“If you've never been hated by your child, you've never been a parent.”-- Bette Davis
I guess I earned my parenting stripes yesterday. Too bad they are the kind of stripes that came from an emotional flogging.
Bug has told me loudly, emphatically, and rather often that he doesn't like me.
And he has broken my heart.
I never thought, in my entire parenting career, that anything could hurt so much. I could feel the break, could feel the blood spewing from my lacerated heart as I stared at my 3 1/2 year old son.
I couldn't believe it.
How could he say that to me? I mean, I could understand saying that to his father, but to me? We had shared a body, a blood supply, a life.
I wanted him so badly before I ever knew him.
I went through emotional and physical hell to bring him healthy and whole into this world.
After my miscarriage, he was my miracle, my reason to get out of bed every morning.
And he doesn't like me.
Intellectually, I understand he says it just for the reaction.
Emotionally, it hurts like hell. It's a near fatal wound every time he utters those words. Most days, I talk to him, or put him in the corner. I stand there, trying not to cry.
Yesterday, I just walked away.
It hurt too much to stand there and look at that little face, knowing that some small part of him meant it.
I lay in my bed, listening to my husband talking with Bug, explaining that Bug had hurt me. The child was remorseful, declaring that he loved me and like me and missed me.
But you can't take back the words.
Just like I can't take back all the times I said them to my own mother and a child. I always thoought it was because she was my mom. She was uncool, and strict, and not me.
She was my mother. Which made it okay to say those words to her. Hell, it made it a requirement.
But I've evidentally become her, only a lot less patient and a lot mouthier. But my heart is out for the world to see, and right now, its a bloody, stinking mess.
Because my first born baby doesn't like me.
And I'm slowly bleeding to death from the wound.
Inflicted by a pissed off three and a half year old.
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