My son got mad at me this morning. It's not really surprising or notable when a teenager gets mad at his parents, it's part of their emotional development and really appropriate, but this was notable because I've been waiting for this to happen for a few years. Last night my son had a dream in which he confronted my ex-boyfriend from my long term abusive relationship and it made him re-examine his feelings about what happened. He wanted to protect me from him and he couldn't do it. Underneath his anger there is fear and sadness, from the little boy who watched his mother get hurt over and over again and could do nothing about it. He couldn't protect himself and he couldn't protect me. He can't see it right now all he can see is the anger and that's okay, that's his vehicle to get to the deeper emotions that accompany the anger.
That being said, it's important to acknowledge that he has every right to be angry with me; I blew it. I failed to protect my son and I failed to protect myself, these are inextricably intertwined. When we fail to protect ourselves and allow ourselves to be abused we hurt our children. Research has shown that for children it's actually less damaging to be abused than it is to witness another family member's abuse, especially a parent's a abuse. I can agree with that. If I just ignore the anger and try to get to the underlying emotions, I will do him a disservice.
There is a lot that I need to be aware of as a parent and as a person. To say this isn't about me is on the one hand true, it's about my son and the effects of his experience during this abusive period in our lives. But it is about me inasmuch as if I am not present, if I don't take responsibility for the what happened during that time, and if I don't do my emotional work so that I can be an effective and protective parent then I am failing him all over again. There is no wimping out here, that is not an option. His anger is both justified and appropriate. He needs to be able to express it and he needs me to be able to listen and to accept responsibility for the choices I made that drastically affected his life. Basically he needs me to be an adult about this. That means there's no room for denial or self-pity. It means that when he expresses his anger I have to accept it with my eyes wide open and provide a safe place for him to express it, acknowledging the truth of what he is saying.
He's a smart kid. He doesn't need platitudes, he doesn't really even need an apology right now. He needs to know that I love him through his anger, that I'll keep walking right next to him, that I know what I did and that I accept responsibility for my actions and their affect on him, and that I'll never let that happen again. Will he believe me? No, he doesn't trust me and why would he? I've given him no reason to believe what I'll say, I threw that opportunity out the window when I let my ex come back into our lives and hurt us again. I have to earn that trust every day by being an adult and a responsible parent and providing him the resources to process his hurt and his anger in a way that will allow it to become a strength and not a poison.
The work I have had to do on myself is separate from the work that lies between my son and I, but it's part of the foundation of being able to be the parent he needs as he seeks to come to terms with what he experienced during this time. It's really easy to try and hide from all of this, it doesn't feel good to look at the child you created and know that failed him. People have told me I didn't fail him, I had issues, there were reasons why I stayed in that relationship and allowed both of us to be abused, I shouldn't be so hard on myself. Bullshit. I failed my kid and that's not a statement made as a martyr, that's a statement made with full understanding of what it means to be a parent and the responsibilities that come with that role when we accept it.
Being an adult means that I don't beat myself up for what happens and indulge in a lot of guilt and self-pity. It means I look at what happened honestly, I accept what that means and the consequences that created and I get up, dust myself off and I face the problem. I can't take my son's anger away and I shouldn't. I can't go back in time and fix what happened, it's done. But I can be the parent my son has always needed every single day, right now, and never forget the lessons learned from that experience; and when we mess up as parents that's exactly what we need to do.
Be angry, my son. Tell me how I screwed up and what that did to you and what it means to you today. Tell me why all of those experiences make you so angry; explore it, express it, let it be real because you've hidden it away too long trying to protect me. I don't need you to protect me, I'm an adult I can protect myself, but I will not protect myself from your anger because it's real, it has value and it is justified. I will be there for every word you have to say. I will accept the truth of your experiences, I will accept responsibility and I will do better. I will love you through it all, I will not hide and I will provide the resources you need to craft the expression of your anger into a healing process so you can be free of the hurt and become an adult yourself in the true sense of the word. And when your anger has run it's course I will still be there loving you. And above all, my son, I will never forget for one moment that I wasn't the parent you needed me to be and I will never let that happen again.
