Breaking the Belt of Abuse

A few years back, my oldest daughter gave up her legal rights to her children. Handing them over to her ex-husband and his new wife. I, being their grandmother was devastated and could not believe my daughter could have been so cold and selfish. She was actually their hero, and they may never know that!

My daughter did what she felt was best for them, and she broke the cycle of child abuse in our family, thank God!

I had never wanted to raise my kids the way my mother had raised me. Mom was good at instilling important values in us, and I was able to teach those to my children, as well, but, Mom also used a tremendous amount of negative reinforcement in the raising of me and my siblings. She only repeated how she'd been raised by her father. From all the stories I've heard about Grandpa over the years, he was horribly physically and mentally abusive to my mother. She was the oldest of six children. He made her responsible for everything they did, meaning that if they misbehaved or did any kind of damage, she was the one who bore the welts from the belt or green tree switch. He blamed her for everything that was wrong in his life, his marriage and the family. Mom's never gotten over that, and she did pass that along to me, her eldest child.

There were times when Mom beat me and my sister so badly that we bled, and my sister actually came down with a fever from infection from the open wounds. Mom blamed me for any dirt left on the floors or dishes. She blamed me for her own illnesses. When she went into the hospital one time, I went to visit her and before the doctor had the chance to tell her that the swelling on her body and the hives she had was from an allergy to a particular medication she'd been taking, she chose to scream at me in front of my boyfriend, telling me that "I" was the reason she was in the hospital. That "I" had caused her to become so ill, and "I" almost killed her because "I" would not do as I was told, etc. I left the hospital in tears and humiliated. What could I possibly have done to cause her to almost die? Of course, I felt vindicated when Dad told us that it was simply an allergy to her medications, but she never apologized to me for that, and to this day, she says she doesn't recall telling me that. Well, I never forgot.

These kinds of mental abuse, coupled with physical abuse scar the mind to a degree that we never get over it and we tend to pass it on to our children. The only thing I did do right in raising my children was teaching them that they were individuals with minds of their own. That their opinions counted and that they could do anything they set their minds to do. I wanted them to grow up to be independent successful young adults, and by God, they did! But, unfortunately, yes, I was just as abusive to my oldest daughter in the first few "formative" years as my mother had been to me. When I realized what was happening, it was far too late for her. I didn't continue the abuse with the subsequent children because I knew it was wrong to do so. Yet, I still didn't treat my oldest the way I should have even after I realized my mistake, but it was because I'd damaged her psyche too much already and she was acting out against me. I had to defend myself, and she had to defend herself. It was a constant battle, even into her adult years, and I'm ashamed.

So, when she and her husband got divorced, and he demanded full custody and legal rights to the kids, my daughter didn't fight him. She made a hard decision, but she saved her children from a life such as her own.

My grandchildren were brought up in a loving home with a loving and supportive family around them. I missed them, of course, but she was right to do what she did. She thought of them first. She knew she didn't have the proper parenting skills, even though, I believe she was doing quite well from what I could see and they loved her so very much, but only she knows her own mind, and she knows what she was capable of. She also knew she didn't have the resources to give them the kind of life they deserved, and she wasn't sure if she ever would have them, so she did what she felt was best for them at the time. She truly loved her children, and she still does. I still love her very much. I'm so sorry for how I raised her. I wish I'd been the kind of mother I'd always said I would be, but instead, I turned out to be just like my mother, who was just like her father, who was just like his mother, etc.