I grew up in a small City in Northwest Ohio. I never saw it as a bad place or a good place, it was just a place. It was home. It was where we went to school and we spent all our time. It wasn’t until I turned 19 that I realized my home was not an “A” typical home. My little city that I had known all my life was always frowned upon by, well, everyone.

We were voted in the top 25 most miserable cities in the United States. Somehow, people from the other side of the country looked at me with pity when I said where I was from. East side, born and raised, and so proud of it. I wore it like a badge my whole life even though I never really knew what it meant. I was the only one living in denial. Everyone at school saw it for what it was, kids knew, adults knew. My husband still shakes his head when we talk about home. He says, “I always thought I grew up poor. That I grew up rough and in the ghetto, until I met you”. He still laughs when I talk about the east side pride in me.

My parents had no money. Well, my mom really didn’t have any money and my dad just, really liked his big boys toys more than his kids. It’s not his fault. There is so much I could say is his fault but at the end of the day, he never knew how to play the cards life gave him. My dad was, is, a very proud man. He’s an only child of divorce in a time where divorce was not as common. His dad was an alcoholic and so that left his mother to becoming a divorcee. This die hard, cold hearted, roman catholic, divorcee with no money and a baby to feed.

I have to give props where props are due. She made out in a situation that was not designed for her to succeed. She got into politics and eventually settled into a very cushy job working for the city. She supported her only child and did her part to get him an education. Unconditional love? that was not part of the parenting book. She made sure he lived, that’s it. Any “love”, any “affection”, it all came with conditions. You see, nothing she ever did for him was ever for him. Every choice, every favor, every action that today we would call just being a parent, it was all for her. There was always some way it benefited her. Made her look good, filled some missing mechanism in her soul.

Grandpa, rest his soul, was a man a few words. He got sober when I was 11, spent so much time with me, thinking it would make up for the time he wasn’t there for his own kid. He didn’t know how to say he loved you or how to say he was proud. When my dad was young, Grandpa felt so guilty about drinking that he just threw money at every problem. He missed a birthday, well that calls for a trip out on the boat. Didn’t go to some school events, weekend getaway. A new toy for every day. Grandma might not have had his support in raising my dad, she might not have had money but be assured, my dad did not grow up without much. If he wanted something, he just had to ask his dad. Don’t mind the bills that needed paid for the two of them, he was well supported in the materialistic department.

When my dad got in trouble in school, it was no sweat. Grandpa paid to put him in the best private school around. Money was always the answer and so Grandpa never had to use words. You can’t paint a better cats in the cradle situation then my dad and his father.

Now I know my Grandpa as a different man but that’s a whole different post for a different day. The takeaway here, my dad didn’t know how to be a parent. He didn’t know how to love something that didn’t bear any fruits to his success. He didn’t want to be a dad. He owns that proudly till this day. I will never forget the night I was out at new year’s party with our friends and my buddy didn’t hesitate to ask my father, “do you think you’re a good dad?”. My father had no problem telling the whole party that he never wanted kids. He never even liked us until we got older and could do stuff, like party. He explained how he had me, and he didn’t want me, really thought I was gonna be a boy, but I wasn’t so it was whatever. I was an easy baby. Then my brother came along and he didn’t want him but now he had a girl and boy, so he was good. When my sister came along, that was it, he was out.

Now my mother, that is an even longer origin story than my father. That is one your gonna have to read and come up with your own conclusion. I can’t prepare or explain where that one went wrong. Sometimes she was there, sometimes she was not, and most times it would have been better that way. I am sure there is a very large series of psychology books for why she is the way she is but I don’t even try to understand that one. I always put it this way, my mother is sick. It is not my fault and it is not her fault. I spent a very long time of my life being angry at her for so many things she put us through. It took a long time for me to realize that forgiveness is about you, not the other person. She will never own the things that happened. Carrying them with me just wasn’t worth it. It was this big road block I had to decide to let go, and so I did.

Like everyone else I did have a father and I had a mother. There involvement in my actual upbringing is debatable but just like you, I came from somewhere. I am the oldest of three, one brother and one sister. They are a year apart from each other and a good 4 years from me. Growing up I was always the odd one out. They were so close in age and they looked like twins so they gravitated to each other. You know, two is a couple, and three is a crowd.

Now that we are all adults we have found a way to be close but it was a long road. People deal with things in a very different way and as the oldest, I took the brunt of everything so that they didn’t have to. When mom and dad bailed, being a child was no longer an option. I had the two of them, my whole life revolved around the two of them. Now here I am, 28 years in and only now starting to live for me.

I am married to the best man on the planet though he seems to be like every other typical man. I love him but I think we can all agree that having a man in the house is like having a toddler that can reach the top shelf. We also have a beautiful daughter, 4 months old and already smarter than her father. We have a nice little family. Just the three of us. We had to leave Ohio and all the toxic things that weighed our hearts down. It has paved a lonely road but I would rather our little family be small than our daughter have to experience any of the things we had. I think that is what every parent wants, just to be better than the last generation.

I think that is one of the signs that you are doing something right. To always think to yourself that you just want your kid to have it better than you did. The constant worrying, I think that’s supposed to be a good thing. You can take comfort in knowing that your worry is a sign you have the parental capability. That just because your parents might not have, does not make you doomed.

What do you think? Is there any weight to that line of thinking? Or do you think we tell ourselves that just to comfort our own doubts? To trick our own minds into relief.