Saturday, October 1, 2011

Family issues

Soooo, I have Mommy issues...
If anyone could see me, my brother and my mother in the same room, you would understand...he's the favorite.  I have spent 37 of my last 42 years with this knowledge and while it has totally SUCKED for most of my formative years, I have pretty much come to terms with it in my adulthood.  That and the fact that I moved 2,000 miles away from home helped too.

While I could take up endless amounts of time and energy giving example after example of how this is true it just simply isn't worth it.  I know it's true, my husband knows that it's true and anyone that has spent more than 10 minutes in a room with the 3 of us can usually tell too.

It's just that it seems as if my problem is becoming bigger and is now including new players : (

Now my 2 cousins (brother and sister that have a HORRIBLE father) come down to visit my parents with their kids.  And I feel like a bitch for even getting grumpy about it, their father is pretty much a monster and my parents have stepped up and are being Grandparents for their little ones, and for this I am grateful.  Here comes the but....But I don't want the play by play of everything she did for them or everything she did with them or how my cousin is going to remodel her house and wants my mom to come up and help with organizing and how my cousin will pay for her plane ticket and a spa day. 

A little side note is that I have not had a full time job in almost 12 years and we are perpetually broke.  My husband and I decided that we would rather be broke and take responsibility for screwing up our kids than to hand that over to someone else to have all the fun.  Granted we would have a shit-ton more money but this is the path we chose.  My parents pay for us to come home 2-3 times a year so they can see the kids and I truly am grateful...I go home so my kids can have a relationship with their grandparents and so I can see my folks.  And be reminded of why I don't live there anymore.  Once my youngest is in 1st grade I will be seeking employment or starting a little something/something of my own.

I also have a cousin in Texas from the other side of the family that my mother truly enjoys and compound that with the fact that this cousin is the child of her frenemy big sister and we have a match made in heaven.

My father and I have a pretty good relationship...now.  He wasn't really around when I was a kid, but it was because he was out working two jobs and partying hard on the weekend.  It was the 70's...who could blame him.  Any whoo...my dad likes to know what is going on out here so I call home everyday...yep, everyday.  But, you guessed it, I talk to my mom.  Dad is at work or asleep when I call, but he wants the update everyday.  So, while I understand that it's a daily occurrence for my mom, I would still like a little call waiting respect.  I am the one 98% of the time using up my minutes or running up my bill.  If I call and she is on the phone with a cousin, she wants to call me back...if she is on the phone with me and a cousin calls, she wants to call me back.  While part of me is a big girl and understands that I can get a call back, the other part of me wants my mommy to pick my phone call over theirs.  I swear it takes me back to being 9 years old and hearing my mom tell me to go to bed while she and my younger brother are snuggled up on the couch watching M.A.S.H. and listening my mom laugh and them talk on the other side of my wall.  It's the younger kid supposed to go to bed first?!

So, while I have a "why doesn't Mommy pay attention to me too" fit every once in a great while...I have a bigger problem.

Grand kids...

I have had some pretty big periodic fits over the years and brought up to my mom and my dad  and my brother (together and separately) how I feel about the obvious imbalance of attention and affection and my mom truly does recognize the problem and does feel really guilty.  She does try to change for a while, but she always reverts to what feels natural to her.  I can't really blame her, it's who she is.  I am a big girl and I can handle it...however my children are not big, nor will they understand.

My mother's world revolved around my oldest, in addition to me coming home with her 3 times a year, my mom would come out here twice a year...until my brother had a child...

Come on, you knew it was  coming. 

But let's go back 10 years, shall we?!  When Miss A was 13 months old I sat my mom down and had a little heart to heart talk about the way I felt growing up and that while it was not the best way to build myself worth and self esteem (they both suck by the way), it was a done deal and there was nothing to be done to go back and change it.  I am who I am and I decide who and what I become.  HOWEVER, I can control her access to my child/future children.  I told her that if her relationship with my current child (and any future children) changed AT ALL once my brother reproduced that I would cut her out of their lives.  I can't have my kids growing up wondering what they could do to have grandma love them the way she does the other kids or wonder what they did to make her not love them so much anymore.

Enter my current life...my brother has 3 little girls and when they walk in the door, my mother flips a switch and goes into "little girl" (my 2 are the "big girls") mode.  She pretty much ignores my kids and follows the little ones around like she was on a leash.  The adult part of me knows she does this because they are my brother's children and the other part is that although they live about 5 miles away, my sister in law pretty much restricts Mom's access to practically nothing.  She spends more time with my kids than his, and my brother pretty much only brings them over for more than 20 minutes at a time only when I am there.  And no this isn't in my mind, different people that have been over when the troop arrives have said that they see a definite change in her behavior and ask how my kids became so invisible so fast and wonder why all of the sudden mine can't do anything right and seem to get on Grandma's nerves when they interact with their cousins...

I know logically why things happen, but there is still this little girl inside that wants her mommy to love her and think she's special and not ditch her on the phone because something better has come along : (

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