Valentine's Day Massacre - the Neverending Story

[Underdog]

Ellie,

I say it's funny because
A) obviously I don't think room cleanliness will prevent drug use or eating disorders

And the rest of your itemized observations... boy, they hit me funny. In an "a-ha" sort of way. I tend to hold on to beliefs like that. Maybe it was our strict Catholic upbringing that brought us to conclusions like that? Interesting.

I'm on my 2nd cup of coffee and it sort of sparked an interesting thought for me (as a daughter and not a mother). My mom has her own set of fears--some of which are reasonable, and others which paralyze her and are not based on reality. As we were growing up, one of them was the former, though she never shared it with any of us.

But she would set up situations so she could control them--these staged sitches would be what she felt ideal in preventing us from making her fear turn into reality. So when one of them came to fruition for me as a teen, she fell apart from grief (I see this as grief now, looking back).

I can remember her saying to my dad (I was a great eavesdropper, and in an 1100 sq ft house, it wasn't difficult), and she would say, "I feel like I've failed her."

I don't hold her accountable for my choices and behaviors at all, but I find it interesting that she personalized my circumstances for years. Oddly enough this particular experience taught me a whole lot about others and myself. I consider it a turning point in my life. I am not as decimated by this or the outcome as she has been all along.

Now I'm going to think about how I might be doing this with D10 as well. I certainly have my own ideas on how things should work and I wonder if I'm missing the boat?

Thanks for the dialogue--it will give me something to think about as I go about doing my chores today. Which means I need to get hopping!

Have a great weekend!

Betsey