The answer became clear for me as I took a long, honest look into my childhood. There was one message sent to me over and over by my loving but emotionally damaged parents; you are not worthy or capable. Those words seem harsh as I write them, but that doesn’t invalidate them. I’m writing about my relationship with mother first.
I was the first born of three daughters. Dad was a staff sergeant in the Air Force, and mother a stay-at-home housewife. In the early years, during the 50’s, we lived on military bases in Colorado, Nevada, Washington and Alaska.
I remember sitting on the floor in the kitchen playing with a muffin tin and buttons, and feeling lonely. Mother was always busy; too busy to ever play with me. What she was doing seemed to be the most important work in the world. My questions and requests for her attention were not important. I was not to bother her.
Mother sewed all the “special occasion” clothes my sisters and I wore. It was my sixth birthday, and mother made a beautiful lacy dress just for the party. “Could I go next door, and show my friend my new dress?” I asked. I remember her response clearly, “Yes, but don’t get it dirty.” I proceeded to run next door, fall, and tear the dress at the knee. I slowly walked home, dreading my mother’s anger. She was furious. She accused me of ruining it on purpose. She spent her rage in angry words then sent me to my room until the birthday party. I don’t remember the cake, or the presents, or the friends who came. I only remember mother’s disappoint with me.
A nightmare woke me up, and I couldn’t be quieted so father put me into bed with mother, and he slept in my bed. She didn’t wake up completely, so what she did next baffled me. She sat up, pulled me over her lap, and began to spank me. She mumbled something about me being disobedient and not listening, but what she said didn’t make a lot sense. She seemed frustrated and unhappy. Then she rolled over, and went back to sleep. I was afraid to fall back to sleep. It wasn’t safe to sleep with mother.
At the age of eight in 1960 the family was transferred to Wichita Falls, Texas. Dad bought a trailer for us to live in because he wanted to provide our family more of a home then the base offered. He also purchased a tiny four room house with a small lot to put our trailer behind. Mother started a dress sewing business which she set up in the house. I remember my sisters and I sitting on the wooden floor at the foot of her sewing table playing with our Barbie dolls. She was paid $10 per dress by a local store. Besides dresses mother discovered the joys of competing in county fairs. She won blue, red and white ribbons for her stuffed toys, place matts, and baby things made from floor sacks.
Mother was creative, energetic, and hard working. She never sat still. She fed us, made our clothes, bathed us, and made sure we got to school. But she did not show physical affection. She did not comfort or interact with us. In short, she did not know how to have a relationship with us. The only time I did not feel lonely was when father was home. He was all the things mother wasn’t, and I worshiped him! When daddy was home he listened to my stories, played with me, and made me laugh. My dad could do no wrong.
The problem came when dad, still in the Air Force, was required to do temporary tours of duty to foreign bases three months at a time. I dreaded those months of a missing dad. Life would loose all it’s color when I couldn’t share it with him. What I didn’t miss when he was away on TDY’s were the terrible fights my parents got into when they were together. Mother would become jealous of the time and affection her husband showered on us girls. One evening I went to give my dad the usual goodnight kiss before heading for bed. Mother interrupted, “That’s enough. You are too old to be kissing your dad. Don’t do it again.” I was ten years old, and couldn’t understand why I couldn’t kiss daddy. Mother had a way of making me feel dirty, and unworthy.
I was always looking for ways to help mother. One of her jobs was to iron all dad’s military shirts. I watched her carefully, and one day while she was gone I decided I would iron my dad’s shirts for her. When she saw me standing at the ironing board with a shirt she exploded. “These are my husband’s shirts, and you are not to touch them. This is my job! You have no idea how to iron.” I felt shamed. I had done something wrong, and I didn’t know what. I really just wanted to help. Mother never did teach me how to iron.
That same scenario would be repeated in the kitchen when I was fourteen. I wanted to surprise mother, and bake her a cake. The whole thing backfired when she blew up. “This is my kitchen. And look at the mess you made. Stay out of my kitchen!” That was the first, and last time I attempted to prepare food in my “mother’s” kitchen.
In 1963, after twenty years in the service, daddy retired. He felt mother might be happier if she could live close to her only sibling, a sister who lived in Portland, Oregon. After two years of renting a trailer my folks found a rundown house in a suburb called Gresham, and just a block from her sister. Maybe mother would finally be happy if we lived in a real house.
Saturday was cleaning day for everyone. Mother would assign us three girls jobs which had to be completed to her satisfaction before we could play. The problem was she was seldom happy with the quality of our work. I would repeat the chore two or three times before it met with her satisfaction. The most irritating habit mother had was the way she would go on and on about this being “her house”, and that it was a privilege for us to live there. And that privilege could be taken away at any time. Of course I knew daddy wouldn’t let her kick me out, but she could make it very unpleasant for me.
As I headed into my teen years the relationship between mother and I grew increasingly adversarial. I couldn’t do anything right. She was always suspicious of my motives. She especially resented the close relationship I had with father. Mother mostly yelled and went into verbal tirades with me, but she also began to slap my head after getting me into a corner. One afternoon after school she became enraged with me about something. I have no memory of what she was so upset about. She backed me up against the old upright piano dad bought for me. I could see her rage building. When she raised her hand to strike my face I surprised myself when my hand shot up, and I caught her wrist as her open hand flew toward me. I held her wrist firmly, and shouted, “Don’t you ever hit me again. Ever!”
Dad tried to get mother to spend time with us girls doing something fun. He told mother we were only going to be at home a few more years. He suggested she take us shopping one Saturday afternoon a month, and maybe out to McDonald’s afterwards. Mother did this once, but never did it again. She just wasn’t comfortable around us. She didn’t know how to talk to us, or even enjoy our company.
The most puzzling thing mother ever did was when I was in eighth grade. I was called to the office shortly after the school day started, and mother was waiting in the office. “I’m taking you home. Your father was in a car accident this morning, and broke his collar bone. You need to take care of him.” I was so confused. Mother hated the amount of time I spent with dad yet now she wanted me to be his caretaker while he recovered. My parent’s marriage relationship was difficult, and they were always fighting. Mother knew dad wouldn’t tolerate being taken care of by her, but he would let his daughter help him. So what could she do but push me into this role?
Things between mother and I continued to deteriorate. Eventually I learned the only way to get along was to avoid her completely. How sad that her only way to show the love she felt for us was to buy us things. Eventually mother became the manager of one then two stores. She worked long hours so she could buy furnishings for her home, and clothes for us girls. But I would have given all that up in a second to have a mother I could have a relationship with.
Mother never stopped seeing me as competition for her husband’s affection. As a newlywed I’ll never forget the phone conversation when mother accused, “If I get a divorce it will be all your fault!” Another time mother calmly related to me the first time dad stood over my crib watching me sleep. She looked at the love in his eyes, and knew in that moment this baby had captured her husband’s heart. He would never look at her like that again. “I lost my husband in that moment, and I knew it.”
My parents were both products of the Great Depression, and World War II. They experienced the kind of poverty we know today usually happens only in third world countries. One pair of shoes a year maybe, hand-me-down clothes, walking wherever they went, being thankful for one meal a day and really grateful if they got two meals. At three or four years of age mother and her older sister were placed in an orphanage because their parents had no money to provide even the basics for them. They often went hungry in the orphanage which was also experiencing severe shortages. Mother remembers eating the crab apples from a tree within arms reach of a second story window, and becoming very sick. A year later they were retrieved by their parents.
When mother turned eleven she came home from school one day to find her mother hanging by a rope between the living room and dining room. Still alive she was taken to the hospital by ambulance. After this attempted suicide surgery was performed, and advanced cancer discovered. A doctor had been giving her sugar pills for the severe abdominal pain which he assumed was “in her head”. A few weeks later the sisters lost their mother to this cancer. My mother spent more time without maternal guidance then with it. Their dad did not feel able to raise two daughters so they were sent to live with other relatives. Eventually they ended up with their paternal grandparents. But most of the time they took care of themselves. At seventeen mother moved out, and got a job to support herself.
Once I understood the physically and emotionally impoverished childhood experienced by my mother it became easier for me to forgive her. Hurting people hurt others. It’s that simple. They don’t know any better. Mother did the best she knew how. As I processed these truths, and learned to forgive I was finally able to begin establishing a relationship with mother. I don’t mean to make this sound easy because it wasn’t. But with God’s help and forgiveness anything is possible!
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