Beyond Labels:Navigating Family Dynamics, Acceptance, and the Purpose in Our Imperfect Parental Relationships
I was driving myself crazy. Wanting something from my parents that seemed impossible for them to provide for me.
I remember feeling like I was begging my parents to be parents. And not any kind of parents, the parents according to what I believed the world told me parents should be like.
But the more I was pushing myself towards them, the more it seemed they were running away.
I was angry. I was annoyed. And I was confused.
Our relationship felt correct, and yet I wanted something else. Where was this desire coming from?
Why do I want this relationship?
Do I even want a mother-daughter relationship with her?
Do I want this relationship because I think I should? Or because I actually care?
I think it’s important I give some context before I move on. I want to set up a bit of the circumstances.
I spent most of my childhood in foster care. During my time in foster care, my father was always around. He knew my foster mom, and so he had unlimited access to my brother and me.
I would often say that my father was present, but not available (emotionally). I don’t recall spending much time with my father alone. I do remember him feeling like I easily cried lol.
He mainly would take the boys with him places because he said girls always have to use the bathroom and they can’t pee outside. LOL.
So yeah, that was us for the most part.
The child neglect claims were against my mother, due to her drug use and mental health issues that were not being properly addressed.
I don’t remember meeting here until I was about 6 or 7 years old. I had always called my foster mother, mom, and the only way I learned she wasn’t my biological mother was because the kids at school told me.
They told me I did not have a mom. *Rip the bandaid off, why don’t you, lol*
After reuniting with my biological family (mom, sister, brother, and myself) at the age of 10, within a year, my mother was back on drugs, and right away, I went into survival mode.
I told myself, we just needed to make it to the age of 18, and with my sister managing my mom, and my brother helping there too, I focused on me.
FYI, my sister and mom were always in one another’s life, due to my sister living with our maternal grandmother and not placed within the foster care system.
I believe we get the parents we need
Life felt chaotic for a good chunk of my life, and by the time I was a young adult, I was EXHAUSTED. I did not feel I could depend on my parents and I had to figure out how to take care of myself.
Despite being in the foster care system and having experienced all that I did, I wasn’t bitter. I was not angry, I remember being happy and joy-filled, but very much determined.
I took good care of myself, held myself to high academic standards, and I watched other people with their parents, for examples of how I was “meant” to behave.
And as you might imagine, I thought what I saw my friends experiencing was how me and my biological mother would be.
We were anything but that. I remember feeling like my mother was a sibling to me.
I don’t know what it was but she did not feel like a parent to me.
I feel like I tried to force a relationship with her.
I attempted to keep in touch.
Sometimes she would reach out to me… but no matter what, it always felt like we were not meant to be.
I finally got to a place where I decided to let go.
I felt like I was trying to force a circle into a square peg. And I was feeling disappointed…
After all I had been through. After all the years of chaos due to my mother and father’s choices, they had the nerve to not care about me?!
Oh! I was angry.
I felt disappointed. I felt neglected.
And I believe that a lot of my accolades were driven by my wanting my parents to love me.
To see me.
To be proud that I was their child.
But … for the most part… that wasn’t the case.
My father was pretty proud of me joining the military, but he didn’t value education, so attending college wasn’t a big deal.
Y’all, but I kept trying.
And I want to say I did it for several years.
But nothing much came from it, except our relationships remained how they had always been.
My father was present, I could call him and he’d be there. He was not an emotional person, so I couldn’t count on him for that — but logic, and telling it like it is — he was the man for that.
My mother, on the other hand, we eventually would go years without speaking. I started to feel like she was in and out of my life whenever she felt like it, and that started to not feel so good, so I decided that she should stay out… and she did!
Photo by Christopher Campbell on Unsplash
I ended up leaving NYC for some years and when I returned, I had changed a lot. I wasn’t who I was when I left.
My relationship with New York had changed and I was happily living my life.
Then, I experienced, what some might call my Dark Night of the Soul… and since then, things have been different.
Part of my healing/remembrance journey, following my Dark Night, consisted of me doing “an apology tour.”
Spirit would place in my heart who I needed to talk to, and for weeks I seemed to process my history with the person and notice the part I had played in our connection.
The main things I focused on were the stories I had been telling myself.
I started to realize that I was attempting to hold people accountable for who I thought they should be.
If you’re my sister, you should be protecting me. I should be able to trust and confide in you.
If you’re my parent I should be able to come to you for wise guidance, and maybe even a hug — none of these things were happening.
And somehow, some way… I came to peace with that.
I decided that all of the years I spent trying to convince my parents to be parents, from my perspective, maybe I should accept them for who they are, and go from there.
Yes, I still called them mom or dad, but the meaning behind the words had changed. I was honoring their role in helping Spirit bring me into this world. I respected them as humans, but I had no idea who they were as individuals, and I wanted to.
TAKE THE LABELS OFF!
I decided to take the pressure off of all of us.
I stopped focusing on their role as parents and just looked at them as people.
See them in their human experience. Not beings here to simply do, but they also get to be.
I realized that just as I had my upbringing, they did too. And I had little to no idea what those formative years were like for them, and how it impacted them.
My father. His parents were alcoholics and his father was said to be abusive. I can’t recall a time my dad yelled or lost his temper. He did spank me with a belt several times (he had a no fighting at school policy, and I fought if I cried, was my policy — but we made it through).
But even during those times he was calm, and he didn’t seem mean.
My mother. I saw the bruises on her body, from the abuse from her father. The way she kept her legs covered because of it.
To live with the reminder of abuse on you… not just in your mind, but on your body; I can’t imagine what she was and is going through.
And I thought about it… it’s easy to say that she has children and therefore a responsibility, and she needs to get her sh*t together. But how would she go about that? When would she have the space to? She was avoiding herself; avoiding her reality. And sometimes, living in many realities, due to her mental health diagnosis.
I had no idea what it was like in her world. And all I had cared about was my needs as a “daughter,” being met.
By the way, I also stripped the labels off myself; as a sister, aunt, and daughter… everything went.
I decided that I would have genuine relationships with everyone. I decided that if we aligned we aligned, and that would be it.
I was not going to force my relationships.
I was not going to stick around because the world gave me the title of daughter, and somehow that obligated me to specific tasks and responsibilities.
I decided that from my perspective we all get to be FREE.
That’s when everything changed.
I had honest conversations with both my mother and father. Some conversations went on for weeks.
With my father, I started to speak up more. I stopped biting my tongue, afraid that if I said the wrong thing, he would block me on the phone.
I decided that if that’s the result of me being authentically me, then I would deal with the consequences. And though my first time choosing to say what I meant went how I expected, something changed after that.
When we started speaking again, and I explained my point of view, from then on… we started to get closer.
Our conversations became honest.
He wasn’t reacting to me like he had in the past.
He wasn’t getting frustrated when I did not agree. He’d say, “Okay baby,” and move on to the next thing.
He seemed to have been able to agree to disagree.
I started to have an emotional connection with him. I would be vulnerable and honest.
My father was known to judge, but even that had changed.
He would say that he believed in me. Tell me that he knew I would be okay.
He shared with me his fears as a father. He believed that since I had no children or husband if something happened, he would be responsible.
I mean… how sweet was that… and also, how real!
He was projecting his fears, and though he didn’t say that straight out, it made so much sense.
He also would come to my place and fix things or paint for me; I saw the way he worked. I realized… This man has serious perfectionist tendencies.
So much started to make sense.
All the time I was telling myself that my father didn’t love me and didn’t support me, this man was worried about me. He thought the path he wanted for me would keep me safe.
Photo by Etty Fidele on Unsplash
Now with my mom… eventually she started referring to me as her spiritual advisor. She and I got to a place of speaking about God and dreams; that was the basis of conversations.
I became the person she would call to help her calm down and consider other perspectives.
We had honest conversations and talked about so many things. We would discuss candle magick and things she had seen.
There were times we’d talk about the past, but not too often. I was at peace, so I was okay with how things were at the time.
I never expected an apology from her, but I got one; I did not ask or mention it.
One day she shared with me how hard things were for her. She told me I had no idea what it was like to be alone.
She admitted to stealing from me and apologized. What I remember most from that call was her telling me she didn’t know what to do. She just never knew.
My heart broke open for her. And I was extremely happy for myself. I didn’t ask for an apology. I did not expect one. And yet, my decision to accept what was, and make choices from there, led me to this space.
The space where this Scorpio sun woman apologized to me.
Usually, her apologies come with a “but you did;” Not this time. This time it was an apology, and I appreciated it.
Photo by Wilhelm Gunkel on Unsplash
Today, my mother and I don’t speak, but that’s because we’re not aligned. Neither one of us is forcing this idea that we have to speak because we are blood-related.
And the same thing goes for all my family.
I truly believe that it is okay to love someone and not like them.
I find peace in having honest relationships with people. And if you’re not a fan of my personality or lifestyle, I will always support you walking away.
I trust that what is meant with our connection, will be.
I also leave space for them to contact me in case of emergencies.
Here’s the thing
My parents didn’t change for our relationship to change; I did.
I let go of who I thought they should be and accepted them for who they were.
I stopped judging them against the standards of this world. Instead, I prayed and trusted what my soul led me to.
It was such a freeing experience to accept my relationship with my parents for what it was giving me. And to be able to see them for who they were being. Not who I thought they should be, or who my therapist thought they should be.
By the way — this also helped me be more mindful about therapy. I felt like almost if not all therapists I had talked with, and we mentioned my family, would provide feedback that suggested I should be angry. Like, I should feel something dense, even when I don’t.
The journey of my relationship with my parents was a “rocky” one, but on the other side of it… they have been the honest ones.
To have a child in this world that you don’t speak to and not feel shame is a gift.
To be able to let something go that the world tells you “you own” (children–parents) is a gift.
I truly believe that my relationship with both parents is exactly what they were meant to be. I am who I am, partly because of them.
I’ve written my mom love notes, praising her for her courage and bravery.
Reading them to her over the phone.
I don’t know, but in so many ways, I am extremely proud of her.
I love my biological mom so much, and not because she’s my mother, but because I see her!
I feel her.
She can be so sweet and also troubled.
I can’t imagine what it’s like to be her. To experience what she’s experienced. To walk around the world carrying all of that, and having no one to talk to. Spending years on medications that numbed her — and yet, no therapy to address the core issues.
As much as I wanted so much for my mother, I had to come to peace with it being her life, and her getting to decide what to do with it.
I trust Spirit with my family; with everyone I love.
And so… instead of trying to convince her to live a life she’s not currently interested in, I choose to honor myself by keeping my distance.
As for my father, he transitioned in April of 2022, and our relationship by that time was beautiful.
I loved that man.
I liked him and loved him and I feel blessed to have gotten to experience that.
To have gotten the opportunity to learn from him. To have had the chance to get to know him; there was purpose and stories behind his actions.
He’s also the reason I swear I know Capricorn’s masculine energy so well… he exuded that sh*t like nobody’s business.
And in our last conversation, he mentioned that. (Smile)
Photo by Ian Schneider on Unsplash
Before our mothers and fathers, became a mother or a father, they were probably some cool humans living their life.
Then they got these new roles, with new responsibilities, and they had to figure it out.
After foster care and being in therapy for years, I concluded that the world can be so unforgiving to parents, and specifically mothers. I don’t see where my mother was given grace. I feel like she allowed herself to get pressured into being a parent even though she may not have wanted to.
I specifically think about this when it comes to my brother and me. And my mother doing what she was required to, in order to reunify with us.
She told me when I was about 16, that I was supposed to have an abortion… So there’s that.
Even now, the only one of her children she keeps in contact with is my sister.
My prayer for her is simply peace. She’s worthy of it.
My experience is the reason I don’t believe that we only get one mother. Or that we have to sacrifice ourselves for family simply because we are “family.”
I believe in authentic, honest, and healthy connections.
I believe in us being true to ourselves even if that means releasing the weight of expectations and defying societal norms.
I know that children didn’t ask to be here… and adults are responsible for providing for them, but I also know that many of us come into this world to be of service. And in that capacity, some of us will take a caregiver role for people we did not birth, or help birth into this world.
We’ll choose to take the role and be glad in it.
I give thanks to my foster mother, I never felt like I wasn’t her child. And like my biological mother, she wasn’t too hands-on… she gave me space to be. While my father has always been pretty structured and authoritative, all of them mirrored a sense of balance for me.
I feel blessed to have experienced child-parent relationships in this way. I have several friends with close relationships with their parents and it’s beautiful to witness.
To witness my siblings raise their children has been beautiful too.
My relationship with my parents changed when my perception changed.
It changed when I extended compassion and care.
It changed when I stopped wanting them to give to me, and instead, allowed them to do what they wanted, and then decided whether that was okay to be part of my life.
I will always encourage us to consider redefining roles.
Considering labels and what they mean to us, and whether those labels come with unspoken expectations.
No one has to live up to your idea of who you think they should be; not even your parents.
But this also includes you.
You get to be honest with yourself about your dynamics with your parents.
And you get to see the part you play in it all.
My mother can be manipulative and sneaky. She can and will, steal and lie in your face. She will blame you for why she’s on drugs, and attempt to turn people against you with her stories. Plus she’s intuitive, and she will use your weaknesses against you… but she’ll also tell you these things. She’ll let you see who she expresses as… and at that point it’s up to you to decide how to move with her.
She’s very much human.
And me having her as my mother, did not change what she was capable of doing, not even to me. But when I accepted this… things changed for me.
Photo by Marcos Paulo Prado on Unsplash
For anyone who may resonate with this story. Or may resonate with having a relationship with their parent that they don’t quite understand, may I offer some things I learned:
Allow people, and in this case, our parents, to be who they are. Get to know them. Be curious. Pay attention to things they say and what they care about. You can learn so much from watching them; especially what they value.
They are parents, but they don’t know everything. For whatever reason it’s like people become parents and all of a sudden the level of “you should know better,” increases. Lol. Just like you are constantly learning and evolving on your journey, so are they. It may seem like they don’t understand you or they don’t understand your life, and they very well may not… but getting angry because they don’t understand, helps no one. We are all designed with our unique makeup, and there are some of us in this world who have reached our capacity to consider what else might be true, outside of our beliefs. I pray that we can come to peace with that.
You may not like your parents. Or any family member for that matter. It’s always interesting to me this expectation that seems to exist around getting along with family. People say, “You only get one mother,” treat her well… and treating her well may mean tolerating abuse and disrespect. Now why would you do that? Simply because they have the title of parent? Recently, my brother and I stopped speaking, I was so proud of both of us. I thought about whether I would speak to him if we weren’t siblings, and honestly, I would not. And I don’t think he would either. I love my brother dearly, but I am not a fan of his character. And I believe this same thing can be true with parents.
Focus on you. I was so busy trying to get my parents to “love me.” I was trying to make this fantasy relationship work, but when I stopped, it allowed for this to happen organically. I stopped looking at what they were doing and focused on me. What part was I playing in this drama? I couldn’t convince them or try and guilt them into being the parent I wanted, but what I could do was figure out what was going on with me. How could I care for myself? What was it I was seeking from my parents? Could I give it to myself? Was there another way to meet the need? The reality was, no matter what I wanted from my parents, it was always up to them if they would give it. And even if they chose not to give it, it did not change that it was still my responsibility to take care of me.
It’s okay if you want more from the relationship. I wanted a deep relationship with my family because of the ideas I had about what it would be like after foster care. I watched all these TV shows and maybe it convinced me of what was possible, and so I wanted to express it. But once I got honest with myself about what I wanted and why, I could be clear with everyone about my needs/wants and then go from there. My relationship with my sister also changed… It’s an honest and healthy relationship, a major contrast to what it was years ago.
We’re all on a journey. You are likely not the main character in these people’s stories, they are. Deal with it. I have a belief that we all make choices selfishly. People say things like, “I didn’t want you to worry.” No, I think it’s more likely that you did not want to deal with whatever you believe my response or reaction would be. Your decision is about you! And that’s okay. I think keeping in the forefront that our parents and other family members are also the main characters in their lives, and they have a role to play, may help you to be empathetic, kind, and understanding of their experience.
You may not get the apology you believe you deserve. The apology from my mother was unexpected. I believe that not forcing an apology helped her to organically give it up…lol. I think sometimes you just have to let things be with you. Make peace with it, and/or decide to make a change. I could not force my mom to change, and I could not force her to feel sorry for what she did if she wasn’t. I was at peace regardless, because I accepted my role, and I accepted that in the season I was in, I was choosing to give us another chance. But whether or not she would apologize was moot; I had already decided I was willing to try a relationship with her again.
Everything has a purpose. Reflecting on my journey, I’ve come to believe that everything has a purpose. Who knows why I got the parents I got, but I am certain I got what I needed. Through the highs and lows, I’ve learned resilience, the importance of empathy, and the beauty of imperfection. Each challenge and triumph has played a vital role in shaping the person I am today. Just as every experience and connection has its unique purpose in crafting the individuals we become.
ENJOY WHERE YOU ARE
As we navigate the intricate threads of our family stories, let this be an invitation to reflect on your own journey.
Please share your insights in the comments.
Our stories matter, and in sharing them, we contribute to a richer, more compassionate understanding of the human experience.
