I was raised to love my parents, no matter what they did to me. At what point does parenting cross the line to abuse and trauma? Sorry just does not cut it. I have lived my life, as well as my siblings, always trying to overcome the PTSD that resulted from being beaten as a child. I am not talking about a small pat on the butt to get me out of the street and back on the sidewalk.
I am talking about being hit so hard with the back of my father’s hand at the dinner table that my chair flew backward and I landed on the floor. Not a word was spoken by anyone at the dinner table. I picked up my chair and began eating again. After what seemed like an eternity, my father said, “Don’t have your hand on your glass and eat at the same time, it shows you are too anxious about life.” He would repeatedly tell me that I needed to learn the lessons quickly because he was old and didn’t have enough time to teach me over again.
Several thoughts have emerged as a result of this past weekend being Mother’s Day and so many social venues almost piffle over how much people loved their mothers and how much mothers love their children. Was it love from my mother that allowed her to stand in the kitchen preparing dinner while my father had my brother and I on a fold out couch with our bare asses exposed, while he beat us with a 2×10, so he could hit us both at the same time? Was it love that allowed her set dinner and sit quietly as my brother and I were forced to sit at the table, humiliated, abused, traumatized and in desperate need of comfort and affection from a nurturing parent?