Bad Mother...

That's me! I'm bad on all counts it seems: lousy Single Parent (the break-up was all my fault and I didn't sufficiently consider the effect this would have on my children thirty years later!) lousy grandmother (I tried so hard to compensate for the traumatic effects of last year's dramatic break-up on my Grandson that I
consequently lavished too much love and attention on him!) And just so lousy all round that I haven't seen hide nor hair of Son since Grandson's Birthday. True I've recently managed to squeeze the occasional text message out of him, and we did have one brief (but lovely for me) phone conversation on the day before his Birthday. The most frustrating aspect of all this is that I have no control over it whatsoever! I can't force him to speak to me, or to see me,(nor would I want to do that anyway) and I don't have the oppportunity to put my point of view about all this because he won't even read a letter if I write. I supppose that what I would lke to say is that, all those years ago, I didn't have any control over events either. I didn't exactly have children (and they are beloved children) with the anticipation of being left alone to bring them up, but as that was the end of the cheese I was left with, I just got on with it. I always loved them and yes, I did put them first in just about every situation (and it seems that was a crime too!). I didn't "provide" them with a new "Daddy" because I was never prepared to compromise either their safety
or their happiness in a step-parent relationship. And I take full responsibility for that. Of course it was bound to be wrong in the long run, although then I simply put all my energies into protecting and loving them, and providing what I believed was a happy and normal environment to grow up in. WRONG! Now, it seems, it wasn't normal, only a "two parent and 2.4 children" situation is normal?? And only that kind of family life can produce a balanced, normal human being? The queries are all
mine. I saw plenty of completely dysfunctional "normal" families while my children were growing up, and maybe that's why most of their friends chose to spend their free time at our house. They didn't have the "normal" stuff to deal with at our house, it was just me: single mother, working from home so that I could be around whenever needed, cooking meals, feeding their friends, saving for holidays, getting angry from time to time, dealing with dramas, taking them to football, brownies, tennis, you know, all the "normal" stuff that families do. And make no mistake, we were a family. Only three of us, I know, but as Daughter now says, "The best damn family ever." Maybe that's a slight overstatement, but at the time I thought it was O.K. I did what I thought was right for everyone. Sorry about getting it wrong, but I thought I was getting it right. It's only now, with the benefit of thirty year's water under the bridge, that I can see the cracks. At the time I was just getting on with life. But, d'you know what, I hadn't then realized that a Mother's place is in the wrong :-)