How far or how long...

The drive out to West Texas was pretty uneventful. We won't go into the drama at the hotel. Suffice it to say that nobody got much sleep.

The NGYCP-Texas Youth Challenge facility is a school turned TYC turned military-style youth rescue compound. Amazingly, I didn't get any pictues of it! DUH! I'll be sure to do better in January when we drop her off for the start of the program. I did get some of the scenery along the way, though.  It's really a whole bunch of nothing but scrub brush and distant hills with roads cut through it all -- including the hills! LOL!

After the orientation session we dropped My Girl off in San Antonio. She was very obviously glad go see me go, but what bothers me more is that I was glad to be gone. And what hurts my heart the most is that despite my best efforts I don't know how to reach her. I don't know how to help her grow out of the childish, imature, grossly age-inappropriate behaviors that will be so life limiting for her.

I guess I could just quit trying. I guess I could let her continue on the path she's chosen and assume that eventually she will grow out of it. But that would require that she find somewhere else to live because I can't watch her do it to herself. Oh, wait. That's what she's done. So why am I agonizing over it?   One good reason: I'm afraid of losing her.  I'm afraid of failing her. I'm afraid of pushing her too far away and of holding her too close.

My fears don't really matter much, though, because no matter what I do she pushes me away. No matter how hard I try, what test I pass, what hurdles I jump, there are more trials, more tests, more reminders that I'm not her real mother; that her real family are the people who refused to give her a home and unconditional love and support when she needed it most. Then my hurt turns to resentment which turns to sniping. It's a vicious cycle that is slowly killing our relationship. So, now I have no choice but to walk away for a while. Maybe the separation will do us both good.  I'm not going far. She can get to me when she's ready. I'm going to leave it up to her to decide how long or, like Martina McBride sings so beautifully, How Far...

Peace, Blessings, and Parental Wisdom to all.

Just because it's for the best...

...doesn't mean it won't hurt.

My Girl has been accepted back into the National Guard Youth Challenge Program. We will be leaving tomorrow to take her to West Texas for orientation. Then we will be dropping her off in San Antonio to stay with her other family until January when the program officially starts.

She and I have somehow lost our ability to be in the room without sniping - or worse - over the last couple of months. We are both to blame, we both hate it, yet neither of us has a clue where to start to fix it.  The best solution for now is for her to be elsewhere.

While I won't miss the daily cat fights, I will miss the beautiful heart that shines through now and then. I will miss the rare moments of light-hearted companionship. Even few and far between is better than nothing at all.

Truth be told, right now I feel pretty much like a failure in the Mom department. Why can't I just ignore her continual passive-aggressiveness? Why can't I find a way to teach her how to stop it?

I know that this is just part of the process she needs to go through to get to where she needs to be in life. I just wish it didn't hurt so much -- this struggle to accept that things didn't turn out the way I thought they would when we adopted her.

One day, with the grace of God, she will be grown and independent, and we will be able to look back and laugh. For now,

Peace, Blessings, and Pass the tissue box, please.

Damama's Use It or Lose It Advice on: Getting in the picture.

We went out to Cracker Barrel for dinner tonight. It is one of my favorite home-style cookin' joints. I love their chicken 'n dumplins (that's how we say it down South - those endin' Gs are for the prissy britches set!). Well, actually I only love the dumplins part. They are just like the ones Mom made -- another of the recipes lost after her death. Their red beans (ok - pinto beans if you just want to get all technical about it) are as close to Mom's as I've ever tasted, too. And, sorry, Mom, but their biscuits kick your biscuits' floury white little butts. All that food stuff is great, but the most fun part is the walk I take down memory lane as I wander through the gift shop. So many of the toys and candies take me waaaaay back. Back to the days when I thought my mommy would always be in the picture.

As in most families, Mom was the shutterbug: always behind the camera, rarely in front because she didn't like having her picture taken. As a result, I have loads of pictures of me, me and Dad, me and various boyfriends, me and pets. What I don't have is any pictures of me and my mom.

When I got old enough to grab the camera I started stealing candid shots of her whenever I could sneak up unobserved. But, again, those times were rare. When I the boys came along we would take turns taking pictures - again one of us was always behind the camera. When she was gone I went in search of photos to show the kids. What I didn't find broke my heart -- there were no pictures of me with mom.

How about you? When was the last time you got in FRONT of the camera? When was the last time you had a picture taken of just you and each of your children alone. Ever? What are the things you want them to remember about you? Do you sew? Crochet? Paint? Garden? Do you have any pictures of yourself doing those things? How about your parents? Do you have photos of you alone with each of them? Who are your friends? Do you have pictures of yourself with them? They will need to remember, too.

As moms, we want to give our children the very best of everything, but so often we unwittingly shortchange them on tangible memories of US. So here's your first challenge: Go buy a bunch of disposable cameras and give one to each of your kids. (Put their names on them to avoid confusion!) Then encourage them to take pictures of each other, you, the family. (You might want to specify no nasty or rude or embarrassing butt shots!) When you get them developed you'll get a great idea of what interests them. You might also get to see yourself through their eyes.

Your second challenge is to make a vow right now to hand that camera off to your husband every now and then. Having memories of you through his eyes is another great gift for your kids.

This Celine Dion song, so beautifully presented by nataliedg, tells the story in this mother's heart. I know it is a song that you sing, too. Please don't let your Coulds slip away into sad Should Haves before it's too late.

If I Could




Peace, Blessings, and SAY CHEESE!

Gypsies, Tramps, and Peace Thieves

Laying side by side in the wee hours of the morning, her in her hospital bed, me on my roll-away, Mother and I talked quietly about our life together.

“Were you ever sorry you adopted me, Mom?”

“Yes. If I thought I could pull it off, I’d have given you to the first gypsy troop I could find heading out of town.”

“It was when you found out about Bob*, wasn’t it.”

She laughed in that sweet, half-giggle way of hers and said, “Well, yes, that was one of the worst of them.”

“Them?” I replied in mock shock, knowing full well that during my teenage years I’d given her plenty of reasons to toss me in the nearest Dempsey Dumpster (or gypsy wagon) and run for her life. She was right about one thing, though: my first fully involved sexual relationship had nearly killed not only her soul, but also her spirit, and very nearly her body as well....

I met Bob a month or so after the beginning of our sophomore year. He was a new kid. I knew what it was like to be the new kid and never allowed another new kid to feel left out. We had science together and, since none of the “cool” guys would lower themselves to be lab partners with a new kid, I took the job on myself. It wasn’t long before we were a couple. When Spring break came, we couldn’t bear the thought of being apart for a whoooole weeeeeeeek, so we devised a plan for him to spend lots of time with my friend Sally’s boyfriend who just happened to live only a few blocks from me. Coincidentally, Sally* would be spending most of Spring break with me. Both of our mothers worked full time, so they loved the idea of us keeping each other company. They had no idea just how much company we were going to be keeping with the guys.

On Thursday of that week, after Mother left for work at 7:00 a.m., Sally and I went to work primping and preening. We shaved our underarms and legs, checked each other for unsightly blemishes, did each other’s hair and makeup. Around 10:00 a.m. two totally clueless boys arrived and were presented with what we were sure would be the best surprise of their lives.

The following week at school, the boys broke up with us. Devastated, Sally and I wrote notes back and forth trying to figure out what had gone wrong. We didn’t understand how they could be so cruel after we’d been soooo kind. Being at that “it’s none of your business, Mom!” stage of teenage pseudo-independence, I sulked and grouched around the house so much that mother was finally compelled to go on a scavenger hunt in my room to try and figure out what was wrong with me. She didn’t have to look long to find one of our notes wadded up in the trash.

As a 15-year-old, I was outraged at her invasion of my privacy. Now, as the mother of a teenage girl, my heart physically aches at the thought of her sitting there in shock and horror as she read the words that no little girl’s mommy ever wants to read. I can hardly bear to think of how she looked as she read, but I will never forget the look on her face when she drove up to where a friend and I were walking in the neighborhood and ordered me into the car. I saw the crumpled paper laying on the car seat and immediately knew that she knew.

She’d actually taken off work early to come home and take me shopping in a surprise effort to cheer me up a little, but I’d already left the house when she got there. By the time she had me in the car it was about 4:00 p.m., however, she’d already called our family doctor, obtained the name of a gynecologist friend of his, and had an appointment scheduled for me at 4:30. It had been over 4 weeks since Spring break and she didn’t want to waste one more minute before making sure that I wasn’t pregnant or diseased. Or both. When I protested she growled, “You want to be a woman, this is part of it. And don’t you DARE put up a fight. You will do whatever the doctor needs you to do. Is that clear?” It was. I knew that if she had to get my dad involved it mean another beating and I would do anything to avoid that. Thankfully, so would she.

Fortunately, I survived the humiliation of that first gynecological exam even though I was wishing for death the whole time. It would take a few days for any test results to come in, though, so we were sent home to wait. And wait. And wait. And the waiting was done in tense silence with the barest minimum of contact between us. A few days later she got word that everything was alright. That may have been true medically, but relationally things couldn’t have been more wrong. She no longer knew how to relate to me. I wasn’t a baby anymore, but I was still her baby. I also wasn’t a woman who could be counted as her equal with whom she could easily converse about womanly things. I was a testy, withdrawn, and thoroughly nasty-to-be-around teenager. Years later she’d told me that because there was no one she could talk to about it all, she had fallen into such a deep depression that she came very close to ending her own life.

I realized that I had tears on my cheeks when the soft beep-beep of the morphine machine shook me out of my reverie as it released the much needed pain medication it hoarded like liquid gold. I reached across the dark void between us, squeezed her hand and said, “I love you, Mom, and I’m so sorry I put you through so much hell.”

As she once again drifted off into peaceful oblivion, she whispered softly, “You were worth it. I’m glad there were no gypsies.”

Now, nearly 25 years later, I am comforted by the fact that eventually this very difficult, painful, gut-wrenching, maddening, yet somehow wonderful job of parenting an emotionally damaged and behaviorally challenging teenage girl will be worth it. And I, too, am very glad there are no gypsies in town. Today.

*Names changed

Regret vs. Guilt – Caution: Rant Storm Ahead

I received several emails about my admission of having emotional problems – most supportive, some questioning, some borderline rude. One in particular, however, was a very, mmmm... pointed note from someone whose mother was mentally ill (“a wacked out bi###”) and, therefore, entirely to blame for this now 40+-year-old woman’s life of drug addiction and criminal activity. She said that she is now in recovery but will never forgive her mother for not being emotionally there for her when she was a teenager. If she can’t overcome her “illness” and become a “whole person” it will be all her mother’s fault.

She also stated that I should be ashamed for not taking responsibility for my children’s problems because they were most likely my fault just like her problems are her mother’s fault. She said that her mother’s traumatic childhood, abusive marriage, and ensuing emotional problems were not her kid’s problem and that she should have just sucked it up and done what was “right by us kids.” I admit, I don't know the whole story, but I'm betting it's long and involved one.

My first thought was to delete the email, dismissing it as the rantings of a woman who desperately needs to grow up and quit blaming the world for her own refusal to take responsibility for her life and her future. Then the thought crossed my mind that if she was brave (brazen?) enough to actually put it in writing, how many others are there who are thinking it but are too polite to speak the “truth” as they see it?

So, this post is a public service to all the other imperfect parents of kids who are using them as an excuse to screw up their lives.

First, I never said Hubby and I were to be idolized as perfect parents. I said that we did the best we could at the time with the tools we had. Before Cheryl, unfortunately, my tool belt was woefully empty. I’d done fine until they became pre-teens – little ones are pretty easy to manage with love and diligence alone. But once their pre-pubescent attitudes started working overtime, without knowing it, I was seriously in over my head. I didn’t understand how to discipline without anger. I didn’t understand how to set limits without smothering. I didn’t understand the importance of listening more than, or at least as much as, you talk. And worst of all, my emotional problems probably contributed to my son’s drug addiction. All of this I REGRET. However, I never intentionally set out to mess him up, so I don’t feel GUILTY.

I know it’s hard to understand the subtle difference. Let me try to help some:

The Free Dictionary defines them as follows:

re·gret
v.tr.
1. To feel sorry, disappointed, or distressed about.
2. To remember with a feeling of loss or sorrow; mourn.
n.
1. A sense of loss and longing for someone or something gone.
2. A feeling of disappointment or distress about something that one wishes could be different.

guilt n.
1. The fact of being responsible for the commission of an offense.
2. Law Culpability for a crime or lesser breach of regulations that carries a legal penalty.
3. a. Remorseful awareness of having done something wrong.
b. Self-reproach for supposed inadequacy or wrongdoing.
4. Guilty conduct; sin.

Some examples of regret vs. guilt are:

- Doctors who, today, can save countless lives that would have been routinely lost 10 years ago. They regret that the cures weren’t found sooner, but they do not feel guilt over not having had the tools back then.
- Firemen who respond to homes with burglar bars blocking quick access, preventing them from saving the residents trapped inside, feel regret that they could not save the people, but they are not guilty of having killed anyone.
- Parents who were not parented themselves, or have mental/emotional problems, or physical disabilities, or financial troubles, or, or, or… but who still love their children and try, to the very best of their ability, to keep them safe and provide for their physical needs; to teach them right from wrong; to instill in them a sense of self-worth and self-pride; to hold them accountable for their actions. Parents who expect their children to go to school and get reasonably good grades, and to abide by the laws of civility and the courts. Parents who stay involved and continue to try, and care, and be there when their children falter in any of these – even when the child is pushing them away with every ounce of their being. Parents who recognize their shortcomings and acknowledge them and apologize for them and try to improve them. These parents have every right to regret some of the things they did not do because they were either unable to do them or didn’t know they should have done it differently. These parents are not, however, guilty of any sin or deliberate omission or malicious misconduct toward their children. They were just doing the best they could with what they had to work with at the time!

Understand, I am not defending myself here. I have done nothing to be defended for. What I am doing is telling all the whiney babies out there who want to keep blaming your parents, teachers, preachers, doctors, friends, neighbors, siblings, etc., etc., etc., for your problems, to GROW THE HECK UP, FIND A COUNSELOR, LEARN SOME NEW SKILLS, AND TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR LIFE AND YOUR FUTURE.

And I am telling all the parents out there who are paralyzed by guilt and fear to CUT IT OUT, GET A GRIP, FIND A COUNSELOR AND GET HELP! You only have something to feel guilty about if you don’t continually try to find new tools to use in the building of your child’s future. As long as you keep trying, loving, teaching, and supporting the little miscreants, it’s THEIR fault if they choose not to take the gifts you offer.

OK – stepping off my soap box now. Thanks for listening and I will miss those of you who now refuse to ever visit here again…. But I’ll sleep really well tonight.

Peace, Blessings, and Sweet Dreams to you, too!

Not angry – just not guilty. :o)

It has been pointed out that my Jailbird post sounded angry. Sorry about that. I’m really not angry about anything – Just very adamant about the fact that I’m not to blame for my kids’ choices that put them behind bars.

My strongest reason for talking about this stuff is so that other parents might understand that they aren’t to blame, either! Unless you happen to be the scumbag who introduced my 12-year-old son to pot. Then you can rot in hell for all I care! Or if you are the even worse scumbag who so seriously abused my daughter that she has both physical and mental scars that can never be erased. Then you can rot in the deepest, darkest recesses of the places so far below hell even the devil is afraid to go there!

Now, as far as I’m concerned, this chapter of my blog is closed to all future negativity. (As you can tell, I haven't published any of the negative comments, and won't, so give up!) As I tell all those I counsel – the best rewards come from the hardest lessons. There WILL be rewards for my children at the end of the lessons they are learning. There ARE definite rewards already for me.

I marvel at all the people who email me behind the scenes because they still can’t bear to talk about it openly. Even those brief notes are steps on their road to healing the hurts they’ve nurtured (often for many, many years) about raising what the world calls “bad” kids. As I tell them, if you fed them, clothed them, educated them, and loved them with the expectation that they learn through that love how to be caring, honest, hard working human beings IT IS NOT YOUR FAULT THAT THEY GOT STUPID!

This is a week of Thanksgiving. I am thankful for many, many things, but most especially my children… all of them. Even the ones that have disappointed me, hurt me, ignored me, used me, neglected me, and/or abandoned me. If you are one of them and you are reading this right now, know that you are still loved unconditionally. If you are one of my “lost lambs,” read this and know that you can come always home. God keeps giving me second chances – how could I do less for you? Xoxo (Dear readers - this relates to a very long and sad story that I would rather not go into. Please don't ask. Just pray for my lost lambs. Thanks.)

Peace, Blessings and fond wishes for a Grateful and Plentiful Turkey Day.

My Jailbirds - Answers to Meme queries

The fourth of my meme 8 has spurred some interesting questions. Here is a brief (well as brief as I am able to make it!) explanation.

My oldest son is 28, married, lives in Michigan with his wife and my two grandkittens, and is the assistant manager for some store there. I call him Bug for 2 reasons - he was always bugging me with very insightful questions that I didn't have answers to and he was fascinated with insects even as a small child. He and his wife (that still sounds strange to my Mommy ears!) are coming in for Christmas and I am so excited/nervous I can hardly stand it!

My 2nd is 25 and is, for at least the next 2 to 3 years, a guest of the Federal Prison System. He got involved with drug trafficking to support the habit he began when he was about 12. I always asked if a parent was going to be home at friends' houses. I always talked to the parent to confirm their presence... I never EVER thought to ask if the parent would introduce him to drugs!!!

By the time he was 18 we had spent close to $50,000 on lawyers, rehabs, counselors, fines, military school. We had also moved 2 times to try to get him into a better situation. NOTE TO THE WISE: If your child is hell bent on doing what he/she is going to do, moving will only provide an opportunity to find the same people wearing different faces in the new place. By the time he was 19 he was in state prison. By the time he was 21 he’d gotten out of state, reoffended and was in Federal Prison. He has not spent a birthday or a Christmas at home since he was 13.

THANK GOD his brain is now kicking in. Sadly, he’s realizing what a mess he’s made of his life. Happily, he starts college in January. Once again, it will cost us money, but we will gladly pay the price if it means he has a chance to straighten his life out for good. Right now he thinks he wants to be a counselor to try to guide kids away from the path he walked. I’m praying that his history will lend such credibility to his counsel that he will be able to spare other families the agony we have endured. He also wants to pursue his musical career. He writes some unbelievable stuff!

My 3rd is 16-1/2 and currently a guest of the County Juvenile Corrections Residential Facility. We adopted her at 11. We knew she came with a load of baggage and we will continue to stand by her and help her deal with her problems. However, after some reaaaaly bad stuff that happened in October, we told her that she would always have a place in our hearts, but she no longer (at least for a while) had a place in our home. When she went to court for her sentencing, we asked them to help us help her. The court, knowing that in the last 5 years we've spent over $30,000 on her counselors, lawyers, rehabs, psych hospitals, and medications (not including the adoption costs), agreed to keep her locked up, for her own benefit, until January when she should be going to military school. As long as she's confined and not out in the free using drugs or beating people up, she can't screw up her scholarship.

I do have to give her some serious credit, though, because when the judge asked her if she wanted to go home, she said flatly, NO. She explained to him that she knew she could not make it “out there” and feared she’d do something so detrimental that there would be no coming back from it. Her long term goals are to join the military, possibly the Coast Guard or the Marines. The school to which she has a scholarship will help her decide which is best. They will also help her learn self control and discipline in a way that we, as her parents, have been unable to manage. The program has approximately an 82% success rate with kids just like her. We are SO, SO, SO VERY BLESSED to have found it!

I am blogging all of this stuff because I know there are lots of families out there who deal with such issues, but are too ashamed or guilty feeling to mention it. I, on the other hand, have n.o.t.h.i.n.g. to be ashamed or guilty about. My children were raised with the right moral values in a loving, upper middle class home with both of their parents doting on them from the first moment we laid eyes on them. They were expected to do chores, earn an allowance, get good grades, tell the truth, and be respectful.

Were we perfect parents?? NO. Did we make mistakes along the way?? YES. But we always did the best we could with the tools we had, and EVERYTHING we EVER have done has been for the benefit and wellbeing of our children. PERIOD. We could have retired by now if it wasn’t for all the money we’ve spent trying to get them the help they need. But it’s not about the money – it’s about the LOVE. We could have thrown up our hands and walked away a long time ago, but that is not who we are. And it is definitely not in line with the moral values we want them to understand and live by.

As for those who think we somehow did something that screwed them up: I REFUSE to allow anyone to make me feel like a bad parent or a low life because of my kids’ choices. I REFUSE to hide my “dirty laundry” in an effort to avoid offending anyone, including the miscreant kids who dirtied up the stuff to begin with! My husband and I live by, and taught our kids to live by what we call the headline test: If you would be embarrassed to have it splashed across the front page of the newspaper, then DON’T DO IT!

If you are a parent with perfect children, get down on your knees and thank your creator that you were so awesomely blessed. If you are the parent of a child who, like ours, has spent a good part of life with his head stuck up the wrong part of his anatomy, take heart. If you know you did the best you could, then hang in there and believe that God is in control and things will eventually all balance out. If I didn’t have that to hang onto, I’d have to be locked up now. In a rubber room. With a nice clean white coat to help me hug myself to sleep.

Speaking of sleep – I’m going to bed and try not to have nightmares about what could be happening to my kids in places where I can’t protect them. A mother’s job, truly, never, never, ends!

As always – Peace and blessings, and sweet dreams.

WHAT GOES AROUND…

Today is my birthday. I turned 51 years old. My children seem to have forgotten. Well, my 3 legal children apparently forgot. The one that should have been mine and a bunch of the others remembered. It’s not like mine always forget – just, well, sometimes… at least since they got old enough to have their own lives. When they were younger their dad always reminded them. I have some really neat mementos of those childhood well-wishes. However, left to their own devices…

I guess what goes around truly does come around.

One of the few regrets I have not been able to overcome since my parents’ deaths in the mid 1980s is that I so rarely made any big deal of their birthdays and anniversaries. The only thing I can chalk it up to is that I was going about doing what my mother had raised me to do: living my life independently.

In 1982 my mother turned 50, five months after the birth of our youngest son – you know, the little dinner skeptic I wrote about earlier. I was so wrapped up in my life with a 3-year-old, a new baby, and a new job that her big FIVE-0 just slid by (as mine did) virtually unnoticed. I think I called her at work that day, but that weekend when she and Dad went to their lake house and celebrated with friends there, my little family was just too busy to take the time to make the drive. There would always be next year. Within 6 months she’d been diagnosed with colon cancer. Within 2 years she was gone. Her 51st birthday was the last we were able to celebrate with her. (And NO – I do NOT intend this to by MY last!!).

In 1982 my father also turned 50 – four days before Mother. She would razz him unmercifully for those four days… “Hey old man.” “Careful there, Old Guy. You know you can’t keep up with this young chick!” She loved him so very much. My relationship with him, however, is a whole ‘nother 500-page essay. I loved him too, but… Just suffice it to say that for the most part I wasn’t interested in making sure his birthdays were pleasurable. Then, in 1987, 3 months before his 55th birthday, just when we were getting our problems worked out and becoming friends for the first time in our lives, he went and died on me, too. The doctors called it massive, multi-system failure caused by years of drinking and smoking too much. I knew it was from a broken heart – he just never really got over losing Mother.

Now here I sit 20+ years later understanding all too well how much it hurts to have your children forget those special events that mark the passing of your life. But I’m not really upset or feeling sorry for myself – I’m once again feeling sorry for my parents. And I’m feeling sorry for what my children might go through if I were to be gone suddenly from their lives.

So, here and now, I deputize you all to be my voice if in, say, oh, 50 or so years from now I happen to shuffle off this mortal coil and my children should express any guilt over having somehow “let me down” because they lived their lives as I raised them: strong and independent. It’d hurt me a whole lot more to think of them as being anything but who they were raised to be than it does to have my birthday occasionally forgotten. I know they love me. No question. Period.

Now, get off that computer, go call somebody important in your life and tell them that you love them. It doesn’t have to be a special occasion – it just has to be heartfelt and frequent enough that they don’t have a chance to forget it. Believe me, it will help all concerned if you ever miss an important date.

Peace, Blessings, and Love to all.