Guilt Trip to Nowhere

My Motto

Being a parent isn't easy. Those cute little bundles of love do not come with instruction manuals tied to their toes and just when you think you've got it figured out, some psychologist comes out with the newest and greatest book debunking all of the parenting methods you've been using. That's why I rarely read parenting books, it was  confusing. After talking to other women, I'm happy to know that I'm not the only one who thinks so. You would think that after the kids are grown and gone you could ease up a little on yourself, but I'm finding out that isn't the way parenting works. Adult children are like the gift that keeps on giving... In the guilt trip department. You finally think you can see light at the end of the parenting tunnel where you can sleep peacefully at night knowing you did your best, then they come up with how your parenting methods were all wrong. Everything you did was unhealthy, harmful, hurtful, or just politically incorrect... As if we didn't know we weren't perfect to begin with. I've done it to my mom, my kids have done it me and my friends kids have done it to them. Everyone has a laundry list of things we wish we would have done differently, times we wish we would have had more patience, and opportunities we missed to impart valuable wisdom instead of freaking out like a mob boss. But life is a trial and error situation with no do-overs and that's why God made psychologist and shrinks (and possibly Prozac) and warns against older women be given to too much wine... Your kids can drive you to drink! (LOL) Seriously, if you went to a psychologist without a mind blowing mother story, you'd be immediately admitted to the psych ward until you remembered the esteem shattering thing she did to turn you into the dark and twisty being you are today. Dads rarely get the bad rap moms do. A friend of mine used to laugh at me when I would tell her my mother/daughter stories.... And then she had one herself. A little part of her thought I exaggerated the drama until her daughter got old enough to walk and talk. Exactly why do moms get all of the attitude? We get the dirty diapers, the spit up, the attitude and then the "You should of's" while good ole dads plays dumb and gets a pass. You know why dads get a pass? It's because men don't do guilt trips. You can send a woman on a guilt trip because the Dairy Queen got your order wrong, but a man isn't going to go there. If a grown kid went to their dad with the idea of sending him on a guilt trip, the man would give them the famous blank look, leaving the child no satisfaction at all. A mother on the other hand will pack her bags, buy her own plane ticket to guilt trip island, never to return again, or until one of her girlfriends comes by to slap some sense
into her and demand she snap out of it and put her granny panties on. Guilt is  something most women naturally believe we deserve for some reasons (probably because of our moms). A therapist I know puts it this way... Okay, so (insert esteem shattering event here) happened when you were a child, now you're an adult and you're the one responsible for your attitude and the direction your life is going... Whatcha gonna do about it?

The greatest line of all Simpson episodes was this.....

Marge: I'm tired of looking like the world's worst mother.

Homer: Oh, honey, you're not the world's worst mother. What about that freezer lady in Georgia?

Story of my life.