part 106, or "googling counts as extensive research, right?"

I have a shitty mom.

I heard a story once about some program where prison inmates could send their moms a Mother's Day card for free. The program was so successful, they did it again on Father's Day, but nobody wanted to send a card to their dad.

I'm kind of encountering the same type of issue right now: I googled "I have a shitty mom" and it came up with 15 matches, all consisting of personal narratives on a forum or blog or online journal. When I googled "I have a shitty dad," it came up with about 1660 matches (one of which was this fantastic quote on tumbler:  I really get the character of Loki because I have a shitty dad and awful siblings too).

The shitty dad matches were also primarily from blogs or forums or online journals, but there were so many of them - I mean, I have an exceptionally shitty (dead) dad, too, but are all moms really not as shitty as mine?

I think I will start a blog about shitty moms, maybe even a facebook page or something. It could have a special launch on Mother's Day. I'm really pretty sure I am actually going to do that, so look out for it on my blog list if you are interested.

One thing that is really difficult about having such a shitty mom is that I cannot identify with people who think their moms are wonderful - the large majority of the population thinks their moms are wonderful. My own kids think their mother is wonderful (*heart*), but I can't relate to that. I'm actually shocked on a regular basis with the sweet things those boys do for me.

I take being a mom very seriously. I know exactly how much a mom can hurt a kid before the relationship is completely demolished. It's a lot - kids put up with and look past A LOT of really horrible things about their moms. For me, it's not so much about knowing my kids love me even if I've been shitty to them, but being aware of what it is to be a shitty mom, and knowing from first-hand experience how little it takes to stick a tiny dagger into a child's heart.

I've learned (very slowly) that is true for almost all human beings, but the thing with kids is that permanent damage is being done that will shape their lives in some way - they haven't learned to be cynical or had an opportunity to become callouse. When the damage is from a kid's own mom, I think maybe it is about three thousand times worse than if it's from any other adult.

It's strange how easily people can so easily come to hate their dads, but simultaneously cling so tightly to the notion of unconditional love for and from their mothers. It's not even like dads are getting a bad rap, because some dads really are very shitty. But I think mothers get away with too much.

I don't know - I guess I just don't ever want to do something shitty to my kid and then blow it off because I know he will get over it because I'm his mom. That's a very shitty thing to do to a kid, all in itself - refusing to acknowledge that being a shitty mom does actual harm to children.

Before I quit drinking, I would spank my youngest son (you know, for "discipline"). One time I hit him much harder than I had intended, probably because I was drunk. I remember it very clearly, though. My son remembers it, too. Sometimes out of the blue (and often in public) he will say, "do you remember that time you hit me so hard? That was really bad." All I can do is tell him that it wasn't right for me to hit him, no matter what, because even though I know I'm his mom and I could very easily blow that incident off (it was just a swat, he was being bad, spare the rod, blah, blah, blah), I don't want him to believe that it is okay for anyone to hurt him.

There is a lot of pain in life regardless of who you are, pain that most of us have little or no control over. Why would I want my kids to believe they have to accept the additional pain of someone hurting them, or being shitty to them?

I don't think that I am an exceptionally wonderful mother. I don't even know how to cook, I don't do laundry, I stay in my bed the majority of each day, I provide no structure for my kids, I keep forgetting to make dental appointments (and appointments to get caught up on immunizations, and remember to order contact lenses so they don't wear the one pair for six months and get horrible and blinding eye infections), and it is hard for me to let my kids even go in the front yard to play, let alone go out into the world and learn about it for themselves.

I'm fucked up. I am not like other moms. The only substantial thing I can consistently provide for my kids is love and admiration. Those are two things I didn't get, though, so even if I do feel a lot of shame for not being a "normal" mom, I do my best to give them that foundation of knowing intrinsically that they are human beings who matter and who deserve to be happy.

When my oldest son was little, I would forget to feed him. I eventually taught him how to pour a bowl of cereal and get some milk in there, and he was making his own corndogs in the microwave before he was five years old. Fortunately, I wasn't a single mom for too long, but it is still hard for me to remember stuff like feeding them. My husband actually makes them sandwiches on the days he is at work and they are home with me; he puts them in baggies and puts stickers and their names on them, so that when they get hungry all they have to do is open the fridge and get that sandwich.

He reminds me to eat, too - healthy stuff, because I have a hard time remembering how to care for myself, too. He's pretty awesome.

Anyway, my mom had breakfast on the table every morning, dinner on the table every night, and made and kept appointments for me and my brother and sister like a professional. I can't remember a single time that she forgot to feed us, or that we had to sleep in dirty beds, or that we didn't have clean underwear, or that there was ever a speck of mold or mildew in the tub or toilet. She paid the bills on time and made logical decisions and was there for us every day when we came home from school.

But she is still such a horrendously shitty mom. At the very least, I feel I can define myself as the kind of mom my mom was not, and that makes me feel really good.

I'm going to go work on that "shitty mom" blog now.