There's no place to hide here. I will not be sorry to leave my family behind in this state. Birds are pushed out of the nest. I'm running out of mine! I just can't take someone telling me how to live anymore. I'm a grown man! I'm in charge of directing my life now!
I don't think human parents are supposed to understand that their children grow into adults. That's why King Lear's daughters threw him out into the wilderness. It was NOT because they were "ungrateful b*tches." Parents' resistance to changing their behaviors/interaction/relationship with their "adult-child" drives the final separation between them (i.e. Unchanging King Lear gets tossed out into the cold by his "independence-ready" daughters). It's not merely Shakespearean fantasy, it's Nature my friends. Baby birds are pushed from the parents' nest and human adults push their parents farther and farther away from their lives.
My mother never allowed me to fail. That is certainly NOT a compliment to her. I wasn't prevented from failing; I was just regularly discouraged from failing. Sort of how most children are not "allowed" to skip school. Skipping still occurs, but it is never sanctioned.
Failure wasn’t allowed, but my failures often occurred. With my mother, I was taught that failure only came from refusing to follow her every command and when no command was given, I failed because it was supposedly my natural state. The punishments were severe and long-lasting. My failures were used relentlessly to humiliate and shame me. My mother roughly forced my face into my errors and then paraded me before all, bruised and soiled by my failures.
This was her parenting style. A good man was supposed to come from these “teaching methods.” Mom held the blueprints for my “perfection.” Straying from her designs brought me shame and humiliation and obedience brought me invisibility. This was her master plan!
Did it work? Did I turn out to be a good man because of her methods?
HELL NO!!! As most of us know, when shame is used to deter behaviors, people are frequently left with harmful complexes and mental illnesses. Rewards of invisibility?!?!? Punishments of humiliation?!?!?!?! Come on! That was not a recipe for success.
I turned out to be a good man IN SPITE of her methods! Thank Heaven for that! All praise due to me for that! Also, thank Luck for that. Thank Luck because consciousness of her mistakes has only come to me as I am writing this very description. Before this “awakening,” I was guided by the most unlikely of guides. I was guided by my failures.
The failures that brought me punishment showed me how to be a good man. Makes sense right? Sure it does! How can we know what the right way is until we know what the wrong way is. I’m not saying that a hand must be placed into every new flame in order to know that that flame should be avoided. I did not avoid a drug addiction by first experiencing its great dangers. I learned about myself. I started from a place of ignorance. I had to cast aside the shame of not knowing before I could ask for directions to the answer. I recognized that my very desire to experience the pleasure of drugs was the reason I should avoid them. I had to explore and be honest with myself. I had to see that drugs were a risky substitute for something that I should have been given freely, harmlessly, and lovingly: Understanding that failing was okay. Understanding that failing is life. Understanding that failing is our understanding. Understanding that our own failures are among our greatest tools for life and we must live in them proudly because they are also our skin. To know the right way, I had to be mindful of my successes, failures, and desires, but I gained the most knowledge from my failures.
With the knowledge gained from failures, I could endure all that life could supply. While drugs offered me temporary relief from the pain and shame my mom associated with failure, understanding gave me eternal power over it. The power of failure to humiliate me is lessened now that I know that my failures were innately innocent tools that only became evil with my mother’s intervention. I should have known this earlier. When a baby tries to stand up and falls on her rump, does she cry? No! She only cries if someone makes her feel like she should be crying for falling on her rump. If a fuss is not made, the failure is what it is: a part of the progression towards success. I know now that for success I will always need patience, to keep trying, and understanding. Three of the toughest things in life to possess! At LEAST, now I know…
At the very least, now I know. I know. I truly know. You didn’t tell me mommy. I learned it on my own. You failed and you should understand that for your own good. I know. I am in good hands because I am in my own hands. Don’t give me adulthood mom. It is not yours to give me. Its authenticity does not require your recognition of it. It is mine. I have found it. I have clasped it. It is held in MY breast. It is all mine. Mine alone! Thank Heavens, now I know!