06 March 2005

sins of the father

Today I came face to face with a past which I keep very neatly packaged in a brown paper wrapping and stashed way at the back of my proverbial cupboard where one could almost forget it were there until something happens and suddenly you are face to face with the reality that was your experience way back then.

Im not in the habit of airing my dirty laundry but in light of todays experience I think on some level, I need to put it out there in the hopes that it will have some kind of emotional or soul cleansing properties to allow me to move on from this in a positive expression of who I am, but more importantly who I choose to be.

Danny was being silly and fooling about trying to get a rise out of his sister like he always does, he proceeded to pull his pants down and shake his bum at us to which we both in a non verbal way agreed not to respond to or encourage by laughing at him and so in a typically male manner he turned round to do the full monty scene for us, all the while pulling silly faces and hoping to get a laugh. Again we both blanked him as he wiggled his hips at us.

He then did something which made me lose all sense of sensibility... the reasons I will come to later, he grabbed his pip (aka penis) and attempted to touch Sash with it which was with out a doubt, gonna get a rise and did! She responded with "eeeyuuuwww" and I reached over and gave him a sharp spank on his bare bottom. I reprimanded him and warned him not to do that again, finally he had acheived what he had set out to do, and chuckled to himself which made me very angry. I dared him to do it again...showing him very clearly that we werent amused by his antics, nor was this behavior acceptable.

As my son always rises to a challenge he proceeded to test my peramenters and did it again and ran off as I chased him round the house, he laughing and me boiling mad. When I finally caught him I spanked him hard on his bottom! The instant humiliation I felt from him overwhelmed me. I had hurt his ego and his expression of budding manhood.

I know this was not by any stretch of the imagination, NOT the appropriate response for his behavior, nor do I condone his behavior but I began to analise why I had responded with such swift and brutal repulsion.

Heres where it gets messy... I wont mention names here but I had the misfortune as a young girl between the ages of 9 and 15, of having 2 very close family members, 2 family friends, 1 paedophile who I met at a local swimming bath and a guy I fancied all sexually abused me in varying degrees of severity.

I have managed to a certain degree to not allow this history to affect my everyday life, although if truth be known, it never really leaves my consciousness. Daniels actions today brought this all up for me in a huge way and I began to understand my earlier response, and suddenly I realised that my fear, not only for Sash, but any female to be subjected to what I was subjected to..... by MY son would devastate me beyond reason!

And in order to attempt a prevention of this ever occuring, I realised that I could be risking a normal developement of my son and perhaps be aid in creating a man with fetish requirements due to my actions when he was just at the exploratory stage.

I dont know if this is making any sense, but I needed to get it off my chest. I feel really guilty about my behavior as well as allowing my past to impact on not only my future but that of my prescious offspring.

If my kids are screwed up, I know its cos I couldnt keep a lid on MY shit!

2 comments:

Tammy said...

Yades:
I think we all overeact to varying degrees at some time. Its part of being human and being a parent. I don't believe one isolated incident will scar Daniel for life. You may want to find some counseling to send the ghosts of your past packing, I think you sound like an awesome and caring mom. The beauty of kids is their resilience and chances are a smack on the bum for inappropriate behaviour is not completely out of line. Daniel knows better and he wanted a rise and got it, don't let your baggage cloud that he got the response he was trying to elicit. That being said I am such a firm believer in trying to sort out our own shit so we don't pass it on to our kids. Do what you have to do but don't beat yourself up for what has happened - you are doing the best you can and no-one expects more, certainly you should not!!

Unknown said...

I think it was very brave of you to write this post. Personally, I think our “stuff” is as relevant a string in the fiber of who we are as anything else is, and as strange as this may sound, I think our “scary stuff” has as much a place in our lives as our clarity does. I think we maybe come to terms with letting our stuff find its place in our lives, and the older I get, the less I think we ever actually rid ourselves of it. If we did rid ourselves of our stuff, what would happen to the theory of “he/she pressed my button”, which is exactly what your little man did. I think where you want to get yourself is to a place where when the button is pressed, you are in charge of the feelings that come to the surface, rather than them taking over and manipulating your actions. Our children are our most honest critics and are such amazing mirror images of who we ourselves are, it would be a pity to waste the ongoing lessons they are sent to teach us. Don’t under estimate your effectiveness as a parent and don’t beat yourself up for what you did. It’s done, and I somehow don’t think he will spend too many years in therapy over a patz in tochas. I think what is important though is to give him the time to explain, not justify, that every action has a consequence, and when our actions are unacceptable to the people around us, the consequence is likely to be unpleasant. You rock as a Mom!