Self Published Memoirs

I found a new way to inflict guilt upon myself. Self published memoirs. They're absolutely awful. The cover offers an engaging teaser about how the author spent years in an abusive and loveless home, damaged beyond all repair yet, in the end she triumphed and became normal, after all.

It's not that I like to read about children being mistreated, mind you. I like reading about parents who are more incompetent than I am so I can feel superior. Is that so wrong? I thought not.

Instead I find grown women with little insight who suffer from some psychological malady and their therapists have encouraged them to keep a journal. "Start at the beginning of your life and describe your life," they might say. Once completed and still lacking insight, the patient decides to publish it, somehow believing it is poignant and life-changing.

Which it is. To them. Only them.

The most recent one I started reading was written by a mentally ill woman who wrote every little detail from her childhood including the names of little girls that were mean to her in elementary school. She included, in painful detail, what those little girls did to her that were so destructive. Pages and pages and pages of unremarkable exchanges written in child's voice but using a thesaurus.

Worse still were the chapters regarding the cruelty of her parents, the real perpetrators of her pain. Her mother, in particular, caused her to be crazy. For instance, sometimes when she came home from school, her mother would not jump up from whatever she was doing and envelop the child into her loving arms. In fact, her mother demonstrated (gasp!) ambivalence.

There would be card games played at the house where only grown ups were allowed to play. She was ignored.

Her mother sewed all of her clothes. She asked the daughter, "Do you want three or four buttons?" If the daughter told her three, the mother sewed on four. Or she'd add suspenders.

The daughter had a daddy/daughter event at the church. She was to bring a decorated shoe box and a contest sponsored for the best decorated shoe box. She decorated her shoe box with all the love and care she could muster and then her father was called away and she had to go with another girl and her dad. Not only that, but her mother had redecorated her shoe box. Because of that, she didn't win the contest. She was devastated.

Clearly, her parents, particularly her mother, sabotaged her throughout her childhood.

Using this as my guide, I will attempt to expunge my conscience.

I am guilty of not meeting my children at the door every day when they come home from school. In fact, I am guilty of forgetting the days I'm the carpool driver until someone calls me to remind me. That's worse than ambivalence.

I like to read. I like to blog. I like to sleep. I like to find solace in the bathroom. I'm sorry. It's true. These are times when I am guilty of ignoring my children. Worse than that, when I'm on the telephone and my kids get louder and ignoring doesn't work, I am known to cover the mouthpiece and yell at them.

I haven't made clothes for my children since my girls were little and I sewed matching Easter dresses without zippers or buttons and they were freaking darling and, in retrospect, nobody can believe I made two dresses ever but I did. Not only that, but my 10 year old needs new Sunday shoes and has for two months and I keep forgetting to take him shoe shopping so his toes just curl further under every Sunday. My 5 year old's Sunday pants are about an inch too short, and my 15 year old has been begging for a haircut for two weeks.

The decorated shoebox I can't excuse. That is simply abusive. However, the day before school ended, I was retyping my son's end-of-the-year report, changing fonts and format to make it look more uniform in my eyes. I've also made my 12 year old comb her hair before she goes to school. Not every day, of course. Just on days I feel particularly cruel.

There will be no Amusing Mother Memoir. Unfortunately, I really did have an unremarkable childhood. Besides living with gold and orange shag carpet for ten years and asbestos sprayed onto the ceiling in my bedroom, the injustices of my childhood exist mostly inside my head. But my children, bless their sweet little hearts, will have unlimited fodder for a therapist's couch.

Or a blog.