When love is not enough

The house rules in our family are pretty clear and simple. They are applicable to everyone, but of course they are most difficult to adhere to by the youngest member (so far) of our family. Priority one is tidiness. I can’t stand a mess, although being in the latter stage of my pregnancy, I have come to accept a certain degree of filth as I don’t have the energy to clean it all. Still, finding smudge marks on walls, breadcrumbs on the kitchen table and empty juice packages in the kids room is beyond what I can accept. You get my point, we are talking about typical tween/teenage behaviour. Add to this homework that are neglected and a hamster that didn’t get his cage clean for 3 weeks, creating a minor stink bomb, then you know you have a situation at hand.

I have to admit, my focus is somewhat diverged lately, and I see through it all. Like when Victoria comes and asks if she could have a small pudding before dinner, I reply ok only to catch myself a second later. Of course she cannot, we are having dinner in half an hour. More often than not she gets angry at my remark and storms out.

It’s different with Reinout though. When he confronts her with her unacceptable behaviour she freezes up. I am not sure if she takes it all in or she just lets it all wash over her. But I can see the anger building up. The anger of being unfairly treated. Because there are reasons for why she didn’t clean her room, or why the homework wasn’t done until the last moment. Completely valid reasons. I know exactly what she’s going through. Because I’ve been there myself. Not when I was her age, but much later on. You just have to go back 12 months in time and you will see a pattern of history repeating itself. I was not focused, my work suffering, I was tampering with a divorce, and a legacy of my deceased father (who ironically had left everything to its own devices providing for a messy estate which to this date has still not been completed). The list can be made so long, but the fact is that I lost oversight and I started to make mistakes, little mistakes, but mistakes enough to warrant my partner’s rightfull demand for a swift solution. I was also standing there, just like Victoria taking what felt like unfair attacks on my very being. For how could he know the hell I was going through. Things just appeared so easy, which made me even more angry. Angry with everyone around me, but mostly angry with myself. I swear there were times I didn’t want to continue my relationship, my work, my life. My anger, sometime bordering on pure hatred knew no boundaries. To get rid of the problems caused by myself I would engineer different escape routes, camping out in the guest room, or storm out with a threat never to come back again. In some cases I took sleeping pills just to let oblivion embrace my frantic soul.

Childish, immature, puerile, there are many words for my certainly inept behaviour. I know now it stems from years back, being on the wrong track in life and continuing that way. What my anger was all about was that for the first time someone had confronted me with my behaviour, challenging it full on, without wrapping or support. It was blunt and harsh, and at first I couldn’t, wouldn’t accept the truth about myself.

Although Victoria is only 10 (soon to be 11) I can see that anger and frustration in her eyes too. The confrontations are not about her behaviour, which are mere symptoms, but about herself. She knows this, but doesn’t know how to tackle the problem. Victoria is growing up fast, in a society that makes no excuses, or apologies for personal problems and failures. A society that will rather condemn than condone. That won’t sanction rights but expect obligations. I don’t want her to learn it the hard way, by being sheltered from it all, only later to find out how life really is. I’ve been there myself, and although I learned some very important lessons early on, they were not enough, and I suffered them again and again later in life. That’s not what I want for my daughter. I still find it difficult to help her find herself, her own path in life. I try, but I don’t try hard enough. But it is my obligation, my duty as a mother to do so. Luckily, without reason, but out of pure conviction and belief, Reinout lights the path. I study him, his thoughts and reactions. And then I apply it, accommodating my own views and sentiments. It’s a long and tedious road, which I am sure we both, mother and daughter, shall grow from.

(2 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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