Mommy and daddy issues

My main goal as a parent is to be the opposite of my parents. Let me explain them to you.

My parents had a turbulent relationship beginning in high school. They dated off and on. When my mom was 18 and a senior in high school she married this other man in the Coast Guard. With him she moved all around. My dad dated other "ladies" (meaning hoes- like he dated a Destiny Starr and she WAS NOT the stripper he dated she was something very nonstrippery that I can't remember right now). When my mom's marriage soured she started coming around my dad again (because she's always been dim). She managed to break up his 3 month old marriage to another woman. Mom was still married. 

So lo and behold she gets knocked up with me. When I was born her husband's name was actually on my birth certificate. It didn't take too long for that to get corrected and my actual father's name to be placed on it. Let me interject here that my dad's parents hate my mother. Always have. They actually offered her 15 thousand dollars to leave me with them and for her to disappear. Clearly, they had a paternity test done on me. My mom doesn't know for sure if they did, and my dad doesn't answer when I ask- but I know them pretty well. They totally did. 

One of the first memories I have of my dad is him taking me to an apartment to play with some little girl while he went with her mom to have "adult time" and then he told me to not tell my mom. So of course the first thing I did was tell her. One of the first I have of my mom is her telling me not to tell her dad that her and my dad were having problems and that she'd left him again. Of course I immediately told him. 

I have very little memories of my parents when I was young. I stayed with both set of grandparents a lot. Which I am completely thankful for. I was so lucky to have such wonderful grandparents. I hate to think of what I'd be like if it wasn't for them. I'm still very close to them, even though I did lose one of my grandfather's long ago. 

My parents got married when I was 9. I have never understood, even as a child, why they were together. My dad is a giant asshole. There was physical, mental, verbal abuse the entire time I was growing up and not ending until the day before I got engaged at 25. My mother, I'll never respect her. I just can't. She never had the balls to stand up to him, to leave and stay gone, to make something for herself and for us without him. I did get my sister out of this fucked up relationship. When I was 10 she was born. 

I don't know what it was, but he never treated her the way he treated me. She's never been spanked, grounded, or screamed at like I was. A big part of that I think was that by that time I was old enough that he knew I wouldn't allow him to treat her that way. Another is, he mellowed with age. 

So in-between all that fun is a long struggle for my dad and the textile industry. He'd been in it for years and then it all went to Honduras. So he was down-sized from 3 different companies. Then he got out of textiles and idk what was going on, but he got fired from a good supervisor position from the hospital and was out of work for nearly a year. (Want to piss me off? Be unemployed and lay around on the couch all day. Then eat chips there, get them all over the floor next to you, and then goo fucking ballistic on me when I refuse to come home from college and my job and fucking vacuum up your mess. Rinse and repeat almost daily.)

So right now he's working part-time at a shitty department store. He's barely making any money and hardly getting any hours and pulling in a quarter over minimum wage. He has plenty of free time and he lies about going to look for jobs and job searching. Even when I do the leg work for him, he never follows through. "Yeah, thanks. Just leave the stack of job listings on the coffee table. I'll take a look later." "Yeah I went to the job fair you told me about. What do you mean the pants are still on the hanger perfectly pleated? I totally went. See the shirt I was wearing is slung on the bed like I totally wore it."

Then there's my mother. I know she's beat the fuck down. I know she's stressed out with my deadbeat dad and just generally being unhappy with life for as long as I can remember. Well she decided to give herself a pick me up by shoplifting. You know, nail polish here and shoes there. A shirt over there and maybe some makeup too. Obviously, she got caught. When she did she took it upon herself to call my two best friends to bail her ass out of jail before calling me. She didn't even consider my dad. She figured she could hide it from him and people at work. Here's why that's a fucking retarded assumption to make. 

She assumed shoplifting would not effect her job at all. Well, as I've mentioned, she works for the same company that I do. Huge Financial Corporation That Did Not Require a Bailout has a zero tolerance theft policy. So unless she gets this case completely dismissed she loses her job. Her attorney has informed her that she has until July 9th to have 24 hours of community service completed and she's barely completed any. (Not to mention she gets pissed that I refuse to do the community service with her- hello, I didn't fucking steal and get arrested. This is her cross to bare.) Not to mention her face was plastered all over the paper, Jailbird paper, and internet locally- everyone found out almost immediately.

Then there's me having to pick her up to come to work every morning and then take her home every afternoon. I don't mind getting her in the morning. But when she gets off an hour- sometimes 2 hours- after I do, it's a hassle. 

So, what really pisses me off is the constant stress my parents have placed on me since I can remember. When I was little I was stressed out because of them. Was I going to say something or do something to set my dad off? Why is mom always crying? I got a job as soon as I turned 16 so that I could buy my own things since I knew my dad was starting to have job troubles. But it still seemed like all I heard from him and my mom was "moneymoneymoney" just having them always stressed about it, made me always fear working and money. I'm always on edge at work, like any move I make I could lead to be losing my job and then throwing my husband and I into financial ruin (it didn't help that I got canned from my first real job).  

Hearing my mother, even now, talking about how she thinks of suicide and how she's so unhappy makes me crazy. I hate to sound like a callous bitch, but I've been listening to this for almost 30 years. Every shitty thing that happens to mom SHE HAS DONE TO HERSELF. You're miserable in your marriage? LEAVE HIM. You want to have financial stability? LEAVE DAD WHO IS A HUGE DRAIN OF RESOURCES AND A LAZY BASTARD. You want to be happy in life? LEAVE YOUR HUSBAND WHO MAKES YOU FEEL LIKE SHIT.

The solution is right there. If she did grow a pair and leave him, it'd really be best for everyone involved. He'd have no choice but to go to Georgia and live with his parents while he got back on his feet. My grandfather, who has an amazing work ethic, will not allow him to lay around on the couch for most of the day and work part time minimum wage jobs. He'll make him get off his ass and do something. Maybe then, dad will even get some self-esteem back and become something a little more than completely worthless. 

So what I'm saying is, I don't want to do to my daughter what was done to me. I don't want to keep her on edge her entire life. I don't want her to worry about bills when she's in elementary school. I don't want her to be afraid of me or her father. I don't want her to pity us, hate us, have no respect for us. I want to be someone my daughter can come to with anything. I want her to be comfortable and happy. I want to have the relationship with her that I had with my grandparents. So I guess that's what I want. I want to take everything I learned not to do from my parents and combine it with everything I learned how to do from my grandparents.