safe parent

I love my mother. I always thought she was the best parent I could have asked for. Of course, that was in comparison to my father. In short, my father was a violent, drug-addicted idiot. My parents hated each other.

My mother encouraged my passions and cherished them. She was always so proud of the things I drew and made. She always asked if school was going well and was generally deeply involved in my life. Unlike my father, who actively mocked me and my interests, said other children were better at everything, dismissed my work, and didn't even know my age.

Every time violence and chaos erupted again in the house, my mother tried to protect me. My father, instead, resented my fear and yelled at me that I was "pretending" to justify my mother. It's ridiculous to think that a 6-year-old is trying to frame you. When my father started getting physically aggressive, my mother would grab me and run out of the house, or pull out a knife, or call her brother for help. At dinner, my father would explode in inexplicable anger if I didn't pay careful attention to every word and facial expression I made. If I was lucky, my father would storm out of the house. My mother would then try to rebuild the atmosphere and continue with a pleasant meal. I'm lucky I never experienced physical violence from my father. I mean, the worst he did to me was mild sexual harassment, threats of assault, and blowing cigarette smoke in my face to shut me up. But my mother wasn't so lucky. When a neighbor called the police, they registered my father as a physical abuser so they could take him away immediately if they got another call.

Until very recently, I deeply believed that this was a normal family. I had a hard time accepting that my father was a terrible person. After separating from my father, things got much better. Now I understand that my father's behavior was unacceptable and not normal.

And imagine the shock when I realized that my mother wasn't such a great parent either. She only seemed that way because my father was there. I started having some questions. Why was my mother with my father? Why did we run away, but my mother went back to my father? Why did my mother tell the police to go away? Why didn't she call them again? Why did my mother escalate every fight? And so on.

My mother would get furious over trivial things, and if I was the cause, I was no longer treated like her child. Instead, I became a serious enemy to my mother. My mother would often threaten to send me to boarding school forever and disown me. As a child, I took these threats very seriously. When my mother started packing my things into a suitcase, I thought I would never come home again. She never carried it out, but it was her way of controlling the situation. If she still couldn't win, she would start screaming that I was a hopeless, broken child. She gave me a list of reasons why I would never be normal and would never be accepted by others. She screamed, "I hate you! Do you hear me? Your own mother hates you!" Of course, when you're under the age of 10, you have no reason to doubt these words. If I talked back, I had to be prepared for my belongings to be destroyed. I remember my mother throwing my Lego creations on the floor, pieces flying everywhere, and yelling at me, "Now it's your turn." I could never understand the last part. My turn? I was sitting on the stairs, watching my mother hurl my creations around, and now it was my turn? At the time, I interpreted this as her wanting me to retaliate. I always refused, but I also felt like I was doing something wrong by staying silent. On one such occasion, when she again shouted that it's my turn, I thought I should insult her. That was a big mistake. To this day, I still don't know what she wanted from me. In any case, I quickly stopped showing my creations to my mother and started hiding my most precious works.

Looking back, my mother often seemed like a different person when she got angry. One of the punishments she used to do was to deliberately light a cigarette near me, knowing that I couldn't breathe the smoke. It was better if we were outside, because I could just move away. But when we were inside the house, I had to go upstairs or outside. The worst was when she did it in the car. There's no escape from a moving car, and it's so small that it quickly fills with smoke. I remember opening the window just a little bit to let in enough air to breathe. Opening it fully wouldn't help with breathing because of the car's speed. It was a delicate balance. This punishment was completely ineffective. I still really don't understand what the point of this was.

During the unfortunate years when I was being sexually abused at school, my mother did nothing. She now says she didn't know and asks me over and over why I didn't tell her. The truth is that I was taught what to say if my mother asked, and I did as I was told. I remember my mother asking me if anything "strange" was happening. I often had inflammation in my genitals and knew too much about sex for an 8-year-old, so my mother must have had suspicions. I was ashamed and afraid to tell the truth, so I told the lie I was told to tell. That was the end of my mother's investigation.

Unrelated to that, my teacher once violently assaulted me. The school intervened immediately because everyone witnessed the humiliation. We were encouraged to press charges. My parents decided not to, and that teacher faced no consequences. In the end, my mother didn't really seem to care.

Inevitably, this list goes on. Still, my father was worse. I forgive my mother, but the resentment doesn't go away. I've always felt like I didn't have anyone to look up to, and now I understand why.