Saturday, July 16, 2016

Oh yeah? Well Im going to go live with my Dad then!

So often I find myself being kicked in the rear by karma. Even if it is a silly, simple declaration about how much I hate cats or that fibromyalgia is not a real disease, life has this way of taking my very strong, misinformed, declarative s and showing me how my words taste with Sunday dinner. And sometimes, karma has a really hard, painful lesson waiting for me that's years in the making. Lessons that inspire phrases like "If I knew then what I know now..."And my teenage son is the catalyst for one of the hardest lessons I have had to swallow. Wisdom, I've found, rarely comes with ease, but at the end of a long treacherous road of bad decisions and soul pain.

Im at an age where my friends are in varying stages of parenthood.  Some have planned carefully or maybe not and are becoming parents just now or have adorable little toddlers wrecking their sanity yet stealing their hearts 100 times a day. But many are like me. They find themselves with teenagers embarking on young adulthood and the image of those little pudgy babies and sticky hands are far in the past. (If they're a lot like me, they can't even imagine going back there at this point and don't know how all those middle aged new parents find the energy.) Teenagers. They'll teach you a thing or two. If you've never called your own parents and apologized for ever being a teenager, consider yourself lucky (or ignorant to reality). Either way, teenagers are a challenge under the best of circumstances. But I've never claimed to have the best of circumstances, now have I?

Back to karma. There's a trend I see with my peer teenager parents. It wrenches my heart every time. I feel for them. I feel for them because it has happened to me. I know how much it hurts. How terrifying it is. How it feels like a divorce only from someone you love far more deeply than a spouse. Someone you've literally poured all your energy and love and strength and care into. Someone you'd die for.

And then they say "Im going to live with my Dad/Mom/Grandparent/whoever because they love me more and you SUCK and I hate you."

Knife meet heart. Anger. Rage. Indignance. Tears upon tears upon tears. Paralyzing Fear. Self doubt. Depression. More anger. More fear. More rage. More tears. Determination. More self doubt. Mounds of regret. Blame. Shame. Guilt. More depression. More rage. More indignance. And then, if you're lucky, some clarity and acceptance.

But in all those feelings, 99 percent fail to realize the karma of it all. I haven't. My son has done the Dad thing more than once. And I blamed Dad as a "brainwasher." I was angry at my son for his hurtful words but I always managed to employ a self defense of believing my son was brainwashed and didn't REALLY feel that way about ME. He always came back, after all, when he realized that the grass on Dad's lawn wasn't made of gold and perfection either and maybe he didn't hate me so much after all. It was when he "ran away" and decided to demonize me and move in with my parents that I really had to soul search. That's when the knife cut deep. Because I can demonize his father all day, but did my parents brainwash him? They're not always my biggest fans but it was a far stretch to believe that my parents would do what I'd believed his father had done in the past years. I'm not saying my defenses didn't go there, they did, but it took a lot of stretching to believe they would intentionally try to take my son from me while my poor innocent son was simply a victim. No, this was on my son. He said and did the things to convince my parents that he was better off out of my house and influence. And even more of a shock to my reality, he'd probably done that with his Dad as well. And I'd pitied him. And coddled him. And helped him learn how to act this way. Hello karma.

Here's the mistake I made that makes ME responsible. Here's my karma. I taught him that it was ok to hide from his father in my arms. I taught him it was ok not to respect his parent. I taught him it was ok to demonize his parent in favor of ME. I even ENJOYED (yes.) when he demonized his father. I didnt do this when he was younger (regardless of what his father may believe) but when he became a teen and started to see what that grass was made of, I openly played along and was glad that he'd finally "figured out" what a (insert whatever here) his Father was. And we bonded over making fun and being disgusted by his parent. Sigh. Hindsight. If I'd known then and all that.

But guess what? It wasn't just his father I'd done that with. It was in other relationships as well. I'd let my sons participate in angry or petty or downright ugly sessions cursing and plotting imaginary fantasy revenge against other men I'd ended relationships with. As a disclaimer, I never did any of the things and I did DISCUSS with my sons that venting was ok and even necessary sometimes but that you shouldn't act on those things. But acting wasn't the problem. It was the disrespect for the human. The lesson I taught them about ending relationships and dealing with feeling wronged. I taught them that it was ok to hate, even for a little while. But more importantly, I taught them how to demonize and detach with total disrespect.

I taught my son how to treat people who he was hurt/disappointed/angered by or even just needed to healthily detach from. I did that. And karma showed me that it wasn't innocent. I was wrong. And that boomerang has now hit me square in the face.

My mother told me, when this all blew up: "You taught him to be this way." I was so angry she'd said that. There was so much she didnt understand at that moment. But, as with many things that truly infuriate me, it was because there was a recognition of truth to it. I had taught him a thing or two about how to be this way. There are a few things he did in this process that I didn't teach him. Those things are someone else's karma. I wont address those because thats just more fingers pointing away from me. And that's not the point here.

I taught him with no bad intentions. I taught him thinking all along that I was being fair to the other people involved. They "deserved" my anger and disrespect and hate. I taught him when I wasn't even trying to teach him, but was only trying to survive myself. I taught him how to treat ME right now. Because he needs to detach from me. (The hundred normal and abnormal reasons for that are for another time) And in his detaching, I am learning valuable lessons. Humbling lessons. Painful karmic lessons.

So, here's my advice to every mom and dad and otherwise child influencing person that's earlier in the process of learning than me. No matter how much you hate the other parent (or otherwise authority figures), pay attention to the lessons you're teaching them about how to deal with those feelings. Because when you find yourself with the inevitable "I hate you" teenager moment, they're going to treat you just the way you've taught them to. Coparenting will pay off in the long run no matter how much teeth gnashing you have to do to accomplish it. (And trust me, I get hating the other parent for immensely justifiable reasons. But that's between you and you only.)

As a caveat, I want to add that I think there's a significant societal problem that is being created by the prevalence of divorce and one parent households and all associated things that is creating a generation of children who can "get away with" running off to another parent/grandparent to avoid discipline or working out normal conflict and challenges. A problem we, as a society, need to overcome by learning to work better together and put our own feelings aside. I failed at that and even when I tried, the other parties failed at that. And now, my son is living with my parents and running away from BOTH of his parents. I cant speak for his father, but I can quell my self doubt enough to know that I dont need to be run away from. Im not perfect, but Ive been a good enough Mom.

But Karma.

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