AAAAArgh

Ever feel angry at your child because he/she is just plain lazy?

I’m frustrated, aggravated, stressed, and angrier than a … than a … Hillary Clinton supporter (sorry, “badger in a snake pit” didn’t sound like something a Jersian would say… unless they’re from South Jersey, but even then I think it’d be a long-shot).

My son, the one that everyone keeps telling me to let fall on his ass keeps FALLING on his ass and hasn’t learned one single lesson, except for this: what score he needs to get in order to just barely pass the class for the year.

Sorry, that’s not good enough for me.

When I was in h.s., I had three things dragging me down: the verbal abuse (and threats) I was sustaining at the hands of my always raging-in-anger father, which made me feel less than human; the physical beatings I was getting DAILY at school (until I was a junior and we moved to a new school district) by the OLDEST high schooler IN the world and her band of angry white chicks; and the belief that I was never going to be good at anything, so why bother.

I didn’t verbally berrate my children… necessarily.  I always told them that I knew that they could do well with whatever they did.  However, I can’t HELP but feel disappointed when my kids don’t even TRY to do better.  I’m inadvertantly channeling my inner-father, the same man who told me that the door was smarter than me… that the walls had a better personality… that if I ever came home with anything below a B again, that he would beat me until I couldn’t stand.

He wasn’t kidding, either.

I was absolutely terrified that my father would kill me.  Most of the time, I hid from him.  When reportcards came out, I threw up for the three hours between school ending and his coming home from work because I knew that when he saw the “C” or the “D” that his pupil would grow as small as pin points, his nostrils would snarl, and his hands would ball up into fists.  Immediately thereafter, as the king sat at his throne (at the head of the kitchen table), he would tell me, again and again, that I was not acceptible because I was stupid.  And, at some point, I began to realize that my grades were not subject to his control.  I could fail OR pass.  And, out of anger, I learned to embrace my Ds like Peppermint Patty.  And, after faking my reportcard in middle school (during the era of “no computers,” and “Teachers who write grades into the report card with ERASEABLE PENS”), and NOT getting caught (except by my father AND history teacher, who, as it turns out, KNEW ONE ANOTHER… and that was not surprising… as dictators tend to gravitate towards one another)… I learned to “take it like a man” when reportcards came out.  I stood there, emotionless, staring past my father to the wall behind.  And, for several minutes or more, I tried to ignore the mean and nasty things that he screamed into my face, how useless and stubborn that I was, how STUPID and IGNORANT (two words he still uses to describe me when he’s mad at me) I was, and how I’d never BE anything, EVER.  I tried to pull the tears back inside, but one or two always escaped.  It didn’t matter to him, though.  Tears were ALWAYS a sign of weakness.

I saw him ball his fists up.  I noticed his beady eyes and snarling nostrils.  I braced myself for a punch, at best.  I waited, without blinking or breathing, for what felt like an eternity.  I was afraid to let my guard down, because that was when he would strike.  I “took it,” but didn’t LIKE it.  I remember thinking, “Hold it in, make him suffer.  Don’t show him you’re afraid.”

I was terrifed.  At least, I WAS terrified until the night before I was moving away to go to a school that my mother forced me into attending because it was a “Christian school” where morals and virtue would be upheld (lies, all lies)… when he began to scream at my mother for something he said she did… following her throughout the house, calling her every name in the book and threatened to punch her.  I stood between them, my boldest move EVER, and got in his face… something HE didn’t like very much, and I said, “Touch her and I’m calling the cops.  Got ME?”

He screamed AT me… told me, “Don’t you EVER talk to me like that again.  I want you OUT of this house, you stupid ignorant bitch! Don’t you EVER come into my house again, because YOU’RE NOT WELCOME HERE ANYMORE!”

I told him, “That’s fine.  You have made me miserable my ENTIRE life.  I can’t WAIT to move out, you heartless bastard. But, I’m telling you RIGHT NOW… touch her OR my brother, and I’m having you arrested.  GOT ME?”

I remember sticking my finger in his VERY ANGRY face.  I remember not thinking about dying.  I remember my heart bursting with pride that *I* did not cower… that I actually got into HIS face and gave him an ultimatum.

It didn’t work.

My mother smoothed over the crack with a patch and I was told to come home for Thanksgiving.  I reluctantly accepted, but kept my distance.  My father acted as though we never had that confrontation.  My mother said it was his “way” of apologizing.  I told her that it wasn’t an apology, he KNEW I meant business.  She never thanked me, either.  Maybe she did by smoothing things over, I don’t know.  But, regardless, I will NEVER forget ANY mean or hateful thing my father has said to me.  I hold it in, deep within the fringes of my soul, and will take them with me into eternity.  It apparently is my destiny…

Recently, I was called by my mother to go to Arizona because my father had taken ill and the doctors (according to mom) told her that he could die.  I flew out there because HE needed to hear me say how hurtful he has been to me and my mother… BEFORE taking that last breath.

But, he didn’t die.  In fact, he was fine.  F-I-N-E.  And, the day after arriving, I regretted flying out there… he was discharged and IMMEDIATELY after leaving the hospital, IN THE PARKING LOT, he began to scream at my mother about her not parking in the right place, “You’re a dumb bitch, you know that?”  People looked.  An elderly man glared at him.  My mother was in a rush to get him into the car before anyone else heard him.

AND… for the next THREE days, I had the wonderful pleasure of listening to him go into a rage… screaming at no one in general, blaming my mother and me for numerous things (like his grill catching flame because of the amt of GREASE in the trap that hadn’t been cleaned).  At one point, he screamed AT me about how I defrosted HIS meat that HE was planning on making us for dinner.  He called me a “stupid bitch” and said that I “fucked up” his dinner.

When I yelled back, I think people heard me in Japan.  I said, “I didn’t ruin ANYTHING… would you stop it?”

He came tearing ass into the house.  I felt myself get ready for a confrontation.

“Don’t you FUCKING talk to me like that you stupid, ignorant bitch!”  He was pointing his finger AT me while walking TOWARDS me.  I didn’t back down.  That old man doesn’t scare ME anymore.  Sorry.

“Don’t YOU fucking talk to ME like that!  I didn’t fly ALL THE WAY out here to listen to you scream at me like I was a piece of shit. My own husband doesn’t speak to me like that and neither will you. You treat me with RESPECT or I’m leaving. GOT ME??”

I was NOT fucking kidding.  My finger pointed in HIS direction as I walked towards him in the kitchen.  I was not backing off.  I was not backing off.  I was NOT backing off, GODDAMMIT!  I remember thinking that I would back off WHEN the police pulled me off of him, because I am NOT his victim anymore!”

“GOOD!” he said, “GO THE FUCK HOME… I didn’t want you here ANYWAY!”

“Liar!”

I walked out of the room and did not reemerge until dinner.  His burgers, by the way, were charred on the outside and absolutely PURPLE-RAW on the inside.  I took one bite, put it down, took my plate to the kitchen, threw out the burger, and went back to my room to pack.  I didn’t fucking ruin a goddamn thing, Mr. Can’t Cook a Goddamn Burger.

He ignored me the remainder of the night.  I watched television in the bedroom, refusing to come out until HE apologizing for jumping all over me.  After all, I was TRYING to help him.  Wasn’t I?

The next day, I left for the airport early and chose to hang around the airport for 2 hours than to sit in his house and wait for another fight.

I think about those moments when I try to talk to my son.  I want him to do well. I TELL him that I want him to do well.  I NEED him to do well so that he doesn’t become SD or any other loafer mooch that exists.  I want him to be whatever he wants, but also know that it takes good, solid hardwork.

Maybe I am too much like my father… and maybe having a teenager is not as easy as I thought it’d be… but there’s no mistaking this: I LOVE my children, each of them, and tell them that often.  I APOLOGIZE if I say or do anything that is not representative of a loving parent.  I work HARD to try to not do it again.

THAT’S what makes my father and I different.