Pains of parenting

[tash]

Anyone who is a parent knows it isn't easy and there will be lots of heartaches and most we get over but what about the ones that won't go away?

I used to come here a lot back when I was going through so much troubles with my seperation and divorce. Half of my children turned against me and hated me for it. Their conversations were always, "Poor Dad, evil Mum". You can imagine how much that hurt.. It wasn't even over another man/affair or anything like that.

Eventually I managed to repair some of those relationships but to this day I'm still suffering. Especially today.

I was shopping with one of my daughters who has stood by me through everything. Dear God I love her for that. Anyway we bumped into one of her older sisters who during conversation said she was organizing a birthday party for her Dad at the end of the month. I sighed and looked away even though my other daughter didn't miss my look. You see, this happens every year. They have a big birthday party for him and everyone goes yet..know how many they've had for me? Know how many of them have even rang or anything for my birthdays??

I guess it's all built up because I've been sobbing with pain. As if that wasn't enough today my youngest daughter removed me from Facebook which added on to my hurt.

What's a parent supposed to do? Just brush it all off till next year when they have another party for him? Funny enough he and I actually get along alright now. We even sit and talk and he comes and helps with my lawn yet most of my children still ignore me and leave me out of things.

Heck one of my daughters even moved to England and didn't tell me. That was enough to send me into a depression because it felt like she'd died.

So hurt and so confused

[Neutral One]

Hmm, it seems that you want the same love that your kids are showing their pops but they just don't show it towards you. The way I see, no matter what they don't do for you, you just continue to love them anyway no matter how much they don't show anything toward you, for that's what a parent does. Understand that they are still young and will always still be in some sort of learning phase of sorts even when they get older. As a parent you continue to speak with them and you don't give up on what you want to accomplish which is to let them know how you feel. They don't understand now but will someday. And know that although they don't say it they do love you and will worry if something were to happen to you. Know you want to have the same type of love that other families have but understand that all families are different and that love differs between them.

Listen, it sounds like your not getting all that you wanted as a parent by them seemingly going distant towards you but one thing you should always do, always keep your door open toward them. One day in the future, trust me on this, they'll come back home and will need someone to be aside.

[gaspode]

tash, im so sorry to hear all this!

its really a shame, after all that went on with the separation and divorce!
you deserve happiness after all, and youre badly in need of it after all that happened.

i dont know... my parents both have had pretty strained relationships to their parents, and my dad on his part has broken off the emotional bridges after long years of fighting. that is kind of where hes coming from. ive been going through a rough period during the last years i lived at my parents house. and my dad said to me that if i needed to break the contact completely, that if it was better for me, whyever, than that was the way it would go. it sure hurt him to say that, but i guess it means that he wouldnt hold any grudges if i just went out of their lives for an indefinite amount of time.
it sure would hurt him even more if i were to do exactly that, but i really think he would be able to deal with it and not hold it against me.
its a matter of letting go, i guess, and of accepting that even if you dont think you deserve it, or suffer from it, your child is its own person. that you have to let go, mostly, i guess, to spare yourself the pain of having the love towards your kid stained by its ungratefulness.
because the love you have for your children is a gift to you.

i think youre a great mom, and your children turning their backs on you does not diminish that fact.
but they have a right to decide for themselves. and whatever kind of mom you are, children do that sometimes. no matter what kind of person you are, you might just, in being different, not "suit" them in ways they consider important. because every person is different, not because anybody is at fault.
my dad says thats what children do: throw you back unto yourself mercilessly. and of course everybody just wants to be "right", and "right" seems to prove itself via the reactions of other people to your person, and children, for whom you feel so much love and into whom you put so much work and heartblood and life, put you on trial, test you like nothing else.
well no. of course there are faults. but the measures of your children, in their lives, are what they size you up against. and those measures are just like those of everybody else. meaning different from yours. meaning human. just as right, and just as wrong, as your neighbours or your best friends or your own measures.

yes, lots of the time and work and thought and heartblood you put into your children was dedicated also to make them accept you, i guess, and striving towards doing the best for your children is, at the basis, a good thing. still, its not a contract. theres no official rulebook. nobody is without "faults", in a very subjective way. you cant do "right" and have it turning out "right" for everybody in everybodys minds.

my, this is difficult

i guess what im saying is that im really sorry for the great pain youre experiencing, and that i hope that even though it hurts like hell, you will not let this diminish you, or consider yourself a faulty person or whatever.

feel free to vent here, dear tash
i hope that with time, the relationship between you and your "wayward" children gets better.

[tash]

Thank you both I took some time to think about what you both wrote and you're right. I look around me and see that even some of my children who have kids of their own have the same kind of problems in that one of their children favours dad over mum and I've heard them say some pretty cruel things. I've always kept my door open for them which paid off with one of my daughters when she went through a really rebellious stage but I must admit that there are times I feel they just use that. Example being I paid the $800 bond on a house for two of my daughters using my credit card and I haven't received any repayments and one of them removed me from Facebook for no reason..so! Live and learn I guess.

In an ideal world I would say yes, I do just want them to love me the same way they show love for their Dad..you know..a simple text message on my birthday would be nice! I'm not asking for a great party like they give him every year..but it's not a perfect world and I guess being the different people they are with different views etc then it's understandable they feel different about me because I broke up the happy home or something..

I guess it just feels wierd to me because I could never hate my own mum. She means the world to me and she did everything that I did with my own children. I miss her so much. She divorced my real dad but that didn't change my feelings toward her. Kind of naive of me to expect the same though.

Yes I have to let go and move on and I am a great mum.

[ThinkPink]

That's right hun you are a GREAT mum! Just being there for your kids makes you a better mum than some! I'm sorry that your children can't/won't see that.