Creeva's World 2.0 » Father

Going Digital and On Demand – Part 1 Pictures

Creeva — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 19:37:18 +0000

This post has multiple parts to it, so fair warning I’m guessing this one is going to be long. Lately I’ve been more and more annoyed at traditional hard copy media. It’s a pain in the butt to deal with and takes up way too much physical space (for those that know me you find that sentence greatly amusing).

Pictures

This started happening over the last year with photo albums. Photo albums are terrible. It means normally that one person has a copy of the image and you can’t share them. It is essentially technology of the last generation. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a believer in having prints, but the pictures themselves.

I’ve made it my mission to start getting the family photos and scanning them in. I’ve managed to get most of my father’s photos from the era he was with my mother. The ones I’m missing are any he has of the kids hanging on the walls in his house. My next run is going to be the pictures from his current family (so a good 15-16 years worth of pictures to go).

My grandmother on the other hand has been very tightfisted with her photos. I can understand her being protective, but so far I’ve managed to get 59 photos out of her to scan (out of literally over a 1000-2000). I have managed to scan my photo album, and more recently used the digital SLR and took pictures of my scrap book from high school. So both of these can be tucked away in boxes that I don’t need to look at and take up physical space in my house.

All the photos I have are now uploaded to Flickr. You can also read about my photo sharing issue with my mother over here.

Continued tomorrow in part 2

Happy Valentines and Happy Birthday Dad

Creeva — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 14:31:31 +0000

The picture is going with “love is with your family” motif. That’s my father with my brother and myself (I don’t think he is really asleep). Happy birthday dad. Happy Valentine’s day to everyone else.

My First Job

Creeva — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 15:04:18 +0000

You would think from the image I chose for the header that I was doing something cool with the Nintendo Entertainment System. This unfortunately is not the case. Where the Nintendo came into play was that it was the object of my desire. I desperately wanted an NES. This was sometime around seventh or eighth grade so the years would have 1988 -1989 and the Nintendo was in full swing, you can see one of the commercials below.

Now my father didn’t believe in video games. About five years earlier he got us a Commodore Vic-20, this is all fine and dandy – my parents fell for the whole “give you kid a computer and he’ll be computer literate for life” crap that they were handing out in the eighties. A computer was meant for learning and yes there were a few games we had for it, but it was meant to learn something on. I learned I never wanted to be a programmer, that’s what I learned. I could go to my neighbors and play the Atari 2600 or play Ultima on his Mac Classic – but me – I was going to have the Vic-20 and like it because I wasn’t getting anything else.

Picture from here

We moved to Vermilion the summer before my seventh grade year. I’m sure I started begging for a NES around that time if not earlier. I’m sure the logic explained to me was that if I wanted a Nintendo I was going to have to earn it. This meant getting a job. I don’t know about your area but for Vermilion, OH there wasn’t much call in the work force for 12-13 year old kids. The one thing that did open up was the ability to get a paper route. The area where we lived in Elyria was a bit too rough for a 11-12 year old to deliver papers, but Vermilion was a quiet small town where such things almost seem nostalgic.

Picture from here (not me)

Another boy was giving up his paper route that was a year younger then me (should have been a sign) and did a week long transition with me so that I could learn the route. By the end of the week I learned the route, I had my little punch card slip ring for billing, I had a carrier bag, and I also had baskets on the back of my bicycle to carry newspapers in. I would try to say it was pimp, but I can’t even type that with a straight face. I rode my bike to school and I got mocked by how stupid it looked. Of course being a geek on the nth degree anyways there is always other things to get picked on then a bike, so I struggled through it. I was a newspaper boy for the Lorain Morning Journal.

You may say that I learned character and fiscal responsibility because of that job. You would also be wrong. I hated that job with a passion. I struggled for the first couple months to get through it. The NES was the apple of my eye and I was going to save the 99.99 (plus tax) for the Action System which included Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt (and the pimp NES Zapper). I was impatient to get it, so impatient that I gave my mother the money to get it while I was at school. You would think this being the first large purchase of my life I would have wanted to go and hand over the money and buy the system myself, nope I just wanted the damn thing home.

I get home, my mother isn’t there. I go do my paper route and get back home, my mother isn’t there. I sit in the grass on the front yard and wait. Eventually my mother pulls up in that blue dodge caravan (minivan) we had. She had done other shopping and had a ton of bags. Which one was my Nintendo?????

My mother stopped me and said she talked to the sales person who told her the Sega Master System was the better system to buy since it was faster and supported more colors. WTF? I had worked my butt off in a job hated to have my mother go out and buy me a Sega Master Sytem. No one owned a Sega Master System, only people with no friends owned a Sega Master System. I was not going to own a Sega Master System. I told her with certainty that she had no right to spend the money I earned to buy a Sega Master System. We were going to get back in the car right then, go to the store and exchange it for a Nintendo Entertainment System.

My mother then started laughing. Out of the back of the van she pulled out a Nintendo Action Set. You do not mess with a pre-teen in that way – ever. She said she was going to go upstairs and use the restroom, after which she would come down and help me hook it up to the TV. I think by the time she flushed the toilet I was already on World 1-2 of Super Mario Bros. I had hooked up the Vic-20 so many times that I knew how to do it in my sleep. The NES was more of the same.

At this point I did not want to do the paper route any more, but my grandfather thought it was good for me so I kept plodding along. I delivered papers a 3 AM Christmas morning wasn’t that quite the thrill, not. I would definitely preferred to have been sleeping. More and more of my customers were moving to prepaid accounts, which cut into my money. You would think it wouldn’t have effected my bottom line, but I lost out on tip money from these customers – and to this day I believe the Journal used some creative account billing to the paper boys. My grandfather thought I was just doing it wrong, but I was let off the hook after about a year.

Me and my grandparents a year or so after the paper route.

My brother took over the paper route with the help of my grandfather and my mother in delivering the newspapers. Now I don’t know about you but if someone would have driven me on the route every day, I may have been more likely to actually like the job. He is five and half years younger then me, so they were not going to let him go off alone to do it. The funniest thing was after about a year they started loosing money also and it became not financially viable for them either. I guess it wasn’t just me.

You would think that this would end my families relationship with the Journal after so many bad experiences, it didn’t. For the last few years my sister (now 22) has a motor route in Vermilion delivering papers. I guess she makes really good money at it. It would seem the third time is a charm. I don’t think my brother or my sister ever hated it as much as I did. I did get my NES though.

Below is a link to Google Maps that shows the actual route location of my paper route.

View Larger Map

Looking Back At A Month of Mom

Creeva — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 15:49:05 +0000

I never truly finished my “Month With Mom Series“, I was working on the novel for NANOWRIMO, and then came back and ran out of steam to finish the blog article series. It’s take me over a month, but I wanted to address a couple comments. The first came from my youngest sister who still lives with my mother and step-father:

Ok well im just going to say what I feel . About the part 2 and part 3 , I feel she should of never ever took him back . He is not a father and doesnt act like one. He does not bother talking to us all the time except for my yonger brother usually. And is mean to the pets . I dont even like him living in the house . And seems like he doenst even try at all . But I still dont get what she see’s in him. When he was in Columbus it was better without him . But thats all im gonna say .

She seems to have some of the same feeling that I do on the issue, at least when it comes to how my mother dealt with my step-father during their separation and the reconciliation. So this is similar feelings coming form someone that is thirty-two and someone that lives in that household and is thirteen. This is also her father, it might be my step-father, but it is her father and this is the treatment she feels that she gets. Don’t forget that I had another sister pipe in on her feelings. My own father has read my series, but thought it would be best to not leave public comments, I guess in some ways he is a wise man.

This next comment was left by Groovymarlin who runs her own blog, but I knew through playing SWG with. This comment was left on part 20 of the series (also the final part I finished).

I’ve been reading these all along and I have to say they’re fascinating, though maybe not for the reasons that you think. I’ll just summarize my thoughts so far:

1. Your mom is obviously a very shallow person. It also sounds like she was a little too selfish and self-centered to be a very good mom.

2. On the other hand, you were all fed, clothed, received medical care, etc., etc, growing up yes? My point being – she may not be a very good mom, but there are much WORSE moms.

3. A lot of your complaints about her sound pretty nit-picky to a third party. I’m sure that to you, just about everything she does is annoying and obnoxious and irritating. But to an outsider, a lot of the things she does sound like…things that middle-aged women do. However…

4. Your opinion and view of her has obviously been colored by the truly negative things she HAS done in the past, and therefore every one of her transgressions is magnified to you.

5. Your mom seems to have a bad habit of using people, but remember: people allow themselves to be used. Your grandparents in particular seem to have no problem allowing her to manipulate them. Is it right? No. Are they adults, and capable of deciding for themselves whether to allow this? Yes (at least as far as we know – if at some point due to age or health they become unable to make these decisions on their own, then there would be a real problem).

I think in general you’re handling the mom situation the right way, which is to just let her do her own thing, as long as it’s not hurting you or your own family. I feel pretty bad about some of the things she said about, to, and in front of your sister. That passive-aggressive shit is not cool, not from anyone, and especially not from a mother. But what can you do about that, other than give your sister your emotional support and help her do her own thing as well? Nothing.

People suck, don’t they?

Ever since I read this comment I thought it would be a good blog post on it’s own for a reply instead of loosing it in the noise of comments that no one would ever read, just like my sister’s comment above. Though she says I’m handling this the right way and can see where I am coming from I wanted to address a couple of the points.

Point number two stated because we were clothed, fed, and had medical care that she couldn’t have been a terrible mom, there are crack addict mothers that can do the same. When I was 16 I had a job where I pulled a muscle in my chest. It kept going for a few days where I didn’t tell anyone that I was having trouble breathing. Everytime I took a deep breath it physically hurt ot breath. Not to the point where I couldn’t breath, but to the point where I thought something was wrong with my heart since it was in that vincinity. Like eveyr male I ignored it as long as possible and finally mentioned to my mother.

My mother thought I was making it up and yelled at me for making her take me to the doctor. Stating she didn’t have the money for it (my parents were divorced by then). I think my grandparents ending up paying for it. It turned out I didn’t have heart problems like i was afraid, but a pulled chest muscle like I said. I had been hyper-ventilating for days, which means taking breaths faster and more shallow then you normally would. I hadn;t noticed since it seems we are taught when you are hyperventilating you are gasping for air. I was proscribed codeine for the pain, every once in awhile to this day the problem will creep back for a week or two and I just deal with it since pain medication is the only thing they can proscribe. My siblings have had similar doctor experiences where my mother only reluctantly took them after we plead the case to my grandparents since my mom thought it was some sort of attention plea.

I never asked for medical attention from my mother. Besides getting teeth pulled for braces the last major medical thing tha tI had done was in elementary school when I got chronic ear aches. So this wasn’t a case of my mother always dragging me ot the doctor and me haivng nothing wrong with me, it was serious to me, I was in tears fearing the worst about my condition and thinking it was my heart.

A similar issue goes with the getting fed thing, my mother has always chosen not work. Because of this she happily took advantage of the free lunch program for the local schools. I can’t say that my sibling are still on it, yet for two years of my high school I was. It seemed to her better to get her kids free lunches then to get a job. She has worked the welfare system so she could go on buying things from the home shopping network and Longaberger baskets, but send her children into the free lunch program. that is selfish and naive, and if she had been cutting back on other things maybe I would have more sympathy and understanding.

So did she keep clothed, fed, and medical care – only when it suited her, she didn’t have pay, it didn’t effect other people’s appearance of her, or she was forced. I still wonder what school officials thought about me wearing hundred dollar tennis shoes (since she wanted us to look our best) while getting free lunchs.

Number three stated I was pointing out alot of nit picky things – I mentioned earlier that alot fo these were small things, things that eventually broke me and caused me to cut off all communication with her. I don’t deny some of hte things were small, but it is also the small things that shape us. The big things we overcome; my mother didn’t beat me, she was the person that cared about herself first and her children second.

Number four stated that I magnify the issues and focus them on myself. I was the whipping boy, after me it the third in line, then the fourth (my brother second in line didn’t get the whipping boy treatment), now it’s my sister that’s fifth in line. I can say what I felt was slights to me and things that I have a right to complain about. If one day my siblings decide to tell their own stories alot of similarities will line up, since this is what they tell me “off the record”. Eventually maybe I’ll get some of them to talk about their own experiences more.

I’m also however not going to deny that I’m writing about the things she did that annoyed me or set me off. These feelings will seem stronger to me then outside forces. Some of it is truly petty, but I needed material to write and I did leave some bigger things off the record for the moment, writing this piece reminded me of the doctor’s issue I mentioned. I’m not saying I’m done with this series, but for the moment I’m done writing about it. I may do some more pieces in the future, but it will be about the larger things she did when I have the time, energy, and motivation to write about them.

If your interested here are the links to the stories so far:

Catching Up On Comments and Other House Cleaning

Creeva — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 16:18:20 +0000

I’m sure some of you have figured with everything going I’ve been lax at getting more stuff up. Well a new year is coming soon and I’m hoping ot be back on track of at least getting three worth while posts out a day. I’m also hoping to get a couple of new blogs off the ground (aren’t I always saying that?). I also have at least two podcasts that I put off because of time that I need to go chase down the interested and plan things out. This next year is exciting and I have alot of goals. There is some clean up I need to finish before this year is out.

1. I need to get the rest of the photos from my father to get scanned. The one above is one from the start of that set. Since I didn’t know how to find a topic photo for this random post, I thought that would do. Yes that is me. You might think that is make up but I really had black smudges like that on my face for most my life (j/k).

2. I have a few comments that I need to address. Two deal with my month of mother that I never finished. It would almost seem that one of the comments stopped me from going on, that isn’t the case. I had caught up on my writing to that day ( I wrote most of it weeks in advance) – I didn’t have the steam to get going anymore – I do have one or two left in me – so maybe tonight I’ll rock those out.

3. A schedule and a focus for my future writing – I want to get focused and get things going in a well rounded and regulary scheduled fashion.

Look forward to more coming very soon

Money Isn’t Everything

Creeva — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 15:49:50 +0000

Picture from here

Money isn’t everything. We treat it like is though. Some people can’t understand when I say I don’t necessarily want more though. I of course do want more money, but at the same time I don’t. What I truly want is more freedom, more time, and more enjoyment from what I do.

I’ve had a couple jobs that I enjoyed more then anything else. The first was working at a small PC shop. It was my first break into the IT industry, in which I’ve done well climbing the ladder. I interacted with people, I was a problem solver. I was one of hte go to people that could fix almost anything. I’m the type of guy that you throw problems at and I’ll swat them away like annoying insects. It was my forte, the only thing I was really lacking at the time was high end networking. I could make computers talk, but as I learned in my next favorite job I truly knew nothing.

The next job I can say now that I truly loved was working at Symantec’s enterprise firewall support call center. Like the small PC shop after a year or so I came into my own and had my own groove. After three years being on the team I had closed more tickets then anyone else in level one and level two support (I left being the team lead). I also held the record for the most calls handled in one day. The irony about having the most tickets closed is that 30-40% of the time I didn’t even open a ticket for the call. Our call center software was so slow that it took 5-7 minutes to actually open and write up a ticket. I made a deal with my managers (I’m sure some higher ups wouldn’t be happy) – that if I could handle the call in under five minutes and be almost positive that they wouldn’t be calling in on the same issue that I could just skip the ticket process. So for volume, by the time I left I handled far above and beyond what everyone else had ever handled. Symantec has since dicontinued the product, it lasted about another year and half after I migrated into consulting that it went kaput. I wonder if anyone caught up to me in the call record or number of handled cases before it was gone.

This isn’t about bragging rights, I’m sure it sounds like it though. What did both of these jobs have in common though? They were both hectic chicken running with it’s head cut off problem squashing affairs. I work best where I have a new issue every fifteen minutes or a nagging issue that would keep me up at night trying to solve. As you move up the ladder you loose that. You are working on long and engaging projects where the problem takes five minutes to engineer, yet in turn takes six months to implement. I’m still good at what I do, but it’s not exactly the best fit for my skill set. This in turn leads me into a spiral or more money versus more enjoyment.

Me and my Grandfather (Not a Recent Picture)

I had a conversation with my grandfather a few weeks ago, he told me how lucky it was that I had a job in today’s economy (I am), and that it would be difficult to move up in the area I lived. I started to explain to him that I could more then likely finding a better paying job, but it may not be as stable in the long term as my current one. I also said for the right job I would work for less then I currently do. Somehow in his mind that didn’t compute. In an abstraction of what he said, essentially he thought climbing the ladder should be what is important. I told him with the right job, I would take a 20% pay reduction. Granted that wasn’t my end goal, but for the right job in the right environment I would take my family down to the bare level where we could maintain everything. Why? I would be happier.

We are taught early that you need to learn so you can better then”random example”. So you can go to college and maintain that edge and not be a janitor. So you can get the huge house and be better then your neighbors. If you neighbor buys a Lexus you are taught that you should buy a BMW. It’s a mad dash to prove that your better then everyone else. To prove that capitalism runs the world. If we are not working to that we are either considered un-American, stupid, or lazy. Granted I am a bit lazy, but I can work. I was born July 4, 1976 so I don’t consider myself un-American (I’m a Constitutionalist). I’m not stupid either.

I think this mindset first hit my family when I wanted to go to college for music performance and creative writing. They always said I wouldn’t make any money with that. I was seventeen and brave enough to say that if I was happy I could be living on a street corner in a box as long I was writing and playing music. They never understood that. If I didn’t have my wife, and a love for electronics (I didn’t have that love back then), I could probably still do it. My life hasn’t greatly changed at the core in the last decade though when I was first with my wife. We live essentially the same way, we have a few nicer things, a house, a car payment – but our basic lives are still the same. I’d say the greatest difference is that we can not stand hamburger helper anymore. I still eat the occasional cheap ass boil it ramen, and she enjoys Kraft Macaroni and Cheese still.

Too many people in this world work for money. Money is needed to survive (I have a friend that would argue that), but at the same time it shouldn’t be your singular goal. When I was younger I had a certain goal financially I wanted to make, I did through different means. I’m not at that level right now (I have no stock options to sell anymore), but it didn’t make it me any happier. These days I write more, I play in two bands, I’m learning new instruments, and I have a baby that should arrive in the next couple months. I’m juggling the things that make me happy with work, what if I could be blissful with my job too? Some days I hate my job, most the time I’m just meh. If I could get the hair pulling problem solving hectic life going again it would be great (must be my undiagnosed ADD). If I could do it at the same pay level or better, that would be awesome.

I really need to get some more recent pictures of myself

Chain Mail I Received: New Pledge of Allegiance

Creeva — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 19:30:14 +0000

Picture from here

It seems through some of my affiliation that I am attached to that people feel the need to forward me chain letters. Even if it was something I believed in, I wouldn’t want a chain letter. I would prefer to read your own thoughts. It seems someone sends me mails with a religious bent to them. Some of them rail against the separation of church and state, something that even as a christian I hold very dear (for some reason most Christians don’t want it separated since they naively believe for all eternity they will be the dominant religion). I’m more pragmatic. I don’t think the dogmatic moral laws of each different little christian sect should be represented. I’ve had my immediate say. Let’s look at the first chain letter in this new series.

Picture from here

A 15 yr. Old SCHOOL KID IN ARIZONA:

New Pledge of Allegiance (TOTALLY AWESOME) !

Since the Pledge of Allegiance
And
The Lord’s Prayer
Are not allowed in most
Public schools anymore
Because the word ‘God’ is mentioned….
A kid in Arizona
Wrote the attached

NEW School prayer :

Now I sit me down in school
Where praying is against the rule
For this great nation under God
Finds mention of Him very odd.

If Scripture now the class recites,
It violates the Bill of Rights.
And anytime my head I bow
Becomes a Federal matter now.

Our hair can be purple, orange or green,
That’s no offense; it’s a freedom scene.
The law is specific, the law is precise.
Prayers spoken aloud are a serious vice.

For praying in a public hall
Might offend someone with no faith at all.
In silence alone we must meditate,
God’s name is prohibited by the state.

We’re allowed to cuss and dress like freaks,
And pierce our noses, tongues and cheeks..
They’ve outlawed guns, but FIRST the Bible.
To quote the Good Book makes me liable.

We can elect a pregnant Senior Queen,
And the ‘unwed daddy,’ our Senior King.
It’s ‘inappropriate’ to teach right from wrong,
We’re taught that such ‘judgments’ do not belong.

We can get our condoms and birth controls,
Study witchcraft, vampires and totem poles.
But the Ten Commandments are not allowed,
No word of God must reach this crowd.

It’s scary here I must confess,
When chaos reigns the school’s a mess..
So, Lord, this silent plea I make:
Should I be shot; My soul please take!

Amen

If you aren’t ashamed to do this,
Please pass this on.
Jesus said,
‘If you are ashamed of me,
I will be ashamed of you before my Father.’

Not ashamed. Pass this on..

Let’s go through this section by section:

Now I sit me down in school
Where praying is against the rule
For this great nation under God
Finds mention of Him very odd.

Well ironically we still have in god we trust on our money, what people don’t realize is that “God” on your money has been found legally to be an abstraction and doesn’t necessarily refer to a Christian Diety. Religious freedom was one of hte purposes of this country. Once you start choosing an officially sanctioned govenerment religion, or teach the tenets of said religion you undermine the purpose that we were taught in school on why the first settlers came here. (Yes I know that story is not quite as simplistic or accurate as we were taught).

If Scripture now the class recites,
It violates the Bill of Rights.
And anytime my head I bow
Becomes a Federal matter now.

Ironically I don’t think we have thought police anywhere – like everything else it’s a don’t ask don’t tell world anymore. If your flaunting anything that’s against school rules however you will be punished. There have been exteremly few federal cases over this so I’m not quite sure it would really be a federal matter.

Our hair can be purple, orange or green,
That’s no offense; it’s a freedom scene.
The law is specific, the law is precise.
Prayers spoken aloud are a serious vice.

What’s wrong with different colored hairs at all? Mine has been natural. Mine has been jet black. Mine has been purple. Mine has been blue. There is nothing wrong with this. My sister however almost got expelled from school because she dyed her hair bright red (not natural red). I almost went and fought this at the school board, but she backed down (I’m sure with my mother’s coaching of not wanting to look bad to the neighbors). We’ve lost the freedom of personal expression in schools and it’s not just prayers. Besides if you really need to pray out loud I find you creepy. Your like the guy at the video game store who picks up every title and reads the description out loud since they seem to lack any inner monologue.

For praying in a public hall
Might offend someone with no faith at all.
In silence alone we must meditate,
God’s name is prohibited by the state.

Um, yes please be silent. I pray, but I find you audible prayers creepy. “Dear God please make my genital warts go away” – come on that would just be extremely creepy. That’s the kind of thing I know some people pray for. We want to pretend that they are all praying that the sick get better or the orphanage finds a savior donor so it can stay open. It isn’t.

We’re allowed to cuss and dress like freaks,
And pierce our noses, tongues and cheeks..
They’ve outlawed guns, but FIRST the Bible.
To quote the Good Book makes me liable.

I’m fairly sure that guns were outlawed in most schools before the bible. Granted I know some rural schools were teh kids could check in their gun when they arrive because they were hunting before school. Do we really have to point out on how many levels that is wrong. We’ll stick with just the hygiene issues.

We can elect a pregnant Senior Queen,
And the ‘unwed daddy,’ our Senior King.
It’s ‘inappropriate’ to teach right from wrong,
We’re taught that such ‘judgments’ do not belong.

I don’t see anything wrong with this – I have great grandparents that were probably married younger then someone who is the prom king or queen. You can always judge someone, but when you have a holier then thou attitude it just doesn’t fly.

We can get our condoms and birth controls,
Study witchcraft, vampires and totem poles.
But the Ten Commandments are not allowed,
No word of God must reach this crowd.

Hmmmm, you complain about pregnant senior queens and unwed fathers, but rail against birth control – I won’t point out the irony.

It’s scary here I must confess,
When chaos reigns the school’s a mess..
So, Lord, this silent plea I make:
Should I be shot; My soul please take!

I’ve gone to a private school and I’ve gone to a public school – let me tell you the Christian schools still have the same issues with the ten commandments as part of the curriculum as public schools have without.

I’m not alone – someone else railed against this with their own poem – read it here.

A Month With Mom – Part 20 – I Want It, So You Can’t Have It

Creeva — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 16:30:37 +0000

My sister’s email I published yesterday has my stories out of whack now. I was originally going to relate the story of my mother and the cedar chest, but I already did that. If you missed it, here it is:

I will now give you an example I have full memory and first hand knowledge of. It was at a family holiday dinner a few years ago at my grandparents and somehow the morbid subject of what we would like if my grandparents passed on. I stated I would only want one thing, a cedar chest crafted by my grandmother’s cousin. My grandmother chimed in that it was going to be given to her cousins family, well my grandmother has been saying that my whole life, so for thirty years it’s still been sitting there. My mother then said I couldn’t have it because she wanted it. Selfish? Well let’s continue this story.
A few minutes later my mother asked me why I wanted the chest because she thought it was ugly and tacky. I said it was something that would always remind me of my grandparents, their house, and the memories. To me the chest is kind of like a symbol of my grandparents. This prompted me though to ask why did she want it if it was ugly? Her answer? She said she wanted it because I said I wanted it. So I was shocked and called her selfish, I think that was my annual fight that year and I left. It was petty, you would think as adamant as she was when she said she wanted it, that somehow I knew there was a secret stash of money tucked away in it. Nope, she is just worried about someone else getting something she can’t. What a great mother.

I’ll get re-organized through my drafts and getting something new up tomorrow. Even writing about her is aggravating and putting me all out of sorts.

A Month With Mom – Part 18 – My Mother Issues

Creeva — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 16:29:47 +0000

Day late…

If you haven’t caught on to this series yet I have mother issues. Because I have my mother issues I need to sit down and logically recognize what they actually do to me. Things my mother has made me.

Growing up I was extremely self conscious of everything, how I looked, who had what, etc… What has happened as an adult is that I just don’t care. I don’t care what you have. I want what I want for my own reasons. As I’m getting older I can care less what society thinks about me, so essentially I’ve become the polar opposite of my mother. Though Xie will tell me that isn’t always the case.

Because of growing up in my household I learned to thrive in chaos. This is great in some of things I do since I can make order out of chaos (well at the same time creating more chaos around the thing I made in order). Unfortunately for those around me this isn’t always a conducive environment for those that deal with me.

I get my anger from my father, and I’ve spent many years getting that in check and controlling. It’s something I have to deal with. I have learned however people like my mother are the ones that are most likely to set me off at a moments notice. This is why I didn’t marry a girl like dear old mom. My father after the divorce seems to have his anger issues in check, can we say common denominator?

I base(d) alot of what I know about relationships from my parents and their interaction. When things aren’t going well in my own relationships I’m completely oblivious since things aren’t explosive like my parent’s relationship was. While our child isn’t born yet we don’t know truly who the enabler and the disciplinarian will be. I’m pegged for the enabler, and that’s not necessary a good thing. If I get that from anyone it’s going to be my mother. I just need to make sure my son doesn’t become a spoiled brat.

Frustration at stupidity. The exasperation I get over comments that are idiotic, that comes completely from my mother. I have mentioned her belief that ninja humanoid turtles were possible. I used to do all of her proof reading for her college homework when I was in high school, and I was responsible for the rewrites. When I was about fourteen she said she was smarter then me. What she may have meant to said was wiser, though I don’t think that was the case, since if she was wiser or smarter she would have said the word wiser. Also for anyone wishing to defend her on that one, she still says she is smarter (Oprah must have told her she was). I have a standing offer to pay for an IQ test so we can settle this once and for all, if she is write (highly unlikely) I may just kill myself since it will be proof that intelligence means nothing. On a side note recently I was just talking about sitting for the Mensa exam. I don’t know if I’m Mensa smart, I may not be, but I’m confident enough to actually sit for the test.

The last thing is I get insane over little requests people ask of me. I better be in the right frame of mind because I can go ballistic if it’s something they can do for themselves. I’ll give you the story I use to describe this whenever I talk to someone about her. When I was in high school I told my mother I was going to be taking a bath (yes I’m a boy and I like baths get over it). She acknowledged me and said she was going ot cook dinner. At this point everything is fine and dandy. About 10 minutes later I’m in the middle of reading a book and my mother starts screamiming my name. Now this isn’t a your in trouble name scream, nor was it a where are you at name scream. What it sounded like was the “OMG THE HOUSE IS ON FIRE” scream. I threw on a towel and rush down the stairs.

Well the emergency? My mother needed a wash cloth to do dishes . Her answer about me being in the bath? “I forgot”. In ten minutes she forgot what she had been told and acknowledged (and I’m sure she heard the bath water run) and put all of that aside for her immediate need of a wash cloth. To make matters worse, she thought I was down in my room. Now our family was a plit level. The kitchen on the main floor, the bathroom on the second floor, and my bedroom on the lower floor. In theory give or take ten feet I would have had to expend the same amount of energy to come from my room or the bathroom to come to the kitchen. She would have expended half the energy (minus the energy to start yelling) to go down to the second floor and get it herself. It was absolute pure laziness. I pointed it out to her, and she didn’t care. She wasn’t old or invalid, she was healthy and approxiamately the same age as I am now. The worst part, I was dripping wet, freezing, and I still had to get the washcloth.

I was a sucker and should have said no, but I was a mama’s boy. That story though is an example of many many things that are quite similar. Because of her necessity or decorating the house for the holidays, I now loath decorating for the holidays/ I have never had a christmas tree in my house, that may change next year with the kid on the way. Compared to my mother’s house and her record breaking three christmas trees she did one year, my house will be quite sparse.

My mother likes to tell people how things are to be decorated and have everyone else do the work. After the divorce I became the man of the house. I learned to loath the holidays. When your mother is healthy you shouldn’t be fifteen and being Santa Claus setting up the tree late at night for your siblings, but yet I was. I love the holidays, I just hat emy mothers version of them. These days though i’m preferring Halloween over Christmas, black and gory for the win.

Ok I’m stopping now otherwise this will become the post that will never end.

A Month With Mom – Part 19 – My Sisters View

Creeva — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 08:29:45 +0000

A while back I received the following email from my sister (It’s been mildly edited to protect names and some grammar):

So I just read your blog..

I must add something.. and you make me realize mom doesn’t ever say anything nice about me.. and I’m not writing this to bitch about her either but its true. I went out to eat with her, our sisters, and our youngest brother the other day and she told our youngest she couldn’t get any peircings because “no preppy girls have them” and how they look like trash.
okay, well she was refering to me

Second.

I told summer she should really think about going to EHOVE (the local vocational school – creeva). Mom goes EHOVE is for people that don’t do good in school and our youngest sister doesn’t want to be apart of that (the sister writing this went to EHOVE – creeva). Okay.. diss to me again, which i said something.

Third.. mom asks me if i went to Trip Ohio in 8th grade cus our youngest sister will be going next year. I say, no because she didn’t have the money for me to go so I couldn’t. I told our youngest sister that at the dinner table and mom denied all of that and said i was lieing. Right.. my older sister said the same thing thats why we both didn’t go.

THEN..

mom tells me to shut up, then our youngest brother makes a comment to our youngest sister..

“You know why mom is mad at you? Because you act like [sister writing this email] that’s why she hates you..”

So i wonder what she tells our youngest brother, she hates me?

Nice.

I stormed out of there and left.

Obviously I have replaced my sibling’s names with their rank and order. We don’t refer to our youngest sister as our youngest sister (who by the way is two years older then my younger brother). I just don’t want to be the reason their name shows up in a google search. I did think it was important to show that my views on my mother are not mine alone. I did receive permission from my sister to use this email, so there is no surprises.

A Month With Mom – Part 17 – Dating A Girl Just Like Mom

Creeva — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 21:29:00 +0000

This one is a day late……

A few months ago I wrote about the girl that was my longest relationship before my wife. Well this girl was a lot like my mother. She was very bossy and wanted things a certain way. She cared about the appearance of things and not the reality. I don’t want to hash everything I wrote in the other post here again, so I won’t. Read the link if you want ot hear more about her.

On the other hand, during that whole on again off again relationship, I managed to essentially date and live with a girl just like mom. It was the relationship from hell, and I’m sure part of me deserved it. The best thing is after the relationship was over and I was with my future wife I saw how much that girl was like my mother. It also made me realize how much I’m like my father. So in turn I realized how much it was never going to work out.

Maybe my anger towards my ex bleeds over to the anger I have my mother (or vice versa). Who knows.

This wasn’t meant to be a long post, but more of one stating that I did not marry a girl just like mom. I just dated one.

A Month With Mom – Part 16 – Dealing With The Ex

Creeva — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 18:29:02 +0000

Sorry – this one is a couple days late.

My parents don’t get along. I mean really don’t get along at all. I’m not sure I can stress this enough. My father always seemed to be doing what he did in the best interest of the children. My mother on the other hand was in a money grab and used leverage. This was nothing out of the norm from before the divorce however.

From about age seven until age fifteen, I was keenly aware that my parents did not have a good marriage. I remember telling my friends that my parents were going through a divorce. Ironically, they managed to keep going and going (along the way they also had two more kids). My parents were a mismatch from the beginning, and if I had not entered the picture they might not have gotten together. They did and now for some historical information.

My father attempted to be the disciplinary or the family, my mother was the enabler. She was very very much the enabler. If my father tried to set something down (this is looking back mind you), my mother would take a position just to be the opposite of him. Of course if my mother wanted to agree with him, I could just bring out that everyone was doing something, this would normally allow me to gain her consent.

Now some of this I remember and some of this is stories passed down, I’m going to try to remove the bias and just give you some examples:

When we were living in Elyria, we didn’t make a ton of money. Sometimes we were scraping by month to month. It something that happens to a lot of families, and even as an adult I still find myself doing that most the time. One month we had twenty dollars left in the bank account. My father was counting on this money to provide lunch meat for himself for work. My mother on the other side had other plans. Knowing full well how much money was in the bank she went out and bought wash clothes, effectively draining the bank account.

My mother was never happy with what she had. My father was constantly remodeling to her tastes. He learned a lot of things about working on a house, so I guess you could say that’s a good thing. I however remember the house always being in the state of flux as some project or another was constantly being performed. Of course now as an adult I leverage my father for knowledge he gained from that experience, but my wife can’t live in that sort of atmosphere. So that tidbit is something to take for taste.

During the early nineties my mother decided she wanted her own money. That’s a good thing. She decided she was going ot make dolls and enlisted my father and my grandmother on her venture. She made enough to purchase a living room set after hours and hours of labor and sewing on all three of them. I remember I did quite a bit of stuffing myself, but I don’t believe I did much else. Now you would think that this is a good example of the family working together. However, my mother didn’t seem to understand the concept of “cost of manufacturing”. She believed that the whole thing was pure profit and just poo poo’ed all the money that it cost to create the dolls before sales. Thinking back I hope my father set the profit margin, since my mom would have probably sold them for a loss and then went “Golly, look at all the money I have from sales”.

Before moving on to the post divorce era I’m going to relate one last story. There was a movie I wanted to see (I was 15) – it was “People Under the Stairs” and I wanted ot go with a friend. My father said no, it was an R rated movie and he didn’t want me to go. My mother snuck money to me and dropped me off to see the movie. She was in full enabler mode. Later when my father found out the fight between them was explosive, don’t mix two volatile chemicals together. I have my own father issues I may write about another time, but this month is about mom.

After the divorce my father and I didn’t talk for a few years. We talked lightly after awhile, but it didn’t start getting regular until I was traveling for consulting. This led to a whole new ball game in dealing with them. I didn’t want to accidently pass information from one side to another, but at the same time I had to make my feelings known. I would get my fahter to talk about things my mother had told me – indirectly inquiring. I also did the same thing on the reverse.

The problem is I normally sided with my father’s point of view. I was this go between, trying to maintain peace on each side of the family. When I first moved into my house i was in the middle of everyone, so my house was going to be the holiday get together place. A Switzerland where neither side could fight. Well that didn’t last long before i stopped talking ot my mother.

The most interesting thing was the Thanksgiving when we first moved back to Ohio. On my father’s side all of his siblings still get together the weekend after Thanksgiving to have a family meal. My brother lives next door to my father. My mother was staying at my Brother’s house that day……

Somehow, in some wierd mix up of the galaxy, my mother invited herself over to my father’s house. (I’ve mentioned that they do not get along at all). Her excuse was to see all of my aunt’s and uncles who could care less about her. The rest of the family completely agrees that she was there only to see the house and see how my father was doing. I don’t know how she managed ot get the nerve, but I wouldn’t enter the den of a place where I know I’m not wanted.

But maybe she just wanted to see if my father’s curtains made her look fat……..

A Month With Mom – Part 15 – If You Have It I’m Entitled Also

Creeva — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 16:28:03 +0000

At one point in this whole debacle where I stopped talking to my mom, Xie thought she would try to mend things. She dropped me off at burger king to eat and went over to my mothers to talk (this is all second hand mind compared to most things I’ve written). Xie sat her down and told her she was going to push her children away one by one if she continued down the path she was going. That my mother had to pick herself up, get a job and move forward being an example (I’m sure Xie will comment on this story to fill in more details).

The selfish thing my mom said to my wife? “You don’t have to have a job why should I?”

Now because this is second hand I normally wouldn’t have included this, but I wanted to point out Xie’s effort. This wasn’t the first time my mother had said this. There are a lot of answers to this.

1. Xie has a supportive husband that hadn’t left her once and possibly will again
2. Xie spends her free time learning and expanding herself – my mothers expansion comes from Oprah and Dr. Phil
3. Xie doesn’t have two children at home not even teenagers yet that need to eat and hopes daddy will give mommy child support money
4. Xie isn’t a leech that feels entitled to it, she has offered to work many times, I don’t understand why both of us need to be miserable for a few extra bucks

While my mother is grazing the home shopping network for things to buy, Xie is doing Algebra out of text books for fun. There is a world of difference. Most notably my mother needed an income she could trust to take care of her kids and not ask friends and family for money to get by.

I will now give you an example I have full memory and first hand knowledge of. It was at a family holiday dinner a few years ago at my grandparents and somehow the morbid subject of what we would like if my grandparents passed on. I stated I would only want one thing, a cedar chest crafted by my grandmother’s cousin. My grandmother chimed in that it was going to be given to her cousins family, well my grandmother has been saying that my whole life, so for thirty years it’s still been sitting there. My mother then said I couldn’t have it because she wanted it. Selfish? Well let’s continue this story.

A few minutes later my mother asked me why I wanted the chest because she thought it was ugly and tacky. I said it was something that would always remind me of my grandparents, their house, and the memories. To me the chest is kind of like a symbol of my grandparents. This prompted me though to ask why did she want it if it was ugly? Her answer? She said she wanted it because I said I wanted it. So I was shocked and called her selfish, I think that was my annual fight that year and I left. It was petty, you would think as adamant as she was when she said she wanted it, that somehow I knew there was a secret stash of money tucked away in it. Nope, she is just worried about someone else getting something she can’t. What a great mother.

A Month With Mom – Part 14 – Father Issues

Creeva — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 16:28:06 +0000

My Mother, a grown woman now in her 50′s is still scared to death of her father. She will do anything to avoid getting a lecture from him, this includes just telling him what he wants to hear, regardless if she is sincere or not. My grandfather does have wisdom, but at the same time he doesn’t understand the world I live in, so I will challenge him, or tell me when he is wrong.

My mother on the other hand sometimes gets upset and will snap at him, but for the most part she cows down to him, or turns to my grandmother for support. I think in her mind, if she attempts to placate him the issues won’t be there, the fear she has, the feelings of inadequacy that she seems to show after dealing with him. She tells me I don’t understand. I do understand, my grandfather is one of the most intimidating people in the family. My siblings are still scared of him, we also all adore him. My wife thinks he is just like a big gruff teddy bear – I’m not sure I would go that far…

If my grandfather showed up at my mom’s house unexpected and she noticed him, well then she would attempt the ten second clean up as he walked to the front door. I know she loves her father, but she (at the time anyways) dreaded his visits because she knew she was going to get lectured.

Like I said I stand up to my grandfather, my grandfather once asked my mother why she doesn’t stand up to him like I do. Maybe it’s a challenge to help her grow. She has somethings she definitely needs to work before she is capable of not being that ten year old girl in his shadow any more.

A Month With Mom – Part 13 – Talking Behind The Back

Creeva — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 16:26:51 +0000

For some reason it’s a considered a cardinal sin in society to talk about people behind their backs. In my family however it’s an Olympic event. I’m not sure my mother would get the gold, but I’m sure she would at least get the silver.

When you live in a split family you get used to what you can tell one side or tell the other. The hard part however is not admitting you talked to the other side at all. Once my mother finds out she grilled me on what my father had to say, though I never really passed the information along that he gave me. In the reverse I never passed it along the other way either. I was not the hub of their game of telephone, nor was I going to start to be.

The whole issue that led up to us not speaking she still blames on my father. She thinks my father sent me on some fools errand that was not accurate. Ironically what my father told me was accurate by my mother’s own admittal. My father however didn’t prompt me to take action, what I wanted ot do to help my sister was for myself alone. It was me being a big brother.

The irony of this it seems what I hear through the family grapevine that my father seems to get more blame for me not talking to my mother then I do. Who would have thought. I obviously must be a puppet that can be controlled, that has no independent thought or feelings. I know some people are like that, not me though.

The whole problem is that it’s not just my mother. Like I said talking behind the back is an Olympic sport in these parts. Whenever I try to lay out what everyone is saying to everyone else, I’m the bad guy. I’m the bad guy because I lay it out on the line.

Well I guess this is why I’m blogging about it, I’m laying it out on the line.

A Month With Mom – Part 10 – Do These Curtains Make Me Look Fat

Creeva — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 16:26:06 +0000

My mother is obsessed with her house. She thinks it is the most important thing in the world. Above keeping adequate food in the house even. If she needs something she’ll beg, plead, and cry until she gets her way. She is as spoiled as she has made any of her children.

Her rational seems to be that people will look at her as a better person if she has a nicer house and furniture (a screwed assessment in my belief). Not only will they look at her as a better person, I honestly believe that she thinks it does make it her a better person. Should could have been Mother Theresa and feeding starving children on the streets of Calcutta and she would still be a terrible person in her mind if she didn’t have the greatest modern style in her house.

My father did amazing work remodeling the house of my parents originally bought it. In the end it was a useful, functional, and livable house. My step-father isn’t too shabby at work also, yet his designs are not as well thought out. He (with I’m sure my mothers chiding) turned half the garage into a ten foot by ten foot dining room. It was cramped and never felt right. It also negated half the garage and made it so you couldn’t pull a car in any longer. To make matters worse he had to put one to two wall jacks for various services into each wall in the room. Idiotic for a dining room. If you need that kind of outlet space get a surge protector, because I know her didn’t put a better breaker in the house.

My mother must have reached the realization at one point that this was a bad spot for a dining room. So she turned the front living room into a dining room. At first line this doesn’t sound too bad, until you realize there is no atrium or anything, so the dining room is the first room you enter when you walk into the house.

The last time I was there the house was so transformed you could hardly recognize it anymore. What used to be a livable space that felt like a lived home is slowly being transformed into a model home that just has residents. It is not a place you would ever feel comfortable in. While it doesn’t look bad, it looks like no one lives there except for the mess, maybe weekend renters that haven’t cleaned up yet. A nice place to visit, but you wouldn’t want to live there.

A Month With Mom – Part 9 – Favoritism

Creeva — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 16:24:51 +0000

I don’t have my child yet, let alone more then one. I do however suspect parents have a favorite child. If not a direct favorite, at least a favorite to do certain things with. My parents were no different. I could pull out favoritism on my father’s side, but that doesn’t matter, when that was evident and apparent I didn’t like him very much. My mother on the other hand is what this piece is really about anyways.

My mother’s favorite child was either the trophy child or the youngest child. Sometimes they were the same child, other times they weren’t. I’m not going to say I was never the favorite child, I was quite a bit. i was the oldest child of her six, so being the first I’m sure she always had a bit of pride in me (of course now that this web series has ran….). But like most families the youngest child, the baby of the family, was always doted upon quite a bit. As far as i can remember I never minded, so that never bothered me.

The trophy child on the other hand was my brother immediately behind me. He was as spoiled as my youngest brother. He seems to have turned out just find, though a strong sibling rivalry is still there. Now I’m sure the question s why is he the trophy child. Well at one point he decided that he wanted to live with my father. This was all well and good and lasted a few months (year?). Until he started getting disciplined.

On a weekend visit to my mother, my brother just didn’t go back to my fathers. My father didn’t fight custody over the matter, if my brother wanted to live with my mother, so be it. The key is that my brother had hardly any rules placed upon him. He was the biggest wild child of all of us. That doesn’t make him a bad person, he seems to have turned out alright. I don’t care that I had more rules placed upon me, I’m the oldest, it’s my job to take the brunt of everything. I’m perfectly fine with that. Maybe that’s why I’m so accepting of life now.

My brother got away with this because back in my mother’s brain, if she didn’t indulge him, then she would loose him again to my father. My father and brother were very close when he was younger, this was my mother’s way to split a wedge in there. It took years for my brother to talk to my father again, a lot of this is because of the poisoning that my mother had done. He was her trophy over my father and she wasn’t going to let go of that. I’m sure he doesn’t look at it that way, or is even aware of it.

My sisters on the other hand got both the poisoning against my father (it didn’t take) and none of the perks. Even a decade after my brother had left the house, my sister (from the same father) had a much harder time and more rules placed on her then any of hte rest of us had. She was actively disciplined, yelled at, and talked down to. I’m sure my youngest brother won’t ever go through and be treated that way. He’ll be coddled and spoiled, and probably living with my mother until he’s thirty, or at least until he wises up.

In the end it works out though, my brother can do no wrong in my mothers eyes (heck she even drank with him underage). She has the same blinders towards him that her parents have towards her. He gives her love, he doesn’t question her, he doesn’t push her to be a better person. Since they view the world in similar ways and there is no tension between them, he has become her perfect child. During my mother’s latest separation my brother even told my father that she didn’t have to worry because we’d take care of her. I’m not sure where this “we” comes from. Never was I going to financially support my mother, even when we were getting along.

A Month With Mom – Part 8 – In Oregon

Creeva — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 18:33:22 +0000

While I lived in Oregon, a lot of my life was peaceful on the family front. I only spoke to my mother maybe a dozen times tops while I lived there. I didn’t have to deal with her drama on a weekly or daily basis. I was 2500 miles away and it was easy to avoid. Just don’t pick up the phone. That part is really easy for me, since I hardly notice the phone or pick it up naturally unless I’m on the clock and the phone could be work.

I either had to deal with family emergencies or the occasional holiday call. i didn’t talk to any of the family with regularity until I was traveling for work, at that point I was talking mostly with my father. Occasionally I would call and end up talking to one of my sisters. They would inform me me of what my mother was doing to them. Some of it was exageration, some of what was deserved, but some of it was not.

In the few occasions I thought my mother took it too far, I called my grandmother.and tried to get her to intercede on my sisters behalf. Sometimes she didn’t believe me, seeing how her daughter couldn’t do anything like that. Other times she said she had talked to her about it and couldn’t take it further. Neither of my grandparents are bad people. They both have my love and complete devotion. They are just in denial over what my mother actually does.

Neither of them are callous. They have both earned my respect. My grandmother once even told me that they have enabled my mother to be helpless and rely on other people. She also said it was a mistake and never intentional.

So while in Oregon life was good. The stress of family was at the lowest point ever, I didn’t worry about -I’m almost there again.

A Month With Mom – Part 7 – Respect Is A Two Way Street

Creeva — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 16:22:40 +0000

My grandfather taught me a thing or two about respect. I’m not going to say we see eye to eye, but I did manage to learn a few things. The largest being that you earn respect. My father taught me that you have to deal with the consequences of your actions. My mother never learned either of those two lessons. Somehow because she had the biological capability of having children that it meant that her children would have to respect her. I however never had such a notion. I also have never claimed that my mother was the sharpest tack in the pile.

My mother complained a lot to me that my seventeen year old sister called her a bitch all the time. I stated that this was normal for seventeen year olds. I also felt that my sister was working 20-30 hours a week, going to school, and planning for her future was better grounded then my mother who worked maybe 4 hours a week. My mother would call my sister a bitch, and wonder why she got the word thrown back at her. I’ve brought this up to her and she denies it. I have witnessed it though. Xie has witnessed it. My sisters can attest to it. However my mother turned my grandparents against my sister over this. They thought was sister was the wild child that no one can control (do we need to go back to school and work compared to my mother?). They thought my mother didn’t deserve that language tossed at her. They also have a strong refusal to believe that my mother would ever call any of her children such language.

HA.

My mother was using that language directed at my sisters before they were even teenagers. My grandparents still think that I (in my thirties mind you) is still just telling stories and making things up about my mother. I don’t know how my grandfather who taught me you have to earn respect ever gained it for my mother. The only thing that comes to mind is the fact that she is a woman. Xie sometimes gets annoyed when my grandfather states that if I die, that I need to make sure that I provide for her. My grandfather is a bit sexist and thinks that women have a hard time to provide for themselves. I don’t completely fault the man, he comes from a different generation and my grandparents fit into very traditional gender roles that younger generations don’t follow any more.

Their daughter has not earned the respect of any of her children. Instead of inspiring her children to do more and be an example, she tries to elicit pity from them. This isn’t anger, my mom generally gets pity to pity her so she can get things. This is her control mechanism. This is why my brother states he will take care of her and my grandparents still do. I want help from people because I need help, not because they pity me. To be pitied is all around just sad, to be truly undeserving of pity because you got yourself into the mess; doubly so.

A Month With Mom – Part 5 – You Can’t Help Those That Don’t Help Themselves

Creeva — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 15:38:08 +0000

One of the contingencies of helping out my mother was that she worked forwarding helping herself. Xie made this clear that this was a stipulation, no hand outs for my mother. I completely agreed (I actually believed in this before Xie said anything). With that being said we planned on helping my mother get through this and move on.

Little did I know…….

My mother worked maybe 4 hours a week helping out at the school system (I’ve heard now she has a full time job), this had been going on for sometime. For over 20 years my mother seemed incapable of getting a job that took her away from home or fun time for more then a few hours a week. She had a a few part time jobs, after her first divorce she did a stint in college that lasted a whole one semester – I was her proof reader and grader. I think I even typed up her papers. However she never took a job.

I’ve seen mothers in cities begging on the streets for their kids. I’ve seen parents struggle and work extreme hours to provide for their kids. From what I have seen my mother is incapable of those kind of altruistic intentions. As long as she is comfortable and can have someone else support she is in heaven. If she is running lean, she goes to my grandparents. She will go to my grandparents before attempting to do something on her own.

When we came back it didn’t look like she was going to get back together with my stepfather. She would literally cry about how she didn’t deserve what was happening to her. She would cry because she didn’t have money to fix up the house. Never once did she cry about providing for her children. We kept telling her to get a full time job and support herself. She wouldn’t hear of it. She said that day care would cost too much. We were ready for that excuse.

Xie and I offered to be full time babysitters for free. This was so she could go out and get a job and provide for her own family. She once tried to do a pity story on me implying a some financial support. I would not give her any money. I had told her that when I first moved back and I was sticking to it. She was an adult. She chose a path in life and she had to deal with the consequences.