Motherless by Choice: Cutting Ties with an Abusive Parent

The following is a beautifully written and very sad blog by Katie Naum. It was first published on her Archipelago blog, and later on The Huffington Post. It eerily encapsulates the reasoning behind my own separation from my father. I too have been told, “You’ll want to reconcile with him some day.” Sadly, I too doubt that day will ever come.

It’s been four years since I last spoke with my mother. I may never speak to her again.

There is no easy way to say, “I’m estranged from my mother.” It’s even harder to say, “I’ve cut my mother out of my life,” clarifying that you are the one who has severed the bond. Say it to anyone, friend or stranger, and a certain light you hadn’t even noticed fades from their eyes, every time. Smiles falter or grow forced. Mothers give so much to their children that a justification for estrangement must be staggering: some monstrous abuse that outweighs all the love and self-sacrifice inherent in parenting. Only someone selfish, heartless could cut off a mother who loved them — right?

When I was in high school, I slept most nights on the living room floor. I wanted to sleep in my bed, of course, but my mother had rules for us, rules we could not disobey without consequences. One rule was that she controlled who was allowed to enter which rooms, and when. For example, over time, the right to go upstairs — to enter our bedrooms for any reason, or to use the upstairs bathroom to bathe — became rarer and rarer. (Years earlier, my father had first been banished to the first floor, and then to the basement, before leaving our house altogether.) The spaces in which we were allowed to move slowly shrank.

As we entered our teens, home life got worse for my sister and me. Concerned, anonymous people began to place calls to social services. Each call meant disruption to our household, punctuated by unpredictable visits from a social worker named Sam, a tall, quietly friendly man with an unusually deep dimple in his chin. Into that dimple I poured all of my hatred and fear.

I don’t recall my mother ever saying that Sam, or those who had asked him to come, were wrong to worry about our welfare. Instead, her outbursts of gibbering rage focused on how hard she had it, how she worked like a n*gger every day, how the deck was stacked against her, and how we’d better not say anything to Sam that criticized her in the slightest. As flawed as she was, she said, she was our best shot for a happy life. “They’ll take you away and put you with some f*cking foster family who’ll leave you to rot,” she’d howl. One of her favored punishments was having us stand perfectly still in the middle of the kitchen floor for hours as she went about her day, bellowing at us like a wounded beast when her outrage bubbled over at having to load the washing machine or perform some other household chore. For me, she threw in an extra threat: “And no foster family is going to pay for you to go to college, so you can kiss that goodbye.”

Continue Reading at Huffington Post Women

Don’t Be Afraid When They Love You Imperfectly

by Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller

My Darling Child,

As I grow older, I have come to realize that love is a very rare and misunderstood thing. There are many people who will tell you that they love you who really don’t. Sometimes, such people are liars. Other times, they simply do not know what love is, or how to express it properly. There are also people, such as family members, who know that they’re supposed to love you, so they pretend that they do, but when you get in the way of their pride, selfishness, or desires, the true nature of their feelings is exposed.

I will always love you for as long as I am able, but even I – your parent – am an imperfect being. I may not always be around to tell you that you are loved. Someday, I may be too sick or weak to love you in the way that you deserve. Someday, I will die.

Do not be afraid when those you trust – those you love – love you imperfectly. Our hearts spiral towards entropy; friends lose touch, parents grow old, siblings quarrel, leaders betray, and husbands and wives fail one another continually.

When I was a child, my father did not love me. To some, that may seem like a shocking or unusual statement, but there are many, many fathers who do not love their children.

My father was abusive. He was addicted to his own anger and inflicting fear made him feel powerful and in control. In his private time, he collected pornography, and found secretive ways to leave it where I would find it. That was his way of controlling me. When my mother found porn saved on my computer, my father accused me of having unhealthy interests.

There are two kinds of love in this example; there is the false love of my father which was a warped facade, and there is the imperfect love of my mother, which was weak and compromising.

As much as she loved her child in her heart, my mother did not protect me from my father’s rage or perversion. Even when he hit me in front of her, or said obscene things, she did nothing. When I told her about violent, sexual, or emotional abuse, she did nothing. That is imperfect love; a love that is not strong enough to inspire courage, or deep enough to motivate action.

From a spiritual and emotional perspective, I was an orphan. Though I was young and naive, in a very dark and dangerous situation, I discovered hope and I clung to it.

I first realized that I was an orphan when I was 10 years old. That night, I stayed up late crying, and praying, and crying, and praying. I told God that the “stranger” in my house was not my real father, because he didn’t love me the way a father should. I asked God to be my real father, to be my daddy, to adopt me. I knew that if I were to love this “stranger” who pretended to love me, I would end up like so many other children taking drugs, committing suicide, or getting pregnant when I was 13.

I challenged God. I prayed, “You said, ‘Blessed are those who weep.’ Here I am God! I am weeping now.”

And God answered my prayer. After hours of crying, all in an instant, I was filled with a peace – filled with a knowing – that I was loved.

So, My Darling Child, do not be afraid when friends betray you, when loved ones hurt you, or even when you parents fail miserably in their love for you. There is a God – there is a Love – that is greater than all the hearts of the human race combined. He will never leave you or forsake you. He will never forget you or fail you. He is constant and true. He is your Daddy.

Do not let your heart rely too much on human love. At the same time, do not close your heart up to it. Understand that it is fleeting, it is imperfect, and it ebbs and flows. If you anchor your heart in it, it will eventually give way, and you will be set adrift. Anchor your heart in Jesus Christ, for He is your foundation, your solid ground, and your shelter amid the storm of life.