Tri­cia St John

Par­ents are called up­on to nur­ture, pro­vide ba­sic needs, and help their chil­dren with their be­liefs, goals, and cop­ing strate­gies. They are the pil­lars of love, guid­ance and sup­port. The hat they wear has many branch­es and part of their du­ty is al­so to pro­vide ed­u­ca­tion, re­li­gion, and moral train­ing. The end goal is to pre­pare the child to en­ter the world of adult­hood as a well-round­ed, pro­duc­tive adult.

No two chil­dren are the same, yet all chil­dren need to be dis­ci­plined, pos­i­tive­ly en­cour­aged, un­con­di­tion­al­ly loved, giv­en time and at­ten­tion, and com­mu­ni­cat­ed with open­ly and hon­est­ly.

Har­vard sci­en­tists have found that pos­i­tive par­ent­ing has long-term ben­e­fits, such as bet­ter re­la­tion­ships with oth­ers, men­tal health, and well­be­ing dur­ing adult­hood. Mar­tine had two daugh­ters. They were born lit­er­al­ly 18 months apart and were as dif­fer­ent as any two chil­dren could pos­si­bly be. Lynne was ag­gres­sive and tomboy­ish and Jil­lanne was qui­et and re­served. Some­times Mar­tine thought she was too qui­et, but she got good grades and stayed out of trou­ble and away from boys.

Mar­tine was in­volved with a guy she had known for the past three years. They had a vis­it­ing re­la­tion­ship but af­ter years of him com­ing over, bring­ing gro­ceries, birth­day presents, and even help­ing some­times with rent it nev­er once crossed Mar­tine’s mind that ei­ther of her girls would have an is­sue with him. He was re­spect­ful in front of them at all times, and they re­turned the favour. And cer­tain­ly, if she so much as thought there were any un­der­ly­ing is­sues she would have ex­pect­ed Lynne to be the trou­ble­mak­er as she was al­so very con­fronta­tion­al.

If some­one had asked Mar­tine how moth­er­hood had been for her, she would have said a good ex­pe­ri­ence. Both her daugh­ters were now in their ear­ly 20s and en­rolled in col­lege and she felt proud that all her sac­ri­fice and hard work had yield­ed the ex­pect­ed re­sults. They both still lived at home be­cause Mar­tine ad­mit­ted that she thought it would be eas­i­er than hav­ing them work, pay school fees, and still cov­er rent.

She had treat­ed them both the same in terms of dis­ci­pline, al­lowance, so­cial life, and life skills. No one was more shocked than her when she ar­rived home one evening and walked in on a heat­ed ar­gu­ment be­tween Jil­lanne who had her sis­ter backed up against the fridge and was hurl­ing in­sults and threats at her. When Mar­tine tried to in­ter­vene Jil­lanne shoved her so hard that she fell, hit­ting her hip against the kitchen counter, and then pro­ceed­ed to call her un­fit and whore for be­ing in a re­la­tion­ship that had not yet led to mar­riage. For not be­ing able to keep their dad, there were nev­er dad­dy and daugh­ter dates, or any of the oth­er things girls did with their fa­thers.

She sat there lis­ten­ing to Jil­lanne shout at her that noth­ing she did was good enough, and the fact that she thought she had done such a great job with her on­ly meant that she hadn’t. ‘I hate you and I wish you were dead!’ was the last thing Jil­lanne said to her moth­er be­fore run­ning to her room and slam­ming the door. A lot of times what we be­lieve to be our best as par­ents is not viewed in that same light by our child or chil­dren. Par­ents can on­ly do their best with what they know, and even if some­times we go above and be­yond based on what we may have ex­pe­ri­enced that we don’t want our chil­dren to ex­pe­ri­ence, of­ten times there is still that one thing that makes our ef­fort ap­pear to them as less than it is.

Mar­tine was shocked and con­fused. She had nev­er once thought that Jil­lanne could or would ever be­have the way she did. She didn’t un­der­stand what Jil­lanne had to be so an­gry about nor was she able to wrap her head around the fact that Jil­lanne had put her hands on her or even dis­re­spect­ed her to such an ex­treme by the things she had said.

She felt like she didn’t know who Jil­lanne was. Like she’d been liv­ing with a stranger her en­tire life. There had nev­er been any tell-tale signs that Jil­lanne was dis­turbed or up­set about any­thing, least of all the pres­ence of Steven, and the part he had played in their lives.

Mar­tine felt like her world had just come crash­ing down. She had no idea what her next move should be, and as she sat there try­ing hard not to bawl her eyes out or show Lynne that along­side be­ing up­set and con­fused, she was al­so just a lit­tle scared. She re­alised that re­gard­less of what hap­pened next, re­gard­less of what her role in the sce­nario would be, they would no longer be able to co-ex­ist un­der the same roof.

To be con­tin­ued