When I was 17 years old, I gave birth to my first child. Weighing 4lbs 4oz, George was born 8 weeks early, due to the stress of my pregnancy. I didn’t know anything about being a parent or what it took to be a momma, I just knew that I didn’t want to be anything like my parents. Almost all of us have had these thoughts, especially in our teens, when life brings those face/off moments where we think the parents just don’t understand and that they’re just oh so mean!
As an adult, I can honestly say that as teens, we were right—but there is more to it than just them “being mean.” A lot of us parents don’t know or see the damage that we’re doing.
One evening as I was comment creeping through various social media platforms (one of my new favorite pastimes,) I came across a post that read:
“Moms need to learn how to listen to and comfort their daughters without making everything about their own traumas.”
As I read the comments from frustrated teens, I gasped. There were so many teenagers, growing up in different houses, going through the same growing pains–some of them verbatim! Quite a few teens commented on the post and said that their parents say things like, “you think you’ve got it bad?!? My parents were worse! I turned out OK!” or, “but you can’t be mad at ME, I’m your MOM!”
The comment that stood out the most was this one:
“I’m doing my best, you know that I don’t mean to hurt you! I guess I’m the bad guy!”
There were a lot of teens liking, loving and laughing at that last one!
From my many hours of comment creeping, I am beginning to understand that there are a ton of parents out here that are raising children without having healed from their own childhoods—myself included. One of my best friends tagged me in a post that showed a teenage girl attempting to tell her mother that her mother’s boyfriend had touched her inappropriately. The mother immediately went into defense mode, cussing out her own daughter and threatening to kick her out of the house. While there is always the damaging possibility that the daughter could have been making the story up, there is also the likelihood that she is in fact telling the truth. It is my opinion that society has subconsciously decided to believe the former of our little girls as opposed to the latter, forcing many to keep abuse to themselves.
I will be honest here and say that I gathered the details of the video from the comments, as my own trauma was triggered and I couldn’t sit through all three of the videos in the post without regressing into that damned rabbit sadness hole.
I read an equally heartbreaking comment on a separate post related the video I was tagged in from a woman referencing her childhood friend, and how that friend had been put out of her mother’s house because her body had developed at 13, and her mother didn’t want the boyfriend to “try” her daughter. The daughter was taken in by a female mentor, and has since become a lawyer and moved to Washington, D.C. There were many similar comments to this one, and after the fourth one, I had to log out. It was too much to process.
As parents, there are many issues that we deal with on a regular basis, both internal and external. I believe the teens in the comments are feeling the wrath of all of the traumas of their unhealed parents, as many of their parents may or may not have had access to therapy or counseling through their own parents—some may not have even known that they needed it. Let us also keep in mind that trauma goes beyond sexual/physical abuse. A LOT of it is emotional, as I’ve referenced above, where their are mothers and fathers that are verbally and emotionally abusive to their children when their children are seeking comfort. The problem with emotional abuse is that often, parents don’t realize that they’re doing it.
I also learned from the teens this acronym: DARVO (Deny Attack Reverse Victim and Offender.) Basically, parents will flip the script on their children as opposed to taking accountability for not taking the child’s feelings into consideration when they’ve genuinely hurt the child(ren.)
*jaw drops*
I read that shit like three times, y’all.
Do I do this?!? Am I that parent?
To all my parents reading this, please, for the sake of their sanity and yours, please re-evaluate the way you’re parenting your children. Think about the things you say to them, the tones you take, and the way you react to them. Where are those emotions coming from? Are they from your past trauma, or someone else’s that you know and are trying to protect them from? I am by no means saying to “be soft” with them, because there are times when our teens are in fact giving us sass that has nothing to do with us specifically–maybe they had a bad day or they’re going through a rough patch at school. With the advancements in technology and the peer/societal pressures of social media, 2019 is arguably one of THEE shittiest times to be a teenager. Even with that, after spending hours reading comments from teens from just about every walk of life, it is clear that we need a resolution, cause there’s so much confusion. These teens are frustrated, scared, and y’all, they’re tired of our unresolved shit seeping into their lives.
Not enough of us parents understand that.
Tune in this Thursday at 7 PM EST as we discuss toxic parenting on The Juicebox. If you can’t wait til then, feel free to comment below. Keep in mind that these are just my thoughts, subject to change with civil conversation.
Peace, April Bee
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