Time To Confess To Being A Bad Parent

I was a ridiculous mother. I still am. How my son, Jake, turned out to be a good looking, caring, intelligent, put together adult I do not know, what with such a flighty mama like moi. It all started on a New Year’s Eve in a hospital lab with Auld Lang Syne playing on the radio. I was three days late and getting a blood test to determine if I was pregnant. I squirmed and the needle snapped in half in my arm. I screamed. Did I realize at that point I would be a bad parent?

It took me nearly a year to get pregnant. During the next nine months, I had a miscarriage scare after a driver rear-ended me a few blocks from my home, pushing my stomach into the steering wheel. That wasn’t my fault, but other things were. I ate pizza on the way to restaurants. Although I am allergic to milk, I ate two ice creams a day. The Good Humor cravings were so intolerable. I would cry hysterically if I didn’t get my Chocolate Éclair pops.

There was one overriding thought in my head: I would not be a part of the law and order generation in which I had been raised. There wasn’t a lot of lovey dovey tenderness in the home when I was growing up. Just rules It was all about the clean plate club at suppertime. So right or wrong, I wanted to be my child’s best friend. We would have fun. We would go to baseball games together.

After three hours of labor, an almost nine pound Jake and I looked at each other. That was the quietest mother and son moment never to be repeated.

I tried to breast feed at the hospital but had no idea what I was doing. There were at least seven baby formulas, milk, soy, fake. It turned out Jake was allergic to them all. I blamed myself. Did I need all that prenatal ice cream? During many nights when those forty winks were just not happening because I had a hungry infant, I concluded that I would feed him solid food. Against the pediatrician’s advice it worked, Jake ravenously inhaled breakfast, lunch and dinner.

At four months, in utter frustration because my boy was still not gaining enough weight, I tried to breast feed again. Because of the time lapse, did I really think there would be something there to offer him? We looked at each other. We had no idea what to do. I got dressed and handed him an apple juice bottle.

The only way I could get my little one to take medicine would be to slip it into his bottle. Jake would fall, cry out for “tynie” and I would hand him some pacified liquid. One night the Tylenol couldn’t help take away the fact he needed micro stitches on his eyelid. He had fallen near a metal object. At the ER, I was thrown out because I was too overwrought. I was choking up and breaking down. I couldn’t handle his crying. I was leaning up against a wall outside realizing I would not be there to comfort him. I wonder if he knew I abandoned him. He was just over a year old.

It was a difficult time. My mother adored Jake and he was crazy about her. She was dying of breast cancer. On a visit to the hospital on a ninety degree day, I locked Jake and the keys in the Toyota. My almost two year old knew how to get out of the car seat and unlock the door. He had been doing so since he was virtually a newborn. It had to be over a hundred degrees in the automobile, but this time he stayed put. Thankfully, after five minutes, someone came by quite adept at using a hanger and opened the door.

Since he is my only child, Jake had his way. I was a permissive mother. I let Jake go from watching Bambi and Man Bambi (Rudolph) to viewing “R” rated movies and eating cookie cereal for breakfast when he was only three years old. I figured a little bit of Rocky Horror Picture Show and Terminator with a bowl of chocolate chips would mean his losing interest in them later on. It didn’t work. Although I did serve up my kitchen specialty of “naked kirbies” (peeled cucumbers), to this day Jake’s sweet tooth and cavity count competes with mine. I, also, made a mistake when I popped Sharon Stone’s Sliver into the VCR. I turned it off after the serial killer became apparent. Jake was so upset he called her Sharon Sliver. For many nights after that, I had to make believe snooze to get my toddler to nap.

I could never say no to Jake. Oftentimes when he wanted to raise animals in our house I had no choice. I knew my child was responsible enough for he was more in control of the situation than I was. Jake brought me up. There were four gerbils, six possibly. We had a hamster named Vicky. She bit everyone. There were three cats, four dogs and a curry scented ferret. The black goldfish survived being tormented by the gold goldfish. They died. He lived. He was too big for the thirty gallon tank. Blackie ended up one afternoon six inches long and swishing around the bathtub while we were trying to sell the coop.

There were hundreds of GI Joes, Swampmen and Ghostbusters. I’d buy them at KayBee to bribe Jake. The first day of nursery school I arrived at dismissal time to pick him up. All the other kids had left early that day. He was alone, the last one with the teachers. Jake was afraid I would never pick him up, that I would leave him there. So to get Jake to return, I would put him on the little bus ever morning and pick him up every afternoon. Arriving a half hour early, I’d peek into the window to make sure my guy was ok. I made a promise to myself I’d never be late ever again. When he saw me, he would say, “What did you bought me?” Relieved, I had a trunk filled with those toys.

I worked at Jake’s camp the summer before Pre K. I was concerned, if he knew, he would never leave my side or was it that I wanted to be with him when he was in the playground. As he got on the big yellow bus, he never questioned why we were wearing the same camp shirts. I didn’t tell him I was getting into my car and heading over to the same place where he was going. I would be in the nurses’ office handing out band aides. Halfway through the summer I was dragged out of the office. Jake was being brought in with a stomach ache. They didn’t want me to see him. They were afraid I would want to go back to his group with him. I had to stand far off in the hallway. I wanted to go back to help him, but I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to let him go. He, soon left the first aide station with his counselors and an arm full of cookies skipping in the other direction. Jake didn’t need me after all.

Just this past Thanksgiving, I was bringing dinner to my now twenty three year old Jake, who is recently engaged to a beautiful girl. The turkey was in the back seat of my Corolla. I stopped at the gas station to fill up. Someone jumped ahead of me. When it was my turn, I got out of the car and locked the door. The keys were in the ignition. The service station and AAA were busy. I didn’t want to call the police because I had not paid for my car’s registration yet. It was a month late. Thankfully, after five minutes, someone came by quite adept at using a hanger to open a car door. This time, my boy was not in the back seat. When I told Jake what had happened, he felt bad for me but smiled and said, “So what else is new?”

Anyone have anything they'd like to confess?