do.  But if you are going to try to tell me how to live my life, just stop.  The last thing I need is to be told that I will not be invited to my mom’s funeral when she dies if I don’t start talking to her now (true story…actually).

Every day I fight to make sure that I have a good relationship with my daughters.  I know that they are only little once and that we will only be able to build forts and have secret picnics for a limited amount of time.  I am determined to swim.  I will fight for my relationship and my future with my daughters.  While I hope that I do everything the right way I know that I am perfectly imperfect and that I will mess up.  As long as I have more successes than perceived failures I will consider what I am doing to be just fine.

Do you have a perfectly imperfect relationship with anyone in your family?  If you do, just know that you are not alone!