Toxic Parents Read Online Free PDF Page B

naps. Half the time while my buddies were out playing ball, I was stuck in the house cooking dinner or cleaning up. I hated it, but somebody had to do it.
    I asked Les where his father was in all of this.
Dad traveled a lot on business, and he basically just gave up on my mother. Most of the time, he slept in the guest room . . . it was a pretty weird marriage. He sent her to a couple of doctors, but they didn’t help, so he just threw in the towel.
    I told Les that I ached for how lonely that little boy must have been. He dismissed my sympathy with the reply:
I had too much to do to feel sorry for myself.
    Robbers of Childhood
    As a child, Les was often weighed down with responsibilities that rightfully belonged to his parents. Because he was forced to grow up too fast and too soon, Les was robbed of his childhood. While his friends were out playing ball, Les was home performing hisparents’ duties. To keep the family together, Les had to become a miniature adult. He had little opportunity to be playful or carefree. Since his own needs were virtually ignored, he learned to cope with loneliness and emotional deprivation by denying that he even had needs. He was there to take care of others. He didn’t matter.
    What makes this doubly sad is that in addition to having been the primary caretaker of his brothers, Les also became a parent to his mother:
When Dad was in town, he would leave for work at seven and lots of times he wouldn’t get home till nearly midnight. On his way out the door, he would always tell me, “Don’t forget to do all your homework, and be sure to take care of your mother. Make sure she has enough to eat. Keep the other kids quiet. . . and see if you can do something to get a smile out of her.” I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to make my mother happy. I was so sure there was something that I could do and everything would be okay again . . . she’d be okay again. But no matter what I did, nothing changed. It still hasn’t. I really feel rotten about that.
    In addition to his housekeeping and childrearing responsibilities, which would have been overwhelming for any child, Les was expected to be his mother’s emotional caretaker. This turned out to be a recipe for failure. Children who are caught in these confusing role reversals are constantly falling short. It’s impossible for them to function as adults because they’re not adults. But they don’t understand why they fail; they just feel deficient and guilty because of it.
    In Les’s case, his driving need to work many hours beyond what was necessary served a dual purpose: it kept him from confronting the loneliness and deprivation of both his childhood and his adult life, and it reinforced his long-held belief that he could never do enough. Les’s fantasy was that if he could put in enough hours, he could prove that he really was a worthwhile, adequate person, thathe really could get the job done right. In essence, he was still trying to make his mother happy.
    When Does It Ever Stop?
    Les didn’t see that his parents continued to wield their toxic power over him in his adult life. A few weeks later, however, the connection between his adult struggles and his childhood moved sharply into focus.
Boy, whoever said “the more things change, the more they stay the same” really knew what he was talking about. I’ve been in L.A. for six years now, but as far as my folks are concerned, I’m not supposed to have a life. They call me a couple of times a week. It’s gotten to the point where I’m afraid to answer the phone. First, my father starts in with: “Your mom’s so depressed . . . couldn’t you just take a little time off and come visit? You know how much it would mean to her!” Then she gets on and tells me I’m her whole life and she doesn’t know how much longer she’ll be around. What do you say to that? Half the time, I just jump on a plane . . . it beats dealing with the guilt of not going. But it’s never