I Blame My Parents For Everything

It’s easy to blame your parents for everything that’s wrong with who you are. So it’s no surprise that I blame my Mom for two things at the very least. One is for not knowing how to speak my native Idoma. The second is for not having a habit for being athletic. My Dad is getting off easy here cause he wasn’t ever around and he really couldn’t have done less in raising us (this is the advantage of being an almost absentee parent - you have a blank slate so there’s nothing to blame you for).

I don’t recall my Mom ever being intentional about anything we did or how we grew up. She didn’t intentionally not teach us our native tongue. And she didn’t intentional not make us do sports. The only thing she probably intentionally did was not be intentional.

But not being intentional was really the only way she could have been to even survive. She was dealing with a lot, you see. Practically a single mother earning peanuts in a government job that brought her no fulfilment; being the big sister to a host of siblings who needed financial support, and a good daughter to an intense mother. And dealing with trying situations from step siblings and extended Uncles. So she was dealing with a lot.

As much as I wish I was able to speak a second language and grew up with a habit that would be sure to make me athletic in my old age, I don’t blame her for anything. Now childless in my late 30s, I still struggle to deal with work and daily life anxieties - and I literally have no dependents. Life without kids can get overwhelming. So I know that life with kids must not be for the faint of heart, especially when you don’t have support yourself.

So now, the best that I can do is take these two regrets and start to intentionally form habits around them now. Because one thing my Mom did do was intentionally show us (just from the way she lived her own life) how to keep going to get what I need from life.