parents
The boundless love a parent has for their child is matched only by their capacity to embarrass them.
Parenting Without Using Physical Punishment
As promised in my last article, I’d like to share some ways of parenting children without using physical punishment that I learned both as a parent and a grandparent. This article is not designed to change your beliefs about smacking children: if you believe physical punishment works, then my goal is not to change your opinion, because as I stated in my first article I too used to hit my children. However, I do believe there are many parents out there who are looking for an alternative way of raising their kids. This one is for you!
By Mari-Louise Speirs8 years ago in Families
An Open Letter to Drugs
I remember sitting in a freezing car in the middle of Los Angeles, looking out of the car window at the homeless people that passed. Many of them walked by without a second glance, but a couple of them made direct eye contact and stared. Eventually they moved along, but my heart raced as I waited for my father to return to the car. As every homeless person passed, I imaged my dad in their torn clothes, begging people for money on the streets. To this day, I'm not sure why my young mind had placed him there, maybe it was just one of my worst fears playing tricks on me.
By Kasey Lomax8 years ago in Families
Mother Games.
“Tell me about your mother.” My relationship with my mother is an interesting one in the fact that it doesn’t really exist. And for everything one would assume couldn’t be said about the estrangement, there’s actually more than I like to admit. People are always saying I look exactly like her, and I never know what to do with that because they say it as if our comparable appearance is enough to constitute a relationship, or worse, as if I should somehow feel privileged. I guess it’s supposed to be a compliment; what girl wouldn’t want to be compared to her beautiful mother? I however find that looking at my mother is a little like looking at a reflection that moves when you do not. Rather than having some deep-rooted knowledge that allows us to know the other’s movements, there is an empty abyss leaving us completely disconnected. I realize that at some point I dwelled within her, everywhere she went and consuming every corner of her mind. Breathing her air and existing within her existence. But on that fateful day we were to separate she let go of me completely. A division that left a cavern somewhere in the center of my chest.
By Kim Gaines8 years ago in Families
I Will Raise My Children the Way My Mother Raised Me
I've heard a lot of people say this, but my mum is my favourite person in the world, there's no doubt about it. She is an older (and wiser) version of me, and she's always had my back, no matter what. I know that ordinarily, parents don't turn on you for your mistakes, but I also know that sometimes, we know they shouldn't be so forgiving.
By Jemma O'Donovan8 years ago in Families
Step Parent Part 1
Parenting is hard under the best of circumstances, but under the worst circumstances, it can be and is a nightmare. It's like a walk on a long dirt road all alone, no one to talk to, no one to share what it really feels like. No one cares no one sees and everyone just closes their eyes to your pain; it doesn't matter to them they only see what they want to see. So why do it? Trust me, I have asked myself that question more times than I can count. Still do to this day. My mother said once that I must enjoy making my life harder than it has to be. Truth is I love my husband and would never leave him. Truth is no matter what is thrown at me and no matter how much I am hurt by these children, I do love them. Does that make me pathetic? Honestly? I don't know. Some times I feel that way. Sometimes I get in the car and drive, music cranked up and I scream as loud as I can. I yell. I cuss. I cry. But at the end I drive back home and start again. This is my story. This is what I have been through and this is what I have felt and do fell. It is my rant. It won't be pretty and it will not be sugar coated. For years I have kept this all bottled up and hidden in the darkest places of my heart, mind and soul. I haven't shared this with family and only one friend has heard most of this. So why now do I write this down and share it? Simple, I can not keep it locked away any longer. I no longer feel embarrassed. What I feel is pain and anger and I feel done most days. I feel alone in this and I am done feeling alone. Maybe others can relate or maybe others will hate me, but if there is just one person out there that is going through the same type of thing and that person feels alone, then they will know that they are not alone. And since I decide to write this all down and throw it out into the world, I feel a weight lifted from me. For the first time in a long time I feel good. So here it goes and I'll see where this journey takes me. Who knows maybe I'll even be happy in the end.
By Deanne Jensen8 years ago in Families
To Smack or Not to Smack?. Top Story - September 2017.
The debate on smacking is an interesting one in as much as there are not many fence-sitters on this subject: people either have no problem with it at all, saying “I was smacked as a child and it didn’t do me any harm” while others are vehemently against violence of any sort against children. Just using the word “violence” evokes very strong feelings in many who hit their children because they don’t consider smacking a child to be violence. The “no hitting” camp generally believe that we hit our children out of instantaneous anger, frustration, and basically because we don’t know what else to do.
By Mari-Louise Speirs8 years ago in Families
One Eyebrow Doesn't Make You Friends
Yesterday, my father bemoaned his feminization over the last decade due to his constant exposure to me and my sister - his two loving daughters. His role as a single father meant the cannibalization of the maternal role, which resulted in a sort-of heightening of feminine characteristics. (I'm sure Stan Lee has written a comic about this, right?)
By Adeline E. Anderson8 years ago in Families
An Emotional Rollercoaster No Parent Should Ever Have to Ride On
Every parent has gone through the emotional rollercoaster that is called Pregnancy whether it be the mom or the dad. I mean, you've read all the books...twice, you've gone to every doctors appointment, you have the nursery all set up, names picked out, you're ready for the little one, right? What if I told you that some parents have to get on another emotional rollercoaster called the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) before they can bring their baby home? The NICU is the place where babies who are born before 37 weeks live until they are strong enough to go home. Some parents are only on the NICU rollercoaster for a couple days, some a couple months, some others even for a year or longer.
By Katie Weed8 years ago in Families
My Raging Father
I grew up with an abusive father. You could tell time by his rage, coming home and yelling at us the moment the door opened. I was the baby, and the daughter, so was mostly left alone. He saved his anger, his fists and berating language for my mother and brother. You see, my father was raised by a mother who hated boys, and she had only one. So, he was abused and treated like nothing. He, in turn, did the same to his first wife and son, and then to my mother and brother. I can remember waking up to my father dragging my mom up the stairs by her hair, and then beating her in front of my bedroom door while I screamed at him to stop. The voice of a five year old screaming is mostly filled with gulps of fear and sobbing, so it was easy to ignore, I suppose. I ran out that night and grabbed him, pulling on his shirt with my small hands and yelling at him to stop, which he did - long enough to kick me with his size 12 cowboy boots on. The kick sent me flying back into my room, and he lost his grip on my mother long enough for her to run to me, to cradle me, and everything went quiet for a moment. All I cold hear from my father's breathing, and my mother's heartbeat. When he walked into my room, I ran to him to try and block him from attacking her again and he did stop, but not from my force. Who knows why. He turned an stormed out and I told my mother, "any time he is mad I am going to run and hug him and it will stop him from getting you." She hugged me and I flinched. We peeled back the elastic waistband of my pajama pants to find a perfect heel mark on my hip, now missing skin, from where he kicked me. That was the only time my father hit me, but I remember it like it was yesterday... when he kicked me I lifted into the air and flew backwards, like some slow motion scene from a movie. I felt the air leave my body, and the moment I hit the ground I was gasping for it, trying to will it back into my body like some fleeing soul. Before I could breathe again, my mother was there, gently coaxing it back in for me, with her arms and her tears and her love. She is the air I breathe. She is my savior and the hero of my, my brother, and her own life. My memories of my father, now dead 12 years, are filled with pain and hurt and lies. Of being left in cars while he went into pubs to drink with strange women, of me going into the bar and dragging him out, t drive me back home, stonking of beer and cigarettes and cheap perfume. Of hiding under my bed when he would rage at me for wanting the light on in the hallway so I would be safe from the other monsters, even though he was he scariest of them all. Of being his alibi, when he would take me out of school to "spend the day with me", only to lock me in the car so he could go up to some woman's apartment in the city to cheat on my mom. I remember all those moments with crystal clarity.. the rain falling on the roof of the car while I scrunched down on the floorboard to make myself small so no one would try to steal me. Fearing every footstep outside, and of anyone noticing me in there all alone. It was the 70's so it was okay to leave a small child in the car for hours, apparently. And that moment when he returned, barking at me to get in the seat and off the floor. My ex-husband, so like my father in every way, once asked me about a good memory of my Dad and I could not find one. Every okay moment was tainted with his rage, or lies, or abuse. The only good memories of childhood are swirled in the comfort and love of my mother. Her warmth, her lover, and the smell of Jovan Musk, the only perfume she has even worn. She is why I am able to love and have trust. My life with my father lasted nine years, before we escaped, and ran from him. Before we were safe and I suddenly knew what life was like in a house with no noise, no screaming, no tears, no abuse. But, nine years is a long time, when it's all you know. It makes a dent in your soul that you can never buff out. So, I am going to talk about it, write about it, and tell the tale of my mother and me, and how we both survived these men, and how I am still now fighting mine, seven years after leaving him. ...to be continued...
By Michelle Craig8 years ago in Families
