Mother loved to go to a bead shop in
a town that was a couple of hours away to buy beads, but didn’t have a car. On
one of the trips we took to that town for the sole purpose of going to
the bead shop for her, she bought some heart shaped beads in exchange for my
gas and my time in making a special trip down there. I decided early on
about the basic shape and color, but I didn’t come up with a final design for
them right away, So, she decided that because there were more than
enough for the kind of earrings I wanted, that it would be okay to use some of
them for a pair of earrings for her friend, Annie. She never asked me if
I would mind if she made earrings for Annie with my beads. In fact, when I
first said something to her about it, she was smug as she told me that I
hadn’t finished designing mine yet and that she knew she had enough to do both
pairs. We were at a friend’s house, so I didn’t say anything further right
then.
Later that evening, when we were back
home, I tried to talk to her about how I felt. She dismissed me, so I started
yelling and screaming. She tried to walk away from me, saying she’d come back
when I calmed down. The only reason she stayed was because I told her that how
I felt wasn’t going to change.
When I was pregnant, I expressed my
concerns to my mother about the jungle we called a yard. She said by the time
my child was ready for a yard, she was sure the yard would be ready for my
child. It wasn’t.
Mother said the extra room in the
house would be ready for my child when it was born. It wasn’t ready till he was
a couple of months old.
She also said she’d make drapes for
my child’s room; she didn’t until a few months after we’d moved out of her
house.
There have also been times when she’s
gone against my wishes regarding Caleb. Despite my telling her before he
was born that where my baby was concerned, my word was LAW!
One time when he wanted a ball. I
told him “no” as he already had two of the same kind at her house so he didn’t
need a third one. Mother came along, saw him crying then asked what happened.
When I explained to her that I had told him “no” to having a new ball as he
already had two at her house, she turned to him and said, “I will
buy you a new ball.”
I don’t think she realized what kind
of lesson that was teaching my son. She basically told him that if mommy
wouldn’t buy him something, grandma would.
Then there was time I tried to teach
Caleb to sit at his table for meals with his own plate instead of in her lap
sharing hers; she looked at me and told me that he was only going to be this
age for so long, etc.
I also tried to discourage Caleb from joining
her or me in the shower because I felt he was getting too old for such things
and she gave me the same “he’s only this old for so long speech.” I didn’t feel strong enough to stand up to
her on either occasion.
On one occasion I was getting him
ready to have his picture taken at a local department store. I started to brush
his hair and part it on one side. Mother
walked into the room and told me not to brush his hair as it made him look
older than he was. I don’t know what made her think she had the right to say
that, but it wasn’t her place to tell me what to do with my son’s hair.
She’s not his mother and she should
never have argued with me any in way, shape or form when I tried to set limits
for him or do things with him. I’m sure that had someone done that to her, she
would have resented it, just as I do.
In fact, remember a story about my
Great Grandmother Jensen doing something similar to her. Mother told me a story
about how she offered me some lunch before I went to afternoon kindergarten. I
told her I wasn’t hungry. She told me that if I didn’t eat then, she wasn’t going
to let me have anything later. I came home that afternoon and announced I was
hungry. She told me I couldn’t have anything to eat. Grandma Jensen, who
happened to be visiting, told mother she should give me something. She refused
because she’d told me before I left that she wouldn’t feed me when I got home.
She said it was the only time she ever saw Grandma Jensen cry.
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