bonos materfamilias

i've read a lot of stories about people who take out their misery on their children, who beat the crap out of their children, or in seemingly imperceptible ways damage their children's psyche all in the effort to escape placing the blame where it squarely belongs- themselves.

it never ceases to amaze me, the reasons they come up with, for that extra rough pull on a child's arm, the anger at a child's precociousness, the raised, threatening voice.

it's one thing to, out of total moronic ignorance, plan to not let your son read fairy tales because he might become a fairy himself.

but to take your frustrations with your shitty marriage and your shitty husband out on your child, when the child has done nothing to you, hasn't even been anything but adorably sunshiny,

that's another thing.

it's not his fault you decided to marry to escape what for you was an overly oppressive - not only to the gifted and academic but to the ungifted and unacademic- home, even famously uttering that your family was no great loss to you (at least until the time when with no money in the foreseeable future you came and said "pretty please" and the savior known as your father stepped in), even in the face of repeated admonitions that marriage was not the answer to your particular problem.

it's not his fault you then found out that marrying young with no money and no real love and no concrete plans doesn't always have a hollywood (or in your case, jologs) dream ending, with loving in laws and a doting husband.

it's not his fault you can't seem to get along with people, you can't seem to keep a job, you can't seem to get a job you feel you deserve even in light of your less than stellar academic background and totally unimpressive work record replete with resigned-just-before-suspension and contract-not-renewed entries.

it's not his fault you get frustrated with all these things, you can't seem to find any luck, you can't get it together.

right now, it's all on you.

when you don't reprimand him from acting up when other people are being inconvenienced, when other people are trying to rest after having long, eventful, fruitful weeks, when you get angry at those who do reprimand him on the ground that they are not his parents,

that's on you.

when you do get mad at him for acting up or impeding your view of the tv (in front of which your widening butt has been parked instead of looking for work), when you want to sleep but he doesn't, when you want to eat but he doesn't, when you want to go somewhere but you can't leave him alone,

when you refuse to let your husband reprimand him and let your child go around throwing things at peoples' faces, hitting them and hissing at them and screaming and whining at them in the singularly irritating way he has seen, heard, gotten from you,

and if because of all that he grows up becoming self-indulgent, irritating, ignorant, stupid, uneducated (no chance of that as he has a doting extended family) boor,

that's on you.

when a person's reaction when heavy things are hurled by even a child at her face, actually hitting her twice without even a reprimand from his mother, is to curse (arguably at the child but more likely out of suprise-though ill bred surprise nonetheless), interpret the curse as a reprimand to the parent that no child is born wanting to throw things at people and hit people. a child gets taught that. and by the people he's around the most-his parents.

in no way would and should a reasonably intelligent person interpret the curse as an excuse to further treat her child badly, to pull him around not caring if he hits a wall or dislocates a shoulder, and subject him to a barrage of vile and hurtful words viler and more hurtful than any curse could be.

don't blame other people for your lack of control and your lack of luck.

to not raise your child well and have him act out and get mad at the person who gets hurt and does reprimand your child (albeit in a not so nice way) and take that anger out on your child? to say that your anger stems from another person's actions but -probably knowing you'd lose in a battle of words- you're taking it out on your child? to not admit that really, in the end, the person who's to blame, the person you're unhappy with (cause you sure as hell are lying when you say you're happy and satisfied with the overweight, unemployed, underqualified, unhappily married person that you are), the person you'd like to drag around and scream at is yourself? to probably be idiotic enough to not realize that fact?

that's plain pathetic.

and maybe, just maybe, time will prove kind to your child and see to it that he grows up a fine, upstanding person, a contributing member of society, brilliant, ambitious, responsible. lucky kid if so, but right now, if things stay the sam, we'll all know that it's no thanks to you.