Parenthood via the Rear View Mirror: Hindsight and Karma

This Blog, Cranky Chronicles, is usually my platform to expose the stupid things I do, see, or say on a regular basis. Topics can range from "How I hit myself in the face with a hammer" to "Goddess in a Minivan" type comedic essays.
I have a more serious blog as well, called "Basement Blossom" where my more "serious" side comes out. Today, I wanted to talk about something not so funny (but very funny, if you think about it), so I chose this venue in which to share this essay.

Father's Day is fast approaching, and Mother's Day has already passed. My Mother died in 2008; there was no reason to send a card to her; she wouldn't get it. I don't think the postman delivers to "Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust." So I stared up, down, all around and said, "Happy Mother's Day, Ma, wherever you are."

Father's Day comes this week. Dad is alive, Dad gets a card.

First let me say that I am the oldest daughter of three children. I always considered myself a "Daddy's Girl." My dad was the first man I ever loved, (then came David Cassidy) the first man who made me laugh, (then there was Fred Flintstone) and the first man to make me cry (Donny Osmond). For many years, my dad was my "everything." My father is handsome (I'm not just saying it - he was and still is a looker at 76), and he is charismatic, friendly, and has a smile to die for. He and my mom were the type of couple that people would turn their heads and look at. You know those "beautiful people" that we all
hate: "Wow, look at those gorgeous people. They must come from some place other than where I exist" type-thing.

I'm not breaking his anonymity - my Dad is a recovering alcoholic with some 35+ years of sobriety under his belt. He's proud of his recovery and sobriety, and won't balk at telling anyone how not drinking saved his life. I am proud of him. It's not easy when drinking is second nature to NOT do that. Ask me; I know.

My mom was also an alcoholic; before her death, she hadn't touched a drop in 27 or so years. She stopped and never drank again. 

When you are the child of alcoholic parents, life is unpredictable in a very predictable way. You knew you didn't know what the heck was going to happen until you saw the look in a parent's eyes, smelled their breath, or saw the way they stumbled (or walked) in the door. Based on your observations, you then knew what kind of mood each might be in and what persona you had to armor yourself with in order to survive the night. 

My childhood was tumultous at best. As the oldest child, it fell to me to call in sick for my folks, clean up their vomit, referee their fights, and care for my siblings. I became the family caretaker. My brother and sister each shared a different role as the middle child and the baby. We all were in the same war together, but all came out of the foxhole different people.

This rant isn't about my parent's drinking. Quite frankly, Dad quit when I was 12, Mom when I was 18. It was a new kind of life, this "not drinking," and as the caretaker, I didn't know what to do when my folks didn't drink. My role changed. So, I drank to fill in the gap of what I knew vs. what I didn't.

Of course, my parents divorced. I was 10. I always looked at their life and was reminded of the movie "Days of Wine and Roses" with Jack Lemmon and Lee Remmick. They were gorgeous people like my parents (and they were just acting the part). In the movie, Jack and Lee drink together, but eventually Jack sees the error of his ways, hits bottom, and quits booze. Lee keeps drinking and they separate; love lost to John Barleycorn - Lee's character still drunk at the end of the movie as Jack's character, now sober,  looks at her in empathy and sadness . I always felt like that's what happened with my folks, but in a "less-Hollywood" sort of way.

Both parents remarried. My dad married someone he had gone to high school with; she had two children from a previous marriage. Those children lived with her ex, so that they could stay in the same school instead of moving to be with my Dad and Stepmom in a different town. My mom married a man, (now deceased), who had four of his own kids from a previous marriage, who were living with his ex wife.

Here's where I get my lessons and I "get" the lessons now. I'm a divorced mother of two kids. Wow, did I have a lot to learn.

Here are the things I judged my parents for.

1. "My dad never spends any time with me." 
True. As soon as I got old enough, I wanted to "Be with my friends" (aka: drink and party), and my dad allowed me to blow off my weekends with him to make me happy. Yes, I wish he had forced me to spend the time with him; he tried. My dad is nothing if not non-confrontational in nature; I get that from him. So, living in the same town, I saw less and less of him and more of local keg parties.

2. "My dad spends all his time with HER kids."
Yes. That's what happens when a dad leaves a family and gets a new one. But guess what? My stepdad spent all his time with US and left his own kids behind. Oh, they tried to see him, but I imagine my nastiness at them (how they came in to "our" house and were a "pain in the ass") didn't help them feel welcome. Soon, everyone stopped trying. I was about 47 when I realized this (and I'm 49 now). It took me all those years to realize that all the bellowing I did about my dad not being around was most likely being echoed by my stepbrothers and sisters on my Stepdad's side. How I wish I could say "I'm sorry" for him. I'm sorry they lost their dad to us, as much as I'm sorry that I lost my dad to the other stepfamily.

3. "My mother always says nasty stuff (post divorce) about my dad."
Very true. 
Thank you, Dad, for NEVER saying a mean thing about my mother (who, more often than none, deserved mean things said about her). Thank you, Dad, for not making me feel like I had to choose sides. (I only ever figured that one out when I turned 43). When I asked my dad, "Wow, you never said anything bad about mom - why?" My dad said, "She was your mother, and you loved her, good or bad. Why would I? What purpose would that serve?" 
Thank you, dad, for having class. I use it today in my own divorce situation. I have learned that taking the high road is the hardest road to travel. I find I want to say to my kids, "YOUR DAD IS ______________(insert ANYTHING bad)." But I don't, because I learned from you that I should never make them choose a team. They love us both, good or bad. Thanks, Dad, for taking the high road. Mom, I'll be honest here. You had no filter. If I had no filter, I'd have done that too. I want to do it - a lot. But I don't. You were human. I forgive you.

4. I hated that my mom loved to go to work every day; and that she loved to go out and do things, and that she wasn't like Carol Brady with a clean house or even an Alice to help out. Nope, instead I did the dishes, cooked dinner, was a "latch-key kid, because mom worked. 
What I didn't know was that she had to work to pay for all the "stuff" we demanded (not including the necessities like food, a roof and heat), and that, guess what? Being a parent is the HARDEST JOB IN THE WORLD, even done wrong. As the single mom to a seven and ten year old that I adore beyond anyone or anything, I NEED A BREAK. Work is a break! Them going to school is a break! Bravo to you home-schoolers; but I don't have it in me to not be selfish. I'm 49 and I'm tired. I know if I were a 22 year-old mom I'd be this tired too. When I get to talk to grown ups, especially because I don't have a partner or significant other, I am enthralled. I can only listen to so much "Mom, on Sponge Bob, ya know what Patrick did?"
Thank you, Mom and Dad, first, for listening to all the kid stuff and incessant chatter X 3 (no wonder you drank), and for putting up with my selfish bitching about how I didn't have the coolest sweater on the planet like Suave Sally up the street whose mom and dad could afford EVERY stupid yoke sweater on the planet in 25 different colors!
I find myself saying, "Mom doesn't have money for you to leave that full glass of juice on the table overnight." Or, "Would you like to pay for that dinner out of your allowance?" Man, I want to give them the world, but I can't afford it, and quite frankly, they don't NEED it.
Thank you, Mom, for working every day so that we could have a roof. Roof beats sweaters anyday.

5. My poor mother. 
Do you believe in karma? I do. What you send out comes back 100 fold?
Dear God, I bragged to her about my father, over and over and over. "Dad took me here." Or, "Dad did this, Dad did that." "At Dad's house we get to ______________."
I'm so sorry, Mom. So sorry. 
I now listen to my own children say, after my working so hard to teach two kids to ride without training wheels, "Now that we know how to ride, Dad bought us brand new bikes!" Or, "Dad makes his hot dogs like ________. Why don't you make them that way?" And on, and on, and on like some sick race to the finish line.
The freaking high road sucks. I listen and I smile, and I ooze inside. I divorced him. He's the LAST person I care about knowing how he makes a hot dog. But they love him. And they love me. They should never be made to pick a team.

To my stepfather, were he alive - Thank you for being such an important influence in my life. Thank you for being my "other father." I had the good fortune to be with my stepdad as he was battling cancer until he died. I got to say these things to him. What I'd add now would be, "I should have been nicer to your children. I'm sorry."

My Stepmother and I are not on the best of terms. We never really have been. Most of that, in the beginning, was all me. I was eleven; I wanted nothing to do with another woman being in my dad's life. I made EVERY encounter in the beginning and for years later, miserable. That was all me. She and I had nothing in common but my father; I felt that I rooted for him and by my own sheer will of praying for my dad to get sober so I could have him back, she stole him away, and her kids got the benefit. I would have hated to have me as a stepchild. I didn't make it easy. For that I'm sorry. Later in the years, I tried to see the similarities and not the differences, and was glad that my dad had someone to love who loved him back; and I left it at that. If Dad was happy, I had to respect that and her. The relationship went south (with my stepmother) years later, and I won't go in to that, but still, in my dad's illness, she is there, caring for him, dealing with the things that go along with dementia. For that I am grateful. Actually because of my nastiness as eldest daughter, I hesitate to date any man with a young daughter. I've heard horror stories from other single women, so I'm not alone in being a horrible child, but I get it. I'm not up for someone like me. At all. 

My relationship with both parents had been strained a thousand different ways all of my life. It wasn't until I adopted my kids at age 43 did I have a clue as to what it might be like to have been them.
I get it, a little bit, now. 

Maybe if I'm lucky, and I mean VERY lucky, I won't have to, like my mom did, wait up all night for a child (me) only to have them come home drunk in the morning and she spent the night thinking I might be dead. Or, in my own drinking and partying, her worry that I might crack up her car (forget about the car, is my kid okay?), or have to give the police your child's senior picture because she disappeared for a few days only to realize I'd been a mile up the street "Just hanging out?" I have a myriad of horrendous childhood behaviors including skipping school, talking back, singing "You can not petition the Lord with Prayer" to the church across the street as Mass was going in with a band and microphone...we both lived through it.

Were she alive today, I'd tell my mom I'm so sorry for these things. I'm sorry I didn't understand her, that I judged her before walking in her shoes. But I just say them out loud, because I think she is watching. And I believe she is laughing, and I believe she forgives me.

As for my dad, he has always known how I have felt, and I'm glad I got to thank him before he became ill with Alzheimers. I feel lucky that he knows me still; he's doing pretty good in that department. When he was diagnosed with the symptoms almost 4 1/2 years ago, we had a hell of a talk. He told me things he wanted me to remember in case he forgot. He never forgets when he hangs up the phone to say, "I love you so very much, babe, like I did when you were born, with your ten tiny little fingers and ten tiny little toes. You were always special to me, and you always will be."
Thanks, Daddy. 

Hindsight is 20/20. Thank God my eyes are now open, even if I am seeing yesterday - at least I'm seeing, and I'm grateful for every lesson, good and bad.
They did the best they could, just like I am. 
We may not be perfect, and certainly Oprah would have a great show with all of us, but heck, we're doing the best we can. Aren't we? If not, surely my kids will have lots to blog about. Actually, they already do...
Hug the ones you love.

Happy Father's Day.