I have pretty much given up on Slate advice columns because I don’t like most of the columnists and, to be frak, the commentariat is….not my cup of tea in general. Or rather, I never know which way they’re going to swing, and it’s frustrating to me. For the most part, I can guess which way they are agoing to go, but every once in a while, they take me by complete surprise. Most of the time, though, I know what they are going to say. I’s usually pretty pragmatic, except when it comes to anyone who is a minority, then pragmaticism goes out the window and all kinds of isms come flying in. The only time when they actually acknowldege any ism is when it’s sexism–probably because more than half the commentariat are women.
We all know that people are self-centered. This is a given, and not even a bad tihng. Of course you’re going to thnk about things from your own point of view–that’s what being a human is. But, the problem is when you (general you) can’t see why/how someone else would think differently. and you assume that they are wrong/weird/crazy for thinking the way they do.
I really don’t like Doyin Richards from Care and Feeding because he relates everything to himself and because he’s, well, mean to his kid.s Such as telling them that their things are not theirs because he bought them, and he’s just letting them use them. That’s not tough love, that’s just cruel.
For whatever reason, I decided to read his column today. Much to my surprise, I actually agreed with his answers for the most part. But it might be because the first two questions were just so out there, anyone could have answered them easily. It’s the second question that really grinded my gears. The mother who ‘wears her heart on her sleeve’ and doesn’t want to stifle herself for her kids. She overheard them talk about how they didn’t go to her for anything because she was so sensitive. This was what she said:
I am deeply hurt that my kids choose to believe that they have to walk on eggshells around me, but this is who I am.
Are you fucking kidding me? Wow. She went on to say more words, but this just smacked my gob. If you noticed, she was fully invested in ‘this is how I am’, but she also said that her children were choosing to walk on eggshells around her. She couldn’t help who she was, but they could, apparently. The two kids (13F and 16M, the latter is the oldest. The way it’s phrased, there are other kids, sadly) were talking about how they she would freak out over little things like no more milk. The oldest son said that he learned in elementary school that he could not go to her for anything.
Now. I am not a parent. But If I were and my kids said something like this, I would be mortified. I would take to heart what they said and work on changing it. She went on to say that she didn’t think it was fair that she be expected to change a huge part of who she was for something as silly as her children’s feelings. No, she did not phrase it taht way, but it was very evident in her attitude.
Doyin nailed this by saying while it was hard to hear, she needed to get a therapist ASAP to deal with it because she was making it unsafe for her kids. he also called bullshit on her saying that she did not ask her kids to change their own behavior. He said, “If you saw them hurting someone, you’d just stand by with your thumb up your ass and not say anything?” Paraphrased, of course, but pretty much what he said.
I opened the comments, curious as to what the commentariat would say. I had a hunch they would be firmly against the letter writer because they did usually take the side of kids against abusive parents, but they surprised me once in a while. They were almost uniformly against the letter writer, and much harsher on her than Doyin was (and they were right to be).
A few people asked if maybe the kids purposefully talked about it, wanting to be overheard by their mother. The abused kids in the crowd said that no, there was no way that was the case. They were pretty sure that the kids had learned early not to talk about anything of importance with their mother because she would turn it against them. The commentariat said the kids would be afraid if they knew she had overheard it beacuse they knew there would be hell to pay, and they were right.
My brother and I learned at a very early age that my parents were not to be trusted. Well, actually I did not really absorb it until my twenties, but I knew on a cellular level that I should keep myself to myself when I was a young kid.by By the time I was in my mid-twenties, I did not say a thing to my parents. My father because he would not care and my mother because she would somehow make it all about her. Or tell me how bad it was. Or tell me not to tell my father. At any rate, it would just make me feel like shit.
There was a point in my thirties that whenever I talked to my mother on the phone, I would be severely deperssed for days after. I can’t tell you how much damage it does to have parents who don’t give a shit about you. More to the point, who make their emotions your responsibility. There was one commenter to that letter who objected to asying that having parents like that caused trauma. They said that they worked in a psych ward and felt it was trivializing deep psychoses by tossing the word around (paraphrasing what they wrote). Others pointed out that it wasn’t the Trauma Olympics, and it didn’t have to reach the level of hospitalization to be considered traumatic.
I agree. It’s similar to how emotional abuse can be just as damaging to you as physical abuse. In fact, it can be even more damaging because bones will set and heal (if allowed), whereas emotional damage can go on forever. And I can absolutely attest to the fact that being parentified by a parent is abusive and leaves long-lasting trauma if it’s not resolved in time.
I’m fifty-two and still bear the scars of having a mother who is an emotional suck. She’s just an abyss of need, and it’s exhausting. My brother and I know not to tell her anything important unless we absolutely have to. Like when he got divorced. Of course he had to tell our parents, but he did it by having us all on a Zoom call so I could emotionally support him. When I was in the hospital, I joked with him that I wished he had told our parents I was visiting Ian. I understood why he told them, but, I really wish he hadn’t had to.
In the comment section for this letter, I found much validation from all the people warning the letter writer that she better shape up or she would not see much of her kids once they left the house. I hoped she actually listened to them.