As I reflect on my childhood, the incidents that took place over the years, under the guardianship of my mother, I am starting to realize how wrong she was in the way she brought us up.
Ironically, she did not exactly have a "way", because all she did was to leave us on our own and expect us to make something out of ourselves. Let me first describe the various aspects of my childhood that would reflect how my mother has interacted with us.
Education
Most of the time, she was very indifferent to our performance in schools, though for a few brief periods in primary school, she did discipline us in homework. Being strict was one thing, giving us the reward to work hard was another. I cannot recall, pathetically, a single occasion where she had praised us(me and my elder sister) for anything. Not even once. Being very bitter that I obviously am now, I cannot erase this particular incident out of my memory: I remember once in primary 5. I got a perfect score for my maths paper. Well, that was quite an achievement for I was really an average student back then carelessness was one of my biggest shortcomings (Well, it still is, along with many other similar traits such as forgetfulness, OMG I'm only 20 pls) so reasonably, a perfect score was a rare feat and I was timidly proud of myself (Had she given me some encouragement, I could be really, truely proud). But too bad she didn't.
I must paint a picture of the scene.
Mother was playing Mahjong(as she did most of the times in my childhood in China) as I reached home. I showed her the paper and told her about the score, expecting something(maybe a hug/kiss/ecstasy like a normal mother would show towards their child's success).
"What is it?" eyes fixated on her tiles of Mahjong obviously wasn't giving me or my pathetic 100 mark paper screaming "HEY!!!LOOK AT ME!!!!".
"I scored full mark for my math paper!!!" still very excited and haboring hope that she would give me some positive response.
"Final exam?"She asked.
"No its a mock exam" I answered, starting to feel disappointed.
"It's just a mock paper, what is there to be proud of?" She answered. Totally callous, ignorant, oblivious to my feeling, her voice was literally oozing loathe and disgust. To her 10 year-old child.
I was devastated, dejected. (But quickly forgot about it, for I was so used to this kind of treatment I quickly brushed it off my mind. My sister and I weren't brought up to make demands, to stand up for our cause. We have been conditioned to be meek, and accept, to comply. Really, her response couldn't be more normal to me. I sort of expected it anyway.
Till this day, I cannot fathom why my mother was so stingy on giving praises and compliments, in those crucial years of our life that all we needed was assurance, a nod with a encouraging smile saying "Yes you can", a pat on our shoulder saying "Don't give up". Even that was a luxury.
Results? We had zero self-confidence. Most of the times we feel insecure. My sister often complains to me about her look, about how she thinks other people are eyeing her in trains or buses, about how she's afraid people will judge her by her looks, ext.
That, is a blatant legacy of my mother's failure to give us enough love, care and attention during childhood. Yes she satisfied our physical needs, fed us, bathed us, literally brought us up, gave us the physical things we needed (with my father's earnings), but as far as emotional support and psychological health, it's just zero. No story telling, no sharing of our dreams, our goals, or encouraging us to adopt some.
Well, I guess I have not stick to my original plan of writing, but it does not matter anyway.
Unfortunately, this shortcoming of my mother has found its way to me. It IS, I cannot deny, my shortcoming as well. I did not know the art of complimenting others though I understand now important it is in relationship-building. Unfortunately again, that was not the only one. My mother was pretentious, and sometimes even outrageously meek and submissive, in her attitude towards certain elders of her side of family. She shows a lot of respect in a very very rigid manner, out of the self-imposed knowledge of her non-existent inferiority. There is a terminology to it: "inferior complex". She often demands us to replicate how she has treats the elders, and me being the most compliant of all three children, quickly learnt her air and became submissive and docile. I also effortlessly inherited her pretentious manner.
I never ever reveal my true feelings to people around me, for I always think my opinions, my feelings, my thoughts are worthless, they deserve no body's attention.
My mother had a great part to play in resulting this, in the inferior traces and characteristics residing in my soul.
I'm sorry for letting the worst of me show in the following words, but still,
"I hate you for this"
No comments:
Post a Comment