I am not surprised that my previous post drew some fire. The last sentence read: I am at least as frustrated with my negativity or ambivalence as I am with her apparent lack of change. A reader commented that I needed to “grow up” and that my daughter simply “made a comment”. In some ways, I do agree with the reader… I do need to change my attitude about my daughter’s attitude. That is exactly what I said in my last sentence. And I am so struggling to do that. I wish it were nearly as easy to do it as it is to recognize that I need to do it.


It wasn’t my daughter’s comment that elicited my reaction. It was what that comment represents… it is the ever-present sense of entitlement and lack of ownership of her life. My husband and I just talked about the events of last weekend. He says she has two directions her mind moves… “Who caused this to happen to me?” or shutdown/no think mode. One of her favorite targets is Beth… because Beth has made different choices and is having a totally different experience in our home. I was still thinking that after Amy moved away the lightbulb would come on. She’d think about all we had offered, all we had tried to do, how easy it would be to be moving forward with her life if she still had all the perks and benefits afforded here, rather than struggling on her own and spending far more money than she is making. But she never looks inward.


I am still grieving the whole experience… past, present and future. So when my reader tells me to grow up, I guess she’s asking me to completely accept my daughter’s future, and accept her as she is. I NEED to accept her as she is, because she isn’t likely to change, at least not for awhile. Note I’m not talking about loving her like she is… just accepting her lifestyle, disposition and outlook on life.


But there’s the rub. I’m still her mom. I still DO want her to succeed. I’m just afraid to hope any more. I can’t see the trajectory she is on and not feel sadness or stress or whatever. I have to completely numb every feeling about her that I have to not have strong negative or fearful feelings about what I see coming. And whether I like it or not, she still can say and do things that push my buttons, and that whole “I was abused in my home” routine really pushes my buttons, knowing how unbelievably hard I worked on her behalf.


I could certainly experience all these feelings and do all this processing here by myself, in my home, and say nothing to anyone. But I write what I feel in these blogs because apparently, I express what many others feel. Perhaps not Joan, my angry reader, but others. I know it was "whiney", I know it was negative--BUT IT IS HOW I FEEL. Let me reiterate: the last sentence in my previous post stated… I am at least as frustrated with my negativity or ambivalence as I am with her apparent lack of change. I don’t like how I feel… but I have yet to be able to pick my feelings. I'm working on changing my response... I hope my feelings follow.


I will soon be launching a series of posts interviewing Deborah Hannah. It will be “less fluff” than talking about dogs, for sure. However, it isn’t likely to be warm and fuzzy content. Living with these kids is hard, hard, hard. Deb has repeatedly told me how shocked she is by how many of “us” are out there (based on responses she has received about her book). I talked about my dogs, my loss of my much-loved pet, because they are important to me and because we all need to have SOMETHING or several somethings that fill our tank. We need our love returned. We need to talk about fluff sometimes, because nearly everything having to do with our kids is hard. And after all, a "blog" is a "weblog" and that includes daily life stuff. How's your daily life goin'?


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