I asked my selfish mother once if she had to choose between giving up my brother and I or a her new car, which one she would pick. It seems like there is an obvious choice and her answer wasn’t all that surprising.
To most people, anyways.
Predictably, she said that she would choose us. (Now I didn’t specify which one of us, but we grew up with the fact that my brother was her favorite since I was always questioning her value as a parent.) A mother choosing her kids over material things makes absolute sense. It’s a given.
But not in my family. And not with my mother.
I was shocked at her answer because I’ve grown up with the reality that my mother loved herself and all her shopping necessities more than she could ever love the beings she herself created. And why would I think anything else? My mother dumped all child-raising responsibilities onto my dad and let him not only raise us single-handedly, but pay for everything including her new car and living expenses even after she rejoined our household.
He’s raised us from 1998 by himself and put us both through elementary, middle school, high school, and college. We never had to worry about tuition, loans, or getting into debt because he worked 3 or 4 jobs to support us in whatever we did. Granted, he was never home and we lacked a parental figure to guide us, but that was his way of showing his love - by making sure we never had to worry about finances.
So while I do understand that being poor has its faults, sometimes it comes down to: would you rather have a close, poor family or a rich one of strangers?
I was once told that I was privileged. It didn’t strike me at the time, but when I think about it now I’m a little disappointed and offended. Not because that I don’t think it’s true, but because it was in the context that my life was exceptionally easy and that is something nobody has a right to tell anyone else. You should never complain that your life is the hardest. That someone else lived an easier life than you.
Because you don’t actually know until you have been in their shoes and you never will.
My brother asked my mother today if she could help pay for his college tuition bill that was due on Sunday. It was only $2500 and would cover half of the semester. It was the first time he had asked her for anything and she said..
“No.”
She’d wanted him to ask my dad for money since it was his “responsibility”, but I had always learned that it took two people to make a child. This is a prime example of how my mother’s actions conflict with her words. And this is why I know that when she says she would pick her child over her new car, I know that she is lying through her teeth.
Parents aren’t perfect, and are far from it because to err is to be human.
But my mother is no parent. Even today, I still struggle with accepting that not all parents were meant to be mothers. I am in constant conflict because I so badly want to change my mother and make her love me. Make her love us more than she loved herself.
But you cannot change people.
You can only change yourself and do your best in your situation. I want to grow up and be someone reliable for my dad and my brother. I want to take responsibility even if I should not have to be “responsible” for my brother. We weren’t lucky enough to have a mother who gave everything for us, but we were so fortunate to have a father who did. A father that I want to make sure I can take care of and help.
My mother may not want to pay for my brother’s tuition, but that’s okay.
Because I’ll be here to do it now.
Not all people were meant to carry the burden that parents do. But all people can accept the responsibility, if they choose to.