How Reading a Book Changed my Perspective on my Parenting

I have had a lot of trauma in my life. I feel I've been used and abused by most people in my life; my family, at school, romantic partners, I could go on but that is not the purpose of this post. This post is about facing some harsh realities, including accepting the fact I brought all of my hurts, suffering, poor mental health and anger into my parenting. Probably the easiest thing to do would be to say, "well, I did the best I could." The statement is as true as the day is long but it also sounds very defensive to me and doesn't really acknowledge anything or resolve anything.

Most everybody does the best they can at any given moment and wants to do better; those are two basic truths I carry with me at all times. So, yes, one hundred percent, I did the best I could, but it doesn't help validate what my children went through, their hurts and feelings. I understand this because my own mother will never say anything more than she did her best, which I accept, but still crave the acknowledgement and validation of my feelings about my childhood, and maybe even just a little remorse. I feel she poured all of her resentment towards her sister into me but that's a whole other thing.

When it came to my children, I was the accessing parent, I had my kids every other weekend and half the summer and other holidays. This arrangement was made after I moved back home but from the time they were around two and a half and eighteen months until they were seven or eight and five or six I lived halfway across the country from them.

I sent them to live with their dad as I was recovering from a bilateral mastectomy and reconstructive surgery, my boyfriend beat me up and I was trying to find a way to leave him. I wasn't in the best "mother" condition. I had to find another place quickly and had very few options. I didn't have any family near where I lived who could help or any close friends who were in a position to help. I called their father and asked him to come get them until I got better. He came and got them but then wouldn't give them back and I didn't have a snowball in Hell's chance (according to a lawyer in my family).

I remained in Ontario and my kids lived with their dad in New Brunswick so I didn't see them after their dad collected them. When I was finally able to go to NB for a visit it was with the intention of moving back, but my folks thought I would be better off heading back to Ontario where I had a job I could go back to. In New Brunswick I'd be starting over (yet again) and there weren't any jobs to speak of. During my visit I made a monumental mistake and promised my little boy that I would never leave him again. But I did leave and he remembered. After that I rarely saw them until I finally did move back to New Brunswick with a fiancee and his daughter in tow a couple of years later.

My son and my daughter have both confronted me on sending them to their father and I, unfortunately, did the same damn thing my mother did. I defended myself. My son accused me of abandoning them the last time he spoke to me. Instead of even trying to see his perspective I became really defensive and listed all the reasons I felt I had to do what I did. Not one single time in the conversation did I validate or respect his feelings rather I demanded he validate and respect mine. This happened before therapy, before healing from a lifetime of trauma ; including a fifteen year marriage to a narcissist. A couple of years ago I saw my son and pleaded with him to get some help, to get evaluated for ADHD or Aspbergers, to go to counselling for his anger issues. He hasn't spoken to me since and wants me to stay as far away as possible (at least for now).

My daughter has tried to express her feelings of longing for her mother as she was growing up. She tried to understand why I left her and asked a trillion questions, sometimes a million times. She tried to tell me of her own trauma, how she felt. What did I do? I told her to go to therapy and move on even though I couldn't. I told her dwelling too long in the past is a dangerous game (true but not helpful in the moment), I told her about Dialectical Behavioural Therapy, a therapy I had just finished. I wasn't yet in a place where I could tolerate the starkly bald truth, that I contributed to her trauma.My stepdaughter no longer speaks to me but I'm not really clear on why. The last time she did chat with me she said I was more like a mother to her than anything else as her mother had passed away when she was around eleven. I'm reasonably sure it is due to pressure from her father and half brother and I think it's just because they are both controlling narcissists. I honestly don't even know why her half brother stopped talking to me altogether either except maybe because I left my husband, but I digress.

During a counselling session my therapist suggested, I read a book. One little book, Toxic Parents by Susan Forward, PhD. and let me just say mind blown! Not only did I see my family clearly and my role in my as their scapegoat, I was also able to see my parenting flaws. It blew my mind wide open and rocked my world on fundamental level. I saw how I brought my own dysfunction to the table and that my kids had their own trauma as a result. I also saw how their father and step-father's parenting traumatized them. I saw the mental abuse my step-daughter endured her whole life from her dad and how I did not protect her, instead I defended him. I feel I made a huge mistake.

In fact, my overall parenting left some things to be desired though I was not an abusive parent myself. I just wasn't present for them and did not protect them as I should have; and I was complacent, which is still hurtul and damaging. Ex-husband number two would often take over disciplining my children which was inappropriate but I felt so powerless in my marriage. I just want to make it clear and state for the record neither man physically hurt any of the kids in any way, shape or form, it was the belittling, and that my husband thought he had the right to discipline my children in any way.

After finishing the book I was able to speak frankly, open, and honestly with my daughter without defensiveness. I was able to validate her and her childhood experiences. I was able to discuss my lack of parenting skills without overwhelming feelings of guilt and shame, I learned how to better communicate with her, and I learned how to show her that I love her in a way she understands.

She has a daughter who is the absolute sunshine of my life. My daughter is determined to break the cycle of (and truly, let's call it what it is) mental and emotional abuse and neglect, and has been quite successful. Her little girl is far too smart for her own good but she is indeed quite charming. My granddaughter is sweet, sensitive, kind and is the best snuggler.

If my son reached out to me now I would have very different conversations with him. I would let him know I can see how and why he feels I abandoned him. Everything I was going through at the time doesn't make his experience less painful for him. I would have better respect for his boundaries and stop pushing him so hard to get help. He's in the social services system now and is facing some serious legal troubles, they may be better positioned to have those discussions with him. I would just be there for him but I wouldn't take and shit from him either.

If my stepdaughter ever reached out to me. I would avoid talking to her about her father. She knows what he's like, she was and still is there. If we had a relationship it would have to be just about her and me, her father's name should never leave my lips, at least not in a derogatory or prying way.

For now I am repairing my relationship with my daughter and helping build a strong confident empowered granddaughter. For now that is what I have and so for now, just for now, it will have to be enough.