Well, unlike Airman Doors I did not deserve every single beating I ever got. In one case in particular, I was basically tortured until I confessed, to something I didn’t do, and then later, beat on again. For lying.
But at one point the person in question told me she knew she had made mistakes, but she did the best she could. And I believe she’s right. Of course she was doing the best she could. Aren’t we all?
But I feel I’ve done a lot better with my kids. I don’t even think they’d disagree.
No. My mother has admitted to me that she knows she should have taken me and my three sisters and divorced my father because of his crazy and abusive nature. But she couldn’t bear the idea of having to be a single mother, mainly due to reasons of social stigma and because it would have been a lot of trouble to go to court, be a single mom, etc.
I’m sorry, but those aren’t good enough reasons. They amount to laziness. My father fired a gun at my youngest sister, and still she didn’t leave him. Nope, definitely not the best she could have done. Not even close.
I forgave my (former) step-father and have absolutely no desire to talk about it with him or get an apology. He’s never acknowledged what he did to me in any way. He’s an alcoholic who’s only gotten worse as time has gone on and it’s entirely possible that his brain is so addled by this point that he honestly doesn’t even remember.
To bring it up again or to seek out some sort of explanation or apology would only reopen old wounds. The act, on his part, was a byproduct of a disturbed mind and chemicals. My reaction and my response is the only thing that really matters to me and after a long, long time I finally found some peace.
My mother, on the other hand, apologizes frequently for things she did, things she’s doing, and things she failed to do. She’s much, much harder on herself than I am on her. She never hit me, never neglected me, never went out of her way to do any more than your typical obnoxious mom stuff, but–and perhaps this is because of her ex-husband–she has it in her head that she failed me, so she has a lot of guilt. Her guilt in no way makes anything better. I love my mom and don’t want to see her feeling bad, about anything.
For some reason, this post touched me more than any of the others.
I hope that when you are satisfied that you have become something (it sounds like that has already happened) you will choose a different screen name.
Best wishes,
Roddy
My parents were caught up in their own psycho-drama, both neurotic in their own ways. Fundamentally, they were selfish people, utterly incapable of putting anybody before them and their needs. We were told and shown every single day that were the least important people in the house. We were also blamed for every single that went wrong. Everything. Mom regularly put us on “diets” because we were “too fat.” She actually did nothing to fundamentally change our diets–and being the woman who did all the shopping it was all in her power to change. But she sure made sure we understood how fat and lazy we were, thus fucking up my relationship with food for the rest of my life and contributing to my inability to eat 3 regular meals a day without deep guilt.
As a result of all of this, I have major self-esteem issues, food issues, money issues, anxiety issues, and trust issues.
Last spring, I took my sisters to California. While we were there, we had dinner with my dad. it was the first time my youngest sister saw him in five years. Neither one of them have talked to him for at least that long. And while we were eating and getting caught up, he did something I never expected.
He apologized. Unprompted.
He took full responsibility. He didn’t say “Yeah, but you could have been better.” He didn’t push any of it onto us. He just apologized and took responsibility.
My various issues didn’t magically go away. I’m not close to either of my parents, and I never will be. But I’ll be damned, we actually got an apology. It meant a lot to all three of us. It was like validation.
Which one?
I have rationalizations for my whole maternal family (Aunt wasn’t abusive to me except re. drinking, but she was noxious to her own children). Whenever Gramps apologizes for anything, the thought that jumps to everybody else’s minds is along the lines of “yeah yeah sorry my ass and let’s see what you pull next.”
Grandma would never, can never, apologize. Her main “sins” are to always, always, always back Gramps (five minutes after yelling at him for trying to grab my ass, she’d be yelling at me for provoking him with such a juicy ass - no, I’m not providing a cite) and her inability to understand that other people’s work looks different from her (she never understood that studying involves reading, she’d see her daughters or grandchildren with a book and give us housework). On the second, she’s never understood it and whe won’t understand it in her 90s. On the first, admitting that there has ever been a time when Gramps has been at fault for his sexual misbehavior would lead too easily to admitting that he’s been at fault at other times and even, perish the thought, that he has not been completely monogamous (a travelling salesman with his brain in his pants, who wouldn’t be at home for two months at a time and who would partake of marital rights twice on average while at home… fidelity? Honey, that’s an insurance company).
Mom’s best friend made her thank me for my work around the house and for being a coparent to my brothers, specially but not limited to the two years that Mom was bedridden. She also made her apologize for taking so long to thank me. I acccepted the thanks (with an “about bloody time”) and the apology. Later I’ve been able to get her to apologize for always assuming that any adult would be right and I’d be wrong. Yay.
Aunt is even better than Grandma and Mom at lying to herself, but she did apologize to my male cousin for being so nasty to him as a child (it wasn’t his fault that he looks so much like his Dad, you know). He accepted the apology glowing. I don’t know whether she’s ever apologized to my female cousin but, given that the last time we had a family meet Auntie denied ever having drunk alcohol (I’ve helped my female cousin put Aunt to bed) and claimed to always have been “best friends” with her daughter, it doesn’t seem like it will happen soon.
Yes, it did to me. I accept that they did their best and made mistakes. The apology itself was a class act. I rang them straight back and apologised for my share of the crap that went down.
A very grown-up moment all round.
We don’t always manage that.
ETA: I feel that statement was squiffy. Of course they did their best. That’s why I still like them.
Did she fail in every area of parenting? Most? A few? One big one? I think this factors (or should factor) into a person’s evaluation and ability to continue to love someone who didn’t do a good job with their kids. I also think “malicious” vs. “clueless” (or any number of other descriptors) can make a difference. Litoris’s mom chose a target (malicious column), whereas another person’s parent may have had issues beyond their control (depression, substance abuse issues, etc.) that might be easier to understand and forgive. Some parents can fail in certain areas but be great in others.
Every time they raised their hand to me I deserved it, and it was only a few times that they spanked me or even once or twice slapped me.
What I didn’t deserve was the constant ego abusing. Being told that I was a slut and a whore just like my mother (far, far before I had ever had sex or even been alone with a guy), being told I didn’t amount to a hill of beans, that I was ugly and always would be, that I was disrespectful and a liar - I clearly remember the first huge lie my mom told me, being told my origins were a dirty secret, being told I had been adopted because I was their “duty”, these are the things I didn’t deserve.
If my parents apologized I wouldn’t know what to say. I have pretty much put it behind me now. I forgive for my own sake so I don’t have to live with anger but I don’t forget and I don’t put myself in a vulnerable position anymore. My parents know the bare edges of my life and that is the way it will stay. I call them about once a month, which is a damn big deal, IMO.
For me I feel like it would, as it would aknowledge what has happened. I know no parent is perfect, I just feel like mine could do better, and an apology would really help me feel better about things! 
I think for me it would, as it would at least aknowledge what has happened in the past. No parent is perfect, but an apology would at least aknowledge wrong doing and help me feel better about things
My mother’s last words (note to be read at funeral) were "imagine raising four children and never saying “I love you”.
Mother’s life was far more fucked up than the one she made for her children.
As for father: he was scum while living and died a scummy death. No way to hold scum responsible.
As I advised my kid sister:
“Shitty Childhood; Turn the Page”
My father never apologized before he died. My mother said that she came to a resolution with him concerning his abuse toward her, but presumably that didn’t extend to his kids or at least he never took any steps toward saying anything to us.
When I’ve discussed my childhood with my mother, she has apologized for her inability to protect us, but the apologies were always too distressful for her so that it really didn’t make a difference. It was more about her again. I’m not sure how a real apology would really sound like.
My older brother raped me, our younger brother and a number of other kids. When I confronted him about it, he told me that I would not believe how badly he’s suffered over the years because of the guilt. There wasn’t an apology and when I pointed that out, he said he was sorry that “bad things happened to you.” At which point I told him to go to hell. We haven’t talked since.
My father used to give us these long, long lectures and explain the world to us. He’d tell us how the other person was always at fault for whatever he did. When I was 12 or 13, he told me when and how he had molested my sisters, and it wasn’t his fault; “girls like to be touched that way.”
As adults, my sister said that he had given a perfunctory apology as part of our church’s repentance process but made it sound like she was at fault.
I’m certain that had he not died, he would have never taken responsibility for his actions or given a heartfelt apology. He simply lacked the ability to see anyone beyond himself.
If I “confronted”, asked for, or expected an explanation for the abuse (mother) or abandonment (father), I doubt I would get an answer. My mom would get defensive and either yell or cry and say she doesn’t remember it that way. My father would get new agey and say that people have no right to have expectations of any kind from other people. (Haven’t seen him in over 20 years, but that is kind of what he was like back then.)
I was 16 when I finally realizes I was a couple of inches taller than my mother and as she came down a hallway at me for some imagined offense, I turned and caught her hands above her head backed her into a wall, looked her in the eye and told her she would never hit me again and that if she tried she would never see me again. She never tried again.
That said, the buck stops here. I did not hit my children. I did not leave them unattended with my Mom after it became clear that she was ignoring my wishes when she was with them. (I realized it when the oldest was about 5.)
If we were visiting her when she hit a child or started shoving and yelling, we cut the visit short and left.
When my oldest became a parent and my mom wanted to see and spend time with his children, I reminded him that he was not left alone with her for a reason and asked him to not leave the children alone with her and pointed out that he had seen his cousins, shoved, smacked and yelled at and to imagine what it was like when/if no one was there to see.
I do not think I would feel any better if she apologized. When she realized that I wouldn’t leave my children alone with her, about 25 years ago, she danced around it and said she’d done the best she could and the best she knew at the time.
I still check on her a few times a week and try to spend time with her every other week and we get along fine. She does not get angry with me, but she does get ranty about my brother and his adult children and their children. She is still quick tempered, pinchy and shovey and admits to what she calls “spanking” with the great grands that are allowed to spend time with her and one of the ones that is old enough to say no to visits, incredibly asks to spend alone time with her, so things must be some better.
Watched my siblings struggle to get Mom to acknowledge how seriously she screwed up her kids. All they got was bitter, angry and more resentful.
I always intuitively knew it was useless. I tried to tell a couple of them but they couldn’t hear. But did later admit they should have listened.
I was still a teen when I realised I was looking to her to give me things she didn’t possess. I figured the only acknowledgement that mattered had to come from within me. Life got better directly.
In all honesty I was the least cared for child (she loathed herself and I was a mini me in looks and in spirit), the least loved. It would be decades before it became glaringly obvious to me, that not being loved by her was, in many many ways, far LESS damaging than being amongst the golden children! :::shiver:::
To me apologies make a difference if I believe them and if they mark a difference in behavior. There have been times my mother has apologized and actually changed the offending behavior, and those are things about which I do believe she hadn’t realized she was causing harm; there are other things about which she can say “sorry sorry” until her face turns the color of a Rioja red and it won’t matter because it’s just noise, she’ll do the same again. There are people from whom any apology will be sincere, others from whom I wouldn’t believe “it’s raining” if they walked in from the street sopping wet, and some that are in between. Mom is the last type, her father was the second one.
According to Mom, her constant abuse of me was my fault. I deserved it. I was no good, and would amount to nothing. I was stupid. And whenever my younger sister fucked up, it was all my fault.
Odd that I’ve survived, and my sister led a totally fucked up life (which is still my fault, though I have had no direct contact with her for over 25 years!)