I'm starting to sound bi-polar, happy and motivated at times, then crashingly frustrated, but such is my life. I'm sure, at least, that other adoptive parents understand this.
To give one's all, one's everything at all times, no matter what, only to have disobedience, defiance and resentment in return, can make one become bitter as heck. When everything seems to be an issue, everything a battle, it is phenomenally frustrating.
Sometimes I want to pack up the "good kids" the ones that truly love me, or at least don't openly hate me, and I want to run to the hills, to live in peace.
I'd told someone recently, someone that I respected, that I'm not certain I'd encourage any of my children to adopt older children; literally I am deeply concerned over what this has done to my own physical and mental health. This person that I so look up to, told me he wouldn't necessarily encourage his son to go into the ministry either.
Wow and Ouch.
We want to protect our children from being hurt. It galls me to think of how my kids would emotionally suffer if they adopted older kids, knowing how badly, meanly and hatefully those kids would lash out.
This preacher knows how much a congregation, even the guy who puts a dollar in the plate, thinks that they can then dump their resentments at life out on the pastor since they "pay" him. I'm a preacher's kid, I know how this is.
What makes people think it is OK to ever lash out at anyone for any reason?
I am a person, a living, breathing human being and I have poured out everything into my children; all that I have and more. I've been nothing but good to them, treated them well, and taken care of them...yet they've poured out so much ugliness and hatred on me. How much can I take? Why should I continue when I know there's so much more negativity to come? Even when grown, they think they can dump on me like I'm a public toilet.
They want to hurt me as they've been hurt, so maybe I can understand then how much they were hurt? Well what if you destroy me? Then what? Then you don't have the only one who ever stood by you.
One day a grown kid worried aloud about the violence in another kid, afraid I was in danger, and under all that stress, my first thought was well then I'd have some peace if I forcefully left this earth. That's a little pathetic, isn't it?
As I stand by one right now who's in turmoil, the siblings of that one, realizing how that same child has been hateful, but then again, there's mom doing what Mom does, loves them through the issues...but can I continue giving of myself in the face of such opposition? What if I shut down? What if I don't bounce back?
Am I sending the wrong message? This unconditional love? Should there be some reciprocity, respect, or at the very least an iota of consideration of me?
I want to build a gate at the end of the driveway, slam it shut, lock it, and not let anyone in who has an attitude...take your ill will elsewhere, dump on someone else...get over it, grow UP.
But then what do I do with the haters who live with me? Who don't give a crap that I've spent every penny that I have on them, that there's a roof over their heads and clothes to wear...yet they punch a wall if asked to do one simple chore? Can you imagine what I want to scream back at them?
But that's the difference. I don't, I won't scream my resentment back at them for their piss poor treatment of me. I keep forcing myself to care in the face of massive oppositional fury, rage and defiance.
Yolie reminded me that most parents have 5-10 years of such stress whereas I've already spent decades immersed in it, with no immediate relief in sight. I always hesitate to publish such a negative blog yet I'm also wanting to show reality.
Here's the bottom line, what if I begged Sarah not to adopt and she missed out on a Daniel? What if I become the naysayer that I once refused to listen to? What if I shoot off my frustrated mouth here and I cost someone a Yolie? Or a Sabrina? Or a Chuy? Or a fill-in-the-blank?
Get a grip Big Mama.
Monday, April 23, 2007
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8 comments:
What if... Martin and CW had never met?
I say, purge the poisons when you feel the need. I guess I look at it like, if you blogging about the reality of adopting older children keeps someone from adopting, perhaps it is just as well - maybe they shouldn't be adopting older children. Lol...we're still going through with it and plan to do many more. God is our strength, He will see us through. (ha ha, or He is just allowing us to be temporarily insane, right?! *wink*)
Even your "bitter" blogs are inspiring. The more I read them, the more I want to adopt myself.
Cindy, just please, please, please make sure you are taking care of you. This world and your family would be a much sadder place without you in it.
I'm better now, been in the gardens for a couple of hours, nothing like weeding out all the rampant chocolate mint to gie me a new lease on life, aromatherapy at its best.
Whoa, I didn't know chocolate mint was a plant. I thought it was just a perverse obsession by chocolatiers to combine two things that taste so nasty together.
That being said, it's uncanny how much your feelings sound like how I feel about my boyfriend. Lucky for me I had one of him for two years, not 39 of him for decades. I don't know how you do it.
I'm in the process of adopting older children. Out of curiosity, how old is "too" old in your opinion to adopt? We are not adopting out of birth order....we already have that covered.
We are looking at two girls between the ages of 3 & 7yrs old. My youngest child currently is 8-1/2, so we need to keep the kids we adopt younger than him.
Any advise? What's too old?
Sweetheart,
First, sit down and have a glass of wine, or a bath or whatever it is you do to breathe and exhale. Children whether adopted or not will dump on their parents. I, also am a preacher's daughter. I am a mother. I have been cut off and sent out of my father's house on numerous occasions. "if you're not for me you are against me" often, I just had an opinion that he did not share. Now that I am 30 we are more close and share more opinions and values than ever before. He has mellowed and I have grown up. My relationship with my mother suffered for a long time because I felt she allowed herself to be disrespected. Once I had my own child I realised the sacifice and life she had poured into me. Some children will not realise what you do for them until they have their own children. Whether adopted or natural the age for them to tell us "up yours, I'm out of here" is getting younger and younger. Start to look after yourself. Create appropriate boundaries. Live your life without regret. Your children need to see you live your life.
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