The truth is subjective.
My truth is not necessarily the same as your truth. My life, my childhood were experienced much differently through my eyes than my parent’s “parenthood” (yes I am using the term loosely here.) was seen through theirs. The way my foster parents experienced my time with them may be remembered very differently than it is by me. And I assume the same could be said for my staff, social workers and teachers. We can only experience and define our own circumstances based on our perceptions which are formed by our experiences and circumstances and it goes on and on like that.
The way my children view their childhoods and the way I view them are vastly different. The way others see my parenting and the way my children experience it differ greatly. Most people think I do a pretty darn good job of it (if only considering how I was/ was not raised) it would be pretty fair to say the 13 year old however, thinks I completely suck at it…and…well…that is her JOB. She MUST think I suck and that she can’t wait to get out of here, because that is her developmental imperative. Otherwise, we would be stuck fetching late night glasses of water and playing taxi to her and her friends FOREVER.
Am I angry my kid thinks I suck? Um, maybe…not much. Do I think she is wrong? No, not really, from where she sits, I get it. Do I think she should realize just how good she has it? That she should be grateful that she has had a childhood that is so much better than the one I had? Hell NO! How Could she? But…Do I define myself and my parenting by the weight and measure of a child with 13 whole years of very narrow and shelter life experience? Well, that would be unwise.
And here is what I am getting at; the TRUTH IS SUBJECTIVE. I cannot be grateful that my childhood was better by comparison than the one my mother lived. My child cannot be grateful that she does not have to live through my childhood, because she doesn’t. She and I and my mother have each lived our own truths.
And…I believe, so it goes in this little corner of the blogging community as well. One mother’s heartbreaking loss is the answer to another mother’s prayer. One child’s adoption is the loss of a family, a forever severed tie. While to those who have aged out of foster care with nothing and nowhere to go, will forever look at adoption as the one hope that got away. And yet there are others who hoped that a child would be an answer to their prayers, who instead feel like adoption was really the beginning of a nightmare. One person’s “selfless gift” (yeah, ok…I still don’t get that) is another’s lifetime of abandonment. These things are all true here in this little corner. We all live each of our own experiences differently…that is the truth.
And…maybe if we can each have and tell our truths…respect that we can all have very different experiences, we can HEAR a truth that is not our own…we can learn something…about what is true.
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