Dysfunctional parent

Happy Thursday,

How are you doing? Are you having a good day? Can you believe it, it’s October 2nd, 2025. My dear friend Susan sent me a reminder about the upcoming holiday season. We are 12 weeks away from Christmas. Usually I’d be excited, and I am, but I’m also struggling since our home is in such turmoil right now. Still no word as to when the work will even begin and that sucks, but I can vent about that in a future blog, maybe.

With so much going on in my world I’ve had some reminders of my abundance’s along with my lacks in life. Overall, the abundance outweighs the lack.

I have the love of a man who has but one flaw, he’s too nice, but I’ll explain that later. I have incredible sons and bonus sons. I am blessed with abundance in family. I have friends who root and toot me on to write and craft.

I am encouraged to follow my path in life while enjoying it to the fullest, not only from John but from my family and friends. I’m receiving encouragement where there was once nothing but, “you’re not good enough. You’ll never amount to anything”, which leads me to the writing of this blog.

I have a question for everyone. How many of you grew up in a home with an unstable parent? You don’t need to answer, but think about your parents actions. Did you grow up in a loving and nurturing home, or did you grow up in a home where one or both parents were out of control. What is an out of control parent? Simply put, they are considered a dysfunctional parent.

According to an article in Very Well Mind, a dysfunctional parent in a family is one that is out of control. Meaning, “They may be Rage-a-Holics who take out their personal problems on their children and each other. They may view their families as possessions rather than human beings with their own needs (March 18, 2025).

Sound or look familiar? It does for me. My mother was a Rage-a-holic, especially after she married her husband. I wasn’t his child so in turn, I could do nothing right. It was never unusual to be in line at a grocery store and get slapped because I may have asked for gum or a candy bar. It didn’t matter how hard I tried, if Mother was in a mood, I’d either be slapped, beat, grounded or all of the above.

My mother was a strong believer in don’t spare the rod. My mother also felt it necessary to keep me submissive, which sadly poured over into most of my life and my previous marriage. In some ways, I can be likened to a slinky. I was held so tight, and not in a good way. One day the tension within my entire body became so overwound that when the spring sprung, it launched into nothing but an out-of-control hot mess.

Have you seen the movie Flubber? Remember when Flubber was let lose it would bounce all over the place? Yup, that was me.

Below is a snippet into what my brain looked like when I sprung loose from the confines of being held captive because I had surrendered my thinking ability to others.

Because I was raised in an extreme strict home environment, I did carry much of that over into raising my own children, however, I never abused them. On the contrary, I was a bipolar opposite of my mother and her husband. I was strict, but my boys knew they were loved and we respected each other.

I think in all the years of the boys growing up I may have swatted them on their booty’s a hand full of times. Combined. I never hit them in the face and if they got a swat, it was just that, a swat. I did everything possible to avoid the swat, but I did on occasion fall to the pressures of the religion and I’d be almost forced to give them a smack on the butt.

I remember one time I had to swat Tommy. He couldn’t or would sit still at church. I wanted to take him home, but his dad said he needed to be trained. He needed to learn to sit. Mind you, church was 2 hours twice a week plus an additional 1 hour once a week. This doesn’t of course include their assemblies that were held for days at a time 3 times a year. Basically, my sons were raised going to Kingdom Hall ever Sunday for two hours. Every Tuesday for one hour and Thursdays for 2 hours. This doesn’t include getting ready for these propaganda Bible services. My poor kids and all the other children forced into this lifestyle of extremism, makes me sad thinking about how much of not only my children’s childhood was raised in a Kingdom Hall, but so many other kids too. Childhood was lost being indoctrinated instead of being a kid.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m good with going to church. I’m pro raise your children to have faith, whether that be in God, Buddha or whatever other entity you believe in. I believe too that the foundation of faith taught to our youth does in some way carry over to their adulthood. I only hope it brings a positive result to their lives.

I wouldn’t allow my ex to spank the boys. I did everything in my power to keep him using the rod. The story below is one reason I never wanted my ex to discipline our sons.

When Tommy was maybe 2 or 3 his dad was sitting on the floor in Tommy’s room doing our taxes. Tommy wanted so bad to see his dad, so I took him in the room and sat on the floor with him. My ex said to him in a very stern voice, “don’t you touch anything.” After a bit, Tommy the toddler got up and plopped in his dad’s lap. The anger in my ex’s voice when he yelled at him got Tommy so shook up. He was crying so hard he literally couldn’t breathe. Tommy was turning blue. I grabbed him from his dad and swooped him downward, my one hand under his head and the other holding his bottom and lower back area. The motion of him being swooped down and then softly back up where his face was close to mine, helped him to catch his breath. Tommy continued to cry, and he was breathing.

I was so timid. I should have yelled at the jerk. Instead, I held my baby close, and we went and cuddled on the couch. I turned on a Disney movie and there we cuddled, just my son and me. I only wanted to keep him safe from the yelling of my ex.

I remember, as I walked out of the room my ex said to me, “see what you made me do. You knew I was busy, and you let him in here anyway.”

It took decades for me to release the guilt of thinking I hurt my child.

Was it my fault? Yeah. I knew my ex was busy doing taxes. I knew he hated to be bothered by anyone when he was doing taxes. I suppose I must have thought it would be different with his son. The baby just wanted to play and see daddy. What wasn’t my fault was his reaction to our son who just wanted to sit on his lap.

It didn’t happen again.

I know I’m guilty of not raging, but of becoming tense. I learned early on that corporal punishment was God’s commandment. “Spare the rod, spoil the child.” The rod was seldom held from my body, but it never saw the body of my children. Never a rod, a belt, a stick or any other item would strike my kids, only an open hand across a heavily padded butt!

I do believe sometimes a kiddo needs a swat on the boot to redirect their attention, especially when they’re stubborn and won’t stop something that could potentially hurt them. I have with two fingers tapped the tops of my kids hands when they would touch something after many, many warnings. Not hard, but a tap with a stern, “mommy said don’t touch.” They would have their feelings hurt more then anything. After a moment I’d pick them up, walk them back over to whatever it was they weren’t allowed to touch and I’d explain to them not only why they could get hurt, but how.

This always ended in bear hugs and lots of Eskimo kisses.

Growing up I swore I’d be different from my mother. I would never ever hurt my kids, and I didn’t. I have lost my cool with them, and I hated myself afterward. In many ways we grew up together.

By no means was I ever a perfect parent, but I was a damn good mother, and nobody would be allowed to hurt my kids. I was hurt as a child, and I still have memories of the pain. I wasn’t about to let my kids suffer the way I did.

One thing I can’t handle is knowing a child, any child is hurting or being hurt. I’ve listened to a few memoirs over the last month where women tell their stories of an abusive childhood and life. I can feel the anger within me when they detail certain things. I’ve cried listening to some books where a young girl talks about being raped as a young teen.

I know what its like to be abused and that’s why it hurts me to the core when I know a child is struggling in their home life.

I know of one young person who has a parent that says one thing but does another when it comes to his actions or his reactions to her actions. His mom embellishes some of his behaviors and punishes him, not physically, but mentally and emotionally. He lives in fear. I can relate.

The mom plays a lot of head games with her kids and when dad tries to step in, life as the family knows it, becomes an avalanche of regurgitated BS. This family walks on eggshells because of a parent who is dysfunctional.

Being a split family doesn’t help matters either. It is so true how in most cases the dad has very little control in his minor children’s lives. The court sides generally with mom, lies and all.

Sadly, legal assistance has been sought with the courts not doing much. Not at this stage of the game anyway. Hopefully one day things will change for this family. Maybe the dysfunctional parent will get help, better yet, maybe this abusive parent will get well and find her way to true happiness outside of living a life with a scrambled up hot mess of a mindset. No judgement.

At the end of the day the only one who’s truly hurt by the actions of a dysfunctional parent is the child or children.

I’m not a licensed therapist, heck the only license I have is a driver’s license, but I do know what it’s like to grow up in a dysfunctional home. I know what it’s like to have a parent hurt me, mentally, physically and emotionally. I know what it’s like to be abandoned by a parent. I know the long-lasting effects of such abusive behaviors, and I know how we the victims and survivors of abuse still long to be accepted by our abusive parent/parents.

This is true in dysfunctional relationships too. Generally, when someone is so grandiose, they are never wrong. They never apologize for anything and go as far as blaming their victims for their behaviors.

Begs the question, what causes a person to lack empathy? Is this a learned behavior? Is empathy something we are born with? Can we change our lack of and develop empathy for others? Perhaps we should talk about this in an upcoming blog post? Thoughts?

One thing is for sure; many families are struggling today, either to stay together or to function in two different households. Hats off and my compliments to those families that have figured it out for the sake of the kids and for their own sanity.

Whatever your household looks like. Single parent. No parent. Blended. Step-in parent, bottom line is, raising kids isn’t easy. Parenting is one of the hardest jobs a person will ever do. Getting our kiddos to the finish line is a road filled with ups and downs and everything in between. I know as a mom I made mistakes. As a step-in mom I know I struggle to understand my bonus kids needs and wants. I came into their lives when their personalities were already established. They are so different in personality from my womb babies. My love for them is all the same mixed with a ton of different, but I have a loving partner who helps me navigate and he hears me when I can’t think straight. He’s understanding which keeps the waters calm with a few ripples now and again.

Trying not to have our sons exposed to dysfunctional requires extra attention on John and my relationship. We recognize this and we try our best to check in on each other to make sure we aren’t putting any of the boys, grown or not in a position of feeling unloved, invalidated or unworthy.

Hopefully filling our home with love, no matter where home is, our sons will always feel the love we have for them. We aren’t perfect, but we’re always trying to improve on ourselves in an effort to be better to, not only each other, but to our sons.

What does your family look like? I know I have a lot more to work on within myself. I pray every day to help me not only bring peace to my home but to be peaceable in all things. I know I stumble and fall, but I get back up and I keep going. I keep showing up and so does John.

I’m not sure what tomorrow will bring, but I know this, I will never intentionally bring dysfunction into our home.

Well guys, I need to get a couple of things done. I hope you all have the best of evenings and don’t forget, until next time, Love Life++ Hugs.