I'm trying to.
I feel very much unrespected these days. I am not dumb, I know I need to earn respect, and in some cases command it. Maybe I am tired. Maybe I am depressed. Maybe I am a bit apathetic of late, but it seems all I have the energy to do is whine to myself because I do not feel respected, rather than get up and get me some.
It's not about appreciation, or thank yous. A great example is my family, specifically my husband's family. He and I took care of his mother when she was dying. Took complete care of her. Doctors visits, I knew her entire file and no one else did. Surgeries, I sat beside her bed all night in the hospital and in waiting rooms, no one else did. I carried her on my back when I was hugely pregnant. I bathed her, fed her and advocated for her. And they are grateful for that. Truly and forever, grateful. Of this, I have no doubt. And when it came time to care for my father-in-law in the same way, they were grateful then, too. But this is not the same as respect. My opinions were irrelevant. My insight was overlooked. After all, even though they were their parents, the ones they had known all their lives, I was the one living with them full time and I am the one who had the pulse on their current situations. The simple truth was, I knew more than they did. Period. The respect was certainly not there, and never really has been. I suppose there could be a variety of reasons for that, some of which I can fault myself for. In any case- loads of appreciation for what I did, very little respect.
So maybe you can get a sense of where I am going. I do not feel unloved. I do not feel unnoticed or unappreciated. Well, maybe some days I do feel under-appreciated, but what mother of four doesn't? It's in the little nuances, the almost imperceptible things that I feel a huge sense of nothingness. When I call my children for dinner, the dinner I have just cooked, they don't come running. They finish out whatever level they are playing, whatever show they are watching, the period of football or soccer they are playing in the yard, "In a minute...". Is it old fashioned of me to expect my children to drop everything, wash their hands (without being told) and come directly to the table, the table where we will all sit together and eat together and talk together? I work part time, after years of not working at all, to avoid becoming one of those families who eats on the run, in the car, running from here to there. Who never communicates or knows what the rest of us are doing. I have my schedule set so that I can be here in the afternoons for them, in the evenings, and at bedtime. So when I call them to dinner, I do expect the tv to be turned off, the games to be shut down. I do expect them to sit at the table until everyone is done eating, making conversation along the way, and then clearing their dishes to the kitchen. Not only is this ideal to me, and what I have worked to preserve, it is respectful.
I will admit, I am not a world class housekeeper. We don't live in a pig sty, but clutter is the norm here. I have gone into that many times on this blog. And kids, well they will be kids. But there is a difference between being an oblivious, messy kid and being a kid who clearly has no respect for their mother or the work she does around the home, or even the home itself. I am raising some children who are void of respect. Not disrespectful in a general sense, they do have manners and even use them most of the time. They say please when they ask for something, they say thank you. They occasionally compliment me on a meal. They do not use a disrespectful tone of voice with me or their father. They are polite to acquaintances and strangers alike. They just have no regard for their belongings or their home. They lose phones and important papers and key and iPods and toys because they do not have any respect for them or the fact that someone spent a lot of money on them or gave them to them to cherish.
I wonder to myself, is this all normal? How in the hell would I know? I probably wouldn't know a normal childhood if I saw one. And how do we even define that anymore?
No, I am not going by definition, or what I think should be. I am going on what I feel, and what I don't feel. And what I feel is not exactly clearly defined. I am not sure I can define respect in my own words. It's a lot like 'love'. You can't exactly define 'love', but you know it when you have it. It's undeniable when you are loved, and it's undeniable when you aren't, even if you can't necessarily explain it in words.
I am definitely not feeling the respect that I can't define yet know I deserve. I am obviously not teaching that, either by example or with words. I am frustrated because I am not conveying, teaching or nurturing in my children what I can not clearly define for myself.
Sounds easy enough to fix, huh?
No comments:
Post a Comment