How do people from dysfunctional homes know what is normal or appropriate in relationships? What if you want to be a loving parent but your role model was a bad example? How do you learn to be a mother if you have never been a mother?
As a parent educator, I have been fortunate to work with groups of people from around the world who want to improve their parenting skills or find help in the midst of a crisis. None reinforced my vocation choice like a participant did a few years ago.
Regardless of the topic, a beautiful young woman kept turning up in my weekly parenting class. She slid into a seat at the back of the room and took volumes of notes, but she refused to participate in the group discussions.
Attendees ranged from court-appointed, some child care providers looking for additional training, and parents wanting to learn about a specific topic. She never signed the list or filled out an assessment. She would always run out of class while I was visiting with other people, so I never got a chance to meet her in person.
Then one night I told the story of a foster daughter who walked into the kitchen when my husband and I were dancing to a tune on the radio. Becky collapsed in her chair and sobbed, “I never knew parents danced together. I knew they fought and argued and threw things, but I didn’t know they laughed and enjoyed each other and their children.”
We were stunned and heartbroken. It never occurred to us that living in a normal home was almost like living in a foreign country for her. We comforted her, “Oh honey. We’re so sorry you had to see people be mean to you and others. You didn’t deserve it and it wasn’t your fault.”
“Someday,” she promised, “I want to have a man who will make me dance in the kitchen.” We promised him that he would and he did.
After others left the class that night, my mystery participant approached me and asked for a few minutes of my time. When we sat down, he asked me if he would hug her. I told her what an honor and privilege it would be and how much I admired her diligence in attending parenting classes.
She then told me that she came, not because she had children or worked with boys, but because she had never been allowed to be a girl. Her mother suffered from a mental illness and since she was 7 years old she was the adult in the family. She had been forced into the role of caretaker for her, her younger siblings, her mother sick for her, and her father drunk for her when he showed up.
She confessed her need to mentally establish what normal families were like, before she could trust herself to take a serious relationship. Her early life had been so chaotic, and like Becky in the story, she wasn’t sure what mothers or children did in a family setting. She decided that if all families were as dysfunctional as her family of origin, she would never marry.
Connecting with this story, she decided that she, too, wanted a man who would dance with her in the kitchen, honor her forever, and help her through the parenting process. She decided that she would go out with the kind and wonderful colleague of hers who had haunted her for months.
The classes helped her recognize that the chaos was not her fault and that she had done the best she could under the circumstances. Every week, she would review her class notes and ask herself, “Can you do this?” Her confidence and knowledge grew as more and more often, the answer was yes!
Now she is a wife and mother and she is doing a good job. She always pleases me when she shows up for parenting classes. She now has many techniques, tips and contributions to share on how to have a happy cooperative family.
The highlight of seeing her again is when she hugs me and says, “I danced in the kitchen today.”
© Judy H. Wright, author, parent educator, and international speaker
“Finding the heart of history in the journey of life”
www.AlcachofaPress.com Phone: 1-406-549-9813