Sweetie, Darlin, I Love You

After years of heartache and despair I was at last blessed with two, live, healthy children. My daughter being born 3 months before the death of my Father, when I dutifully, if unwisely, allowed Mother closer into my family and my home and offered her a role in my children's lives that she neither deserved, valued or made much effort with aside from the odd gift to be used for bragging rights or guilt trips. 

As is often the case after unhappy childhoods, when you are blessed with parenthood yourself you try desperately to give your child all the things you did not have. I tried very hard to be a good Mom, though a lot came easily to me as my heart was so full of love for these long awaited children it flowed out and made itself known in a myriad of ways. And it also made it easier to keep my Mother at bay emotionally even though she was present in the physical sense more frequently. Whenever she tried her abusive ways, by picking at me, milking sympathy, dominating with her me me me mindset, I now had a ready tool of diversion, I simply disconnected and would say something to one of the children...oh careful there, now have you drank your drink, do you need the toilet, oh show Grand Ma your drawing....it was brilliant ! It shut her down and redirected the conversation and she could hardly take exception because 
the children must be the priority after all. And I was steadfast in behaving is if that was a given and nonnegotiable policy {unlike my enabling Fathers parenting style}. 
 I was openly affectionate with my little ones, often saying I love you, hugs and kisses, and calling them darlin, sweetie and a long list of other pet names. It often seemed like she was taking it all in. I wondered if she was registering that her cool, detached daughter, who worked hard at keeping her at arms length and thwarting any manipulation she tried, not always successfully, was the exact opposite with her children and could not have been more fussy and warm. I think it did register and it also prompted her to compare her own Mothering skills to mine. Which in turn prompted the phone call I had one day that went something like this...

I take a call from her and it begins with forced small talk that is the precursor for the real purpose of the call. 

 Then she blurts out  "Amanda, do you know, I think its lovely the way you speak to those children" {why she phrased it that way I don`t know but it does not sound as if she views them as her children from a Grand Mothers perspective} 

  "I do...I think its lovely, the way you call them darlin and sweetheart and that !" ...I`m not sure what to say really, its hardly a remarkable thing but then for a Mother like her maybe it is.
 "Oh well, it just comes naturally I suppose, I`ve never really given it much thought, its just another way of showing affection to them really" I reply... "Well I think its lovely and the way you say `I love you` to them"....long pause, I wait, I instinctively know there is more to come..." You know I never said those things to you {yes Mother, I know} I never called you darling or anything like that or said I love you"....{here comes the but it wasn`t my fault of course it was all because....} "You see my Mother never said those things to me, she never called us sweetheart or anything and no one said I Love You in our house, it just wasn`t done" ...."Wasn`t it ?" I reply " No and you see Amanda, because I was never told those things, or spoken to that way, I never said them to you....it never occurred to me...and that`s why......."
her voice trailed away and she slowly realised the mistake she had just made in her angle of absolving herself of never being loving or affectionate with me. There was another awkward pause and then she needed to ring off.

 

 So to recap. I`m very affectionate with my children. She was not with me. And that`s because her own Mother was not with her, therefore she was unable to learn by example.
SSSssooooo......where did I learn it from then ? I was not set an example of `affectionate Mother` either and that had not stopped me. I was very affectionate with them indeed. At the end of the call it dawned on her the flaw in her excuse so she rang off quickly. 




Around this time she began to drop in the odd phrase with me. For the first time ever, I was late 30`s, she called me Sweetheart, at first I thought I had misheard. We were driving on a very warm day, my car window open when a wasp came in and landed on my top, 2 or 3 inches from my face, it began crawling towards me. " Oh God, Oh God" I panicked, quickly indicating to pull over....."What`s the matter Sweetheart" she asked...I pulled over, jumped out and shook the wasp away..."Oh darling I wondered whatever was the matter" . And there it was again. It felt odd, sounded odd. I let is go without comment, as if it was normal. 

 Over the next few weeks she would drop in an odd affectionate reference. I feel that she was exploring what effect it would have on our relationship as well as maybe an understanding that this was often how good Mothers spoke and she too wanted to be `seen` as a good Mother and it was of case I can do that too. It did not make me feel any warmer towards her because in spite of this change she would still show regular flashes of her Narc self, though for now they were toned down as she recognised with my Father gone, I was all she had. I was irritated sometimes as I knew it was a falsehood and not driven by any true love or affection. A part of me wanted to say For God sake stop it, the composed mature part of me just let it pass with no reaction and the quiet inner child....well, she whispered....its too late now Mom.
It didn`t last long, she soon realised it served her no purpose and so it came to an end. I`ll give her this though, she did begin to sometimes call the children darling or sweetheart which was good to hear and as they were so cute {I`m very biased !} it felt genuine and helped to create pockets of normality within a warped family dynamic.