Monday, May 11, 2009

Mamacita

Sheez, I wish Mother's Day would go away and just not happen at all. I can't stand being feted.... hypocrite that I am... as a good mama. I'm going to go away by myself next year. I think I said that last year, too. Last year was okay though because my mother had died in March and so I didn't have to think about her except to feel like a bad kid. At least I didn't have to act hypocritically and send cards and gifts. She didn't want them from me anyway so it was just a silly game.

My DIL made a special effort yesterday to make me feel wonderful on Mother's Day and my dd's gave me home-made cards extolling their reasons for caring. I can't tell you how each remark felt... like daggers in my brain. I couldn't wait to leave and be alone... it was all I could think of.

I'm a woman who was raised by socially and mentally inept persons. Some very bad things happened to me while I was a young girl... rape, pregnancy, relinquishment, marriage to a drug addict. I wasn't raised to have any strength so couldn't cope with any of that. I stumbled through life... raising children because it was expected of me. I loved them and I would never do anything to put their lives in danger; I worked every day and spent my entire paycheck on feeding and housing them. But is that enough to be considered a good mother? I don't think so. I did what I had to do.

Thank goodness all of my children have done well in life and I'm proud of them.... not always of everything they do, but proud that they are contributing members of society and good parents to their own children. I like spending time with them and I suppose that's a compliment to how great they are.... each of them in their own way. But I don't attribute any of their skills or personalities to anything I taught them.

So, though I appreciate that there are good mamas out there who deserve all the praise heaped upon them on their own special day... I also know that I am not one of them... and I don't want to celebrate another god damned Mother's Day ever again.