Turning the Cup

This week’s guest post is by Dessie Wilson. We hope that you find it useful and look forward to future posts from Dessie.

I do believe that you’re a product of what you’re raised in.

My mother was born into poverty; she suffered mental and sexual abuse from both of her parents. She got pregnant at a young age and was forced to marry a very abusive sociopath. My mother bore three children with my father, and I am the middle child. We suffered from chronic homelessness and abuse during my early childhood years, followed by several stays in domestic violence shelters hiding from my father. My mother had experienced tremendous trauma and abuse and yet she was raising (by this time) four kids, working, and going to college, so it was in all respects every child for themselves.

I was not raised with rules or discipline. I was never read to, nor did I receive help with homework. I was never told to brush or floss my teeth. I wasn’t raised to do chores, I was raised to run wild and make sure my younger brothers were taken care of.

Now that I am a mother, I often say that I am not sure that I was meant to be one. I don’t think that it is a gift I was born with. I am not naturally nurturing, empathetic, or even that caring and gentle. I lack the skills to be a disciplined productive parent, the same skills that were not demonstrated to me when I was a child. I’m horrible at making sure my kids do their homework; I brush my teeth but do not make them brush theirs.

The one thing I take away from my childhood is that I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that my mother loves me. I have always felt comfortable talking to her. And I believe that one thing I do right as a parent is fostering an environment where my children feel safe to talk to me. Throughout the last couple of years and through my program of recovery, I have learned how to listen to my girls. I can allow them to talk without talking back. I even ask my thirteen-year-old if she would like to know what I hear, and if she tells me no, I listen and don’t give her unsolicited advice.

My children’s father is not present, and I get to share with my girls my own experience of having an absent father. I share how my relationship with my father made me feel unwanted and unloved and unimportant. I share my fears of being abandoned, of not being loveable or good enough.

Most importantly, I get to share with them how I learned that it wasn’t true. That I was always wanted and important and loved but that my father didn’t know how to show me, because he had something broken inside of him too. When my children come home and complain about getting picked on or bullied, I turn the cup for them. I share my experience, and how I have learned that what other people do or say to me is not about me as much as it is about them: how most kids are full of fear and have a basic social instinct, and if making fun of you is one way they can get to the top, then that has nothing to do with you and everything to do with them, and their fear of not being liked. I take my childhood and adulthood experiences and share them with my children so that hopefully I can turn the cup for them and show them a different perspective on life.

I am by no means mother of the year—I yell at my kids, I get frustrated, I cry—but I try to foster an environment of communication and unconditional love.

Dessie Wilson is the Family Treatment Court Advocate at Family Tree Relief Nursery.