The Paradox of Perfect Parent Facebook Memes & Posts

So, I’m going to show my age here for a second because we are going to focus on Facebook memes/posts. What can I say? A lot of my friends use it alongside other social media platforms like Snapchat and Twitter. 

Anyways, one of my biggest pet peeves is when people post memes and/or share posts about the perfect parent. What I mean is they will post about how people take for granted their parents (I usually see it about mothers, which is particularly irritating) because x-y-and-z and how we should all treat our mothers better. The underlying premise of these posts is that all parents are absolutely 100% wonderful and the children better not take them for granted because mortality. 

You know what infuriates me about these posts? Not everyone has a good (hell, decent even) parent(s) and how dare you shame them for this. 

‘Cause that is what it feels like. Every time I see one of these posts, all I see is several things: 

• “How dare you not treat you’re parent(s) right because they love you” 
• “All parent(s) are good/decent” 
• “Children are ungrateful, hurting their parents by not treating them properly” 
• “When they are gone, they are gone forever and no take-backsies” 

Now, there are several problems with these premises. Large problems. 

1. Not everyone has the good mother or good father. By that I mean they could have a neglectful, abusive, self-absorbed, mentally ill (not judging them, but just saying that there are people whose mental illness has impacted their ability to be the best parent they could be), absent (as in they timed out after being involved), etc. We should not be having a conversation wherein these bad parents (except for mentally ill) are made out to be the good guys. Can we not gaslight, shame and lecture their children for doing what is right for them (in survival terms)? 
2. Some people don’t even know who their parent(s) are! Yes, let’s make out these kids as bad because they have no relationship with the anonymous parent (or not so anonymous but still unknown) who have never been in their lives, and so have had no chance at having a good/bad/half-decent relationship with them. Right, that’s logical. 
3. What about people who have lost their parents? Are we seriously comfortable with shaming them for how they treated their parent(s) when they were alive? Isn’t that cruel? 
4. There are some things that we as a society think is acceptable when parent(s) do it but not when friends do it. We shouldn’t be enthroning this as perfect mother/father behaviour, especially since, we know that is can be harmful (not intentionally). 
5. In these memes, parent(s) are absolved of any responsibility for their poor parenting (or none at all) choices. Where is the asking/demanding/requiring parents to take responsibility for their actions, why is it all on the kids? 
6. Some kids really, honestly try to do right by their parents but for whatever reason these actions are denied. Perhaps that parent doesn’t want to accept it or perhaps society doesn’t allow for what is actually right (instead of perceived right). 

It’s really infuriating to see these posts as someone who has no father in the picture (like don’t know who he is, never been around) and whose mother is an abusive twatwaffle. Having no relationship with her is all about survival and self-care, but yes, go on and tell me all about how I am hurting her and treating her wrong. 

See, the overall problem is that of generalisations. People who are postings these are assuming that everyone must have a good parent, and everyone must want to have a relationship with them. But that is far from the truth. So many people have fractured relationships with their parents that aren’t their fault or isn’t the fault of both parties. But, yes let’s shame them for life being complicated. 

By herself! A poem

I wrote this poem 13 years ago in response to how lonely my mother was looking since I had moved. It has little anger but also understanding too.

Yes, I know that she is scared. It’s the first time she has walked alone in awhile. The first time in 24 years that she hasn’t gotten up early to make me breaky and kick me out the door to school or Grandma’s.

This is the first time in alone time that she had to walk alone and learn to be single again. She doesn’t have to ask a zillion questions or how to keep another person functional. She can now have her days to herself and do what she wants to do.

Sorry if she looks a little lost but after shouldering the burden of being a damn good single parent all this time, she adjusting to her new normal. So please don’t think she mopping in the house or around town, she configuring on the concept of being fully alone again.

Sure all parents get empty nest syndrome but in most cases their are two instead of one! She was the one who made sure I was feed and there were no monsters under my bed. She gave me a faith in God and made sure I got education. Because she could of easily aborted me back then but she didn’t, she raised me instead.

She gave me a home and piles of clothes and a dog which came from a shiny new Peterbilt. She nursed me back from sickness and cheered me from the sidelines. It has been her and I for all these years and now we are both lost.

Sure you think she has sheltered me but where were you to include us in things?! We had our share trouble and maybe it didn’t spread like wildfire through town like most gossip does but I did give her a few grey hairs.

She hasn’t been by herself in along time but please stop making it sound like she trapped. She has to redefine who ‘Anne’ is now not who ‘Anne’ was then. Her steps might be shaky but her spirit isn’t.

It’s her first trip alone in awhile don’t make it worse than it is thank you but she has her support from me, her family and friends. If you can see her new sparkle then you don’t deserve her at all!

My First Experience With Therapy

I’d love to be able to say that it was my choice with my choice of a therapist. It wasn’t. Rather, it was the exact opposite. 

In my teenage years, when I was getting too ‘rebellious’ (according to my mother, and looking back on it, gosh, I was a strait-laced well-behaved kid) my mother essentially forced me to go to therapy. It wasn’t a licensed therapist but rather a pastor at the local Lutheran church (not slagging this) because it was cheap….as in, she didn’t have to pay for it. Furthermore, she essentially forced me to go three times a week and then once back at home sat me down and brow-beat me into telling her what I told the pastor.  

This went on for three years. 

At the time, all I really thought about it was that it saved me from going home right away after school. I didn’t give it much credence because it didn’t do anything for me. I didn’t feel unburdened or validated, and I didn’t feel like I worked through difficult things even though it caused me to cry. I certainly didn’t feel like my home life was getting any better because I was doing this. 

As an adult, I have feelings about this first experience with therapy. 

A pastor is one of those people who work with children regularly and fall under the auspices of ‘duty to report’ laws of Canada. Now, I wonder why he never reported my mother or if he did, why did nobody investigate it. For I remember clearly how I told him straight up all the abusive shit my mother did to me and my brother. Like, it would have been bleeding hard to ignore how awfully she treated me. So, as an adult, many years out of the situation, I have many questions about why did nobody do anything about it. To be clear I am not saying that the pastor did nothing, because for all I know he could have tried to do something, but he was ignored. It’s a clear breakdown of government mandated reporting system for somewhere along the line the report of what happened in our household got lost, ignored, or even simply kept being pushed down the list of a million things they have to do. But as a child who had no one else to go to because every other place I turned to for help failed me, frankly, talking to this man was a chance for something to happen. And when it didn’t, it confirmed that I was alone in the world with no one having my back, the altruistic kindness of people being naught but a myth. I don’t think the pastor meant to, but he definitely impacted my concept and understanding of the world.

Furthermore, any potential positives of talking to an adult about my life in a therapeutic setting was negated by the very fact that my mother was supremely interested in everything I told him. I had to do a delicate dance of not admitting everything I told the pastor (I wasn’t stupid and telling her the things I said about her would have been stupid) but also giving her a bone so she’d leave me alone. Eventually, it got to the point where I would say how much I hated myself, how stupid/wicked/evil I was, how my mother was a saint to put up with me etc. to her every time she asked because I knew that was what she wanted to hear. She put me in therapy because she wanted me to come around to her point of view (including the point of how badly behaved I was and how she was a saint), and I quickly learned if I told her that she felt validated and kept me going. So, it was two-fold, I told her those things she wanted to hear to keep myself out of trouble and to keep going because it was another hour that I wasn’t in the hell that was home. Looking back on it now, I can see how doing this delicate dance hurt my psyche. You know the psychological principle of how you say it often enough and with enough strength eventually you believe it? I think in a small part, I did start to believe what I was telling her, and it did affect my self-esteem for years to come. 

Lastly, it was the first experience I had of a semi-private place to vent my spleen about life. The pastor didn’t really do anything other than just listen to me go on with a nod of the head or low murmur of ‘I’m listening’. So, while I didn’t get the experience of having a therapist ask probing questions as I did later in university, I did get something equally important: I got a taste of what it was like to have a semi-safe place to organize my thoughts, explore my experiences and come to terms with events in life. I don’t think she meant it as an experience that would open new doors for me in the future and a way to truly start the process of healing, I am pretty sure she wanted the exact opposite to occur and keep me in the same little puddle she had me in throughout my childhood. 

All in all, this first experience of therapy is a contradictory ball of wax, and not from the usual reasons of having to work through trauma and issues which cause complicated contradictory ball of feelings. 

Dear self: finding a letter to myself nearly ten years after I first penned it

I know, I did a post addressing to my fifth teen year old self but just the other day I was moving around books and this letter fell out. I just love the encouragement I was trying to give my eighteen year old self as twenty eight year old and knowing then what I would overcome.

Dear 18 old self:

You have done better than when you first came up with the concept of leaving home. You still haven’t reached your goal some have change, the most important thing is that you kept on being you. I’m not saying that nearly 10 years since you first penned this that things have gone according to plan. Life is about challenges that’s how we deal with those obstacles makes us who we are today. When you first penned that note you were still in a dark place, let’s say that’s getting a lot better, hurt does heal over time important thing remember the over time part and not to sweat the small stuff!

You will find courage and strength and the self esteem you never knew you had. The last 10 years have been learning stages mostly learning from pain. It hasn’t been easy but you have turned to faith instead of other things and that’s what has made you stronger. There are more blessings in your life and you are happy. You own your path. Even though Mom sounded crazy when she said this to you but she did you wings to fly and roots. Stupid but true, you don’t understand — I don’t understanding it all but she is mom, listen to her more, she is smart than you really credit her for.

You have left that going no where place for the bright lights of Saskatchewan! Not Edmonton!! You moved because W needed a roomie, it gave you an out and let’s face it you needed it. The only travelling you have done is going to the big city of Saskatchewan but you are working on it. You are expanding your horizons, university, girl that’s right you are in post secondary education under mature enrolment. You are achieving your Bachelor of Arts! The major accomplishment is that you have been properly diagnosed with your learning disability, remember all the stress from elementary and high school you are finally getting recognized. You deserve it hun, think of the struggle mom did all this time to get you help, thank her.

As for love you are still looking. You are still hesitant but you are now more open then you have ever been. However you still have those values and qualities that you admire back then are still equipped and priority now. You are proud of being an Auntie, thanks to C. You are in love with her kids but at this point you are not as sure footed as you are in wanting them now. Perhaps adoption? Sometimes you feel like like your growing apart from your friends as they have families and children and you feel like an awkward third wheel. However with your new friends you feel right at home. One thing is for sure you are loved and appreciated. It’s funny because most people your age are settling down with houses and starting families, you dream of picket fences but just not yet. You are marching to your own drum never be scared of going against the flow..,ever!

As for aging I still get mistaken for being in high school….go us! I’m trying to eat better and be healthy so I can age gracefully. You are on the right path, girl you are rocking. However you stepping in the right direction, it’s all about a step at a time right?! You are back on track and living life to fullest with experience and relationships, it all going good. You are twenty eight and half years old but you are more confident, going to school has opened you up to the possibilities of more than you had at home. You still those dreams but others are opening up to you and you are exploring them.

You are not forgetting the girl you were back home but you are finally becoming the girl and essentially the woman you are meant to be. Even if your dreams are changing you still love the ones who love you and learning to forgive the ones who hurt you. you still want to travel and experience that diverse culture and perhaps you will finall jet off on a plane because of the course you are taking through school or after you’re done. Allison, you are experiencing happiness next up is trust, who knows where you end up or with who! You are taking life by the horns! Always go forward, always forward.

New accomplishments: Finish school even if it takes a thousand years!

Be happy, keep that smile on you face.

Travel even if it’s your own back door

Don’t exclude love, it will find away to you

Your true friends will always be there for you

If you decide on kids, love them as mom loves you

Keep educated, find new experience, challenge yourself.

Find your blessings

Never stop believing in yourself

You are a good person stay strong, don’t change for anyone

Love Maturer Allison

Smoke a little smoke: A poem

She takes a long drag of her smoke

And sighs as she exhales. Has life really

Gotten like this?

She puts the cigarette back for another

Drag. She flicts the ash and watches it

Tumblr to the ground. Was she happy?

Is she content? Is this where she thought

She’ll be?

Her smoke is almost half done but still

Questions float around her head. Making

Her account for everything little detail of

Her life. She sucks back another drag..

Probably her last before the cigarette is

Done. Her life really this bad? Or is it

Her anxiety and depression playing their

Evil mind games again. Poof! Like that

Her cigarette is done, should she light

Another one or just be content with not

Being content. Life…is fucked. She puts

The cigarettes away. She done. She done

In this moment. Perhaps the next

Cigarette, won’t make her contemplate

Just as much as this one. She just wanted

To smoke a little smoke.

Scooby Doo Gang’s Enduring Lessons

I am one of many adults who remain fans of Scooby Doo. I have loved the gang of five since I was a little kid, and even now, I faithfully will watch the new animated movies and T.V. shows, hell I even own a t-shirt with their likeness on it! 

There are many reasons that I adore the Scooby gang even as an adult. For one, who doesn’t love the 70s acid trip of a talking dog and their horrible, horrible fashion choices? For another, it’s a feel-good show. It’s one of those shows that when I am feeling down, disappointed, upset or even just needing a simple distraction, I can put on any of their oeuvre and be taken away into a world filled with ‘zonkies’ and ‘jeepers’ and traps and ‘ruh roh!’ 

But, really, it’s more than that. It’s a filled with great lessons for kiddos and a place to remember these lessons when you are adult navigating the world. What lessons you may be asking and then be tempted to turn on an episode or even put in a movie (well, you should anyways)? 

• Even though you think it’s a supernatural monster, it always turns out to be human, man, one of us. This is a great lesson for kids (and c’mon adults) that the greatest monsters out there aren’t supernatural, but each other, humanity. So, instead of digging our heads in the sand looking for supernatural reasons we should be looking at each other for our culprits. It’s a great lesson about not forgetting the dangerousness and the potential evilness of humanity. 
• So, although we get that lesson every time at the end, every single time we start with thinking it’s supernatural. There is another great lesson in always starting with supernatural reasons. What it teaches us is that even though we know better (or we should), we always want to find reasons for whatever is happening in the supernatural world because it means that it isn’t one of us, it isn’t our neighbour, it isn’t our friends, it isn’t our teachers or firefighters or policemen and it’s someone not of the community: an Other as embodied in the supernatural creatures. We can then place the blame outside of our community, and then our well-being and sense of community isn’t shattered.
• We find some great lessons about acceptance throughout the oeuvre. Even though it was conceptualized in the 1960s (and is finally admitting that Velma is probably gay), it still has some great lessons. Velma is the smart cookie who is not interested romantically in anyone (although they did try for a while to make her and Shaggy a thing) is great to see just for the simple fact a smart woman isn’t being made fun of or derogated or made less smart because she is with someone smart or dumb or whatever. Daphne is the fashionista who is also actually pretty smart which is a great lesson that shows young girls that you don’t have to be ugly to be smart or that you have to ‘give up’ your man or whatever to be smart. Fred is the trap obsessed, slightly obtuse regular old heterosexual male who is taught again and again about how he isn’t the only one in the room, and isn’t that great to see? Shaggy is a pot-smoking (I assume, it’s kinda a large subtext) hippy who may be easy to write off but is really important to the group dynamic but also to their survival, and isn’t that awesome to see that someone we might write off (especially in the 1960/70s when they were originally written) actually be shown as the complicated and important person they are? Scooby Doo, a talking dog is a great lesson in the fact that the unexpected (and he also might be a fevered dream) can reap great benefits and be a great journey along the way. Never mind the various characters who come along on the journey, there is a feeling of acceptance in this group that most of us, especially the misfits found belonging while we watched. 
• For adults, especially (since they are probably the ones to get the sub-text) the intertwining of using weed and not disintegrating society but rather helping through being crime-solvers is a great lesson. Especially in the 1960s and 1970s, hell even today when there is still a lingering fear of weed. Weed, is not a dangerous drug, not compared to others like heroin or meth. It doesn’t cause the melting of society like say heroin or cocaine. So, we should be focussing on that than punishing a simple little weed use. It’s also an important lesson in not judging someone by your preconceived conceptions of how the world is. 

But of course, it’s just Scooby Doo, right? A simple children’s cartoon with no lessons at all, right? 

Pepperoni girl: a poem

Pepperoni girl living in her pizza world.

Cuddling up with her honey ham and

Watching the mozzarella sticks in the sky.

They will go strolling along marinara

Sauce river and watch little anchovies

Fish down stream. Their day will be

Always warm as it’s ranges from 350* to

400* degrees.

Perhaps she’ll work in garden growing

Peppers, mushrooms, and onions.. or

Bask under shade of her olive tree.

It’s not thehe high life but for pepperoni

Girl and her honey ham, it’s a perfect

crust of life!

Then at night they will dream of that

Very cheesy big pie in the sky!!

Why I am Leaving Academia

The many answers that I could give can be summed up in one word: toxicity. That is not to say that everywhere within academia is toxic (I hope not), but my experience of academia has been one of overwhelming toxicity (that is not to say there hasn’t been some good people along the way). 

I am so sick and tired of being constantly made to feel like I am the stupidest person on the planet (I think after ten years, anyone would have enough). I am sick and tired of the unhealthy expectations of giving up your entire life for this workspace and then expected to feel thankful for it. I am sick and tired of being told to volunteer for anything and everything to get ‘experience’ and lines on your CV and also being told its damn crass to expect any form of payment because I guess we all are from rich families supporting us (hint, I am not). I am sick and tired of being expected to network all the damn time in the hopes that someday in the future it will pay off (I’m not adverse to networking, someday I just would like to not have to be ‘on’ all the time). I am sick and tired of internecine backstabbing, squabbling, and fighting for limited positions (especially since the university will encourage that because you know capitalism). I am sick and tired of basic decency being seen as the recipe to the healthiest workplace ever. I am sick and tired of working my way to the top of the pile and then moving on to the next step and being at the bottom again. I am sick and tired of always expected to do all the extra steps and work without getting any gains or returns for it. I am tired of asking and asking for decency and respect and a decent workday and then being laughed at for it. I am tired of putting this before all other things in my life. I am tired of being shamed for saying that I actually put my husband and my family before my academic career. I am sick and tired (actually got sick at one point) of the stress I’ve had to deal with and getting no support for it. I am sick and tired of hearing about the academic lifestyle as if it is the best career in the entire world and being shamed for even thinking about any other. I am sick and tired of not having control, agency or even bloody support from people in my working world. I am sick and tired of interacting and working with a boatload of narcissistic and simply the self-involved people. I am sick and tired of dealing with people who all have large egos.  

I am, simply put, tired. I have had enough of academia’s systematic toxicity. I know that no workplace is perfect, but dang, I’d like to try to find someplace that is a sight better than this. I deserve it. And I won’t be shamed anymore for desiring to put my mental health first. 

Dust and Smoke: Remembering 9/11 twenty years later

I could probably tell you how my day started that day as it was school day. My alarm disrespectfully had gone off for third time and my mom yelled at me “ Are you getting up? Or Am I going to have come in there?!” She was doing daily morning reading and prayers and hadn’t turned her radio on to the CBC. However it was while I was brushing my teeth that I heard Mom gasp out “No!” And then the tv which hardly gets turned on in the morning told us the fate of that morning. I can’t tell you if MCBride had crisp fall sunny morning with clear blue sky as New York did, I just remember seeing how that smoke cloud looked against that vivid blue sky and how eventually every thin looked dusty..

That’s right the images I remember seeing is the dust and smoke. People running being frantic and then realizing my world twenty years ago was changing. I remember seeing from the tv screen how the first responders charge toward the towards whether or not if they were on duty and how twenty years later how for many their health was still affected, but know they would do it all again in a heartbeat. I remember people reaching out for people helping them to safety with no regards of ethnicity, race or creed. I remember seeing rescue dogs doing their jobs and within a couple days hearing how responders had to lie in rubble because the dogs were getting discouraged that they weren’t doing their job correctly because they hadn’t rescued anyone in hours/days. I remember seeing that night love ones starting to show up with pictures and signs of their missing ones. I remember hearing how 40 people (crew and passengers) deciding their fate and choosing to crash a plane which might have been descend to the Capitol building. I remember hearing how Canada opened it doors and houses to to diverted flights that day, “ hello and welcome to Newfoundland, Yukon etc.” Or how over across the world you could see people praying at the Vatican and wailing Wall for America. But I remember most is seeing the towers fall and all that dust and smoke and realizing that for the first time New York looked so small.

It now twenty years later but one thing I still remember is that it humanity and unity played a key role that day. For it didn’t matter your social class, that day and following days no one was great than anyone else. Being resilient and strong meant something different then as it does now. Mostly I remember that Mr. Rogers say something along the lines of “In any situation or circumstances look for the helpers..” on 9/11 we learned who the helpers were. Sure in the coming weeks America would go to war and people of Middle Eastern decent would face racial and prejudice ridicule. However it’s twenty years later and unfortunately the Taliban have regained Afghanistan so it may mean another war to fight again. It will mean their youth who twenty years signed up to serve because of events of that day again young people will signup for duty because of the fall of Kabul. Twenty years will not take away the memories or the stories of the victims or events of that day. The only thing horrible is is to forget that day which I pray never happens.

Yes, all I remember is seeing people covered in dust and that smoke blowing the sky. I remember how Mom and I like many other families held ourselves close. I still could fathom how someone could have taken a bite out of the big apple just like that. No matter how you view the politics that surround that day, Military involvement, etc. It’s days that should be honoured and remembered. So do you remember that day when it felt that world stopped turning?

Coins/Sleep: A Poem

as a child,

I cried myself to sleep,

as a child,

I would pretend to be asleep

when in the middle of the night,

she’d come in and kiss my forehead,

saying loving things,

things I wanted to hear awake,

as a child,

I would sometimes sleep in the closet,

as a child,

she often woke us at 5 am,

to scream at us,

as a child,

I wrapped myself in a warm cocoon of safety,

as a child,

sleeping was both

safety and danger,

sleep brought the end of a horrible day,

sleep brought safety in a space,

sleep also brought

the potential unseen

out of left field

explosion, no room for preparation,

sleep,

two sides of a coin.