The Things We Do That Our Children See

There used to be a sadness that always stayed with me, it was born from ingesting too many episodes of Family Ties, and The Cosby Show where the moms and dads portrayed in the episodes constantly gushed emotion and sweetness onto their children (even in distress and conflict). The thousands of television commercials that played in between shows also contributed to my warped perceptions of what was considered appropriate affection and attention-- where even something as simple as cleaning up a spill with a thick quick absorbing paper towel was an opportunity for a mother to hug and kiss on her child. I was constantly being bombarded with idyllic images of familial bliss and it was confusing for me. None of this was going on in my house. What the heck Mom and Dad?! Where was my sympathetic talk in my room after my feelings were hurt by a girl? Where the mother fixes everything and restores her sons confidence with some clever speech or quick story about her own life experiences. Our script didnt sound like any of the TV shows I was watching. Everything was fine until I turned the TV on and started making comparisons. This was the first in a long span of belly aching about how it was so unfair that we cant be like everyone else. Of course it took me until adulthood and becoming a father myself that I began to really appreciate that we hadnt been like everyone else. It took me a long time to realize that my mother and father showed me love in much different ways than what was being depicted on television, and in my friends homes. I had to figure out their subtlety and find their love buried in the way they turned a phrase, or in a glass of cool water left out on the counter for me after mowing the lawn. Hugs were rare but they meant something more when they happened. My mother and father were never affectionate around my sister and I, the one thing that happened without fail every single night was at some point in the middle of watching some TV show before bed, my father would crawl over to the couch and place his head on my mothers lap and get a massage. Every night. He never asked. He just crawled over and she went to work on getting whatever ache he had dealt with. No complaints, it was automatic. He worked hard for us, and she worked hard for him. She was like a football trainer getting her player ready to send back into the game. Its crazy what triggers our feelings later in life, but I can still remember exactly how I felt the first time I laid my head in Coles lap and she played with my hair for like 45 minutes and massaged my scalp and my neck. I melted right there on the couch. There was a little excited voice going off in my head screaming at me that THIS was the ultimate display of love and affection happening, and I didnt even have to ask her to do it! Prior to this occurring I never would have listed this act as some sign of ultimate love and affection. But according to my brain and my heart this one act made me fall so deeply in love with Cole that I can still remember just about every second of that first time she ran her fingers through my hair. The fact that she was a hair stylist and was taught how to make people melt in the shampoo bowl certainly helped :) This wasnt a one time thing, anytime we were laying around and I put my head in her lap, she did this. without asking. Spoiled. Rotten. That single nightly exchange between my mother and father became important to me. I didnt know this until I knew this. The children are watching.They see everything! And being so aware of this kind of thing, and knowing why it was important to me, and what it meant, what it represented to my memory, has made me so hyper sensitive to what goes on now in front of the children. Everything we do is laying the ground work for what they will look for in a partner. Will Tessa fall in love with some dude that loves to sneak up behind her, grab her boobs and yell: "hand-bra!" whenever she is washing a dish, or standing in front of a mirror? Ugh. No more hand-bra going on in this house. ****My mother was an ass slapper. Other kids got hugs and kisses, my mom smacked us on the ass. It was in the same way a coach slaps a player on the ass to spur him onto the field, that big "Way to GO!!" energy would go into each smack. She used the ass slap for everything. Feel better, smack. Put that down, smack. Go to bed, smack. Get to work, smack. I love you, smack. I noticed the other night after dinner, that when the children stripped off their clothes and threw them in the dirty clothes basket, and then turned to make their naked dash down the hall for bath time, that they both quickly covered their little hineys with their hands and started to run away giggling and looking back at me. I had been smacking them on the butt and saying "go get in that tub!" every night for so long, that the kids now expect it, anticipate it, its a game now, a thing. Oh my God. Im totally an ass slapper. This is what I do. ****I had to make a choice when I was older -- be bitter and angry that my mom and dad were different from everyone else, or find the good in the little things that they did and embrace them for who they are and what they passed on to me. We all have the same choice -- Let our experiences crush us, or build us. My parents were not perfect. I am going to bet money that nobody reading here had "perfect" parents, because there is no such thing as mistake free parenting. We as adults make the decision in our heads if our parents were perfect for us. Its later in life when enough of them comes pouring out of us that we truly feel their impact. We are our parents in so many ways. The one thing I had to figure out for myself, the one thing that was the hardest to do, was to find a way to love myself, (which I never really had done before). I realized that I couldnt love myself if I was going to hold onto ridiculous grudges and gripes about my childhood and my mom and dad. The second I let it go, was the first time in my life I felt like I deserved to be loved. I work at my relationship with my parents because it makes my relationship with Cole stronger. The children see everything!When we were driving to my parents house to have breakfast for Fathers Day I told Cole how as a kid, each time we got in the car to see my grandparents it was always this thing that we HAD to do. Nobody was happy to do it. Complaints about the length of the drive, how long we would stay, how boring it was, all of this was coming from the front seats of the car. My sister and I were busy in the back fighting over games and imaginary lines on the seat that were NOT to be crossed or else. But all that belly aching about how much of a drag visiting my grandparents was had a long lasting impact on how I felt about visiting my mom and dad later in life. It was always seen as a burden. Something that I HAD to do. I am always careful about how I speak of my parents and the time we spend with them in front of the kids-- because whatever conversations Cole and I are having in the front seat now about my mom and dad, are the conversations they will have later in life when they drive to see us. Respect.If I can teach them respect then I did my job.