It happened on Mother’s Day when Oldest One was about 5 and Little One was about 2. The Barbie Table had been problematic for several days. The Barbie Table came about as a way to keep all the wonderful rooms Barbie lives in (and that Mattel realized was a much better way to go then a simple townhouse that took up a corner) along with furniture and clothes in one place and somewhat organized. It was still messy, but a contained messy.
Oldest One was in a non-sharing mood, and kept getting mad at Little One for wanting to play at the Barbie Table with her. So, about a half hour before Mother’s Day dinner with my Mom and Dad, Oldest One lost it and yelled at her sister again, at which point Husband was done. He went into the playroom with two large garbage bags, swept everything on the Barbie Table into the bags, and told Oldest One she had lost the Barbie stuff until she could share. That caused a meltdown, and Oldest One went into her room to cry, with my Mom following her.
I had no problem with what Husband did, we had taken toys away for not sharing before, it was just the timing. Right before dinner on Mother’s Day wasn’t the best timing, but really, with kids, is the timing ever good? Oldest One calmed down, we had a nice dinner, and a few days later the Barbie Table was back. My Mom had a completely different take on this.
My Mom called me the next day and gave me a lecture about my supporting Husband over the girls. She informed me that I should never choose Husband over the girls, and the girls were always going to be in the right. She proudly told me she never sided with my Dad when it came to my brothers and I, and that she always supported our views instead. That explained a lot about my parents relationship. She wasn’t happy when I told her that Husband and I always tried to back the other when it came to the girls, and that we felt working together was the best way, and we weren’t going to side against each other. Harder to do sometimes as the girls have gotten older, but we still strive for that.
Fast forward to today, when my Mom’s Boyfriend (we’ll call him MB) didn’t like me, or Husband, or the girls, and my Mom never tried to defend me. Apparently I remind him of his deceased daughter who he didn’t get along with. Pretty hard to overcome that. And the things my Mom began to tell me about myself, my life and my family weren’t nice. What she told my brothers about me was awful. Never once did I hear her say anything good about me, just the bad. What happened to siding with the child? Not that I agreed with that, but it would be nice to think that a guy who has known me less than a year would at least get chastised a little bit for being mean, rude, and just not a good person.
My Mom wants to act like none of this happened, but it did, and it really upset and hurt me. I know she won’t be here forever, and I know at some point this needs to be resolved. Oldest One is inviting her to the graduation. Little One isn’t, but after how my Mom treated Little One’s Bat Mitzvah, and then forgot Little One’s birthday, well, it’s understandable. But when I think of having a conversation with my Mom about all of this I just get so angry at how she treated me, and how it’s okay for MB to think and say bad things without anything being said to him about how he acts. I also feel childish thinking and feeling this, but at the same time I just can’t get over it.
This is on my mind at some point every day. I try not to let it be because I do get so upset, but my Mom and I used to talk every day, and she used to do a lot with us, and was a big part of our lives. We haven’t seen her since September, we don’t talk anymore, and she has missed everything the girls are doing for over a year. At my Dad’s funeral an old friend of my parents, whose wife had died many years before, was there with his daughter, who is my age. My Mom later told me that he had remarried, but was divorced, and during his marriage his 2nd wife hadn’t wanted anything to do with his daughters, so he hadn’t seen them during the marriage, two or three years, and was just building a new realtionship with them and his grandchildren. She thought that was awful of him, and that he should have stood up to his wife and not abandoned his girls. Yeah, I think that too.
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