Treatmebetta

So, Mother’s Day just passed. Day of I was scrolling social media and saw three Black women crying. I heard the word mother so I stopped and let the video play. 

I’ll try to find the post later and link it, but I recognized one of the women. A pundit who was recently let go — their drama, not hers — from a high profile media gig, someone I follow and whose voice I appreciate. I was happy when she landed on her feet and launched some new creative media projects. 

But it turns out we have something in common besides being Black women in media — dodgy parenting! I swear. It’s starting to look like shit parenting is a quiet epidemic, and that there are more of us than we’d to admit who are now engaging in what I recently learned is a worthy and lengthy process called reparenting ourselves.

But anyway! I didn’t read the caption, which is unlike me. I’m a writer; I love captions. I watched the short video, and that was more than enough. I remember thinking — how freakin’ sad. Actually, this is my lifestyle blog, I’m not even gon’ whitewash the shit; truth be told I thought — how pathetic.

Family Is Great When It’s Not Dysfunctional, but It’s Not Necessary for a Good Life

Mean I know, but these were not young women. At least one woman appeared to be in her 40s, but there they were, crying over their mommies. Moms who hadn’t loved them enough, or who had been cruel to them, or hadn’t given them what they needed and now they’re adults still craving and hoping and wishing for what was missing.

But then I had to check myself, right? Everyone’s journey is different, right? People need healing, and family trauma can take some time to get over even for the most dedicated of us. Hell, you may back slide, and need to start over and over and over until that healing sticks. Dedication to self is all that will save you.

Long story short, everyone is not like me. I processed and compartmentalized my issues with my mom a good decade ago. And it didn’t happen quick, but I had to do it. I was not even remotely prepared to spend another 20 years — I told you it didn’t happen quick; I was unhappy in that mother-daughter dynamic for a very long time, and I still have moments — trying to create or force a relationship with someone who would not even acknowledge there was an issue let alone want to meet me halfway on the road to recovery. 

I had to look out for myself. I had to think about my happiness, my relationships with other people, my energy, which like most Black women, I desperately need to stay on top of my game in this bias-assed streets. I could no longer squander it trying to build a relationship with someone who was so completely misaligned with my chosen values and lifestyle. 

It Is Not A Horrible Thing to Cut or Limit Familial Ties When Those Relationships Don’t Work

You can’t keep begging someone to do something or be something or give something they don’t want to be, or give, or that they are not capable of giving. At some point, you have to:

• Accept that people are who they are. Do not allow family labels to hold you hostage. Yes, it’s tragic to think that those who share your blood, your name, may need to be kept at arm’s length — even your own mother. Frankly, you do not have the power, nor, I think, the right, to change any family member, especially a parent — not even to make a relationship between the two of you work.
• Realize there are other relationships that are just as important. Don’t neglect the power and influence of the family that you make. The family that you choose is just as important, perhaps even more important, than the relatives you inherit. Those relationships, your friends, for instance, need and deserve your focus, time and nurturing too. There is so much power and love in the family that you make for yourself. That group is a very real, very valuable thing.
• Focus on healing. You will be tormented your entire life if you don’t forgive those who have hurt you. No matter how hard it is to forgive those — especially those who were supposed to love you the most and did not for whatever reason — closest to you for their neglect, persistent misunderstanding, abuse, lack of affection, lack of acknowledgement, lack of support, of care, of attention, whatever it is. Forgive them sincerely with all of your heart, so that you can heal, and move on. If you stay fucked up and miserable and needy and shut off from the good things in life you don’t punish them. You don’t hurt them. You hurt you.
• Know that you are enough on your own. You do not have anything to prove to your mother, father, brother, aunt, granny, or anyone, really. But I think that until you reconcile bad relationships with family, with those who raised you and may still have an active part to play in your daily life, you will suffer. You will stifle your potential, you may be physically, mentally or emotionally sick, you may be broke, unhappy, malcontent, you name it. You deserve better.

The old me banged her head against the wall of a faulty mother-daughter relationship for literally decades — that’s one helluva headache — before I accepted that the understanding I wanted wouldn’t not come from my matriarch.

The new me doesn’t even try to make those kinds of demands. Now I ask that you #treatmebetta, or I move around. Period.

You have to treat yourself better. Set that example. Even witcha’ mama. They’ll kick and fuss and fight and say you’re crazy, imagining things, dramatic, whatever. Let ‘em. You deserve to be happy, to be at ease.

Do what you need to do to get there. You won’t be sorry.