supermassive blackhole
to what depth does a criticism go? If one is used to criticism, or is used to being left open to criticism, it seems like each one goes less and less deep. All the force against the ego, sooner or later, grates it to awakening. It builds a callous. No matter how important the criticism becomes, it stops being felt. Like a nail in a hyper-calloused foot...change should be made, but one is so used to constant irritation that it is no longer even regarded. I feel like that's what's been happening to me with Mom and Dad, Mom especially. Though everything they say is right, though I should be doing this and that, and should be more of x y and z, there are so many attacks on the way I am doing things that I've almost become numb to them. More than that, actually, I've been refusing and refuting them. Their way may be better, but my way's mine.
And Mom and Dad have never been openly criticized in a forum that they respect. Everytime I've seen Tam try to defend herself, she goes against a whirlwind of what-the-hell-ever mom and dad are vehemently thinking at the time...it's like in certain moments they create this shell around them of their way, and no other train of thought can penetrate. And it's in this precise moment that she tried to talk. You have to wait till they're calm, you have to wait until they want to hear you, or atleast you have to speak up and make them...no matter how angry you think it'll make them. But you have to start from neutral, you can't make the angry beast even angrier- even when just being you and not being them is what's making them angry. It takes both the potential opressor and the potentially oppressed to make a contract of justice...both have to be ready. Not willing, necessarily, but ready.
I've been trying to do this with Mom, when she gets on my ass about whatever and we talk about it, i try to give her my side. I'm really trying to reduce the one-way street of fault. What I do unkowingly makes them angry just as much as what they do does me. And I try to share my side of the frustration with her in a circumstance that she'll get it. I understand she's a parent I'm a kid, what she says goes and what i say is MAYBE considered...but we're talking interaction here of people too. I understand we're also roles (she = have to listen to, duh) but at the very least, I'm trying to at least express myself. Change on my part is obligatory, but maybe by my expressing to her, she'll consider change on her's.
This said, she says I've made her feel like a pretty shitty parent lately --All I do is tell her, in the same format she uses (if not a little eggshell-ier) what I think of how she's handling things. I don't understand how a constant gunfiring of my faults in my face should be OK, whereas mentioning her's (yes, propagandaesque language, so shoot me...with more of my faults) is all so hurtful. I mean, what she does hurts too. And that's a person to person thing. It's like we're not allowed to get angry with them. Or I'm not, at least...I dunno about Tam. They'll be wrong when they realize they're wrong, but let us show it to them, and all of a sudden we're hurting major feelings. Again, I get it, we're not dealing with an interaction of equals, but still though, how am I the bad guy when I get a long lecture of how I'm fucking up, seriously, once a day for the past week and get a little irked? How am I the bad guy when I'm told that lately i've been one dissapointment after another? How am I the bad guy when after a long list of shortcomings, I tell Mom that what she's doing is kind of smothering- she's taking my activity and making it hers to the point where I barely even want to do it anymore? How am I the bad guy to finally have gotten fed up with this and say something?
I mean, I know stepped out of line earlier today, when we were talking about how to raise kids. I told her that if I saw the other parent do something I knew was hurting the kid, I'd intervene right then, instead of letting the damage be done and discussing later. I think i said something along the lines of "at that point, maintainting parental authority no longer matters- it's hurting the kid." You know, and oh my god, there went twenty some odd years of hard work on Mom and Dad's part cause I said something. I mean, they're not going to be perfect, and I don't get what the huge deal is if it's brought to their attention. I'm not disobeying them, I'm not showing a lack of respect-- all I'm doing is assuming that I have some too. I know, I'm making an ass out of you and me, but assuming that I have a bit-o-respect with the 'rents is not that big a step, I thought. They want me to be grown, then let me. And this is part of it. I mean, I'm not going to agree with everything they say or do, and as a grown up among (more grown, understood) grown ups I should speak up. It can't be "be this until it's inconvenient for me." That's wrong. Sorry. And I feel like not speaking up because I'm afraid is just letting the cycle continue...yes, letting them win. I'm not going to try to cover up my latent power struggle theme. Basically, them making me feel like shit for my shortcomings, but not allowing thiers to even be mentioned without feeling all wounded-lionesque is unequal, outside of the inherent inequalities of the parent-child relationship. I think. I'm probably wrong though. Feel free to tell me if I am, I'm used to it. My calloused ego will both feel the pain and self-reinforce.
-tony.
And Mom and Dad have never been openly criticized in a forum that they respect. Everytime I've seen Tam try to defend herself, she goes against a whirlwind of what-the-hell-ever mom and dad are vehemently thinking at the time...it's like in certain moments they create this shell around them of their way, and no other train of thought can penetrate. And it's in this precise moment that she tried to talk. You have to wait till they're calm, you have to wait until they want to hear you, or atleast you have to speak up and make them...no matter how angry you think it'll make them. But you have to start from neutral, you can't make the angry beast even angrier- even when just being you and not being them is what's making them angry. It takes both the potential opressor and the potentially oppressed to make a contract of justice...both have to be ready. Not willing, necessarily, but ready.
I've been trying to do this with Mom, when she gets on my ass about whatever and we talk about it, i try to give her my side. I'm really trying to reduce the one-way street of fault. What I do unkowingly makes them angry just as much as what they do does me. And I try to share my side of the frustration with her in a circumstance that she'll get it. I understand she's a parent I'm a kid, what she says goes and what i say is MAYBE considered...but we're talking interaction here of people too. I understand we're also roles (she = have to listen to, duh) but at the very least, I'm trying to at least express myself. Change on my part is obligatory, but maybe by my expressing to her, she'll consider change on her's.
This said, she says I've made her feel like a pretty shitty parent lately --All I do is tell her, in the same format she uses (if not a little eggshell-ier) what I think of how she's handling things. I don't understand how a constant gunfiring of my faults in my face should be OK, whereas mentioning her's (yes, propagandaesque language, so shoot me...with more of my faults) is all so hurtful. I mean, what she does hurts too. And that's a person to person thing. It's like we're not allowed to get angry with them. Or I'm not, at least...I dunno about Tam. They'll be wrong when they realize they're wrong, but let us show it to them, and all of a sudden we're hurting major feelings. Again, I get it, we're not dealing with an interaction of equals, but still though, how am I the bad guy when I get a long lecture of how I'm fucking up, seriously, once a day for the past week and get a little irked? How am I the bad guy when I'm told that lately i've been one dissapointment after another? How am I the bad guy when after a long list of shortcomings, I tell Mom that what she's doing is kind of smothering- she's taking my activity and making it hers to the point where I barely even want to do it anymore? How am I the bad guy to finally have gotten fed up with this and say something?
I mean, I know stepped out of line earlier today, when we were talking about how to raise kids. I told her that if I saw the other parent do something I knew was hurting the kid, I'd intervene right then, instead of letting the damage be done and discussing later. I think i said something along the lines of "at that point, maintainting parental authority no longer matters- it's hurting the kid." You know, and oh my god, there went twenty some odd years of hard work on Mom and Dad's part cause I said something. I mean, they're not going to be perfect, and I don't get what the huge deal is if it's brought to their attention. I'm not disobeying them, I'm not showing a lack of respect-- all I'm doing is assuming that I have some too. I know, I'm making an ass out of you and me, but assuming that I have a bit-o-respect with the 'rents is not that big a step, I thought. They want me to be grown, then let me. And this is part of it. I mean, I'm not going to agree with everything they say or do, and as a grown up among (more grown, understood) grown ups I should speak up. It can't be "be this until it's inconvenient for me." That's wrong. Sorry. And I feel like not speaking up because I'm afraid is just letting the cycle continue...yes, letting them win. I'm not going to try to cover up my latent power struggle theme. Basically, them making me feel like shit for my shortcomings, but not allowing thiers to even be mentioned without feeling all wounded-lionesque is unequal, outside of the inherent inequalities of the parent-child relationship. I think. I'm probably wrong though. Feel free to tell me if I am, I'm used to it. My calloused ego will both feel the pain and self-reinforce.
-tony.