A lot of us have "crazy" parents, but when someone asks me what I mean by "crazy" I have a hard time answering. Is she depressed? Is she schizo? Is she bipolar? Is she "just another alcoholic"? I don't know. Now though, I have an example of "crazy" fresh in mind so I thought I'd share it--
Last night we had to go run some errands after work/school and we were driving past my mom's place. I offered to stop for a minute with my dear daughter so we could see the new cats that she just named, but we hadn't met yet. So we go in, meet the cats, and my daughter is scared as hell as usual. Fine. Then my mom is like "Oh wait! I have to show you something in the kitchen."
Well what she wanted to show us was her cremated cat, and all the stuff they gave her with it. She had a cute little "birthday box" with a bow that the cat was in, a photo of the cat, and something else that was the paw prints I guess.
UGH! This of course instantly raised lots of questions for my 4-year old. I was choking anyway on the cigarette smoke, so we left quickly. My mom was still trying to talk to me, and I just had to tell her to shut-up because dd was asking me a ton of questions about how the dead cat got so small that it could fit into that box. We got back out to the car, where my husband was waiting, and then the two of us tried explain cremation to her.
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This is the kind of stuff that drives ME crazy with my mother. All I wanted to do was meet the cats, and see if maybe my daughter would be less afraid of them since she had helped to name them. When I realized that my kid was just as scared as always, I was ready to leave and get on with the rest of our stuff.
I can't really complain about the cigarette smoke because truthfully we didn't call ahead or anything. We just impulsively stopped, which is something I never do. However, I think my mom should shown me privately what was on the kitchen table if she really needed to share that badly. She should not have drawn my daughter into it. It wasn't appropriate. And really that is the problem with my mom a lot of the time. She doesn't understand what is "appropriate" and what isn't. Not just with my daughter, but in life in general. Sometimes she does understands and does what she wants anyway, other times she just has no clue.
So I'm not really sure how this ties into Al-Anon, except that examples like this one are reasons why I have to have strong boundaries with my mother, and why I could never let her watch my child unsupervised. She will never be a babysitter, I hope to God.
Maybe it isn't too early to explain about cremation versus burial. It is something that happens with people every day. I regret the times that I was impatient or angry with my mother. She had her shortcomings as I do. No one is perfect because we are all flawed by our humanness.
ReplyDeleteIt isn't too early, it was just badly timed and badly handled. My daughter is upset with her grandma now, and I can't blame her.
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